The Northern Conference is undoubtedly one of the biggest events in the Chartered Institute of Public Relation's calendar and it's also one of our favourites to manage. This year's event explores the theme of reputation and takes place at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester with what we think is its hottest line up so far.

The four keynote speakers are -

Alex Aiken, Director of Communications, Westminster City Council

Phil Hall, ex News of the World and Hello! Editor and founder and chairman of PHA Media

Paul Newman, Director of Communications, Liverpool European Capital of Culture

Katie Perrior, Founder of iNHouse PR who led Boris Johnson's successful mayorial election campaign

The conference also features nine masterclass sessions covering subjects as diverse as futurology and ethical PR of which delegates select four to attend. Full details of the event can be viewed on the CIPR website.

Don’t Panic are now putting together our New Wave PR event and we thought a meme might be a fun way to create some buzz, identify potential speakers and find out who you feel the visionaries, mavericks and pioneers of PR really are.

The idea’s simple. We’re asking you to list the three communicators living or dead who have most influenced your way of thinking professionally and perhaps personally too. Who do you think the real innovators are? Who’s been most responsible for kicking the industry forward? And just who are the communication PRunks?

My dream trio are over at the New Wave PR blog.

Thanks to everyone who attended The Don't Panic Guide To Crisis Communications in Leeds a couple of weeks ago. We felt it was the strongest event we've run on the subject so far and we were really pleased to be able to add some fantastic new speakers to our line up.

These included Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar, Enda Joyce of hanover and Francis Thomas, formerly Head of Comms at Suffolk County Council. The newcomers joined Andy Green of GREEN Communications, Sarah Dean Forrester of Trimedia, Michael Bland, Phil Hall of PHA Media, Lucy Laville of Leeds Metropolitan University and Sally Sykes of De Puys.

The event took place at The Marriott Hotel which is on Trevelyan Square in the city centre. It's ideally situated for the train station and provides a number of event spaces ranging from small meeting rooms to the suite we used for the conference.

Michael Bland seemed to sum up the day by quoting Dwight D. Eisenhower who said 'Plans are useless but planning is essential'. Disappointingly I couldn't find a video of Dexys Midnight Runners Plan B on YouTube so you'll have to make do with this from their much underrated third and final album Don't Stand Me Down.