Nairobi, 8th March
One of the recurrent discussions during this week in South Africa and now Kenya is the growth of social media, particularly Twitter, and the impact it is having on business and society; which in truth is way beyond what I have seen in the UK. (South Africa is the leader in social media adoption in...
What does the Occupy movement really mean?
I am in LA for the first time in twenty years. Last time I was looking at how community groups, local government and businesses helped heal the wounds of the LA riots. Only a few months ago American colleagues and friends were asking what the hell was going on in the UK with the looting...
Politics and the Media
One of the Labour blogs jumped with glee on evidence of ‘strong arm Tory media tactics’ this week, posting BBC footage of Steve Hilton steering off-message senior Tory MP Andrew Tyrie into a side room for a bit of a, erm, pre interview pep talk on the Chancellor’s speech. Shock horror. Of course Labour would...
In praise of Penelope Keith
Travelling in on my train from west Sussex, nose deep in email and twitter, I hear an unmistakable voice from my past, crystal sharp in the sleepy commuter carriage. Weird to suddenly come face to face with someone who in a left field kinda way influenced my choices, possibly life and outcomes. Not a politician,...
This ain’t rock and roll, this is creativity
I actually wrote this post months ago and you know how it is, work, family, more work, social media, financial crises, riots, I forgot all about it. Forgive me if you think I should have continued to forget all about it, but I was trying to examine a case study in creativity, not recreate my...
Smart Marketing: Mobilising Your Brand
My eldest child turns 16 this year. For her generation the lifestyle value of mobile phones equals the value of laptops 8 years ago. I will not be surprised if soon we witness a generation who will not assume they need a laptop in the light of falling prices and massively increased capabilities of Smartphones....
Evolve or die in the “Idea Economy”
This post is based on a speech on the future of the PR industry I gave at the excellent Think 11 event at The British Library yesterday. Great event which we should have more of, with key insights from host of top PR and media thinkers. As well as being the 10th anniversary of my...
The triumph of imagination
Forgive me for being in nostalgia mode right now (yet another birthday over the w/e, spent time downloading and printing 3 year’s worth of mobile phone pics of the kids thanks to nifty little portable printer with Bluetooth my wife bought me, watched first ever episode of Stingray with my submarine obsessed four year old,...
Feeling the earth move, or is it the groundswell
The earth moving may be a suitably romantic theme for St Valentine’s Day, but this is about the groundswell. I am currently reading the book of the same title by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research (Harvard Business Press). It may have been published in 2008 – a fleeting second ago in the...
Back to the blog
For those loyal readers (hi Mum, hope the goldfish got better, hi son, still can’t find your mislaid iPod) who think I was either too bone idle to blog or dead, I was actually blogging away for GQ (ww.gq.com) with my good friend Tara Hamilton-Miller during the election. As of today ByrneBabyByrne.com is being dusted...
BBC, tax avoiders
BBC DG Mark Thompson is right to frame the question as “what is the BBC for” as opposed to (the defensive) “is the BBC too big”, but are his cuts the right answer to that question? As Lily Allen (swoon) points out in her Guardian op ed, without 6 Music we would be forced back...
Media consumption
I arrived at a meeting with some advertising and marketing colleagues earlier this week with half a ton of newsprint and magazines under my arm. It caused a few titters. Guess you must be in PR said one. The half ton included the FT, The Times, The Guardian, The Sun, Wallpaper, GQ, Marketing, Marketing Week....
