The online magazine iGizmo from Dennis had an interesting feature this week. Each member of the team talked about their favourite summer gadget which got me thinking…what is my must have gadget which I simply wouldn’t live without on the beach? I suppose I would be boring and say my iPod.
So then I started to think a bit more….what would be the ultimate holiday gadget? Whether you’re slowly roasting yourself in the sun, rambling through the hills, or cruising the Med, what device or toy would make your holiday evenmore enjoyable?
I would say an MP3 docking station that doubles as a beach ball! Dragon’s Den here I come!
I’m, going for a lie down - all this thinking has given me a headache. What would your ideal summer gadget be?
For the second time this week I filled my 1.4L car with £25 worth of diesel. Granted, my car has been to London and back twice in the last three days but I still feel that my customary £25 is worth less to me these days. Despite the tax and crude oil price increases on fuel, the lack of decent public transport in the area leaves me with little choice but to pay up and get on with it.
So as I went to fill up with diesel I was given the option of ‘paying at the pump’ or ‘paying at the kiosk’ There is no ‘don’t pay button’. Despite this fact some people do indeed leave the forecourt without paying. Perhaps unlike me their conscience does not stop them.
The British Oil Security Syndicate (BOSS) estimated that forecourts had suffered total losses £32.5 million during 2007 – a rise of 13% since 2006. This is mainly due to the increase in ‘drive aways’. As a result petrol stations across the UK are installing £10,000 stinger system and updating their surveillance to help catch the criminals who are unwilling to pay.
These stinger packages are fierce, not only do they play out a warning message when the perpetrator tries to drive away, they then raise a spike barrier to piece the tyres and bring the car to a halt. And if they are still able to get away on their rims, the system also embeds a tag bearing an ID number into the rubber, allowing the fuzz to later identify the car.
Given the facts n’ figures I understand that the there is a need to heighten security and surveillance, but isn’t the new stinger system a bit much?
I follow the blog ‘Getting Ink’ as there always seems to be some good PR/journalism stuff there to think about, and a couple of days ago there was a great post on journalists missing telephone interviews with clients and not letting the PR know (Check it out here)…As you can imagine this touched a nerve amongst some of the PR lovelies, me included…
July the 1st tomorrow, that means things are going to start to slow down for a few weeks until end of August when suddenly the industry wakes up again and we all start to work overtime and catch up after the summer weeks!
When we started Ranieri, the first day was actually August 1st and trying to get through to clients (and their weren’t that many then) and press was almost impossible and we thought business was going to be very tough if it was that difficult all the time! But then end of summer came and we didn’t know what had hit us, (when I say we, I mean me and my then cat ‘Ms Faith’ pictured below, as there were no other Ranieri’s at that point…they were still being grown in the greenhouse awaiting clients, like that scene in iRobot when the new batch of Robots are all waiting in the factory…)
So anyway, summer is upon us, we all need to carry on working, but patience is going to be the mantra here for the next few weeks, as undoubtedly people are going to start to get frustrated when they don’t get their usual immediate response!
It was a really good piece about the SuperSmoker and they did a little road test and took it to a few bars to gauge the reaction of the public and to see if it got them throw out.
One comment that did make me laugh was that they said the smokers outside were a bit cynical, fair enough, but on a sunny day I wouldn’t expect anything less. Wait until it gets a bit blowy and rainy and then we’ll see if the SuperSmoker suddenly becomes a bit more appealing!
The long awaited arrival of the summer sun seems to have sparked off something of a health kick here at Ranieri Communications! So I pose the question are we the fittest consumer tech PR agency in the business?!
With thoughts of a Spanish beach in mind, members of the Ranieri team have taken on new excerise and diet routines to tone up and slim down. Gone are the sweets, chocolates and doughnuts and in are the veggies, fruits and salads!
The Girls (Sophie, Natalie, Louise and Liz) have all started swimming in the morning and attending gym classes after work, Adam has started pre-season football training and I have been pre-season training for my rugby team. Emma is a regular at her tennis club and is pushing for a team position.
The new fitness craze has rubbed off on Adam from CLR, the recruitment consultant who shares an office with us. He has started cycling to and from work Even the big boss man has been looking into renewing his gym membership and dusting off his old rugby boots!
No doubt we will all see the benefits in the coming few weeks….now all we need now is a ‘team building’ Ranieri holiday!
I have been doing a lot of research around recycling recently and came across this article on the BBC News website “£50 recycling incentives likely” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7464279.stm) which talks about how households could be rewarded or fined according to the amount of rubbish they recycle. What a great idea!!! I know we should recycle anyway…the idea that we are ’saving’ our environment should be incentive enough…but it’s not. Is it because we don’t think our individual actions are significant to the environment or are we just a lazy nation? How many of you use new plastic bags when you do your weekly shop? Marks & Spencers now charge 5p for a bag and why not…it makes you think twice. I try to do my bit, taking bottles to the bottle bank and leaving papers and magazines in the brown box (or is it green?) but I know there is so much more I could do.
Can companies make it easier for us? Should they go one step further and make products reusable, not just recyclable? I.e. the ‘bag for life’ or the USBCELL battery?
Has anyone got any thoughts?
Some interesting facts I came across:
- The UK produces 454 million tonnes of waste every year
- Every year the average UK dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5000 hours of television. On average each person in the UK throws away seven times their body weight in rubbish every year.
As much as I love my job it is a love-hate thing…when things are going well I couldn’t be happier, when things go not so well, ie you get a bad review, a client is unhappy etc, it can feel like the end of the world…
I guess its the same in every job, but every now and then you do get some enthusiasm shot back in your veins when people say nice things about you, especially when their key journalists!:
“As a an editor and freelance journalist, I’m constantly bombarded with irrelevant press releases and useless information. My life would be hell if it wasn’t for PRs I can trust. The Ranieri team, for example, consistently deliver products and stories that are tailored to my needs, and they’re also responsive to any requests I make. Plus they’re a lovely bunch. What more can you ask?”
Tom Dunmore
Brand director & editor-in-chief, Stuff
I was reading Sally Whittles blog, Getting Ink and saw a post called does your release make the grade? It is about a website called Hubspot that grades your press release, I thought I would give it ago and so I bravely inserted my latest press release before I issued to the press. Luckily, I scored 82 which I feel was adequate with no gobbedlygook words so I’m going to risk hitting send It’s interesting to know how much attention to detail Journalists take in reading our press releases, Sally checked three using Hubspot and I wonder if it had any impact on her opinion of the PR’s that sent her the release or whether it was just a bit of fun??
It’s interesting to know how much attention to detail Journalists take in reading our press releases, Sally checked three using Hubspot and I wonder if it had any impact on her opinion of the PR’s that sent her the release or whether it was just a bit of fun??