PR Week Powerbook

PR Week have published their PowerBook, “the definitive guide to the most influential people in PR”. I learned these facts about some of my friends, colleagues and competitors:

* Matthew Anderson of BskyB is a collector of Belgian comics
* Stuart Bruce of Bruce Marshall Associates was the national junior hunter working pony champion
* Colin Byrne of Weber Shandwick, once trained to be a De La Salle Christian Brother and considered a life of celibacy, but “not for long” apparently
* Alison Canning, who did my job here before me, believed she was Jesus Christ in a past life
* John Chandler of PA firm APCO was once the lead singer in a punk band called The Corpse
* Alison Clarke of Huntsworth likes making chutney
* Tim Sutton, Weber Shandwick Europe, is a convinced believer in the scientific certainty of telepathy, clairvoyance, psychic intuition, synchronicity and predictive dreams
* Mark Borkowski‘s guilty pleasure is pantomime
* Philip Dewhurst of Gazprom sings in a Blues band
* Graham Lancaster, of Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster has performed on the stages of all three Blackpool piers
* Anthony Mayfield of Spannerworks would choose the epitaph; find me online at amayfield.eternity.com
* Mike Morgan of Red is a Carry On films fan

I on the other hand am a caricature of a PR Man. According to the PowerBook the typical top 500 PR professional is male, 45 (am a mere 44), wakes to the sound of Today, heads to work with a blackberry and iPod, most essential read is the FT (I said Economist), has lunch at J Sheekey, works on-line a lot and goes home to wine and Newsnight. Bang to rights.

The Book is a fascinating read and very valuable contribution to the business from Haymarket and PR Week. And if it focuses the UK media and business community a little more on the contribution the industry makes and less on the often fatuous debate about spin then it will have done an even better job. Other than the very talented bunch of people noted (and the thousands not) here are some more reasons why our industry deserves a little more credit:

* UK PR industry was estimated to be worth £6.5 billion in December 2005 according to a study of Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) . It is huge compared to the PR industry in most European countries. It vies with the US PR industry in terms of its influence in its own society. It is growing fast. On the brand side it is making major in-roads into advertising budgets and within companies it’s most senior players are now more often on top boards or present at the top meetings

* The last three years have arguably seen it mature in the UK to the management discipline it always wanted to be seen as (CIPR the professional body has charter status now and PR and communication courses are offered by more and more further education establishments with a result, some of the best young minds are coming into the business with great training behind them) and no major business event takes place without one of the people in this book having an input into

* The UK is very good at it. Largely because the media in the UK is so vibrant and successful and challenging, the PR campaigns out of this country win for more than their fair share of global awards. London is taking over from New York as the principle hub of global communication campaigns because global PR skills are more available here and London is a more established international media centre than New York (and of course, the success of the City becomming the world’s leading international centre of finance)

[tags]PR, PowerBook, PR Week[/tags]