Sep 17 2018
CIPR CAPSIG research regarding women in construction PR and marketing showed considerable pride in working in the sector, and recommended some changes to help develop a better, more diverse industry. Colleges and others are also taking practical steps – not turning into propagandists with another ‘lipstick on a pig’ campaign. The image of construction has …
Sep 06 2018
Epson’s central London pop-up shop gives visitors a space to co-work and to test their new EcoTank printers – which offers the UK’s growing population of freelances and SMEs a cost-effective alternative to ink cartridge machines. Three times (so far) in 2018 I have had to dash out to a nearby supermarket and buy expensive …
Feb 05 2018
The CIPR’s Construction and Property Special Interest Group (CAPSIG) is researching the views of women working in PR and marketing in UK construction and property. Sexism and gender inequality have been a sadly familiar aspect of working in the UK construction and property sectors for years – just as they have been in many other industries. …
Oct 15 2017
Long-term readers of my PR blog will know that I have been seeking to improve CIPR provision for independent practitioners since 2014 when I chaired a CIPR roundtable of independent PR practitioners (aka freelance PRs, or solo PRs) at the institute’s Russell Square HQ. Once elected to the CIPR’s Council, I began to agitate about how the …
Oct 09 2017
An enforced stopover called by British Airways overselling its flight led to a hellish night at a Heathrow hotel. I was due to fly to Singapore with British Airways on the evening of Friday 6 October, for the Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure conference (an event I’ve participated in since 2013 – though these were …
May 17 2017
By combining construction-specific communication expertise, strong industry leadership, and a clear vision of the future, we can tackle structural issues in ‘the industry currently known as construction’ that perpetuate its poor image. This post was stimulated by two things – a discussion about construction-specific communication skills, and a conversation about the need for strong leadership …
Oct 03 2016
What started out as a Virgin Media #fail has now become an OpenReach #fail, facilitated by a #TalkTalkfail. Having experienced some poor TalkTalk service in respect of my telephone landline, and had some generally positive customer experience over several years with Virgin Media (notwithstanding the Great SE London Broadband Outage last December), it seemed logical …
Sep 19 2016
Atmotube puts air pollution monitoring in your hands, and enables users to share readings in real-time and via social media. Earlier this year, I participated in a COMIT community day workshop which asked us to think about ways in which air quality might be monitored for construction workers in tunnels. As a cyclist and someone employed at …
Sep 03 2016
Not exacty nuisance calls, but frequent, disruptive calls of a wrong number are challenging my patience – and NHS patients! I work mainly from a home office in southeast London and use a telephone number that we have had for over 20 years. Over the past couple of years, I have started to receive a growing …
Apr 22 2016
We need to tackle some of the fundamental issues in the UK construction industry before we can effectively change “the image of construction”. “The image of construction” has featured heavily this week for me. On Tuesday, I attended a CIMCIG-led roundtable discussion in London with Mark Farmer, the consultant helping the Government’s Construction Leadership Council …
