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With just three days left to submit nominations to the annual Birmingham Young Professional of the Year awards, can you afford not to enter?

As a BYPY alumna, it won’t come as a surprise that I’m going to sing the award’s praises, and I’m not alone. But it’s not all about getting your hands on a glittering trophy. One of the great things about entering BYPY is the network of people that you meet and connect with, from the shortlisted candidates waiting in line for the big interview, to the judges across the table, the category winners celebrating on the dance-floor and the previous BYPYs only too happy to share experiences and advice.

Those connections are what make BYPY different to any other awards ceremony or scheme that I have ever known. Connections that will stay with you throughout your career and help you open doors and find opportunities.

It’s seven years since I nervously took to the stage at BYPY, but the connections I made that night and in the years to follow have only grown in strength, from a great mentor to a sounding board of peers and a couple of fabulous clients thrown in for good measure.

So what are you waiting for? Time to apply!

From dressing Birmingham’s Floozie in the Jacuzzi in a giant pink bra for Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer to getting the nation debating their biggest fashion faux pas for The Mailbox, to winning awards for the Interface Financial Group and launching Desert Rose face oil for Bodhi, 2012 wasn’t short of highlights for the team. And let’s not forget dressing up as the Spice Girls for Cure Leukaemia…

Inspired by our friends over at Orb Creative, I’ve decided to take a moment to stop and reflect on the most significant year to date for Rewired, and a look ahead to what’s in store for 2013.

New clients

We started 2012 with some major client wins, including Southside Business Improvement District. In May we unveiled the city’s very own Rhinestone Rhino, resulting in coverage as far afield as Africa. For all the latest gossip from Southside’s bejewelled eye in the sky, make sure you follow @BrumRhino.

Our Olympic moment

With London 2012 dominating the headlines we were proud to have our own Olympic moment. Led by events supremo Sam Pennell, the Rewired team planned and delivered the Film Nation Shorts Awards at the BFI in London, hosted by the wonderful Claudia Winkleman and part of London 2012’s Opening Festival.

New faces

We welcomed a number of new team members across 2012 including Pippa Briggs, Kristy Norris and Samantha Harrison, and Rebecca Williams was promoted to the Board.

Company growth

October saw a key development for the Rewired Media Group, as long-established and well-respected agency, Lois Burley PR, joined forces with us. With Lois, Lucie and Simon moving in to our Birmingham office, we ended 2012 as a 10-strong team.

Awards

The icing on the cake for 2012 was picking up two CIPR Pride Awards for our work with long-standing clients Kraft Foods and Cadbury World.

So what does 2013 hold in store?

The year is already off to a busy start, with the opening of our London office at the end of January to help us to service our national client base.

In May we’ll be marking our 5^th birthday and, not ones to shy away from a good party, I’m sure there will be celebrations in store.

Thanks to all of those who have supported us, worked with us and appointed us in 2012! Here’s to a successful year ahead for us all.

After a very eventful week last week, we were delighted to pick up two Silver trophies at the  CIPR PRide Awards in the Best Consumer category for our work with Cadbury World and Best Corporate Responsibility for Kraft Foods.

It was fanatastic to join the great and good of the Midlands’ public relations sector and celebrate in style.

Here’s the Rewired Media Group team out in force.

Congratulations to all the other winners flying the flag for the region’s  PR industry.

As if the sun hasn’t put us in a good enough mood, we were all delighted today to be shortlisted for two CIPR Awards: Corporate Responsibility for our work with the Kraft Foods’ community team, and the hotly contested Consumer Relations category with our client Cadbury World.

Here’s some information on the awards from the CIPR:

Over 1,000 entries were received from freelancers, consultancies and in-house teams across twelve UK regions and nations.

 CIPR CEO, Jane Wilson MCIPR, commented: “The CIPR PRide Awards celebrate the best PR and communications campaigns and teams from the profession across the UK. To be shortlisted for a CIPR PRide Award demonstrates exemplary achievement, impact and value – immediately putting your work in the spotlight. The sheer number of high quality entries received this year, especially when things are still pretty tough out there economically, is testament to a thriving nationwide industry. Congratulations for reaching this stage and the best of luck for the awards presentation evenings.”

We’ll be waiting until the ceremony on 2 November to find out more, but fingers crossed!

A rather depressing statistic to start the morning: voter turnout in the local elections is estimated at 32%, the lowest in 12 years.

Turnout for the UK general elections has been on the decline for decades, just 65.5% in 2010. The first round of the French presidential elections saw 80% of the population come to the polls, we haven’t seen those sorts of numbers since 1951.

Given that the economy is in turmoil, we’ve had another year of revelations about certain political leaders and witnessed uprisings on a global scale, do our local communities really have no interest in who leads them? I can’t believe that to be the case.

Bearing in mind that Birmingham was also voting for an elected mayor (results due in this afternoon), what hope do we have of garnering support for a new system if people aren’t currently engaged in the very basics of the voting process?

It’s clear that voter apathy is growing, and that’s a dangerous situation to be in. Whatever your political leanings, not using your right to vote chips away at democracy and inevitably means that our leaders will not reflect the views of the majority – just those that could be bothered.

So the million dollar question: what should be done?

Here are a few thoughts that came through Twitter this morning:

@annekadeva: Make sure political education is actually taught in schools

@gabysslave: try to also increase civic responsibility

@anthonyBrum: compulsory voting?

@AmySKiernan: The lack of engagement from the candidates & the poor communication from councils played a massive part – it’s so frustrating!

Taking to one side the party political campaigning, the right to vote needs a major PR push. Apathy breeds apathy, so we need to engage with a new generation of voters. How about every 18 year old receiving a birthday card from the Electoral Commission? Roadshows at schools and colleges? Relevant campaigns across platforms that drive the importance of voting in itself? Is this happening? I can’t see any evidence of it.

I’ve heard many people say that what we lack are the inspirational candidates to vote for. How will we encourage a new breed of leaders to enter politics if they don’t engage with the very process of democracy in itself?

On Friday night over 450 people took to the streets of Birmingham in aid of St Basil’s annual sleepout, to raise money for young people at risk of homelessness. It’s fair to say that sleeping rough for one night, albeit in freezing temperatures with an added smattering of rain, gives you only a glimpse of what a life living on the streets can be like, but it was an experience we’ll never forget.

Our thanks go to the team at St Basil’s who organised a fantastic event, and to everyone who sponsored myself, Tom and Sam. You have helped us to raise over £500 which will support the incredible work that the team at St Basil’s do.

Here’s to next year!

Photo by trixiegirl31

A poll of America’s top 10 gifts to Britain was announced yesterday. Pulled together by US broadcaster PBS it featured firm favourites including The Simpsons, Levi’s Jeans and The Godfather films (but only 1 & 2….). In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d give thanks for my favourite gifts from across the pond. My top 10 would have to include:

- Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix – for those lazy Saturday breakfasts with maple syrup and bacon

- Alison Krauss & Union Station – the soundtrack to so many good memories

- Great TV drama: The Wire, 24, The Shield, the list goes on

Other, unashamedly low-brow favourites from the team include

Sam: “American sitcoms – I just love chilling out with an episode of Friends or Two and a Half Men (the Charlie Sheen episodes) and have complete box sets of both!”

Tom: “Steve Carrell, although we deserve thanks for introducing The Office overseas.”

Lucas: “Budweiser and McDonald’s Egg McMuffins. The cause of, and solution to, all of my hangovers.”

Sean by Paul Wenham-Clarke

Hard Times is an award-winning photography exhibition by Paul Wenham-Clarke, featuring portraits of Big Issue vendors. It was commissioned to coincide with The Big Issue’s 20th Anniversary, and opens in Birmingham on 8 September in St Martin-in-the-Bullring Church after a successful run in London.

Paul Wenham-Clarke has photographed a series of Big Issue vendors in their “homes” – be they squats, hostels, caravans or nothing more than the street. Shedding light on the hidden lives of Britain’s homeless, the portraits offer an insight into their background, their family situation, the challenges they face while selling the magazine, their achievements and aspirations. The exhibition has already received the photography world’s highest accolade – a Gold Award from the Association of Photographers.

The personal stories of the vendors were what really struck me about the collection, amongst them a kitchen salesman, a professional model, an ex-serviceman. A stark reminder in these hard times we’re living in that the causes and circumstances of homelessness can vary dramatically, and affect people from all walks of life.

All credit to Lara Ratnaraja for bringing together a local team who were keen to see this exhibition move to Birmingham. We’re delighted to be working alongside The Big Issue team and the other project supporters: Lara Ratnaraja, Big Cat, Nicola Shipley, Birmingham City University and Martineau.

Hard Times will run from 8 – 30 Sepember 2011 at St Martin-in-the-Bullring Church. Admission is free.

Clients, colleagues, friends and family descended on The Drop Forge last night to help us celebrate our third birthday, and welcome our new Chairman Sir Bernard Zissman.

A big thanks to all who joined us for a glass (or two) of bubbly and a piece of cake, and for everyone who has made the last three years so special.

If you’d like to see more pics, take a look at John James’ photo gallery.

Here’s to the next three years!

Following on from last week’s post about building an online community, here’s part two, which looks at more ways to nurture your brand online.

These tips came to light during the Reputation Online ‘Retail & Digital PR’ seminar. The panellists included:

Lewis Webb, Senior Account Director, Ketchum
Catherine Flynn, Account Director, We Are Social
Zoe Macerlean, Social Media Manager, Tesco
Oli Ingham, Marketing Manager, Wahaca

Engage with and reward advocates

It is sometimes easy to interact with the same people online and take their support for granted. But for many organisations, rewarding advocates can pay dividends. When Tesco launched their campaign for Clothing at Tesco with We Are Social, they immediately identified key fashion bloggers and started engaging with them. They developed their LifeStyled blog, invited guest bloggers to contribute, held special bloggers previews and gave away exclusive freebies. Similarly, Wahaca adopted this approach and launched a ‘Facebook Fans table’, where every Monday a Facebook fan gets the chance to win a free meal in the Covent Garden restaurant. These are simple, yet effective, ways to make sure that your fans know you appreciate their continued support.

Create and take part in conversations
This links back to having a personality online, but an important move for any organisation is to join in conversations. This helps drive interest in your brand and, ultimately, traffic to your website. Whether it’s tweeting along to X Factor and taking part in #hustlebingo, or responding to people when they mention you. Where relevant, make sure you are part of these conversations.

Wahaca had another great example of this when a customer tweeted that they’d lost a book in the restaurant, and someone at the other end found the book (albeit in the male toilets) and returned it to them.

Have as many or as little accounts that work for you

I never believe in having social media accounts for the sake of it; always look at who your audience is and what mediums they use. This also goes along with the brand personality; never assume that you can use the same language and same strategy on Facebook and Twitter, for example, as their users may want very different things.

Whole Foods did their research and found that different consumers wanted different things out of their Twitter experience, so now the brand has 260 individual store accounts, an account that posts a ‘Recipe of the Day’, and even a specialist cheese expert.

Deal with negative comments
One really important point made during the seminar was the need to deal with negative comments. Again, it goes back to trusting the person in control of your social media accounts not to enter into damaging conversations, but there are always likely to be people that will criticise a brand and, most of the time, it can be more harmful not respond to them. This also goes for accidental tweets; Lewis from Ketchum was part of the team that helped restore Habitat’s online reputation after *that* intern debacle.

Zoe from Tesco did, however, say that there are some exceptions and if people appear to be consistently negative, sometimes you just can’t change their opinions. 

These are just a few of the key points raised but I think that, ultimately, it’s all about identifying and targeting the right audience, using the correct medium(s) with the most relevant content, and making them feel like they are part of something.

So, take note of these tips and you’re one step further to building a fantastic community both online and offline.