prandsocial. Katie Moffat - PR & Online Communications

Sheesh, yesterday really was one of those days when you want to go and lock yourself in a dark, padded cell.  Meetings dragging on when I was supposed to be somewhere else, CEO client (who never normally knows I exist) couldn't get hold of me when he urgently needed to and then to cap it all, the developers for a web project I'm working on dropped the news that both the server and the back up server had died and possibly taken a whole lot of work with it.  Oh and then my 7 year old threw up on me (think Steve Martin in Parenthood).  Still today is a whole new day, server is fixed, 7 year old is fixed and I've a three for three meme from Becky McMichael. So here goes:

Top Three non-work websites

1. metcheck  (I blame my dad, I'm a weather obsessive)
2. etsy
3. mumsnet

Top Three Karaoke Songs

1. Say Hello Wave Goodbye – Soft Cell

2. House of the Rising Sun – Animals

3. Ain't Nobody – Chaka Khan

Top Three Weekend Cocktails

1. Gin and Tonic (does that count as a cocktail?)

2. Cosmopolitan

3. Mojito

And the three people I choose to pass it on to are

1. Paul Fabretti

2. Robin Wilson

3. BritneyofArabia

1. Most people think life as a freelancer is one long jolly – "what you work for yourself? do you get take lots of time off then?"

2. You might have been working 20 hour days for one client trying to finish a project but you have to hide this fact from other clients.  It's a bit like having a dirty secret – clients know that you work for other people but they don't want to be reminded of the fact.

3. There is no place to hide.  The buck stops with you so you have to do a good job or it shows.

4. It's very dull handling all the accounts.

5. It gives you an insight into the human condition.  OK this is a bit over the top, but the point is that being in and out of various different work places means you understand all the different 'types' of working environment from the trendy agency where everyone is out to be seen to be doing 'cool stuff' to the blame culture of some of the bigger companies, where everyone is scared of making a decision for fear of it coming back to haunt them. 

Overall – I'm glad it just me, myself and I.

image courtesy of Saital – Creative Commons license

Love this (with a hat tip to Jonathan Hopkins). 

It really is hard to keep track of online developments these days.  So much being developed, some of which will, no doubt, fall by the wayside and some of which will be the next Google/Twitter/Facebook.  So how about Blip, Shozu and Pingme?
Blip is a bit like Twitter but with music, Becky McMichael's description is good and I'm sure I can't do better so with a nod to Becky, Blip is, "A music sharing site where you post short messages (like tweets…but
called blips) with a track attached. The timeline builds up a story
accompanied by music documenting your friends’ day. You play the
timeline and have music on all day selected by your friends."
I like it, it's fun, finding it hard to see brand applications for it but hey, don't they say that about everything at first.
ShoZu is a neat little app that allows you to automatically upload photos from your phone to your social networks, Flickr, Facebook etc, you can also download your friends feeds.
And, shock horror, Pingme is nothing to do with social media but if you spend your life trying to keep track of Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Pownce (are you losing the will to live yet?) then Pingme will help you ensure you don't miss the rest of your life while you're doing it.  It's a bit like tasks in MS office but more mobile and the great thing is that you can choose how to be reminded – via email, phone or a tweet. 

I love Wordle. 
No real point to it but who cares, it a neat little app.  I ran the blog through it and this is what it came up with

It’s not PR or marketing or anything to do with digital but I couldn’t let this one pass.  If you have kids you’ll appreciate this list.

Since the development of email it seems that we’ve all started to rely on it more and more and certainly at the expense of {shock horror} an actual conversation.  So I was really interested to read this article about how the author has pretty much stopped using email.  Due to the nature of his job and working situation, he’s in a slightly different position to many of us and for PR consultants I just don’t see how it would be feasible – many journalists state categorically that, at least in the first instance, they prefer to receive information this way, but it’s a timely reminder that it’s very easy to let email take over as the sole form of communication.

Oh I know that dancing matt is nothing new but hey, I defy anyone to watch this video and not smile.  What a great way to spend your time. 

Had to mention the ladybird prints website, what a trip down memory lane.  Life was all good wasn’t it?  And aside from wanting to buy lots of the prints, I’d love a copy of this book.

Read Seth’s good advice.  Actually I quite fancy a few weeks where everyone has no email.  I have a sneaky feeling that it might make life less stressful.  I remember (only 10 years ago) when I worked in an agency that had one machine "connected to the internet", twas truly exciting.