Last night we were in a very wet Manchester city centre managing event activities for the digital switchover on behalf of the wonderful Smith & Smith PR and their client Digital UK. Strictly's Tess Daly was in town to flick the switch and herald the region's transition from analogue to digital TV with a major piece of digital art by Rob and Matt Vale which was beamed onto the city's iconic Urbis building.

The five minute light and sound projection illuminated the exhibition centre's glass tower with a compact history of television which encompassed testcards,wave pulses and over 700 TV's descending the frontage each displaying landmark small screen moments. As it moved from early black and white analogue signals into high definition colour it was a proud moment to see the late, great Tony Wilson in his Seventies Granada heyday. He was a big fan of progress.

Huge thanks go out to Next who allowed us to project from the balcony of their flagship store and to everyone at Urbis who were a dream to work with. In a lovely bit of synchronicity the venue was also holding the launch of a brand new exhibition on the rich history of TV in our region entitled 'Manchester, Television & The City: Ghosts of WInter Hill'. It runs until April next year and admission is free, do check it out...

Here's Manchester's finest transmitting from the BBC in 1979.

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Social media has now truly entered the mainstream and organisations and businesses are embracing the very real benefits that platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and blogs provide to inform, listen and converse with audiences old and new.

The internet has revolutionised the way we all seek and share information and has acted as a catalyst for wide ranging social interaction and potential communication opportunities with individuals, niche audiences and mass markets. In a few short years we’ve seen the rise of social networking, hugely popular user generated sites and bloggers with the influence to make or break brands and reputations.

Strategic Social Media is the follow on conference to the highly successful Don’t Panic Guide To Social Media and features an all-new line up of expert speakers. The conference is aimed at senior communicators and will examine best practice in integrating social media into your communications strategy.

Delegates will hear inspirational case studies of successful online strategies from the public sector, politics, media and some of the hottest communications agencies in the UK. Speakers include -

Alex Aiken, Director of Communications and Strategy, Westminster City Council

Robin Wilson, Director Of Digital PR and Social Media, McCann Erickson

The conference takes place at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and refreshments, lunch and access to presentations are included in the ticket price of £195 + VAT charities rate and early booking before 16 November / £250 + VAT thereafter.

View the full conference PDF

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With it’s sweeping coastline, Pennine hills and historic towns and cities, Lancashire has always held a special place in the heart of Northerners. There’s just such a variety of things to do and I guess that’s why tourism remains a major part of the county’s economy.

Social media is now playing a vital role in extolling the county’s charms and it was actually a conversation on Twitter that led to us being invited to deliver a conference on behalf of Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board, an organisation that really does understand and value the opportunities that exist to create a genuine dialogue with potential visitors from across the UK and around the globe.

Last Thursday we were at the stunning Towneley Hall in Burnley to manage a day of inspirational presentations and case studies for delegates including award winning accommodation providers, major attractions and other North West tourism organisations.

The day was chaired by the Tourist Board’s Sarah Lundy who’s passion for social media has helped shape their online presence to include a blog that expertly reflects all that’s happening across the county and a Visit Lancashire Twitter account that absolutely nails the use of tone and language to be both informative and often very funny.

We were also blessed to be able to attract some fantastic speakers for the event. First up was Rob Brown of Staniforth who opened the day with a scene setting overview of the impact of social media and later spoke again on the isssues of reputation management and the influence of holiday makers who are increasingly using the internet to research, book and discuss their breaks.

Mark Hanson of Wolfstar did a fantastic job of tailoring the possibilities of Twitter as an additional communications tool for tourism related businesses and the elder statesman of UK social media, Neville Hobson seemed to fire up the entire room as he focussed on the newly evolving business benefits of all things social media.

The speaker presentations were interspersed with case studies and Wolfstar’s Amy Johnston and Emma Gardiner of Go Ape reinforced the importance of nurturing an online audience and provided an insight into the blogger outreach programme they are using to promote their outdoor activity centres to relevant online infuencers.

Hetty Byrne of Forest of Bowland discussed a really cool model of aggregating news and information on their blog for the mutual benefit of smaller tourist businesses in the area of outstanding natural beauty. Wildlife and conservation figure heavily and they are focussing on developing conversations with a range of niche audiences within the wider nature / outdoor market.

We were really pleased to have Heather Price of SKV speaking about the thinking behind their multi award winning J’aime la Tour viral video for Blackpool and the unbelievable amount of print and broadcast coverage they achieved from what must be one of the cleverest and most uplifiting tourism adverts ever. Don’t take my word for it, have a look for yourself.

Our final presentation was delivered by Constandina Milios of Visit England, another organisation that fully recognises the significance of social media within their industry. Visit England were keen to support and be involved in the conference and Constandina provided an overview of their social media wizard, a simple step by step guide developed to help tourist businesses set themselves up on the various social media platforms.

Thanks to all our speakers, delegates and Ken and the team at Towneley Hall, it was one of those events that was truly a pleasure to be involved in.

Here’s Blackpool’s finest Section 25 with their proto house remix of Looking From A Hilltop.

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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...

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We're pleased to announce we'll be working with Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board to manage a conference highlighting the opportunities of social media use to tourism related businesses.

The one day conference takes place on Thursday 22 October at the stunning Towneley Hall in Burnley and delegates will hear from some of the biggest names in UK social media including Neville Hobson, Stuart Bruce and Rob Brown.

Please note, New Wolfstar Deputy MD Mark Hanson will be stepping in for Stuart and delivering the Twitter for Business session - PDF now amended.

There will also be case studies from visitlancashire.com, Go Ape, SKV, Forest of Bowland and Visit England.

For full details of the conference please follow the link to view or download the PDF

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The Chartered Institute of Public Relations Northern Conference is an annual event delivered in partnership with three regional CIPR groups: North East, North West and Yorkshire & Lincolnshire who take it in turns to host the event. This year it is being hosted by the CIPR Yorkshire & Lincolnshire group and will be taking place on Tuesday 6 October 2009 at The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

This one day conference, now in its eighth year, offers exceptional learning and networking opportunities and the programme features high profile keynote speakers and a choice of thought provoking and interactive master class sessions.

Keynote Speakers -

Online Evaluation – Robin Wilson, Director of Digital PR and Social Media, McCann Erickson

The event is open to CIPR members and non members and will be of value to a wide range of delegates both agency and in-house from the public, private and not for profit sectors. Places can be booked online or by phone and you can view or download the full conference PDF from the Don't Panic website.

For those of you who may not be able to attend but wish to follow delegates comments on Twitter, we'll be using the hashtag #CIPRNC. Likewise if you'd like to receive the latest news on conferences and events from Don't Panic you can follow us on Twitter @dontpanicevents

I'm quite proud I resisted the urge to give this particular post one of our usual song related titles as I'm not sure Alistair Campbell would have fully appreciated the use of Dead or Alive's 1985 number one single...

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People often ask where we got the name for our event management company from and the answer is Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series which I'm a big fan of.

In the books the actual Hitchiker's Guide is an electronic encyclopedia of the universe featuring the words Don't Panic on the cover and we just thought the phrase fitted nicely with our line of work and would be an amusing way to answer the phones.

The good news is the 'trilogy in five parts' is being reissued this September by Pan Macmillan with some cool new covers by Brighton design agency Crush. I particularly love the DIY stickers planned for book one.

Thanks to Creative Review for alerting me to the reissues.

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Don't Panic are once again looking for some reliable pairs of hands to help out with forthcoming events.

Unfortunately we’re not in a position to offer any full time posts but we would like to hear from people who are possibly event management or PR students who would be available on a part time basis and in particular for a project we'll be undertaking in September and October.

Ideally you’ll be North West based, well organised, outgoing and keen to gain an insight into the world of event management. In return we can offer occasional work on some great conferences and events and we’ll even pay you for your time!

If this is of interest please e-mail andrew@dontpanicprojects.com and tell us a bit about yourself.

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We'll be in Newcastle on Tuesday 7 July managing a social media conference on behalf of CIPR North East. The event takes place at the Northern Counties Club and features the following speakers -

Stephen Davies, MD, 3W PR

Philip Young, Senior Lecturer in PR and Journalism, University of Sunderland

You can view the full event PDF at the Don't Panic website.

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Last Friday we were at the Yorkshire International Business Convention managing activity for major event sponsor Business Link Yorkshire. The convention is the annual highlight in the county's business diary and attracted almost 2000 delegates to the event's dual venues in Harrogate and Bridlington. Speakers included John Cleese, ex-Eurythmic Dave Stewart and Tim Smit of The Eden Project amongst others, all of whom were flown by helicopter between The Yorkshire Event Centre and Bridlington Spa.

We were responsible for our client's business lounges and award presentations at both locations and we brought in grafitti artists to interpret business success stories and create an unmissable focal point for the day. Other activity included the creation of Business Link branded inspirational word clouds and a live Twitter stream which attracted hundreds of comments and proved that businesses are really switching on to the potential uses of social messaging.

Given the amount of time Don't Panic have spent over there recently I'm surprised we haven't started speaking with Yorkshire accents...

Here's The Supremes taking care of business in 1968.

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As the UK experiences the worst economic downturn in almost a hundred years the impact on organisations, businesses and consumers has been far reaching. This conference will examine how the recession is affecting public relations and how communicators can adapt to achieve more with less. Speakers include some of the biggest names in the industry who will be delivering viewpoints, case studies and advice on everything from creativity to new media to help you remain competitive, focused and ready to meet the challenges ahead.

The Don't Panic Guide To Recession-Proof PR is a one day conference taking place on Thursday 2 July at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel in Manchester city centre. Refreshments, lunch and access to presentations are included in the ticket price.

Confirmed speakers include:

· David Brain, CEO, Edelman Europe
· Rob Brown, MD, (UK) Staniforth
· Stuart Bruce, MD, Wolfstar
· Colin Byrne, CEO, Weber Shandwick UK & Europe
· Andy Green, Partner, GREEN Communications
· Cormac Smith, Head of Communications, London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames
· Beverley Tricker, Founder, Tricker PR
· Paul Willis, Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies, Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University
· Sally Sykes, Director of Communications, Health and Safety Executive

Delegate tickets are £195 + VAT or £175 + VAT early booking by 5 June / charity rate

To download a PDF conference brochure for the event please visit the Don't Panic website events page

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Last week we were at York Racecourse for the National Skills Conference 2009. It's been a year in the planning working closely with our client The National Skills Academy Process Industries to co-ordinate a conference and dinner for 250 delegates and manage an exhibition area highlighting the best in skills training and the opportunities and excellence the UK offers in the industry.

I was never particularly scientific at school and chemistry and physics were a kind of double Dutch to me but I do appreciate the importance of investing in science and industry and the fact that we're all end users of the products of the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Polymer industries.

We'd highly recommend York Racecourse as a national venue and their events team were amongst the most helpful we've ever worked with. It's worth noting that there are plenty of good hotels near the racecourse and the venue also provides ample free parking. We used various levels of the the Knavesmire Stand for our exhibition, breakout rooms and main conference and delegates unanimously scored the venue and catering very highly.

Big thanks go out to the NSAPI team for being a great client to deal with, everyone at Formula Exhibitions for their smooth and reliable shell scheme build, Giles Rocholl for these cool photos which put my own efforts to shame, Chris and Marco at LAS for all their seamless conference tech (and for once again driving through the night from one end of the country to the other to be with us), Gandini Juggling for a breathtaking finale, and last but not least everyone at York Racecourse who helped make it a special day for our delegates.

Here's a bit of Morcheeba for everyone.

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Thanks to everyone who came to the third and final Don't Panic Guide to Social Media at London's Barbican Centre. It was certainly the best ever event we've done on the subject and a good point to bow out on a high.

About half a mile away a mostly peaceful demonstration failed to deliver the crippling blow to the capital which had been promised and thankfully for us only one delegate chose not to attend because of all the media hype.

The hundred plus delegates who did make it witnessed some of the best thinking on social media around with morning sessions from Edelman's Marshall Manson, the inimitable Mark Borkowski (watch out for the Hendrix documentary he's involved in), PR Blogger Stephen Davies with his what the flip is Twitter presentation, Medway Council's rising star Simon Wakeman, and Frank PR's Graham Goodkind.

McCann Erickson's Robin Wilson kicked off the afternoon with an X rated overview of measurement & evaluation and was followed by Craig Elder of The Conservative's hot, young New Media Unit, Mark 'I'm the only cop in London not in riot gear' Payne of West Midlands Police and Wolfstar's Stuart Bruce. We're very blessed to have the support of such strong speakers - if you want their hyperlinks they're here.

I'm sure we'll revisit the subject again in 2010 but in the meantime there are a number of new own branded events in the pipeline. Hope to see many of you again at those...

Here's some Sly & The Family Stone from their groundbreaking 1971 album.

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Following on from our April social media conference in London we'll be debuting The Don't Panic Guide To Recession-Proof PR in Manchester in July. The conference aims to share best public relations practice in times of economic uncertainty and will be available at a recession beating ticket price. We're currently putting together the speaker programme and will post more details soon...

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With a little under a month to go to the last Don't Panic Guide to Social Media for a while I thought I'd run through the fantastic line up we're bringing to The Barbican on the first of April. It also seemed a good opportunity to use this great photo of publicist, stuntster, blogger and media commentator Mark Borkowski who we're very pleased to have joining us in London.

Marshall Manson, Director of Digital Strategy, Edelman

Mark Borkowski, Founder, Borkowski

Simon Wakeman, Head of Marketing, Medway Council

Graham Goodkind, Chairman, Frank PR

Robin Wilson, Director of Digital PR and Social Media, McCann Erickson

Stephen Davies, MD, 3W PR

Mark Payne, Head of Press and Public Relations, West Midlands Police

Stuart Bruce, MD, Wolfstar

There's one last speaker to be confirmed but we're sure it's going to be our strongest event yet on the subject and a fitting end to our social media series. Here's The Stones in all their 1968 glory.

UPDATE 6.3.09

We're pleased to say the final speaking slot will be filled by Craig Elder, Online Communities Editor, Conservative Campaign HQ who will be talking about the work of the New Media Unit's online strategy and the importance of an open and genuine two way communication with the party and electorate. You can check out Webcameron and The Blue Blog at the Conservatives website.

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Just a quick post to welcome new member of staff Jay Bassan to Don't Panic. Jay takes up a full time post as event manager today after working for us on a freelance basis over the past few years. Originally from Birmingham, her background is in PR and we're very pleased to have her on board.

I never really got into Genesis but this one's a bit of a guilty pleasure.

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The Best Practice in Public Sector Communications conference took place at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall last Wednesday attracting 150 delegates from the health and emergency services, local authorities and agencies. The event was delivered in partnership with How-Do as was our recent mobile marketing seminar and sponsored by BJL and VMA.

Other than a spell of police press office work, my background’s not really public sector so it was interesting to hear the challenges and issues affecting communicators in this area. Bureaucracy and legalities aside it seemed to be pretty similar to the private sector and there was a lot of talk and interest in social marketing and online comms activity.

Having seen Alex Aiken, Director of Communications, Westminster City Council speak so eloquently at a previous event it was good to see him do so again and even more on fire than last time.

I was also very impressed with Charlotte Billington who as Marketing and Communications Manager for Lancashire Drug and Alcohol Action Team was responsible for the OD999 campaign to encourage drug users to put those that have ‘gone over’ into the recovery position and call an ambulance. Many were just abandoning their mates for fear of prosecution and people who could have been saved were dying needlessly. The strength of the campaign was its focus on trying to save lives without judging those with drugs problems. Charlotte was so obviously proud of what they’d achieved in reducing overdose deaths and her passion for making a difference was a pleasure to see.

Other highlights from my perspective included Katrina Davis, former Head of Communications at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and currently Comms Director at Northwest Vision. Katrina covered some of the challenges and crises she’d dealt with at the Fire Service as well as the kind of good news stories which tend to reinforce everyone’s positive opinions of firefighters.

Finally, Paul Willis, Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies, Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University doesn’t let the length of his job title interfere with his ability to captivate an audience. Paul’s presentation on the competencies of top communicators was a fascinating look at strategic comms and the skills needed to lead. Plus he’s a Fleet Foxes fan.

There were lots of other great speakers too and a good variety of workshop sessions. As usual The Bridgewater Hall always gets a big thumbs up from delegates.

Here’s Lydon, Wobble, Levine and Walker with both a group and a song with the word public in it. Yeah, it was the best I could do…

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The third and final installment of the Don't Panic Guide to Social Media takes place in April at The Barbican Centre in London. We'll be resting the event for at least a year as we focus on developing new own branded events including New Wave PR and a few other things we have up our sleeves. A PDF containing full details of the conference can be found on our website.

Here's The Stones at their mid Sixties best and also Psychic TV with their glorious tribute to the late, great Brian Jones.

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A happy new year to all our visitors. 2009 is set to be our busiest yet and along with looking after our regional CIPR events we're also pleased to announce we're now working in partnership with How-Do who serve the North West media industry to bring high quality, national events to Manchester.

The first of these will be a seminar on mobile marketing later this month at Urbis swiftly followed by a one day public sector conference at The Bridgewater Hall in February. Full details on each can be found as event PDFs on the Don't Panic website events page.

Despite the deepening recession we're very fortunate to have won a number of pitches for major pieces of client work which we'll be delivering this year. In and around these we'll be scheduling a lot more of our own Don't Panic branded events including a return to London for our social media event in March, new dates for a revised version of our crisis communications conference in Manchester and London later in the year, and finally a first outing for our New Wave PR event. We're actually in London this week checking out new venues and searching for something suitably off the wall for the latter.

Here's a bit of Blondie to brighten up your day although I could easily have chosen this one too.

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Quite a lot when it comes to social media...

We were at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall last week with the second version of our Don't Panic Guide to Social Media conference which attracted an audience of 120 from all over the UK. The event was freshened up with a few new speakers including our opener Tom Murphy of Microsoft Ireland who did a perfect job setting the scene for the day. I loved the quote he used about everyone having their 15MB of fame.

Tom was followed by Edelman's Marshall Manson with a great insight into where all this may be leading and how communication online is a two way thing far removed from the days when PR talked at people and hoped the messages stuck.

Most of the local authorities in the region were in the audience for Simon Wakeman's presentation on how Medway Council are using social media to speak and listen to their public. I'm sure we'll see a lot more of what Medway is doing reflected in the way all authorities communicate in the future.

Meg Pickard of guardian.co.uk was on next and outlined the shift in the press from newsprint to pixels and why that two way thing is so important to the paper. She's a fabulous speaker and 30 minutes is never enough.

Graham Goodkind closed the morning session with a presentation that included some of Frank PRs greatest online hits including a dancing Brains, the bring back Monster Munch campaign and the delightfully unscientific manhood measuring minisite for a condom manufacturer.

Mark Rogers of Market Sentinel followed lunch and examined evaluation and measurement in a different kind of way. One thing's for clear, measuring coverage in inches is rapidly being surpassed by measuring it in influence.

Mark was followed by our good friend Stephen Davies of 3W PR who looked at the social media news release and how multi media content is now as essential a part of the message as the words.

Chief Inspector Mark Payne of West Midlands Police gave an inspired overview of all the cool things they're doing to target that hard to reach 13 -25 audience. He was probably the highlight of the day for many people and here's a more detailed post on the presentation from delegate Robin Wilson's blog.

The conference closed with a hastily rejigged presentation by Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar. It may have been written on the fly but it was a great wrap for the day highlighting the key points and messages from everyone else and adding things like Barack Obama's expert use of social networking in the recent US presidential election. Fingers crossed the world will soon be a safer, fairer and more reasonable place.

Thanks go out to everyone involved in making it such a memorable and inspiring conference including our delegates, speakers and Don't Panic helpers Jay, Megan and Amy.

We're also grateful to Sarah Hartley of the Manchester Evening News for live blogging the event, CIPR North West for supporting us and finally to all those across the world who followed and commented on the conference via Twitter.

We have one confession to make. During Tom's presentation, Nicky joined the lucky few by using her phone to book us Morrisey tickets for one of next years Manchester Apollo shows. Beats queueing and you couldn't have done that a few years ago...

Here's the man himself in his younger days and also more recently holding court in his home city.

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We were in Bolton yesterday evening braving the wet and cold to manage the launch of Door to Door, the town’s biggest ever work of public art.

Hundreds of residents from local estates were filmed at their doorsteps by artists Matt and Rob Vale and the resulting footage projected across the length of the town’s historic Le Mans Crescent to create a stunning visual celebration of council housing and the close knit neighbourhoods that exist in the borough.

The installation was commissioned by Bolton at Home to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its ongoing commitment to use public art to assist the regeneration of communities in the thousands of local authority homes they manage.

A movie-themed launch party was held at the Albert Halls for all those involved in the project before the official switch on and the projections can be seen every evening for the next week.

Here’s a much better explanation of what it’s all about together with a video clip from today’s Guardian.

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The Don't Panic Guide to Social Media takes place at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester on Friday 5 December and will examine the strategic opportunities and benefits of new media and online PR alongside a wealth of case studies. Some of the hottest names in UK PR will be travelling to the city and confirmed speakers include -

STUART BRUCE, MD, WOLFSTAR

SIMON WAKEMAN, HEAD OF MARKETING, MEDWAY COUNCIL

Full details on the conference can be found as a PDF on the Don't Panic website.

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Following the launch in Bolton we jetted off to Spain for a week’s R&R and an escape from the misery of the wet English summer. It was a good break and a chance to finally put our feet up before the next wave of work is upon us.

I also got round to reading ‘Overcoming Stupidity in the world around you’, the latest book from our favourite creative thinker Andy Green. The premise is simple: The world is getting more stupid and we’re all prone to bouts of it sometimes. The good news is the book goes on to explore the flexible thinking we can use to overcome our own stupidity and that of others.

It’s a great read for anyone interested in communication and has a loose, light tone reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut along with laugh out loud examples of bureaucracy gone mad.

Given that Andy is the guy who brightens up Blue Monday, New Order seemed very appropriate.

‘Overcoming Stupidity in the world around you’ is published by the Flexible Thinking Forum, an imprint of Tangent Books.

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A week or so ago we were at the University of Bolton to event manage the official opening of the new Social Learning Zone by HRH The Prince Edward, The Earl of Wessex. It was a great launch for a building which provides a high tech social hub for the University and was attended by around 200 invited guests.

The royal visit tied in with the simultaneous opening of the University’s Ras Al Khaima campus in the United Arab Emirates via live video link. We didn’t take any chances and sent over a technical team to the UAE to ensure pictures and sound bounced off satellites and all ran smoothly.

The Prince was a fantastic speaker, and it struck me what a modest and likable guy he actually is. His comments on plaque unveiling were highly amusing and he worked the audience brilliantly.

I’m pretty sure he’d approve of our caption competition for the picture above. He’s actually being shown some new wonder material developed at the University but there’ll be a prize for the best suggestion. Please keep it clean!

Here’s Eddie & The Hot Rods in all their 1977 glory.

Photos by Adrian Greenhalgh & courtesy University of Bolton

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The seventh Chartered Institute of Public Relations Northern Conference took place last Friday at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall attracting 120 delegates from all over the UK. It was our third as Don’t Panic and continues to be the biggest and best CIPR event outside of London with a line up which would put most conferences in the capital to shame.

Keynotes included Katie Perrior of InHouse PR on Boris Johnson’s campaign for London mayor; Phil Hall of PHA Media on celebrity crises; Paul Newman of Liverpool Capital of Culture on the rise of all things Scouse and Alex Aiken of Westminster City Council.

Delegates also chose to attend four of the following master class sessions: Reputation - Andrew Fairburn, Regester Larkin; Creativity - Andy Green, GREEN Communications; Crisis Communications - Jenny Hails, Hull City Council; Media City - Brian Greasley & Jason Leggett, MediaCityUK; CSR - Justin McKeown & Paul Thomas, Trimedia; Social Media - Stephen Davies, 3W PR; Budgeting - Paul Willis, Leeds Business School; Ethical PR - Elaine Mitchell Hill, Koan; Futurology - Neville Hobson.

It’s rare to see such unanimously high feedback for an event but every delegate who responded marked the conference, venue and organisation as either excellent or good. I think that says a lot about the commitment of all those involved in the Northern Conference, the calibre of our speakers and the kind of content which is vital to the future of the public relations industry.

Thanks go out to everyone who made it such a memorable day and we hope to see many of you again when we bring the Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media to the Bridgewater Hall on 5 December.

As Lou says, you reap what you sow.

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I’ve often wondered how much business our events generate. We’ve certainly picked up new clients as a result of our conferences and our speakers too are regularly approached by delegates looking for the benefit of their expertise.

Social media still remains one of the hottest conference topics around, rapidly evolving and presenting communication opportunities and challenges for organisations who often need guidance in an online world. Now there’s a new name we’re very pleased to recommend to anyone who’s looking for informed, intelligent advice.

3W PR is an online communications consultancy launched today by Stephen Davies, the man behind PRblogger.com, one of the world’s leading PR blogs.

We originally met at the University of Sunderland’s ‘Making the News’ conference, one of our first events as Don’t Panic and also the UK’s first ever event on social media. Little did I realise at the time how significant and influential this event would turn out to be.

Stephen was in his final year studying PR and had been drafted in to help out on the event reception desk. I remember his warmth and charm as well as his constant disappearances to catch presentations by the likes of Neville Hobson and Tom Murphy. Despite his unsuitability for event work he already had a reputation as being the one to watch.

Following his degree, no one was surprised to learn he’d landed a dream job at Edelman or that he was subsequently poached by Frank PR before deciding to head back home to the North East to work for webitpr.

Over the years we’ve had the good fortune to get to know Stephen and have the pleasure of him speak at our events. His passion for online PR and the shock of the new has always been self evident and we just want to wish him luck with 3W, a company which promises to redefine the role of public relations in an online world.

So if you’re looking for assistance with a social media strategy, online reputation management or new ways to reach your audience do get in touch with 3W, you won’t be disappointed.

Here's someone else who always kept ahead of the times.

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September’s going to be a busy time at Don’t Panic. The CIPR Northern Conference is selling like hot cakes and we’re working towards a high profile launch event for University of Bolton at the end of the month.

We’re also pleased to announce we’ll be providing event management for the National Skills Conference on behalf of the National Skills Academy Process Industries next April. It’s a huge event for 400 delegates and will be taking place at York Racecourse. We’d like to thank Simon and Mark at the fabulous PushON for building the conference website for us in just a week.

Following on from the success of our own branded Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media in London last May we’re now planning to bring the conference to Manchester in early December. Many of the speakers from London are already confirmed for the trip North and we’re currently in the process of adding some new ones to keep things fresh and reflect the latest thinking on the subject.

Speaker ideas are coming in thick and fast for our New Wave PR event so thanks to everyone who took the time to do the meme, it really is appreciated.

Here’s some love and peace from Marvin

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I’m not sure how many name badges we’ve put together for our events and conferences but it must be thousands. Thankfully we don’t have to do them by hand and office suppliers Durable provide a perfect range of badge holders, perforated card insert sheets and the software to smoothly output the information from our delegate lists.

This year our event management company Don’t Panic upgraded to Macs and although we’ve kept a couple of PCs we’ve been moving over all the programmes we use to run our business.

Durable’s Duraprint badge making software is one of them but we were left scratching our heads as we struggled to get the field merge to work on our Macs. A quick call to the wonderful Naomi in Durable’s Marketing Department informed us of an upgrade to the old Mac programme we had on our original disc and the next day a brand new version arrived in the post.

Customer service doesn’t come any better than this and that’s probably why Durable are market leaders in this field and we’re a very happy event management company.

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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.

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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.

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