This hesitancy and apologetic nature of the way I at times explain what I do stems back to the fact that I did, indeed, previously work in-house where, like everyone else, I was subject to the sales calls from the wide range of consultants and other vendors trying to get me to buy in their product or service. I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of those phone calls. I know that sinking feeling that you get when you realise the person you are speaking to in the seat next to you at the conference is someone who will at some point probably try to sell something to you (and some really don’t waste any time). It sucks, especially when you don’t have budget to spend or a need for the product or service. So, when I set up my business I was determined to find another way. I think I have, but I do still miss that ability to close a deal that probably is needed to make me really successful as a business owner. I find it difficult to do because it makes me uncomfortable.

I’m happy that the way in which I’ve managed to raise my own profile in the sector in which I work has mostly been by providing, hopefully, useful sessions at conferences (without a whiff of a sales pitch), by blogging lots on sites like this and elsewhere, by my voluntary work with the CIPR, and by creating HE Comms, a free social network for HE marketing and communications professionals to network and share ideas, best practice, ask questions etc. In short, I almost try to make up for the fact that I am a consultant who works for the sector and needs business from the sector in order to make ends meet, by giving a lot in return, and sometimes perhaps giving too much of my time for free. Granted, off the back of giving a lot of my time for free I do manage to raise my profile and ultimately win new business, so the returns are there (sometimes – not always), but I still feel apologetic about being a consultant. Why is that?

I like the wikipedia definition of “consultant” at the time of writing this. Or, at least I like this bit: ‘A consultant is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter.’ I’m at ease with that description. I think that sums up who I am (not so much expert, but perhaps a deeper knowledge than those who work in-house have had the time to develop). And I wonder if my sense of shame (for want of a better word) about being a consultant is all in my head and simply a consequence of the sheer volume of people who whinge about ‘social media consultants’ and ‘PR consultants’.

So, regardless of what I choose to call myself or what others might call me, I’ve reflected a little on what it is I do that hopefully makes me add value to the lives of those I work with and makes me love this ‘job’ so much:

- I offer an external perspective on marketing and communications that isn’t bound to internal politics or jaded by years of being told you can’t do something “because…”. This is often why I am bought in to deliver high-level seminars and workshops. I am able to bring a fresh perspective.
- I provide additional resource and support on an ad-hoc basis without the client incurring another salary bill. As such, I provide support as- and when- needed. This isn’t always about specific expertise, just about ability and time. The work I did this year to help put the programme together for the University of Warwick alumni day, and the work I did last year on Imperial College’s undergraduate prospectus are perfect examples of that. I have the head space that some people within an organisation just don’t have, particularly when it comes to projects.
- My distance from an organisation, and yet my knowledge of the sector, mean that I am able to apply proper strategic thinking to projects, again without the distractions of the ‘day-job’. I am able to focus and see the bigger picture that sometimes it is difficult to see when you are working within an organisation. This was very much the case when I spent the last Christmas holidays writing an online PR strategy to support the University of Leicester with their Leicester Exchanges initiative, or when I was writing social media strategies for the University of Nottingham, Warwick Business School and Maastricht University in the past year.
- I help people come up with creative ideas by providing them with time-out and the tools and templates to think in a slightly different way about things. I hope this is what I achieve when I run workshops and seeing some of the fruits of that, as has recently been the case in chatting with people like David Girling from UEA (more on this in a later blog post), is really very satisfying.
- I spend a lot of my time focusing on key areas so I can bring specialist knowledge of my subject area, dedicating a lot of (unpaid) time to improving my knowledge and staying fresh in a way that it is difficult to do when you work in-house. In short, I act as a bit of a ‘filter’ or a sounding board for the sector for new developments and ideas and attempt to apply some critical thinking to that for everyone else in the sector.

People often ask me what exactly it is that I do. So, I think I can summarise this as follows:

- I come up with new ideas for marketing and communications (overarching strategies, projects and campaigns)
- I help other people come up with new ideas themselves (by providing workshops, training and coaching)
- I help organisations put those plans into action (by sometimes doing whatever needs doing: building social media spaces or sites, copywriting, managing events, overseeing a video production).

A lot of what I do could be done in-house, but people don’t always have the headspace to do it themselves. And that’s what I’d like to be seen as. Instead of an evil ‘consultant’ trying to sap the sector of its money, I’d like to be seen as a critical friend, a useful pair of hands and as an extension of the sector rather than as a ‘consultant’. But I’ll carry on using the word ‘consultant’ until I come up with something better (and before anyone else suggests it, guru is very very much not acceptable and should never be used by anybody in a job title or description). And whatever I call it, I love it. I just wish I was a little better at actually closing the deal on work instead of just having a good profile and reputation.

One of the things I mentioned in the workshop was slideshare. In my usual style I have uploaded the slides to slideshare, and embedded them here for you to view at your leisure.

Please note that the images used in these slides are not for reproduction, but many are available for you to purchase and download inexpensively on istockphoto, another resource that I mentioned to the delegates.

Then, this line in the description of their requirements:

‘We estimate approx 4 days, 2 days for each website should suffice.’

Not so great. 2 days work, then nada, for online PR for a website? Online PR isn’t a ‘project’ that can be done and dusted in 2 days. It has to be a sustained effort, ongoing, nurtured and loved. Otherwise it is doomed to failure! Sure, in two days you can do enough to improve your SEO in the short-term, but for real online PR, companies should be dedicating much more time and resource to supporting an ongoing campaign. Think of online PR as a relationship – it interests you, yet you begin with caution at first, then you get carried away in the rush of excitement and can’t tear yourself away, then you settle down into a nice comfortable routine – at ease, dedicated, devoted even – with the odd pleasant surprise but otherwise a nice routine of committment and sustained effort. Online PR is a marriage, not an affair!

Today the headline ‘Why do PR people pamper the media?‘ posted by @IndiaPRBlog on Twitter grabbed my attention. This blog post, written by Vikas Kumar provides an interesting insight into the practice of gifting journalists to get them to cover your story or event. I thought my readers might be interested to read this too, particularly in light of earlier posts.

The article, introducing the new Chief Executive of the BBSRC, Professor Douglas Kell, is delightfully headlined ‘New BBSRC chief “Olympic gold medallist” of research‘. Great headline for the BBSRC and Professor Kell, hey? However, the really interesting thing from my point of view is that the headline was influenced by a simple statement on a student blog:

If research were an olympic sport, the new chief executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) would win gold for “weightlifting with citations”, at least according to one online blogger.

The article goes on to mention how Professor Kell engaged with the discussions on the blog that ensued, thus showing him to be ‘keen to engage with students, colleagues and the wider public’.

I think this says a lot about journalism when the source that influences their headline is a student blog, but it also speaks volumes about Professor Kell himself. Go Professor Kell! Let’s hope more academic leaders can be celebrated for engaging with publics in this manner.

I thrive on the fact that new and social media generates opportunities to communicate direct to key stakeholders without having to hope that a journalist will pick up your story and run with it. However, I often get asked how PR folks can use new media to enhance their traditional media relations aproaches, particularly how new media can help them engage more effectively with journalists. This morning an interesting insight popped up on my Twitter feed.

I follow (follow – not stalk!) a few journalists on Twitter. A particularly prolific ‘tweeter’ is Joanna Geary from the Birmingham Post. This morning she tweeted about the order in which she checks on everything when she gets into work every day. I thought it provided a particularly interesting insight into a technically-savvy journalist’s communication preferences. Here’s the order in which she says she checks things, check-out the high prority she gives to online communities:

1. Personal email
2. RSS Reader
3. Twitter
4. Facebook
5. LinkedIn
6. Work Email

I suspect that many journalists aren’t as ‘into’ new media as Joanna is, but this is an interesting insight nevertheless. Many thanks for sharing this with us Joanna!

It’s important that I keep aware of sites like this given that I work so closely with universities, and it’s always good to see if any of these have the potential to migrate to the UK. So, I clicked on the link to take a peek at the site and was greeted with a pop-up asking me for a username and password. Now, not only has this site had excellent coverage through Mashable, but according to some of the commments, it appears they have also appeared in the New York Times Magazine. So, why oh why would anyone get such great publicity and mess it up by having a site that doesn’t work just when thousands of people will attempt to visit it? I couldn’t resist but to express my opinions through the mashable blog post and my own blog.

There’s a key message here, and a real fundamental of good communications and PR practice, that if you are going to get some great publicity (and good on them for getting such great mentions) you really need to have everything else in place to back that up, such as a website that actually works otherwise all of that publicity will just go straight down the drain. Such a pity.

As ever when I see items on the news or making the front pages, I always think about the PR people working for the various organisations behind the stories or battling with them. Sometimes I inwardly congratulate and even envy them at times for pulling off such great publicity. Sometimes I pity them. Sometimes I get angry at them. This time, however, I just can’t see how they could possibly win! If I were asked to organise an event to which 8 of the guests were going to be the leaders of some of the most powerful countries in the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be recruiting top chefs to provide a sumptuous feast for them! However, if knowing that on that same day they would be discussing a global food crisis you would see a certain irony on putting on such a feast. So how do you win? There’s a cultural difference at stake here too – the difference between what we might consider to be a feast in the UK and what the Japanese consider to be a feast. Is eight courses really that uncommon in Japan? I served five courses to guests in my little two-bedroom Coventry terrace house on Saturday evening.

I therefore pity the PR person who might have had any say in this. On the one hand the annual gathering of eight of the most powerful people in the world is something to celebrate and ought to be celebrated in style, on the other hand if they’re discussing food shortages then only the most modest of dinners (or better still perhaps no food at all) was really going to keep people happy. I think perhaps with a budget of over £200m, perhaps there are some other extravagances of the G8 summit that ought to be looked at instead of the food, but no PR person is going to draw attention to any of those now, are they?