After the recent volcanic ash crisis which has seen many tourists stranded all over the globe, I spotted a collection of articles on UTalkMarketing.com questioning whether airlines could do more to provide decent customer service. Many travellers have been in limbo as to where and when their flight home will be and disappointed holidaymakers have been left in the dark as to whether or not their holidays have been cancelled.

It seems to me that the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull (try saying that sober let alone after a few drinks) volcano in Iceland has presented a perfect opportunity for airlines to go out of their way and raise their profiles and achieve some positive PR.

The articles I read stated that there has been a distinct lack of information for customers and that they would have benefited from a text service or hotline to give advice on what steps to take to get to where they need to be. Swissair has led the way to provide for its customers, using the powers of social media to create a Facebook page designed to communicate with its passengers, answer customer queries and delivering updates of the airline’s progress of getting its planes back in the air.

As the situation begins to improve in the UK it’s been apparent that some airlines have fared better than others in taking the opportunity to improve customer loyalty and repeat business. The refusal from Michael O’Leary of Ryanair to pay for its customers’ food and hotel bills has made me think about which airlines will be remembered by travellers now the dust has started to settle? I wonder whether certain airlines will look back on this international incident as a loss of business or a missed opportunity

Liam Sherry

So when I discovered a ticket was up for grabs to the TechCrunch  GeeknRolla event, I grabbed it with both hands. Thank you @HelenGirl at our sister agency Ascent PR, and Gorkana from whom she procured the ticket.

Putting aside some minor technical hitches – a mobile signal black-out in the basement of the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, for example – it was a fascinating event.

GeeknRolla brought together start-ups, angels and VCs from as far afield as the US, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Hungary.  It’s testament to the talented TechCrunch crew, led by Mike Butcher in Europe, that some of the speakers and delegates had driven halfway across Europe – from Stockholm, Copenhagen, Milan and the like – to be there, in spite of the flight restrictions this week.

So, here are some things I learnt yesterday:

• Don’t rely on Skype for video presentations by people that can’t be there in person. Pre-record them, or don’t do them at all. The call from “turkeychops” mid-presentation did get a laugh, but that’s all we got from the first presenter. That’s the second time I’ve seen Skype go tits up at a conference and it doesn’t inspire me to use it in a business context. I’m not anti-Skype though, far from it; I use it a lot personally.
• Start-ups and VCs drink a lot of coffee. One of the things that came across loud and clear is that this is an enormously inclusive community, and relationships matter. Startup founders are more than happy to impart advice to new kids on the block over a coffee and make introductions to potential investors, who will in turn point people in the right direction if they can’t help.
• Europe, and London specifically, is home to a huge entrepreneurial community. When I started out in tech PR, I worked for many US-headquartered companies that just had a sales office in the UK. Nowadays, all of my clients are UK-based, often privately owned or with some external investment. They’re more  flexible, agile and fun to work with. Watching the “Dragon’s Den” style pitches from startups proved that the ideas were there. I just hope that the investment is also geuinely there to help them get off the ground.
• Not everyone has an iPhone. I know, amazing isn’t it? And hard to believe given the number of iPhones (not to mention iPads) being waved around conspicuously at the event. But Ewan MacLeod‘s presentation on why app developers should consider looking beyond the iPhone was a real crowd-pleaser. There are some fascinating stats in his presentation, which can be viewed on the TechCrunch site.
• A few do’s and don’ts from an engaging presenter, who has been around the start-up block a few times – Andrew J Scott whose current project, Rummble, aims to help you “find and share stuff you like”. Andrew’s top tips ca also be found on TechCrunch. I particularly liked his advice on having a one-liner, and getting out there to meet “normal” people. Apparently people on Twitter aren’t always normal, and that kind of community can give you a false sense of confidence – your idea might fly sky high among your tweeting peers, but does your Mum get it?
• I’d be a rubbish VC. The audience was asked to vote for the start-ups who pitched to a panel of VCs. I liked Decibel, which is creating a music metadata database containing ten times the data that is offered by Gracenote or Rovi; Musiio, a music-sharing community; and iGlue, which aims to “Wikify” the web through semantic search. With the exception of iGlue, the VCs did not agree with me. Their money – albeit figuratively speaking – went on Graph.me, DriveK, SongHi and Cortexia.

Jo Jamieson

It took Luke a while but he got to the Gadget Show in the end...

Last week, I visited The Gadget Show Live 2010 at Birmingham’s NEC, a five day long extravaganza showing off the best in consumer technology.  I was lucky enough to be there on the trade and press morning, so I got to see everything when the venue was only half full, as opposed to being full to capacity when the public was let in.

Although the definition of ‘gadget’ at the show seemed to be quite wide (drill bits and backpacks spring to mind), there were definitely some key trends:

3D – Every one of the big display manufacturers had demonstrations of 3D technology on their stand, and you couldn’t move without seeing someone with a pair of big black oversized glasses on their head.  I managed to try some demonstrations of the technology, and it is clearly going to play an important part in pretty much everything we watch – I even played a computer game in 3D, which was one of the best uses of the technology I’ve seen.

eBook readers – Updating books for the digital age!  There were many manufacturers trying to match devices like Amazon’s Kindle, and I think that most of them will have a much greater pick-up rate than the Kindle has had so far.

iPhone compatibility – Despite Apple’s conspicuous absence, most  manufacturers were doing their best to incorporate iPod and iPhone  compatibility into everything – some of the high-end audio manufacturers seemed only to be focusing on Apple’s products, which seems slightly narrow minded to me.

However, one of my favourite parts of the show was the  ‘Gadget Hall of Fame’, featuring a collection of working gadgets from the past five decade.  The highlights (for me at least) included a Sinclair C5, a ZX Spectrum, MegaDrive and an original iMac.  All of these, with the exception of the C5 were in full working order, and could be used by the public, which I found very impressive – as much as I like my Xbox 360, I can’t imagine it will still be working in ten years’ time!

Luke Davies

Source: BBC

I must admit to looking forward to the first televised prime ministerial debate taking place tomorrow and watching the three party leaders put their media training top tips into action.

Our CEO and ex-journalist Chris Hewitt regularly puts our clients through their paces during a filmed role-play interview session, providing a critique and constructive feedback, to help improve style and confidence.

It will be interesting to see the leaders slog it out, and how they deal with (or should that be avoid) the difficult questions and get their key messages across. Now that’s what I call media training in action.

Whilst we can’t guarantee to get all of our clients onto the BBC News at 10, being able to hold your own in front of a camera is a vital skill to have. It will pay dividends when speaking to the media, both face-to-face and over the phone, and getting your point of view and key messages across

Kate Bartholomew

Romeo and Juliet on Twitter

From my days at school I seem to remember my English teacher trying every method possible to get myself and my classmates engaged with Shakespeare. We watched countless adaptations from film and television productions and acted out key scenes in the classroom from plays such as Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth.

This week it’s the turn of Twitter to rekindle the new generation’s interests in Shakespeare, with the Royal Shakespeare Company using the platform to put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet. Mobile phones are usually banned from the theatre, but in this unique performance a cast of six actors will be using their phones to tweet lines from the play using a prepared story grid, ensuring that the tweets are in the correct order.@Such_Tweet)

This latest production is less referential than previous adaptations such as Baz Luhrmann’s film with the setting and language of the play being updated to match modern Britain. Romeo for example, is a avid PS3 player with a love for drum and base music.

I can’t help but think that this is a great example of how social media can help get column inches and in this case engage with a modern audience.

Liam Sherry

Criterion

Aside from my unhealthy addiction to soaps, celebs and all things trashy, I also LOVE my food – I think everyone in the Berkeley PR office, and my bathroom scales, can vouch for that. Regular readers of this blog will also know that my favourite part of my job is media relations. So when I get to combine the two – food and media relations – I am in my element.

Yesterday was one of those great days. I facilitated a lunch meeting between Jonathan Grant, CEO at NewVoiceMedia, and freelance journalist, Alex Coxon. The interview took place at Criterion in Piccadilly Circus – as recommended by the lovely Helen Stevens (@TheHelenGirl).

Despite a hairy moment at the beginning of the meeting when I found myself sat alone in the restaurant because both the journalist and client were late – in their defences, they both had very good excuses – the lunch went really well. The food was great and the conversation flowed.

I would certainly recommend Criterion to anyone looking for a restaurant to host a working lunch. The waiters were attentive, without being annoying, and there was just the right amount of background noise to comfortably have a conversation without needing to shout or worry about earwiggers on the neighbouring table.

On a completely separate note, when I arrived at Piccadilly Circus tube station there was a woman (about my age) all dolled up, waiting for someone. She was holding a red carnation – oh the cliché. Five minutes after I arrived at Criterion, she arrived with a gentleman. It was quite obviously a first date as they were both rather awkward at first. I am pleased to report that their meeting seemed to go as well as mine – oh I love a happy ending.

Hannah Humphreys

It appears there has been a mixed bag of reviews for the iPad as it hits shelves across the U.S. Some customers have made it onto the Apple forums to complain about its poor wi-fi, charging difficulties and application failures. The number of complaints compared to the number of units sold may be miniscule, but they certainly shouldn’t be ignored by Apple as it looks to sell 6 million devices by the end of the year.

The iPad was much publicised before its launch, promising to revolutionise the way we use the internet from the comfort of our own home. Expanding on the success of Apple products such as the iTouch and the iPhone, with smart applications and sleek design, the iPad could still be a welcomed addition to any living room coffee table.

From a PR perspective, it is important that Apple looks to monitor and audit these complaints from the outset. The launch of any new product is a fragile period, especially when the product promises so much. Apple has been forced to comment on the early glitches experienced so far with advice on their support pages for issues such as how to improve wi-fi connectivity. I’m not saying this is a PR disaster as I’m pretty sure Apple have a strong product. However, these early problems will no doubt be of interest to competitors such as Nokia and HP, who will look to capitalise upon Apple’s negative press for when they release their versions of the iPad.

Over the Easter holidays the iPad featured in conversation amongst my grandparents, aunts and uncles. I was surprised at the anticipation of the iPad’s arrival in the UK and the demographics that the it could potentially reach. My family were looking to use the gadget for activities ranging from surfing the net and managing emails to entertaining the kids with films and reading the latest newspaper. It seems the pre-launch hype has assured Apple of plenty of customers for when the iPad arrives in the UK. However, the longevity of its success may depend on Apple’s ability to roll with the punches.

Liam Sherry

.Net readers love ZZ Top?

I was just flicking through the recent edition of .Net and noticed in the back pages that it included a full page advert for the forthcoming High Voltage festival headlined by rock grandads ZZ Top and ELP. This was the first time that I had seen an advert for a concert in one of the trade titles but they obviously know who the readership is and that this is a perfect outlet for them.

It got me thinking as to which other artists I would attribute with other publications:

Computing – Rolling Stones – been around for ages but can still do the business
The Register – The Clash – doesn’t suffer fools
Wired – Florence and the machine – the new cool kid
CRN – Spandau Ballet – I bet there isn’t a reseller that doesn’t love Gold

Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

Paul Stallard