Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Blake Barbera offers some good practical advice over at Wet Feet PR. The long and short of it is to always check your email recipients before hitting send.
Modern technology makes life a lot easier, but it also makes it more likely for you to make a mistake. Did you know that there’s been […]

I finally got my results from the PRII after four days of waiting. I got a 2:1 and was 3% off the first (probably due to the numerous references of terrible handwriting - my personal favourite was rather than simply say that it was difficult to read throughout the exam, the examiner noted that […]

It doesn’t matter whether you work in PR, advertising, marketing or journalism, timing is everything. You’ve got to be acutely aware of deadlines and plan out your events with great care.
That’s something that the people behind Lucozade’s latest advertising campaign have completely missed the boat on. The latest ad in the ‘Energy within’ […]

TV3 will have its first ever interactive week between the 25th and 31st of July. During the week they will be offering viewers a number of ways to interact with the station including:

“State of the Nation” news poll
Choose your Sunday movie
Late night interactive gaming

This is hardly anything new in the greater scheme of things, […]

I’ve pointed out the fact before that numerous organisations are using iPods as a dangling carrot. Some people have highlighted that offering such a popular product doesn’t necessarily rub off on your brand though. For example, I was in my local convenience store today and I noticed another competition to win iPods. […]

I’ve got to hold my hands up to this one, but if you’re ever issuing a photocall notice to all the national press then don’t forget to include a note on who is doing your photography for the Irish Examiner.
They have the patience of saints down there in Cork because it’s obvious that everyone forgets […]

The Sunday Tribune have launched an new online edition. They claim the benefits of this new initiative are:

Instant delivery
Easy to read
Advanced navigation
Searchable text
Portable
Environmentally friendly

Sounds good, but the Tribune have proved to be rather short-sighted with their venture. All they’ve done is literally converted their print edition to an online edition and that’s it. […]

MIT are conducting a blog survey. I’m after completing it so I thought I would help spread the word about it. You have to be a blogger to take part and it’ll take about 15 minutes to complete.

I don’t know when it started, but the Sunday Tribune has a column called blogosphere in the main section of the newspaper. The column, aptly written by Joe Bloggs (<sarcasm> must be a barrel of laughs to work there </sarcasm>), takes a look topics doing the rounds on blogs. Flickr and some topical […]

Congratulations to my brother, Feidhlim, whose interview with Sonia O’Sullivan for Irish Runner magazine was quoted by a couple of publications over the last fortnight, including the Sunday Times.

I was talking to a former classmate who has recently gotten a new job. Being curious I naturally checked out their website, where I was met with a single page containing their contact details.
Slightly perturbed, I got back onto her and enquired whether they have a new site in development. I was slightly […]

I always thought that the day of sending a press release by fax were long gone, but apparently they’re not. A couple of colleagues of mine were talking to a producer in one of Ireland’s news organisations when they were told that they’d have a higher chance of having their release read if they […]

I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but blogging isn’t going to replace public relations. Steve Rubel didn’t go as far as Scoble with his prediction, instead he said that blogging will replace the humble press release.
To paraphrase a wise man, ‘Homie don’t play that’ Steve! Suffice to say […]

…or maybe Ireland gets Scoble locked and laughs at another drunk American?
Tom Raftery has announced that Robert Scoble will be addressing the IT@Cork annual conference in November. He’s also trying to organise a bloggers dinner in Rochestown Park hotel afterwards if anyone is interested.
I’m not a big fan of Scoble, but I’d […]

Some <sarcasm> startling </sarcasm> survey results and observations have come in the last week. Low and behold, marketers and journalists read blogs.
Well no duh! Of course they do, whether they weight them heavily in comparison to other forms of communication is another matter. However, anyone from either profession that would actually say […]

Picturephoning.com report that a new phenomenon is taking off in Britain as starstruck fans begin to snap their favourite celebs and moblog it.
The Paperazzi are bad enough as it is, but with this new wave of cameraphone waving bandits, I’d stick my neck out to say things will probably get worse.
First off, you only have […]

Just a quick reminder for anyone heading to U2 this weekend to bring their mobile phone. Bono announced today the Make Poverty History - Irish campaign today, and obviously your mobile is going to be involved.
So while Bono steps up his quest for sainthood, make sure to bring your cellular friend along for what […]

The full list of winners from last week’s PRCA awards still hasn’t been announced. I presume whoever is supposed to be updating the website page still has an awful hangover, either way it doesn’t say much for the PR industry if we can’t communicate who won what awards in a simple and efficient manner.
There […]

I’ve just signed up to Odeo. Odeo is supposed to be a fresh way to subscribe to podcasts, etc. It’s still on beta stage at the moment, but you can sign up for an invite by giving them your email address. I’ll report back on what it’s like later next week after […]

ParMedia is an another participatory media site. In terms of content it’s primarily US based, so it won’t be of much interest to me. However all those people disillusioned with Indymedia might fancy a look. I wonder how long it will be before it goes down the same route though.

The BBC reports that the Vatican is urging people to email them in a bid to speed up his beatification. Apparently Pope John Paul II was a fan of the Internet (it’s worth looking at the article for the photo of him with a laptop alone) and the church is planning to whip up […]

Indymedia.ie report on an intiative in Australia called Street Seen. It’s well worth reading and I’d say that we’ll see an Irish version of the site in the future. There are some parts to it that I find dubious like bringing homeless people onto the site forums, but the overall idea appeals to […]

The BBC have an interview online with Niklas Zennstrom, the man behind Skype and Kazaa. I never knew that one man was behind both services. How jealous am I!? Most people are lucky enough to have one great idea in their lifetime, let alone two!
What makes it all the better is how […]

I was making the trip across town yesterday by bus and everything that could possibly go wrong did. First the bus was late and then it turned out that the bus wasn’t going to show up at all. Thirty minutes later, the bus finally appears and the now enlarged queue slowly started to […]

A story came in through my RSS this morning from the Irish Times (Registration required so can’t post a link) that announced the launch of a new website by Crosscare that celebrates cultural diversity in Irish classrooms.
I thought that might a nice blog entry about how the education system is embracing the Internet so on […]