Last Thursday we headed north up the M6 to manage the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s ‘Evidence Based Marketing – The Cumbria Tourism Way’ seminar in the Lake District. The event featured a presentation by Ian Stephens, Chief Executive of Cumbria Tourism and was held at the stunning Rheged visitor centre in Penrith.

Named after the ancient kingdom of Cumbria, Rheged is the largest grass covered building in Europe and has been built in a disused limestone quarry using predominantly local companies, materials and labour. Designed to resemble a Lakeside hill, the centre blends effortlessly into the surrounding countryside ensuring unhindered views of nearby Helvellyn, Cumbria’s second highest mountain.

Our event took place in Rheged’s 200 capacity Pennine Suite and refreshments were served in the Taliesin reception area situated directly beneath. The centre also offers a variety of meeting rooms, two purpose built exhibition halls, a banqueting area and a 200 capacity theatre.

They also have a state of the art auditorium for evening use which seats 256 delegates and provides a projection screen the size of six double decker buses. Full details of all the available function areas are available on the centre’s conference and event web pages and you can also download Rheged’s PDF conference pack.

Anyone working in event management will know the frustration of name changes when you’ve spent the best part of an evening preparing delegate badges. It usually happens at your reception desk when you’ve got a queue of delegates waiting to register and someone arrives in the place of another.

Now hand-written badges look dreadful and reflect badly on our industry so that’s where our Brother P-touch labellers come in.

They’re cool little machines which run off batteries or DC power and print adhesive-backed labels in a variety of typestyles and sizes. The printed strips can then be placed over the original name on your existing badge.

The good people at Brother have even solved the age old task of removing the label from its backing tape with a simple tool that curls and seperates the sticky bit.

The company make a range of label printers to suit all needs and our particular units cost us just over £20 each. They’ve certainly paid for themselves over and over again in saved time and we see them as a valuable addition to the level of customer service we offer.

Importantly to us, Brother have a high corporate ethical rating and as we also use their PC printers we can safely say their equipment has never let us down.

We could probably have filled the room twice for the CIPR blogging workshop at Leeds Metropolitan University last night. In fact the event proved so popular we had to disable the online booking facility on our website a week ago.

People are increasingly realising the potential value of social media tools and this was a perfect opportunity to get some ‘hands on’ training courtesy of Stuart Bruce who guided the class through the process of setting up their first blogs.

The event was introduced by CIPR Yorkshire & Lincolnshire Committee member Simon Collister who blogs regularly on all things PR at the excellent Simon Says. He was also on hand along with the University’s own long standing PR blogger Richard Bailey to ensure everyone was pushing the right buttons and achieving the aim of the day.

There was a lot to cram into the two hour session which covered the basics of setting up a blog, creating posts and uploading images as well as the use of trackbacks and blog search tool Technorati.

To get the most out of the workshop, delegates had been given homework prior to the event including setting up a free trial Typepad account and familiarising themselves with existing blogs. Viewing the work of others is a great way to decide what you do and don’t like and how you want your own blog to look and feel.

Typepad seems to be the preferred platform for many of the PR bloggers probably because it’s been around for a good few years and they’ve been at it longer than most of us. That said, I think it’s only fair to say that there are many other blogging platforms around and those of you thinking of taking the plunge are recommended to try a few out and see what suits you best.

I'd suggest you visit a number of blog provider sites before making your choice however they do all offer very similar services. You can create a basic blog for free with most of them although you'll find many of the options are limited.

For a small annual fee (£28 in the case of the one you’re reading with blog.co.uk) you can access considerably greater functionality and simple to use tools to allow you to build your site exactly how you want.

You can choose from a variety of layout templates from which you can customise everything from the number of columns to text sizes and colours and you can also create multiple blogs from the same account at no extra cost.

Judging by last night’s event we’re about to witness another explosion of PR blogging and so it’s great to be involved in workshops like this which not only inspire but also give a practical hands on approach to the subject.

It’s so much easier to do things if you actually have a go and it really isn’t that difficult when you get used to the basic technicalities. Thanks to everyone who put their time and effort into making the workshop happen and happy blogging to all our delegates.

Name a few things associated with the Isle of Man and you’ll probably think of the TT races, the tail-less cats and the Three Legs of Man. You might even mention the Tynwald parliament or its’ tax incentives which have led to the island’s fast growing offshore financial industry replacing tourism as its’ leading employer.

On Monday we took the 30 minute BA flight from Manchester into Ronaldsway airport to look after our third Chartered Institute of Marketing event in six days. It was our first ‘overseas’ business and despite the brief time in the air there’s definitely something exciting about travelling to work on a plane.

The CIM’s ‘Marketing Isle of Man PLC’ event took place at the Hilton Hotel in Douglas and examined the role of marketers in the continuing development of the island as a place to visit, work, live and enjoy.

Just to make things interesting, the hotel was also hosting a Chartered Management Institute event and our reception desk was swamped by confused CMI members adamant that they’d registered their places.

Once we were sure we’d got the correct audience, Isle of Man CIM Chair Richard Slee welcomed our delegates and the first of the evening’s presentations was delivered by Alistair Audsley, the recently appointed marketing consultant to the island’s ‘Freedom to Flourish’ campaign.

‘Freedom to Flourish’ is the strategy approved by Tynwald to promote, protect and improve the Isle of Man and encompasses the promotion of the island’s national identity and its’ economic and social growth.

Alistair was followed by our second speaker Phil Woodford, a practising copywriter and former advertising creative director who also lectures in ‘the art of persuasion’ at the Universities of Westminster and Surrey.

Phil provided an overview of hits and misses in the brand placement world and both his and Alistair’s presentations were enthusiastically received by an audience made up of governmental departments, financial institutions and marketing groups from the island.

Following the event Richard drove us to downtown Douglas for a few drinks and dinner with Phil and Tiffany Jacobsen, of the IoM International Business School. It was a good opportunity to get an insight into all things Manx and try to persuade the committee to have a Friday event next time so we could stop for the weekend. It’s always nice to toast the success of an event with a drink or two and we’re looking forward to our next trip already.

It was also good to learn that Phil is a prolific blogger and posts his thoughts on the advertising world at 108th Street. He also has a personal blog which quickly betrays his copywriting instincts with some entirely justifiable posts on the pointlessly poetic descriptions of foodstuffs on our supermarket packaging.

I have to agree – M&S do have a lot to answer for - it’s not just food, it’s a very successful racket to flog melt in the middle chocolate puddings, sparkling wine and old Fleetwood Mac & Santana tracks.

When it comes to strap lines, sometimes the old ones are the best. The Three Legs of Man or Triskelion is the island's symbol of Independence and features the defiant Latin motto ‘Quocunque Jeceris Stabit’ - 'Whichever way you throw me I stand'. Sounds like a Redskins lyric to me…