Chris Lewis on media & PR

Learning to lirk

The work/life balance. Heard of that? Of course, you have. According to Jeremy Bulmore in the hard copy edition of Management Today, two rules. Firstly, any level of interesting job makes demands. Get over it. The only types of job that don't, are uninteresting. Secondly, good people will always get more demands. Err, because they're good and sensible employers will advance the talented and committed.

Jobs in a binary, portion-controlled, 'seven-hour-with-an-hour-for-lunch' are becoming a collector's item. Many business are international and hence in different time zone's and besides, they're all linked by a web that never sleeps. There's also a distinct commercial advantage to be had by trying harder. Unless you can remove all of these, work/life balance won't appear. If it does, and you're working in a domestic, non-tech business that doesn't try hard, it probably won't be for long. If it does survive, you'd be bored anyway.

On top of this, most media types really enjoy what they do, but, it is a 24x7 business. News can happen at all times. The story doesn't stop when you're supposed to. So there can be no such thing as work/life separation. It just all merges together as 'lirk'. Sometimes during leisure time, they work. Sometimes, during work time, they're enjoying life. If they actually want to stop being available, they just switch off the device. Of course, lirkers are highly trusted to get the job done however they choose to do it.

So that's the key. Build the trust. Take control. Learn to lirk.

In the Valley of the Gifted

Love this post from Todd Defren where he describes getting 'Snakebit' by clients. Yanks have a great way of summarising the perennial balls-up. Comes in a long line that includes FUBAR, SNAFU and now Snakebit. Obviously, in PR world, agencies are perfect and so are clients, journalists and staff. But in the real world where Todd and many of the rest of us scarred, bruised, Herbert-Lom-twitchy types live, occasionally Clouseau sticks his head round the door. You can't always exclude him but you can imagine and anticipate his arrival. That's what the good people do when the lamps burn blue. That, and curse like Todd.

Extra Bright, High Cal, Good Fun, Vanilla Spodder

I'm doubly indebted to my Washington-based US colleague Ian Lipner. Firstly, he makes me laugh by pointing out this great spoof blog. Then with his yuppiest-over-caffeinated-rant-ever inspires my search for a finance director.

In short, I'm looking for an Extra Bright, High Cal, Good Fun, Vanilla Spodder.

The graph below shows the revenue growth (in USD) of the business in the last ten years (last year to $21m). So if you know anyone in finance who has between five and ten years post-qualifying experience, and wants to join a thriving business, let me know.

Raging Heffer

Well, this has to be one of the curious pieces of journalism so far this year. This comes from a normally Tory-supporting Simon Heffer, writing in the normally Tory-supporting UK newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, at the normally Tory-supporting time of the party's Spring Conference.

I have worked with many politicians and commercial prominenté and Cameron is without doubt, one of the best contemporary presenters. Good eye contact, no notes, relaxed, clear, quick. Some might even say feasible. But that doesn't impress Hefferlump. For some reason, he doesn't like the boy. No, really. Off he goes into low-trajectory earth orbit:

"With that smug, self-righteous arrogance we have come to expect of a man whose only training for high office was to be a PR spiv, Dave has not only failed to do that, but he has also compounded his offence by attempting to defend himself. The overpaid teenagers who work for him and write his jokes will have told him that this makes him look decisive, resolute and tough. In fact, as older and wiser hands in his own parliamentary party readily concede, it makes him look a little plonker."

Plonker? Is this in the D. Tel style book. Shome mishtake? The funny thing for all the hacks n' flacks out there is he believes the worst form of insult is to call DC a PR spiv. Nearly laughed out loud. Doesn't Heff know that the British Insitute of Public Relations has a Royal Charter now?

Now hear this

Congratulations to the BBC for recognising the enormous potential of podcasting and putting yet another of its excellent radio shows out on MP3.

The Now Show is available shortly after it's broadcast here.

Anybody wanting the rest of Auntie's feeds can find them here.

How to be a great client

All us agency types know that we belong to the legion of the irredeemably gifted. It also seems that there may be some clients who are similarly touched by angels. My excellent colleague Morgan McLintic has even put up a guide explaining how to be a bad client, which as usual, is funny, to the point and insightful. However, as I'm not that keen to encourage bad clients, I thought I'd produce a few points on how to be a great one:

1. Use more than money to motivate. Small tokens of appreciation mean a lot, but cost a little.
2. Share your enthusiasm & vision. PR is about intellect but it’s also about heart.
3. Evangelise PR to your colleagues and get their teams on board. PR is bottom up & top down.
4. Be honest about whether you should be the public face. Differentiation helps creates opportunities.
5. Make sure speakers are trained (regularly) to make the most of opportunities the team create.
6. Examine the output and share it with your colleagues. Surprisingly, some don't.
7. Accept that all teams have seniors & juniors. Not all PR is about strategy. Juniors can be deeply motivated by a senior client who’s prepared to talk to them.
8. Spend time with your team in their environment. Listen in on calls. Suggest ways to improve.
9. Work through problems. The perfect account team hasn’t yet been invented. Until it is, accept that occasionally things will go wrong. You can let them know, but give them a chance to fix it.
10. Let your PR team take you out socially. You can learn more and you might even have some fun.