NZ PR Blog
Saving our planet one bit at a time
With 9 billion people predicted to inhabit our planet by 2050, we all need to make an effort to manage our resources more sustainably. Failure to do so means we will run out of drinking water, not to mention other scarce resources. But how do we change behaviour?
I spent most of last week at a conference pondering this issue. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment said water meters were an essential part of the solution...
Posted by Amanda Woodbridge on Friday 19th Dec 2008
Its, It and a spot of wit
Following Alice’s comments on less/fewer I’m championing correct use of the word its – which possibly leads to the most incidents of apostrophe abuse on the planet.
I’ve seen newspapers fall into the its/it’s trap, frequent examples of my sons’ teachers getting it wrong and clients regularly insert an inaccurate apostrophe into the word when reading through copy I have written for them.
I confess that I used to get it wrong too until it was drummed into me – literally, with a...
Posted by Patricia Thompson on Wednesday 10th Dec 2008
Write Right
Electioneering billboards don’t usually stir me much but one from the recent campaigns had a powerful effect.
It caught my attention not so much for its message, but for the grammar: More Teachers, More Doctors, Less Bureaucrats. While it may sound picky, the incorrect usage of ‘less’ when it should be ‘fewer’ by a political party campaigning to lead the country really made me cringe. I would have hoped that the marketing gurus behind our prospective leaders know their basic grammar...
Posted by Alice Taylor on Friday 28th Nov 2008
How best to get a journalist’s attention?
By Guy Randall
When I started at Ideas Shop I was amazed to hear of public relations firms sending journalists gifts and dressed up ‘media releases’ inside a tea pot, typed on a wedding dress, or in a file marked ‘Top Secret’.
At Ideas Shop we prefer to get to the point – and let our authentic news speak for itself.
Journalists are not...
Posted on Monday 24th Nov 2008
Do New Zealand’s provincial dailies have a future?
I very much doubt it, given recent developments . . . Fairfax setting up subbing hubs, the unstoppable flood of instant news coming to us via the Web, our mobiles, PDAs and radio, and the long-term trend of falling circulations and rising costs.
The truth is, for its size, New Zealand has too much of many things out in the provinces – rugby teams, international ports, list MPs. Not to mention...
Posted by Mark Russell on Wednesday 12th Nov 2008
The art of persuasion: engaging senior leaders
I recently attended the Internal Communications summit in Wellington. One question that kept on cropping up was how do we, as internal communications managers, engage our senior leaders?
The reality is that this problem isn’t limited to just a few communications professionals – according to internal communications research Ideas Shop has just released, almost all internal communications managers find it...
Posted by Amanda Woodbridge on Wednesday 12th Nov 2008
Working for free is a great career move
Towards the end of my post-graduate study one of my lecturers suggested I volunteer as a way to gain work experience. I was twenty-two and horrified.
None the less I gave it a go, starting by spending a day cleaning fly spots off picture frame glass in the Conservation Department at Te Manawau, the museum in Palmerston North.
Despite the unglamorous...
Posted by Emma McCleary on Wednesday 12th Nov 2008
Employee communication in a down economy
My way of dealing with uncertainty is usually to look for more information. So, the last few weeks I've been reading a lot about what companies should be doing in a down economy.
A lot of articles focus on the obvious - cutting costs and increasing revenue. But most of the experts are urging companies to focus on execution, talent and customers. Not exactly rocket science.
But there is a common theme coming through in a...
Posted by Anna Kominik on Wednesday 12th Nov 2008
Squirrels and story telling
I’ve just stumbled across a book that every communications practitioner should read – Squirrels Inc: a fable of leadership through storytelling, by Steven Denning.
It’s a lovely but very practical story about the long-lost art of storytelling – and how to use stories to influence change and manage personal and business challenges.
The best bit is that Denning uses a...
Posted by Amanda Woodbridge on Wednesday 12th Nov 2008
Is Facebook at work a waste of time?
At a conference recently, I spoke to a communications manager who said she thought that online social networking sites like Facebook were a waste of time.
Her reasoning stemmed from the frustration she felt at her recent graduate staff member who was spending time on Facebook at the expense of quality of work and the department’s looming deadlines.
The...
Posted by Emma McCleary on Wednesday 12th Nov 2008