On a tweet and a prayer

Friends in the aid community tell me Twitter is being used to facilitate communications between aid workers on the ground in Haiti and coordinators in the US and Europe.

The agencies have asked many of their staff to close their networks allowing only colleagues and other aid workers access to their tweets. This has created a virtual communications network which is private to the outside world but allows the flow of vital information within the stricken country and to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile in Haiti the failures of man are at the heart of this tragedy. Government has utterly failed, the people have nothing to turn to but prayer.

Little’s future & old news

Mark Little, the retiring RTE anchor and old youth politics colleague, delivered an interesting talk to the IIEA last week on the future of news. Well worth a watch and thanks to Piaras for the link.

What’s the story Rory?

My old man was called Rory and was a bit of a story teller.

He could capture the imagination of a group of six year olds for a good hour as he made up entertaining fables.  He passed away four years ago today but will live on in family legend as the man who made children smile.

His niece, my cousin, has made a living out of story telling as an Irish Times columnist and blogger,which brings me to her friend the other Rory. A Dubliner like myself who has made Belfast his home too.

Rory Og (with a little help from his partner Anita – my cousin’s old classmate) has invented what I think could well turn out to be a very fun game indeed. Take a look;

 
I’ll be throwing a few Rory cubes this Christmas remembering Dad who I miss and in the certainty that a good yarn and the endless possibilities of the human imagination live on forever.

Ps; As Piaras Kelly has just reminded me there is an iPhone app too.

Nintendo is your homework!

If I could tell my nine year old boy that he had Nintendo DS for homework  he might even begin to relish the late afternoon revision.

Now, at least two schools in Ireland are starting to view the pocket gaming device in a more positive light. In urban Tallaght and rural Clonlisk, lateral- thinking adults are using the children’s own channels for learning, and the Nintendo DS is proving a profitable platform, the Irish Times reports today.

Unlike a laptop computer, which costs hundreds of euro, poses numerous technological and security challenges and cannot fit into your pocket, the Nintendo DS is small and easy to operate and thousands of Irish children have one.

Woooo Hoooo!

This is a bit of trumpet blowing but it is great to work for a company at the top of its game.

Last night the UK Public Relations Consultants Association named Weber Shandwick International Agency of the Year and Weber Shandwick Technology as Specialist Consultancy of the Year. Weber Shandwick Financial won the PRCA’s Best Financial PR Campaign award.  

Just a fortnight ago PR Week named us International Agency of the Year – a double whammy that is a first for us or any other agency in our business.

North – South drink cut and crabs that pinch less then an inch

Moves are underway to harmonise drink driving limits across the island. Great to see a Belfast DUP environment minister in ongoing contact with Dublin about tackling this border-less problem.

Elsewhere on the island the crabs are pinching much less then an inch. The Irish Times reports that Irish scientists are experimenting on the use of extracts from crab and shrimp shells as a treatment for obesity.

Crabs and shrimps may not realise it quite yet, but their protective cover may become as valuable as their meat on world seafood markets. That’s because a compound in their shells, chitosan, may help to tackle the developed world’s major illness – obesity.

BBC losses bad for Northern Ireland. Time to devolve broadcasting policy?

Barry McCaffrey in the Irish News today reports that the BBC is expected to announce major job cuts to its organisation in Northern Ireland tomorrow.

BBC executives are expected to inform around 700 staff in Belfast and Derry of major job losses in a series of meetings today.

This will be unwelcome news across the North. Local news output has been under huge pressure in recent years with less resources for investigative journalism and current affairs coverage. At a time when politics in our region is moving from the predictable to discourse on serious policy issues, the need for a properly resourced regional broadcaster has never been greater.

But its not just politics. Arts, culture and sport have already suffered from cutbacks. Further reductions will undermine much of the good work which has been done over the past twenty years.

Things are no better in the private sector. UTV is under tremendous pressure and is now running its news and current affairs output on what could only be described as limited resources.

That we continue to maintain a good standard of journalism is a credit to the people who report and make programmes on daily basis.

Maybe it is time to have a serious discussion about devolving broadcasting policy and allow NI as a region take ownership of its own talent and seek to build up a vibrant a sustainable regional press in partnership with public and private sector broadcasters across the island and in Britain.

Cleantech opportunity being missed

Poor quality communication from suppliers is impeding the growth of the European cleantech market, according to a study conducted by Weber Shandwick with KRC Research.

Despite finding that eight out of ten large organisations in Europe have specific cleantech purchasing policies in place, the research highlights a lack of information from suppliers to help customers rationalise making cleantech choices.

High quality information that enables customers to properly evaluate cleantech products and services is critical, as half of the organisations surveyed perceive cost to be a barrier to making cleantech investments. Of 400 senior purchasing decision-makers surveyed across France, Germany, Spain and the UK nearly a third currently receive no information at all from cleantech companies (29 per cent). An additional quarter of respondents (26 per cent) say that they don’t get enough information from suppliers, while one in ten (11 per cent) feel the information they do receive is too complicated. Significant opportunities exist however for companies that can deliver effective communications to cleantech buyers.

The Weber Shandwick report shows that 60 per cent of European organisations are placing the same level of importance on green procurement as they did before the economic downturn. In fact 25 per cent expect to put more emphasis on green procurement, with only 14 per cent planning to make it a lower priority.

The research highlights significant differences between key European markets around clean and green products and services: • Nearly three-quarters of organisations in Germany have cleantech policies in place, compared to little more than half of UK respondents

• Two-thirds of respondents in France see cost as the key barrier to cleantech adoption – less than 40 per cent of Germans feel the same
• Less than a third of French respondents feel that they receive enough information about suppliers’ green credentials – by contrast, half of the German respondents we spoke to were happy with the amount of information available to them
• 83 per cent of German and Spanish organisations measure the environmental credentials of suppliers. Less than 50 per cent of French organisations do so
• As a result of the recession, Spain and France expect to place more importance on green procurement in the future (37 per cent and 28 per cent); the UK and Germany the least (17 per cent and 16 per cent).

 Full details of the research are available in Weber Shandwick’s Come Clean report, available at: http://www.webershandwick.co.uk/cleantech.

The report includes specific recommendations for communications professionals to use to help shape their strategic plans. Weber Shandwick has built a specialist team of cleantech experts across Europe and works with clients ranging from the biggest corporations through to the newest start-ups. The team’s experience spans a huge variety of specific industries including energy efficiency, clean energy, biofuels, green IT, smart building and advanced transportation.

Facebook hits 1,000,000 in Republic of Ireland

Facebook now has more then 1,000,000 users in the Republic of Ireland. With an estimated 300,000 north of the border there is no doubt about the social networks increasing influence over our relationships and communications.

Mulley.net has collated the figures. 

The statistics show that the number of users of Facebook in ireland has doubled in the last six months. It shows that 67pc of Irish Facebook users are five and older, 44pc are 30 and older and 14pc are 40 and older.

 

Buzz Lightyear returns to earth after 15 month mission

The world’s favourite space ranger, Buzz Lightyear, returned to earth safely last week after a 15 month mission aboard the International Space Station. His time on the orbiting laboratory will celebrated in a ticker-tape parade together with his space station crew mates and former Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin on Oct. 2 at Walt Disney World in Florida.

The news was celebrated by Naoise McDevitt (aged four) and millions of children around the world who had been worrying about their heroes fate in orbit.

While in space Buzz supported NASA’s education outreach program station,  — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, by creating a series of fun educational online outreach programs. Following his return, Disney is partnering with NASA to create a new online educational game and an online mission patch competition for school kids across America.