Archive for October, 2005



The future has a way of arriving unannounced - George Will
Unfortunately I ended up missing out on the Darklight Symposium on Friday. Dr Anne O’Connor, special advisor to the Director General of RTE, was at hand to discuss perspectives for public broadcasting in Ireland and online policies for RTE. Thankfully I got to […]

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy - Martin Luther King
There’s been plenty of debate recently about a decline in the standards of Irish journalism. The coverage of Liam Lawlor’s death has been the […]

She looks really well…I wonder whether she’s going out with someone or seeing someone…But I don’t ask because I wouldn’t give her, like, the satisfaction of letting her think I give a s*** one way or the other - Ross O’Carroll-Kelly
The fact that most Sunday Tribune readers buy it because of the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly column […]

I don’t know where I get my ideas from, you know, it’s like a gift or something. It’s like I can’t control it - The Girl Next Door
I seem to be getting some attention on the web these days. It turns out I’m listed as number nine in Technorati’s top 25 blogs on branding […]

‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt - Abraham Lincoln
A lot of people advise never to send an email or post an entry on a blog that you may later regret. The over-riding principle of common sense should always dictate that if you’re not […]

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy - Martin Luther King
RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, is a bit of a mixed bag these days. It’s come a long way in a short space of time […]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
John O’Sullivan, a Journalism lecturer at Dublin City University, told the audience at the PRII talk on the changing face of print journalism that PR practitioners should stop reusing the same photocall scenarios with models in bikinis.
Obviously John isn’t a picture editor because pictures […]

Death by boredom

This is boring! Now I know what people went through when…my Bronco was going up the freeway - O. J. Simpson on the televised journey of the Ryder truck taking presidential election ballots to Tallahassee
I went to the PRII talk on ‘The changing face of print journalism’ last night. For all the talk […]

Never underestimate stupidity
One piece of news that has been doing the rounds is the Wired News report that 57.2% of businesses are worried that their employees might expose sensitive material in blogs (via Ed)
The first thing that all PR practitioners should do before advising clients what form their blog should take is draw up guidelines […]

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants - Isaac Newton
One of the main benefits of a career in PR is your exposure to people in management and innovators in their field. Being in contact with these individuals and their organisations gives you an […]

It doesn’t work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps
Adaptive design is all about responding to your audience’s wants and needs. Did you know that Flickr started out as a feature in a Multiplayer game? Neither did I until I attended Emmet Connolly’s presentation at TechCamp.
Retaining a loose structure and being […]

Our generation has an incredible amount of realism, yet at the same time it loves to complain and not really change. Because, if it does change, then it won’t have anything to complain about - Tori Amos
There are a number of people out there saying that the video iPod screen is too small and that […]

Accomplishments have no colour - Leontyne Price
Richard Edelman has posted a good article called ‘The On-Going Challenge of Diversity‘ where he points out that PR consultancies’ “recruiting and promotion policies are not keeping up with an increasingly diverse world“. This is a problem that is being felt the world over and one that is […]

Working in PR I thought I knew all the buzzwords. The first time I saw Noughties I thought it was a misspelling and changed it to Nineties. Turns out this term is actually being used. Do we need a catch-all phrase for every decade. What’s next the Tenties!?

Technorati Tags: Piaras Kelly

They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself - Andy Warhol
Well Irish radio stations have finally realised that podcasts offer a good way of building an audience. <sarcasm>Well done guys</sarcasm> The video iPod has launched so the inevitable shift from audio to video content will soon begin […]

Sony mess up a sponsorship for once

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Sony is a master of branding and sponsorship as can be seen by their dominance in the console market. They have engaged in numerous sponsorships and any event they run is […]

Accountability in the digital era

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do - Moliere
As the general public become more empowered and are able to document their lives with tools like cameraphones, blogs or bulletin boards, we are all being held more accountable for our actions.
Personally, I […]

Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has - Margaret Mead
Bernie Goldbach reported on TechCamp in the Irish Examiner today (link to article on his blog) I flicked through the paper this morning, but didn’t spot it. Any […]

Another nail in the coffin for embargos

Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water -ballast we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide - Mark Twain
I was keeping track of stories breaking during the day on my RSS […]

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap - Ronald Reagan
The first round in the battle of the freesheets in Dublin is in full swing. Every morning copies of the Metro and Herald AM are distributed across County Dublin. It has struck me though that the Metro […]

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises - Demosthenes
Here’s the first part in a series of posts that I’m going to write which might appeal to people considering a career in Public Relations.
Public Relations is an ill defined career because at times it’s very hard to explain what you do, especially early in […]

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification - Martin Fischer
The Internet Movie Database turned 15 today. A lot of people I know don’t know what IMDB is, but if you ever need to find out any sort of information about an actor or a film, that’s the first […]

Why is it that if a company makes a stupid decision, it’s a Public Relations faux pas? I’m sorry, but what happened to bad management, discrimination or just a plain old mistake? Instead we have a new catch-all term that seems to suffice instead.
I think I heard some ridiculous quote yesterday that the […]

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down - Julia Cameron
Now we can be like Hugh MacLeod (well kind of!) thanks to Mark Anderson, a professional cartoonist who is offering free daily cartoons to bloggers (via Steve Rubel). it is yet another excellent example of someone using […]

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual - Arthur Koestler
In advertising terms the Sting is known as the sponsor’s message which runs before and after everytime a show starts. It’s one of those bits of industry jargon that most people don’t understand.
On radio […]