Last Tuesday's CIPR Northern Conference was hosted by the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire group and reinforced its reputation as the hottest annual PR event in the regions. The conference took place in Leeds and attracted over 120 attendees from all over the UK to enjoy a mix of keynote presentations and essential workshop sessions.
The Financial Time's Mrs Moneypenny otherwise known as Heather McGregor of Taylor Bennett opened the conference with a fascinating insight into her role as a columnist and how best PRs can target her with potential stories and subject matter. Very flatteringly she also held up one of our new black Don't Panic folders and proclaimed its brilliance as a piece of branding that she would be taking on to the Conservative Party Conference later that day.
Our second keynote presentation was delivered by Home Office Head of Communications Yasmin Diamond who took time out from what is possibly one of the busiest comms roles in the country to join us. She was followed by John Neilson, Director of Group Communications for BAE Systems who's presentation was very aptly titled 'flying through the flak'.
Our final keynote was the inimitable Alastair Campbell, former Director of Communications for the Blair government who closed the day and debunked the notion of spin by reiterating the key qualities of effective communication. I know I shouldn't be surprised but he's also one of the most charismatic and pleasant people I've met. He also very kindly took the time to namecheck us on his blog!
Interspersed between the keynote presentations we offered delegates a choice of workshops with which we always strive to offer the best possible learning opportunities. Social media was ever popular with sessions from the excellent Rob Brown of Staniforth; McCann Erickson's Robin Wilson with his useful and very entertaining look at free tools for measuring the impact of online PR and newly appointed Wolfstar Deputy MD Mark Hanson who stepped in at the last minute to deliver a great session on all things Twitter.
Further workshop sessions included a presentation from BBC Radio Leeds Drivetime show producer Shahid Hussain; Beverley Tricker of award winning agency Tricker PR on achieving amazing results on small budgets; 'Meme Judo & Spin is Innocent, OK' from leading creative guru Andy Green of GREEN Communications; Sarah Knight of BJL with a busy session on social marketing; the fabulous Paul Willis of Leeds Business School on Credit Crunch PR and Victoria Tomlinson of Northern Lights on the art of Relationship Management.
The conference took place at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and we'd like to thank everyone at the venue for looking after us so well. We used the Courtyard Theatre and two breakout rooms all of which were perfect and delegates rated the venue and catering very highly. We'd certainly recommend WYP as a great choice for anyone considering staging an event in Leeds and big thanks go out to Penny and the events team for going above and beyond in ensuring the smooth running and success of the day.
A number of delegates blogged about the conference and you can follow these links to check out posts by Ben Cotton and Kate Hughes. There was also much use of Twitter throughout the day and you can view the complete feed on the hashtag #CIPRNC
Finally here's the Sporty one because I'm struggling to find appropriate song titles with the word Northern in them now...