Make friends and influence them …

A new dawn for Europe; new, new, new and change, change, change for the UK government and Tony Blair is off to the Middle East to form New Hamas and New Fatah.

You may be skeptical about real change happening or are optimistic for moving forward but the scenery and the arenas for influencing decision making are certainly different today or are likely to be in the near future.

These events of the past week or so offer opportunities for lobbysts and PR practitioners to recast their programmes to influence Public Affairs. Are we ready to do this and have we got the tools to make effect? Every new administration is keen to be seen to be listening to, consulting with and understanding what they now call their stakeholders. The new Europe and Gordon Brown's ministers will no different.

Strike now whilst the iron is hot and reset the networks of influence. Exploit the inexperience of the new brooms and use your experience and knowledge to get a foot in the door. All cliches, but in reality, its what your competitors who are worth anything will be doing.

Don't just rely on the blogs and Web2.0 apps, get in their faces and shake their hands. Be like a peacock and make a show! All the so-called advisors need the knowledge and they are keen to impress their new or not so new bosses. Make sure it is your message and is your network that is the one that is called upon to stand next to them and to guide the conversations.

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     Some of you may be experiencing trouble with the RSS feeds for this site, my apologies for this. For some reason the feed address has changed and now does not validate. This post is also part of my testing procedures so please bare with me.

Thanks … Ray

PS if any one has ideas how to fix the problem please do not hesitate to put your ideas in the comments.

UPDATE:

Problem seems to be resolved - a conflict with a plug-in (external links?) and an issue whether using www. or  not.

Let me know if problems continue to exist

Warning! … I am trying out a new plugin to enable me to make short comments that will appear in the right hand sidebar - Twittering. I am using Alex King's 'Twitter Tools' plugin that uses the Twitter application. Things may go horribly wrong or hopefully work very well. The initial result may be some very odd posts.

Thanks for your patience!

The logo for the 2012 London Olympics has been unveiled.

The jagged emblem, based on the date 2012, comes in a series of shades of pink, blue, green and orange and will evolve in the run-up to the Games.

"This is the vision at the very heart of our brand," said London 2012 organising committee chairman Seb Coe.

"We will host a Games where everyone is invited to join in because they are inspired by the Games to either take part in the many sports, cultural, educational and community events leading up to 2012 or they will be inspired to achieve personal goals."

I didn't notice the date 2012, did you? Does Seb Coe really believe in what he says or was that just the quote the Marketing agency gave him? I am not sure that this logo, or any logo for that matter can inspire such lofty goals. Perhaps its my age but the jagged edges and the colours just make me cringe, just like much of the grafitti you see in the London transport system!  Is that the key?

The BBC website has to date nearly 3000 comments - only 1 out of the first 10 are favourable. The most harsh seem to think the new logo looks like a deformed swastika!

What do you think of the logo? What does it say to you? Will this be a PR/Marketing coup or will it get a 'could have done better report'? My view is the latter.

Second thoughts: Does it grow on you? …?

Have a look at these other posts on PR Tools 4U relating to Logos:

Does the 'Logo' say it all for you?

Cake baking competition - the new EU PR tool

 Cool colours for your PR Tools