Anyway, those days are gone and while I’m still intent on inflicting public relations on the world Fran is a mum to two boys. One is almost four and named after a popular character from Star Wars (of course he is) and the other is… well I forgot but smaller and not named after a science fiction character.

Like most children of that age I have come across in my newish role of ‘Auntie Sarah’ they definitely own the telly, at least in daylight hours. I watched countless hours of CBeebies, countless hours. In fact whenever I thought the coast was clear and was settling in for an episode of America’s Next Top Model (Cycle 9) I was scuppered by the doe-eyed request for ‘one of my programmes’.

Now none of this is new of course, he is going to want to watch the brightly coloured inane chatter that kids TV inflicts. However, when I was left to babysit the eldest one for a couple of hours I came across something interesting.

Despite being in a village Fran & Tony’s house is of course house of tech and like any house of tech they have Sky Plus. I don’t have Sky Plus, hell I barely have digital TV, (I don’t when the 333 bus goes by that’s for sure). While Fran was out and I was asked to put on ‘my programmes’ I had no idea how to access the stored programmes and figured if we started to flick through the actual channels we might find something other than Dora the (grrrrr**%$) Explorer anyway. We did but we also came across the adverts.

Kid: “You’re watching the adverts – I can see you!”

Me: (Puzzled) “Yes that’s right”

Kid: (Sings the jingle) “This one is good; it cleans the dishes much better than the other one”

Me: “What?”

Kid: “Look they come out much shinier.”

Me: “Er, okay, yes I guess so, yes, er shall we watch Dora?”

Kid: “Okay.”

Later when Fran came back I quizzed her on this strange conversation. “Oh yes he loves adverts” she says “Can’t get enough of them”. “Strange kid” I remark. “No, well not really, he doesn’t get to watch them does he? We only watch Sky Plus or DVDs, in fact one of his first words was DVD and adverts are a novelty aren’t they?”

I thought about this for a bit and considered the relationship that children and teenagers have with advertising. Fran’s kids will grow up not seeing ads as I do, as an irritant, (the cause of the disruption of my suspension of disbelief during a demon grilling episode of Charmed) they seem to see them as exciting, a break from the norm, something to be celebrated. What’s going to happen in the future? What’s going to happen when these kids get online? Will there be advert cults? Kids that dress like Barry Scott from Cillit Bang?

The Observer’s article ‘How TV ads are taking the net by storm’ says that the reaction to pieces of mini genius like Cadbury ‘Eyebrow’s  (which has gone global as a viral) has convinced advertisers that their future lies online.

So in the future if ads are only online and audiences have to actually make an appointment to view whatever The Man is trying to flog, you can be damn straight that Yes Car Credit are going to have to pull their fingers out or they should start a clothing line. 

1. I had nothing of any interest that a PR person at the BBC could say on her blog. I know such things are all about transparency but sometimes in my position its safer to say nothing at all.

2. The workload of my day job increased spectacularly.

3. I felt guilty I never finished reading the cluetrain. I gotta tell you for me its hard work, and to be honest although there are many interesting ideas in there they are repeated a lot. Mind you didn’t or should I say haven’t yet read the whole thing so I’m not in the best position to predict the ending.

Excuses, excuses? Perhaps. Short attention span? Definitely. However, I am back on the blog because I have a new project.

One of the lovely engineers that I look after has got me a little computer to use which runs on Linux. I didn’t have one at all so it made looking at people’s stuff when I was abroad at something like IBC or indeed next week when I’m on a TV technology course (prepared to be bamboozled Sarah) more than a little difficult.

I tried it out last night. So far, its bloody excellent. You can teach yourself Chinese for gods sake! Wasn’t expecting that. The best thing about it though is that it includes all the packages that I expect from Windows (if appearing slightly, slightly different) and for free! Actually bone fide free! I’m a PR person we like free. Also and I like this better than the Chinese language bit but there’s a star map! Yesterday I travelled round the world in about 35 seconds, not bad is it?

I know you sit with breath that is bated for the next installment. I’ll keep you in the loop.

If we are going on that tip I did more actual Public Relations when I sold shoes in my first Saturday job or stamped out books at the local library. Being a pretty black and white person (and more so the older I get I have found) I think the sort of activities  have just described could be seen as much more Public than the time I now spend, to quote Bridget Jones ‘fannying around with press releases’.

So in a very long winded way what I am saying is that I am really, really looking forward to Mashed. I couldn’t hack my way out of a paper bag but it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy soaking up the atmosphere and it doesn’t mean that I don’t love going back to my roots and actually talking to and helping out our attendees. You know, members of the public. Grant you these are a pretty special lot whose PR I may end up doing one way or another one day when they have created the next widget of widgets, but they are still people on the ground who frankly usually know a lot more about what is actually going on than we do in our corporate ivory towers.

God only knows what Matthew Cashmore has in store. Well I mean, I know some of it but I think he’s probably been doing some ducking and diving that I don’t know about, (he gets about that one, in a nice way). What ever it is I know damn sure he will be doing it to put on the best damn event ever!

I only hope we don’t get struck by lightening. Oh, yeah we already did.

This time it featured an article about how web trends are cyclical and how a twitter brand extension called tweetcret which takes us back to having an anonymous voice on the web. It made me wonder how this will play out with the hardcore internet community who from my experience definitely follow the Cluetrain’s mantra that everyone and everything should be transparent and named online. Indeed, at a recent event  

Mirona Lliescu a lovely lady I have met since I have touched this world commented that she is glad that my blog is not anonymous anymore. I explained that I was new to blogging and frankly was more than a bit nervous but I listened to the arguments and figured it was better if people did know who I am even though to be honest a part of me still feels a tad uncomfortable with it.

But back to tweetcret, I am definitely going to watch that space. As you (probably have already seen) from the current entries the posts are predictably more ‘out there’ than they would be if the poster were named and shamed. The site is on pause at the moment to sort out its spam filter or something and I suspect as does one of the people who has posted that it’s the comments are from ‘the same five girls’ at the moment. The look of the site is distinctly aimed at females and our gossip gene so who knows whether it will gather momentum.

I guess the argument is that should some areas of the web should be a place where people can “anonymously” rant and express themselves? Will such services be used by a different more mainstream demographic than the hardcore net community? Or will they just reflect the divided identities of our online selves? Or, will such services just die in the water? Personally, I think it will be a combination of ranting and a split personality.

Before I blogged as a BBC person I had a personal kind of anonymous blog somewhere else. I enjoyed it, I like a rant. It was mostly concerned with kids playing-out their mobile phones on public transport, (I hate that), nightmare dates (why I won’t go out with someone who tattoos VEGAN on the bottom of their back) and my general opinions on life and society. It was for me, and a very small readership of my friends e.g. Fran and Claire (not that I am exactly nudging JK Rowling off her pedestal now of course) I just liked having a place to say what I wanted, get it off my chest without worrying about the consequences. To be honest I don’t feel I can do that here when even my minimal readership know where I work.

Hmm, maybe I should subscribe to Tweetcret or as one of the posts on the site says “if you cant say it to her face then that makes you a pussy. grow up.”

The piece however isn’t nearly as annoying as I first thought, (note to self, it helps if you actually read the whole article before you let your blood pressure rise) it comments on a survey by Ciao Surveys which is really annoying.

First of all, who the hell are Ciao Surveys? Prior to my escape to the BBC I worked in PR agencies where the survey has been a fall back mechanic for getting lots of coverage quickly. I have heard of MORI, I have heard of YouGov, but who the funk is Ciao Surveys? The fact that they have the word goodbye in the title, (I grant you in Italian to me does not bode well). ‘Yes we’ve done you a survey; no you probably won’t get any coverage, err ciao!’

To be honest I don’t know how Ciao work or who uses them, in the past I have used MORI because they are a trusted company and the public recognised the name. They are used frequently by PR companies as is YouGov more recently and the results were usually good, (in terms of coverage volume anyway). But Ciao, well I had a bit of a Google and they get some pretty bad press.

But obviously it’s more the subject matter that’s got my goat on this occasion. Like Mr Greenslade I am going to state some facts and put my spin on them (hope you get the irony there…)

First of all according to this Goodbye, sorry Ciao Survey ‘60.3% of people in Britain believe that PR officers often lie’. Do they? Do they really? Do 60% of people in the UK actually know we exist? Perhaps they have just seen the term bandied about in the tabloids next to stories about ex wives of a Beatle or sex tape victims represented by Max Clifford in which case I guess fair enough. But to be honest, I really don’t buy that the majority of the population know what this job is even if they have heard the term.

When I first left Uni I wanted to make films (like many of the people at the BBC I guess, although I am happy to say that I no longer want this, I have the patience of a gnat so standing around watching Take 26 of some actor giving a false tongue sandwich doesn’t really float my boat anymore) but I digress. So I left Uni and did a bit of work experience here, (Kent Today) a bit of work experience there (Live TV) but then ended up running out of money (read Dad said get a bloody paying job Sarah) and trotting back down the Job Centre. At said Job Centre I came upon an admin role in a PR and Events agency. Hmm, what is this? I thought, part time I thought, full time would be better, but my boyfriend at the time also told me to get my arse down there so off I went.

What they did at this agency was not really my concern. I didn’t know what PR was (it has just occurred to me that surely some of them would have called me up when I was at Live TV, ho hum, dunno how that passed me by) but I knew I could answer a phone and would attempt to type and I am a bit gobby so needless to say I got the job.

Five minutes later (read weeks) da boss had decided that he would promote me to being an Account Executive because of my interest in the media and so a new PR was born. But again, the concept of what this actually meant I still found difficult to grasp and I was actually doing it, (okay, before you say it yes I might well be a bit thick but you have to admit PR is a bit intangible).

Anyway, my long drawn out explanation illustrates my point. PR what is it? My Dad still asks me if I wrote the story when I excitably show him a bit of coverage I helped arrange so I am definitely not the only one who has found this a difficult concept to grasp. Maybe it’s a Mines thing.

Apparently a third of Britons believe that the PR industry is necessary – well thank goodness for that.  

Roy’s next point is related to peoples understanding of what a PR’s job function involves. They correctly stated media relations, event planning, advertising (not that correct grrr) and word of mouth marketing. As Roy points out these would have been the options they got on the form which says it all.

Roy also points out later on that Ciao had to admit that half the respondents couldn’t answer the questions because they either didn’t care or didn’t know the answers. So again, the amount of people who know what the funk PR people do, (if they know they exist at all) or give a monkeys is bound to be minimal.

The thing about a survey is that like all documents based on statistics; it can be manipulated, knowing this. Some of them may still be a useful gauge to find out what a small percentage of the population think about a subject but my reaction to this one is that a survey about what people think of the PR industry is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. Did a company really commission this or did the people at Ciao just get bored?

I left the office on Thursday lunch time after having a terse conversation with someone about the non delivery of fact sheets. They say PRs not rocket science but getting the fact sheets on time, blimey o’reilly!!!

After dumping my stuff at a near by B&B I trotted through Hyde Park to Imperial to find Ian Forrester alone in a dining room guarding 300 bean bags from the paws of passing students. He had his laptop though so all good.

After a fashion Delores from Imperial who took me upstairs to the Internet Centre so I could get on with my first job – stuffing 500 goody bags. During the three hours that this took more or less on my lonesome I had several flashbacks to the school holiday when I tried my hand at fruit packing. Nightmare, couldn’t eat a grapefruit for about three years after that, yuck. Thank god for my discovery of holiday telesales. I am much better at that and it was a great training ground for PR, but ho hum if a jobs got to be done…

The rest of the crew arrived around 4pm and started to build the event. We finished at 11ish then found ourselves in the Imperial SU bar for a swift half before bedtime.  

Up again at 7am and before you know it I am sitting behind a registration desk looking pretty damn miserable, I have never been a morning person. My face contorted into a smile though as the first attendee arrived and I was relieved to see that we had a steady trickle of speakers and attendees coming in and settling themselves on the reception area bean bags before the keynotes started.

The radio began to crackle at just before ten as the runners got into position to move everyone to ‘configuration 1’. It’s no mean feat to get 300 people up some stairs and in the right place safely but Matthew Cashmore and his number two John Bevan and number two and a half Toby Stokes directed superbly so no one dead. Excellent.

The boys continued to get runners from A to B to C throughout the event with amazing smoothness the only slight hick-up was when the fire alarm went off on Saturday right in the middle of one of the seminars due to a student microwave incident. I have found out that I look absolutely stunning in a florescent yellow jacket though and that’s an important development.

I know I started off going through the event chronologically but the fact now that I am going to nip around a bit is just a symptom of my tiredness and the extra day that I am absolutely sure exists in a week when you do something as strange as a 48 hour hackathon. Suddenly a normal week goes, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Hackday, Sunday and you are transported to a parallel universe where there is only you, the team and the attending punters. Nothing else matters, except for keeping them happy, safe and productive. We did it and I am very glad.

Highlights and lowlights…

I’m not even going to state which ones are which here. If you know me well you will be able to figure them out and frankly it depends which way you look at it and when you ask me.

Werewolf – played by a group of hackers and team members from 2-3am on Saturday morning. There were strange noises, times when it was very important to be quiet and apparently this then spawned advanced Werewolf. I’m not sure who won or even if anyone does actually win. I can’t even play 21 so I thought best off out of it.

The Torchwood swede – according to wikipedia a swede is to recreate a film using amateur resources. The lovely but frankly mental Ewan Spence and a team of very excited followers bounced up to me on Friday afternoon and the conversation went like this.

Ewan: Do you know what a swede is?

Me (with some trepidation): A vegetable?

Ewan: No

Me: A person?

Ewan: No

Me: Okay what is it Ewan?

Ewan: A swede is a recreation of a film or TV programme? We are going to recreate the season finale of Torchwood!!!!!! Can we borrow your camera?

Me: Oh, okay then and you want to play it on the big screen before we screen Torchwood right? (Lots of nodding from Ewan). I am going to have to send a cameraman with it though. BRENDAN!!!!!

We got through two cameramen by the end of the filming. I didn’t go with them but when the second one Ant Miller came back I thought he would need a cup of hot sweet tea. I had never seen that look in his eyes before and I don’t think I will again. Anyway, have a look enjoy and look out for a guest appearance by Matthew Cashmore as Reese.

Phone Fight – not being particularly techy despite my role with the competition entries I was mostly happy when I could understand what something was. Phone fight, the hack by lastminute.com labs was a fight to the death for honour, valour using Series 60 Python over Bluetooth. I really have no idea what I just wrote but it was cool because when two people holding phones pretended to have a sword fight you heard a clinking sound. I was impressed. There’s a nice picture of it on the BBC Internet blog today

What I value the most though is knowing that we can put this sort of event together and make it a success. And it doesn’t matter what the mainstream media say good or bad, (The Guardian (good), Digital Planet (good), The Register (not completely straight but that’s The Register) the BBC team I was part of to make this happen are the best of the best of the best, I love every single one of them and I can’t wait to do this again so watch this space.

We have 9 working days to go until this mobile development extravaganza (who suggested an Easter holiday anyway) and my mind is in over drive. I am sure it will be peachy-keen on the days but I am a PR, we worry, that’s our job. Anyway, half the tickets are gone now according to Ian Forrester’s blog post so I guess if you wanna go you need to get in quick. It’s free so what the hey? Hope to see you all there. I will be the frantic looking one in pig tails with a walkie talkie…  

Okay so I am finally back on the Cluetrain after too long a hiatus. Today I came across the above paragraph and my first thought was – good point. Who the hell is the government, the church, my employer to tell me what I can and can’t look at?  Unless you are God (and I have suspicions about the existence of that particular landlord) then frankly the world, terra friggin firma, our planet is not theirs, it’s ours.

However, I believe that the majority of punters (and I include myself in this) don’t need to know everything. I loved the X-Files and Independence Day (leading to my  film degree dissertation on Religious Motifs in Science Fiction which I still think I should have got a 1^st  for) it was cool to look into the world of those ‘in the know’ but I have to say I agreed with those fictional characters strategy of ‘plausible deniability’  

“God damn it Mulder, if we told the little people that aliens were regularly visiting the Kentucky state mini mall there would be anarchy!”

I did a personality test once while enrolled in Executive Job Club, (yes that is a real club, it’s where the Job Centre send you when you get made redundant from your first PR job and they don’t know what to do with you, there was me and a bunch of 50 year old men who were lovely but it was a bit like take your daughter work day) anyway, I did this test and I came out Submissive 9/Confirmist 10.

If you know me you wouldn’t think that I would be like this. My ex boyfriend once said I was the least conformist person he had ever met (bless him he went to boarding school) but fundamentally I think that people do need structure. They want to feel safe and they want someone else to take responsibility for their lives, they want to listen to a commanding voice and trust that someone or something else is going to take care of the big things while they decide whether to get their chicken tikka masala from Tesco or Sainsbury.

 As I write I am questioning myself again, do people want someone/thing in charge so society doesn’t go off on one Lord of the Flies stylee or are we, am I just scared?

Anyway, in the meantime I wanted to post something about an event that the BBC is supporting in April. You may have heard about it already but it’s called Over the Air and is a handheld device related 48 hour hack event. I think, and I mean think that you can get on the site and register now if you want to come along so give the site a look if you get the chance.

After attending hack day last year I am planning to go down there for most of the weekend and I think it will be fun and I am quite excited about seeing the difference in the sort of ideas that people come up with compared to what I saw at Alexandra Palace. Also since I’ve been at the BBC I have been out of the mobile world so I would like to know what’s rocking and rolling there anyway. It will be like old times. Here’s the blurb, hope to see you there! 

Calling all mobile developers, designers, experimenters, and enthusiasts! Mark the 4th and 5th of April on your calendars for Over the Air, the largest grass-roots mobile developer event that London has ever seen.Over the Air will be 48 hours of mobile development hack-day-style; featuring workshops, tutorials, speakers and lots of other good-stuff like network APIs and emerging platform SDKs. This is one that you won’t want to miss, so pencil it in now, and watch out for the big announcements that will be coming soon. To get the latest news on Over the Air developments as they roll out hot off the press, simply subscribe to our feed at www.overtheair.org…..

 Here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose four people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

 1. I attended Lady Diana’s funeral 

You may remember that when the funeral for the Princess of Wales was held various groups of people walked behind the royal family. One element to this mix of people were representatives from the 500 charities she used to endorse. At the time my Dad was on the executive committee for one of these charities.

My Dad has had a bad leg for years so he asked me if I would like to go. At the time I was a twenty two year old film graduate so even though I am not a huge royalist I thought it was a historic moment that could not be missed.   On the train up to London I met a particularly notorious member of the Medway massive who had surprisingly decided to attend along with this fold up stool. I never ever would have thought this guy would go to something like that but I guess it is true her influence certainly transcended societal divides.   As I met with my fellow charity processionals we were ordered about by people in uniform, (which reinforced my status as a pacifist) I discovered that Jayne Asher wears a lot of perfume, and more importantly that I was now an eye witness to the biggest international news story of that day, week, even year. 

 2. I don’t wear high heels  

Some of this is because A) I am already five foot 8 so a lot of people, (particularly men these days I have noticed) are really bloody short. B) I naturally walk very fast and purposefully. High heels do not allow me to do this. It makes me late for things, vulnerable to the perils of South London and it hurts C) I feel like a man in drag.   

3. If I wasn’t a PR I’d want to be a singer. 

I love it! It makes me happy and I’m not even scared to sing on stage.  At present I am learning Valerie. My brother Matt and I tried it out last time I was at home. He gets the guitar tabs off of the internet and I sing a long. My favourite song to sing is ‘By the sea’ by Morecheba and second favourite ‘Blow your mind’ by Jamiroquai.   

4. I want a dog 

One of the reasons I am currently obsessed with Nintendogs is because I want a real dog. I doted on my childhood companion Jinx (RIP) so I know a real one would make me really happy. However, I will have to wait until I grow up as a one bedroom rented flat in South London is not really appropriate home for a dog.   

5. I’m mostly Irish 

Well I say mostly. My Dad’s side of the family are from Northern Ireland. I went back there for the first time last year. It’s a beautiful country. Bloody wet though. I am pleased to say I can still do a mean Newry accent. The best way to do this is by saying the following: ‘I have here in my hand a letter, a letter of peace, chips and fash fangers’.

 6. I once gave myself amnesia by hitting a tree with my head – hard 

I used to ride horses a lot. When I was 11 I went riding in a wood with my friend. I am told that my horse went a bit mental for no reason, (as they do) and through me off where my fall was gently broken by a tree. I can’t remember anything else after that until I woke up in hospital. My first words… ‘Where’s my riding boots?’

 7. Sometimes people think I look like Davina McCall.

Ever since Big Brother started and indeed especially over its summer season people either stare at me funny, say I Iook familiar, insist we have met before and then finally the resemblance penny drops.  I don’t think I look like her, except the odd side view and I think that’s because of our less than perfect noses. The fact she is several years older than me makes this less flattering than you would have thought.

 8. I am incredibly divvy

Professionally frankly I am pretty switched on but to be honest in the outside world I don’t know my arse from my elbow. I’d get lost in a lift, can’t read a map (AT ALL) have in the past broken, walls, irons, table’s and once wondered why the kitchen looked like a bubble covered image from a cartoon when I used washing up liquid in the dish washer.

I know quite a bit already but I’m sure there’s more to learn The London Biker

These are my mate’s folks, they live in France what a good idea The Trims

This is a blog with very funny stories about everyday folk – Sunnyside

 Probably the most important blog you will ever read, and you think Scientology is crazy – Wangology