Here’s a Christmas message from Tim Kipps at ArmstrongAdams, an escherman client:

“We’d like to wish you a very merry Christmas.We don’t send cards because it’s not good for the environment. Instead we’ve donated the Christmas card budget to Concern Worldwide to buy chickens. We named the first two ‘Lunch’ and ‘Dinner’.

Also, because it’s been economic doom and gloom this year, we thought it would be fun to make a little Christmas video to cheer people up. It’s a bit ‘edgy’, so if you’re easily offended please don’t watch it.

Click here for the video. You’ll need sound and Flash 9 or higher.

If you enjoy it, please forward the link to others who will too. If not, please email us a slap on the wrist.

Happy Christmas!”

Tim (and all at ArmstrongAdams)

Twiphorism is a new word I’ve coined – it’s formed by merging Twitter with Aphorism.

Wikipedia describes an aphorism as “an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form.”

So a Twiphorism is “an original thought written in a laconic and easily memorable form. And capable of being expresed via Twitter in 140 characters or less”.

As it happens, a number of the aphoristic examples given by Wikipedia could be Twiphorisms eg

Mediocrity is forgiven more easily than talent. — Emil Krotky

What are your favourite Twiphorisms? Your own or somebody else’s? If you can squeeze it into 129 characters, include the following hash tag:  #twiphorism (or #twphm if pushed for space).

After the roaring success of last year’s inaugural Flackenhack Awards, the world’s leading alternative event for the UK’s technology PR and media community is back = this time on Weds, October 29th, 2008 at The Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3PQ.

Promising to be “bigger and messier than last year”, the organisers say they’ve come up with a genius plan to get as many technology journalists to attend without them having to put their hands in their wallets ie members of the tech PR industry can buy a hack’s ticket for them on eBay.

Make your way to the Flackenhack 2008 Awards blog for more detail about the event. You can even help decide which hacks should have their tickets auctioned.

And adding to the social media frenzy around the event, there is also a Facebook group.

Tickets are now on sale here.

Go on. You know you want to. Last year’s event was a lot of fun and a refreshing change – here’s to making the 2008 event event better. (There you go TWL, will that do?)

Someone at the BBC had fun with that headline. It is – of course – referring to the fact that researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars. But you knew that, didn’t you?

I like puns. They deserve more of an airing in the world of PR and marketing. In which case, as Copyblogger says, let’s hear it for the lowly pun.

More good pun resources here and here.

PS The title of this post? Jim Morrison’s blog when he migrates to WordPress.

Mike Magee, founder of The Inquirer, co-founder of The Register and one time editor of PC Business World, has penned a rather amusing departing shot from Incisive Media. In a self described “final act of ennui”, he gives us the definitive Guide to Modern 21st Century Journalism.

He has seven rules for the budding tech hack (reproduced in full below). As Peter Kirwan says, it’s a sensible rant against Google-driven hackery.

Rule 1 did get me thinking though:

Totally ignore PRs. The PR profession is deader than the journalistic trade. What place is there for an agency PR person when all the vendors throw up press releases instantly copied by serried ranks of “data gatherers” so cutting out the middle bunnies?

Amidst the satire, there is a serious point about the role of a PR agency today. Clearly there is a role to be played, but it almost certainly doesn’t resemble the PR stereotype of yesteryear. Sadly for Mike, it will involve knowledge of SEO, analytics, etc – but should still include the basics of good content skills and media relationship talent. And personally speaking, I don’t see why booze needs to be cut out of the equation.

Finally, as Intel and AMD’s PR departments break open the champagne, Mike says he will be “at his wit’s end at the end of the month at what to do”. I think the Coach and Horses beckons – for old time’s sake.

Those rules in full:

Rule 1 Totally ignore PRs. The PR profession is deader than the journalistic trade. What place is there for an agency PR person when all the vendors throw up press releases instantly copied by serried ranks of “data gatherers” so cutting out the middle bunnies?

Rule 2 A Modern Journalist never leaves the office, never has a drink, unless it’s a non-alcoholic Pimms, never double checks a story, never takes a chance, and has a pathological fear of a telephone unless the Health and Safety Inspectors clean the mouthpiece and earpiece every morning before the tidy world begins.

Rule 3 Google is the robotic news editor which rules the roost towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century. A Modern Journalist can do nothing except spur Adsense sales by endlessly re-writing stories that appear on Google News, which may never have actually been broken by anyone but first processed by the more important class of “data gatherers” who get early access to the er, press release.

Rule 4 The Modern Journalist never “breaks a story”. That would court the ire of the serried ranks of news management spinners and would breach Rule 2 to boot. Plus, even if a story fell into her or his hands, it would have to be “gathered” and then “processed” through the serried ranks of lawyers who act as an expensive filter to ensure that no boat is rocked.

Rule 5 The Modern Journalist must have gone to “journalist school”, where she or he will be taught all the tricks of the trade, such as sitting in serried ranks, never going out, never using the phone, re-cyling the endlessly re-cycled, and shamelessly cohorting with legions of other “professionals” such as people that went to “PR school” and those that drink non-alcoholic Pimms. They must be taking other stuff to get them high, surely? An old-fashioned hack would never do that. We think.

Rule 6 Show your adherence to 21st Modern Journalism standards by mouthing marketing slogans in your copy at every turn. If you have a news editor, and she or he wants you to “break stories”, complain through levels of the organisation that you’re being pressured and abused because she or he is complaining that you’re just recycling either press releases or re-cycled chunks from Google News.

Rule 7 Make sure you ignore this so 20th century saying: “You cannot hope To bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist. But seeing what The man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to. – Humbert Wolfe, Over the Fire” Accept bribes gracefully.

The debate over video versus text continues to rage – both in journalism and PR. Some argue that TV news can’t provide the depth of analysis of a lengthy editorial. And should PR be exploiting new web video technologies more fully?

To me, it is a bit of a red herring. The real issue is the amount of time you have to convey the necessary information and how well you use each respective medium – the so-called ‘attention economy.”

Here is a case in point.

I read Charles Goodhart’s lengthy article (sub required for full feature) in Prospect magazine last week which went into the background of the current financial crisis. I then watched the following Bird and Fortune sketch on YouTube.

I came away feeling that Bird and Fortune pretty much captured the key points of Goodhart’s piece and delivered it in a more impactful way. On this occasion, video 1, text 0. But the video versus text argument remains, generally, a waste of energy.

It (sort of) says here.

In fact, PR doesn’t appear anywhere in the list of 10 ten jobs.

Running your own business is number one.

Least favourite jobs were politicians, plumbers and dentistry.

In addition, the Reed Employment sponsored survey found that: "despite the increased pressures upon companies to improve their brand
image and act in a social responsibility (tut, tut, where was the proof reader) way, corporate reputation has
very little influence over a job seeker. Just 6% of respondents would
select a company because of its corporate social responsibility
programmes and only 2% stated they would be swayed by an employer’s
brand image."

Perhaps all those references to PR supporting brand building for recruitment purposes need to removed from agency credentials?

This was actually sold in supermarkets – allegedly – until someone twigged….

Someone just sent me a link to VideoJug – what a mine of useful information. See the current top 10 videos below – you get the idea

1. How To Get Out Of A Car Without Showing Your Knickers
2. How To Kiss Someone Passionately
3. How To Tie A Tie – Full Windsor Knot
4. How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds
5. How To Undo Her Bra With One Hand
6. How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend
7. How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds – Explained
8. How To Create A Smoky Eye Effect
9. How To Seduce Your Boss
10. How To Perform The Perfect Golf Sw