Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson first began blogging in 2002, a hobby which grew to incorporate how a business should communicate using digital communication channels. Today he has over 25 years’ experience in public relations, marketing communication and financial relations. His acclaimed statis is clearly exampled by his popular Twitter profile boasting over 10,000 followers.

Today my class and I were fortunate enough to meet him thanks to our lecturer David Phillips. Due to unforseen circumstances involving smoke and a broken car Neville Hobson met the class via Skype but this by no means detracted from him sharing his knowledge and insight. You can read his views of this event in his latest blog post, which is accompanied with a rather fetching picture of my face (pixalation is a godsend in this case).

During the one hour discussion which involved members of the class asking questions relating to the PR industry Neville Hobson shared his views concerning digital communication, intellectual property laws, ethics and his own online activities. Out of all the discussions my main focus point was the PR industry’s approach to online measurement.

I’m still unsure to whether Neville Hobson knows that I partially analysed his Twitter feed within my dissertation to example some basic techniques behind Latent Semantic Analysis (for more information concerning this technique visit this post). So listening to his views, especially his distaste for Klout, reinforced just how critical measurement is for the PR industry.

The insights he shared concerning measurement were rather similar to mine in the sense that agencies ‘in the know’ are attempting to reach their own standardisations, especially Edelman but pinpointing how reputation should be measured is difficult. Do 5000 Facebook ‘likes’ equate to reputation? Does positive sentiment lead to good reputation? These questions deserve blog posts in their own right.

A couple of members from the class put a heavy focus on the social connotations of social media. How these platforms could effect society as a whole through allowing collaboration in business, schools and in our personal lives. Neville Hobson indicated that it is still the case that the minority of people use these social tools but that minority is growing. Social media should compliment our work rather than become the main objective.

It was a very informative class and a wonderful opportunity to speak with one of the thought leaders in the PR industry. Perhaps the most important question I should have posed to Neville Hobson is “Do you fancy meeting in the future for a beer?”. Hopefully one day.

A new social networking app, Wallit, shot up in popularity yesterday after it was featured in the Apple’s Stores “New and Noteworthy” section. The application allows users to create virtual walls which are locked to specific locations using the iPhone’s GPS locator. These walls can then be viewed by anybody logged into the Wallit app and be used for social collaboration.

The latest version of Wallit introduces a character index system which means walls accumilate their own character points which indicates the popularity of the wall and the social networking influence of the users posting on it. This means that Wallit uses an algorythm in order to understand your influence across Facebook and Twitter then applies this to a rating on Wallit.

Even though the app only went live on the 6^th March it already boasts over 700 virtual walls with users using each wall as collaborating points across home and business. Over 127 countries are now using Wallit which probably means the initial starting figure of 700 virtual walls will soon be blown out of the water!

The Apple Store is right – Wallit is a noteworthy social network for us to keep our eyes on. At this stage the app is far too new in order to be used for any serious business means. However, once the userbase as grown larger, it could easily become a useful network to use at:

Events
You could create a virtual wall for people to collaborate with during an event. May be a good way for people to meet each other and introduce promotions.

Shopping
If you are a shop you could introduce a virtual wall to the high street to attract users of Wallit into making purchases.

Business
Allow your co-worked to talk with each other using a virtual wall. Wallit could be particularly useful for those who work in larger business and wish to build relationships with the colleagues they share a floor with.

Advertising
Could Wallit eventually introduce an era of GPS targeted advertising? Wallit could cause push up messages advertising nearby offers. Not to say that this is a good use of Wallit – GPS advertising would be annoying.

Wallit is a very new social network at the moment but it is worthwhile trying it out. Will it stand the test of time? Download it and try it out.

The UK economy is in the midst of a recession, taxes are sky high and consumers are increasingly relying on voucher codes for their shopping. New research by Savoo shows that since 2009 there has been an increase of almost 40% in the number of people searching online for offers.

Savoo’s research goes on to show a staggering 85% of women surveyed would use a discount code or coupon in supermarkets if it meant they would get a better price – perhaps indicating the UK is heading towards the extreme couponing culture of the US. Traditionally polite Britons are also changing their attitudes to using voucher codes, with 80% of respondents not being embarrassed to make a saving on the items they purchase compared with 70% two years ago.

The voucher code market has one serious problem though, competition. Over the last couple of years we have seen the rise of Groupon, Living Social and Voucher Codes (which I personally use as an iPhone app). All these services are location based, have their terms and conditions and rely upon tempting users through price rather than product. A noteworthy point considering the popularity of the luxary goods sector who are still seeing growth despite the tough economical times.

I can vouche for the popularity of the voucher. As a final year student who has only has a month left of University voucher codes are proving to be golddust when wanting to treat oneself to a luxary. This is exactly the point though – during tough times we like to treat ourselves.

What will this mean for the voucher code market after the recession?

Education secretary, Michael Gove, publically announced in January that the current ICT curriculum in schools is “demotivating and dull”. He was right. Throughout my secondary school years teachers had a limited understanding of technology as shown through their ‘how to use Microsoft Office’ lessons. Children today, even by the age of eight, are competently computer literate due to the technological society we now live in. This makes the current ICT curriculum require radical reform which will teach children how to code and how computers actually work. This reform is now in place.

The UK is investing in a digital economy. In the past the majority of goods were wrought out of plastic and metal – we produced physical items. Today much of our produce is digital and the government needs to put the correct education in place to sustain society for the future.

Part of the problem behind children learning to program is due to changes in the hardware and software market. When I was five years old (1995) my Dad used an internet connected Windows 3.1 machine. I was able to learn some basic commands through MSDOS in order to control functions on the computer. This was closely followed with learning the basics behind HTML. When I was eight I was rewarded with my own Windows 95 computer which I was free to take apart, rebuild and mess with programming wise.

Today computers have changed dramatically. It is much harder for children to learn how to program because the software is closed. It is possible to download free tools online to learn various programming languages but this takes effort compared to my generation where having a basic knowledge of coding was required to even use a computer.

So was born Raspberry Pi, a credit card sized computer which was developed by Cambridge graduate EBen Upton and colleagues that provides children with the opportunity to start programming. It exists today as a small circuit board (no case yet) that can run various Linux operating systems and comes preloaded with Python libraries.

Rory Cellan-Jones with Raspberry Pi

It is the perfect system for adventurous children who wish to explore computers with greater depth. It also turns out it is the perfect system for geeky adults too. Since the Raspberry Pi project was posted on BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones’ blog interest for the device as sparked a huge pre-order list. Not only capturing the imagination of children and geeky adults but for alternative uses such as in robotics courses.

The best bit about Raspberry Pi? It’s price of $25. Although it is a UK project all costs are in dollars due to component pricing and economic stability. If you want to pre-order one from the UK then expect a price of £30. However there are units being sold on eBay for over £100! Madness.

I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these devices. For the moment I’ll wait patiently on the pre-order list for my Raspberry Pi unit. Unless the Raspberry Pi project fancy giving me a unit to review? Wishful thinking!

My name is Joanne Brady and I am the founder of TheBookPond.com. I am a graduate of The University of Hull, and of Durham University, and I am a mother of four very lively girls.

TheBookPond.com is a site which allows UK university students to list their used textbooks for free in order to sell them locally to other students, cutting out un-necessary P&P costs and reducing ‘textbook miles’. The site is totally free to use, and always will be. I set it up as I am a big fan of saving money and hate to see wasted resources.

Whilst at Hull University, I bought and sold a lot of my textbooks using the department noticeboards, but I found it wasn’t as convenient as it could be. I did a joint degree and I was posting to multiple noticeboards. I also found a lot of my notices went missing for one reason or another. Selling my books as a graduate is even harder work as being away from campus makes it necessary to use online book sale sites, which means paying for P&P and a sales commission, which can be quite a chunk.

The idea to have a site which anyone can access, either on or off campus, and encourage people to sell books directly to buyers is one I spent a little bit of time developing. Having no web programming skills and no budget, I found someone with the skills that was prepared to work on the site as a project and take a punt. I found Graeme, a computer studies student at The University of Strathclyde, and the site was launched in the autumn term of 2009.

Since 2009, in between me having children, us both completing our studies, and Graeme taking a work placement abroad, we have been making adjustments to the site, and have started a blog. We have a Facebook page and a Twitter feed too, and are big fans of social media. In the summer of 2011, we were featured on BBC News 24’s technology programme Click!, which was a massive boost to us. We attracted some worldwide interest, but we are focussing on the UK for the time being. Currently we have over 500 members and growing, and we have over 400 books listed on the site.

I completed my masters degree studying users of electric cars last year, and am now on the lookout for a PhD studentship which fits in with my family commitments. TheBookPond.com is a long-term project which I’m sure will continue to grow and to provide students with a way of contacting each other to save money and stop those once loved textbooks from gathering dust.

The main site – www.TheBookPond.com

The blog – http://bookpond-thebookpond.blogspot.co.uk/

The Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Book-Pond/132542209559

The twitter feed – http://twitter.com/#!/theBookPond

My email – joanne@thebookpond.com

During the research stages of my dissertation I imagined myself writing frequent blog post concerning the writing process. In practice writing a dissertation required my full attention, which unfortunately saw this blog become rather quiet. I have some good news though, it is done!

The dissertation is entitled, “Maintaining Reputation through Online Analytics” with the cheeky subtitle, “Why the Public Relations Industry must Adapt or Die”. The contents covers why online is important, measurement methods and research into Semantic Analytics.

All dissertations are different, whilst they all contain research they may be theoretical, research based, case study focused, etc. The focus for my dissertation is the research into Semantic Analytics and why this measurement technique could prove fundamental to the PR industry in the near future. This required me to understand the basics behind the process of Latent Semantic Analysis which included using Term Count Models and Singular Value Decomposition. I believe this dissertation has joined an exclusive club of examining semantic methods PR measurement methods.

You’re right. It is quite mathematical, unusually so as my understanding of maths is rather limited. The research also required me to understand the basics behind the Python scripting language (which I must add made the research 10x easier).

Once the dissertation has been graded I’ll have a copy published online. I have no idea what sort of grade it will achieve but I believe the exploration into online measurement techniques is highly relevant for the PR industry today.

I’ll begin this article by casting my mind back to early 2010. As part of a second year University assignment (overseen by the observant Richard Bailey) we had to deliver a PR presentation to Gloucestershire Police. The brief instructed us to build a campaign to curb the amount of binge drinking locally over the festive season. The class was split into groups.

In my group we decided that in order to fulfil the client’s objectives we should arrange a number of publicity stunts and thought provoking materials which could be distributed to drinking establishments. We came second place. The winning team won because they were brilliant (all the group members are good friends of mine) but also because they mentioned FACEBOOK.

Why didn’t my team mention Facebook? It wasn’t relevant for our campaign. This invokes me to make an important point.

Facebook isn’t always necessary
On a number of occasions client work has resulted in a conversation concerning Facebook. Every PR campaign is different but most of the time I find myself asking:

• Will Facebook effectively raise awareness?
• Will Facebook effectively raise sales?
• Will Facebook cause any user conversions (outside of sales)?

In my experience Facebook’s effectiveness surrounding raising awareness is good but difficult to measure. One cannot consider ‘likes’ alone which makes ‘mentions’ the only worthwhile factor. In terms of conversions and sales I have found other websites which work much better in comparison to Facebook.

The most important factor isn’t so much the tactics which a campaign uses but instead…

What is your narrative?
PR is primarily concerned with finding a narrative, a story behind a product/service. This is in direct contrast with advertising (in all forms) which shamelessly shouts features and benefits in order to charm consumers to part with their money.

The number of organisations who are on Facebook shamelessly promoting themselves is staggering and this indicates a poor PR strategy. Your narrative has to be believable, cross channel and targeted towards specific publics.

If you are a client then consider what benefits using Facebook has for your product, service or organisation.

Man cannot live on social media alone
Stop using the term “social media”, it is limiting. Instead talk about Digital PR, talk about blogger engagement, talk about forum discussions – in fact stop talking and instead listen. If you are talking about Facebook then also discuss measurement methods.

On the 1^st March the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) announced the result of a vote which resulted in their modern definition of PR. They now state that:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

Defining this complex industry defined by relationships, constantly evolving and understanding its various ethical pickles is tough. To do that in a sentence is even tougher. In a class last week I was challenged with writing my own definition in 5 minutes. I concluded with:

“Public Relations is a form of social psychology that recognises the values of different publics in order to create relationships to improve reputation and profit.”

It isn’t perfect but it states an important opinion of mine – PR is no longer just concerned with reputation. The online advertising industry makes their money from direct (or in-direct in terms of re-messaging campaigns) sales. The very same metrics the online advertising industry utilises can also be used by digital PR. So why aren’t we using them?!

Yes, I understand that digital PR tracking sales online questions its classical definition but this is exactly what the PR industry needs. It must adapt or die. So whilst the PRSA claim their definition is shiny and modern… it just isn’t. It has failed to understand the nature of digital public relations.

For the UK digital PR will see an ever growing importance, especially as the UK boasts the largest internet economy in G20. That is an 8.3% share of the UK economy! Let’s not hand over all of this juicy money over to online advertising. Digital public relations can provide equally effective results.

This is partly why I am writing a digital PR dissertation on online metrics. There are a variety of books available concerning online measurement but PR can go a step further. Using the fundamental principles of recognising the values between various stakeholder groups it is possible to target in a far more accurate way compared to, the rather ridged structure, endorsed by the online advertising industry.

I will only say it once again on this blog but Latent Semantic Analytics really offers a whole host of benefits to the digital PR industry. We just have to build a suitable system first!

That’s it. End of blog post before things get really geeky…