MagIC Magazine

2006-10-19T17:00:00.000+01:00

Snap Survey

Are your internal communications 'environmentally friendly'?

Is your company 'greener' than your competitors?

What comms work are you doing to promote your green credentials?

2006-10-13T15:27:00.000+01:00

We were all very interested to read in the FT yesterday about Carphone Warehouse and its acquisition of Time Warner's AOL UK internet business.

The side column was about how Chief Exec Charles Dunstone has used a personal blog to counter negative publicity around Carphone's new "free" broadband product.

A committed technophile, Mr Dunstone launched a personal blog in July to help promote the new product. As it's turned out, the blog's real value has been in defending the company.

A recent entry:

"We have had our fair share of negative publicity of late, and I more than anyone know how frustrating it has been trying to get through to us if you had a problem. However, we have revolutionised the broadband marketplace and changed its pricing forever. If no one ever takes bold steps and embraces risk, nothing will ever change and we would all still be paying a fortune to BT for all our telephony. It's been a bruising experience for everyone at Carphone Warehouse; we are used to being 'the good guys' and it's tough when things don't go as well as we'd hoped. As things start to improve, I hope people will appreciate that what we did was for the best for all consumers, and whilst giving birth to free broadband was painful, it is now turning out to be a beautiful child."

Crikey, brings tears to our eyes.

PSx

2006-09-12T17:18:00.000+01:00

How much do you hate window salesmen? For me they are right there on my dartboard of undesirables at the moment.

We invited Weatherfield to quote us for new windows and doors - the salesman arrived and was promptly told - cut to the chase - just measure up and give us a price. Two and half hours later we had our price - arghhhhhh!!!

The first price was £21,000 and finished at £7,000 with nothing to pay for a year. Not interested in signing up at that stage I asked him to leave. His boss kept phoning him pressurising the hard sell. My other half politely (okay so it wasn't polite but it was 11pm on a Friday night and I'd just got home after a week and a half working down south) to get lost. All weekend we had phonecalls from different parts of the said company - offering us better deals than their colleagues.

Finally agreed that one more person could come out - but they wanted to measure up again! Because they were directly from the factory not the sales team. After 15 minutes he said they could go as low as £6,000 - did I buy them. Did I heck as like - if I endured that amount of pain for four days just trying to get a quote can you imagine the trouble I'd have trying to get them installed.

So next time you need windows - make sure you haggle the cost...

2006-09-11T15:43:00.000+01:00

MagIC Magazine
I'm back! I'm not a seasoned blogger and lost the link. But I promise to try harder.

I've spent the weekend with my family in Scotland, which is great as I don't see much of them now I'm having to commute from Bristol!!

Will be back soon with something intelligent (well might not be intelligent but won't be as dull as this post!

2006-08-03T12:23:00.000+01:00

Hi mate, couldn't leave you dangling there with no posts. Enjoy the Big Chill, I'm off to Brighton for Pride on Saturday and am also hoping for good weather.

Business is a bit quiet - I've been promised the work, but waiting for people to come back to you is a pain and raises the question; when does getting in touch for updates, cross the line into hassling people?

Any other freelancers out there - you must have had the same thing happen. Trouble is when people eventually do come back to you, you've often taken other work on and then they get shirty about it!

2006-08-03T09:18:00.001+01:00

OK, getting thoroughly sick of my own postings - please feel free to contribute. Say anything you like, no need to be profound. Just say hi. I'm off to Big Chill in Ledbury tonight so fingers crossed this rain stops.
x

2006-07-21T10:29:00.000+01:00

How's everyone coping in this unbearable heat?! The kids have gone home - what about us!?

2006-07-13T13:24:00.000+01:00

Can anyone recommend an ad sales guru, well experienced in sourcing advertising revenue for local press? I need someone who can undertake some thorough market research and write an advertising strategy. Will consider independents as well as companies.
Cheers

2006-07-13T09:55:00.000+01:00

Good to see so many faces at the CiB summer drinking....sorry networking.....event the other night. What did everyone think of it? I thought it was a nice venue and the jazz band gave the evening a social feel. Think the wine might have been off though because I felt decidely dodgy the next day!
Seriously I think these events are really important - meeting other people in the same line of work and chatting about what we do is just good communication...after all we are all in the same game in the end.

2006-07-12T08:51:00.000+01:00

Ooops I'm a bit late in posting but never mind. I loved the pink envelope and just love MagIC magazine - so much fun! When's the next one?

2006-07-07T13:55:00.000+01:00

Standing outside at midday today, I thought how beautiful - and appropriate - the 'two minutes of silence' tradition is. Work mates standing side by side on the footpath... buses and cars stationary and everyone presumably thinking the same thing. Despite the incredible sadness of today, it was a good feeling to see so many people united.

Just googled the history of the two minute silence and found out who first thought of it:

"On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns of Europe fell silent. After four years of the most bitter and devastating fighting, The Great War was finally over. The Armistice was signed at 5am in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne, France on November 11, 1918. Six hours later, at 11am, the war ended.

In a letter published in the London Evening News on 8 May 1919, an Australian journalist, Edward George Honey, proposed a respectful silence to remember those who had given their lives in the First World War. This was brought to the attention of King George V and on 7 November 1919, the King issued a proclamation which called for a two minute silence:

“ All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

2006-07-06T12:30:00.000+01:00

MORE BUZZ WORDS

TESTICULATING. Waving your arms around and talking Bollocks.

BLAMESTORMING. Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER. A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS. The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY. The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

CUBE FARM. An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING. When someone yells or dropss omething loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see that's going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

STRESS PUPPY. A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE. The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE. The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.

404. Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OHNOSECOND. That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all')

2006-06-29T12:41:00.000+01:00

OK, this isn't really about internal comms but it is media related and I thought well worth sharing. A friend of mine sent it to me this morning saying, "To say it's about privacy is disgraceful. How many images of sportswoman are misused round the world everyday?!"

What do you think?

http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/06/28/1151174270262.html

2006-06-28T13:39:00.000+01:00

What NOT to do in the office!!

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1795904,00.html

2006-06-27T21:16:00.000+01:00

Anyone coming to the party? The CiB one obviously.....the only place to be on a summer's eve. Hope there will be lots of faces there or else I will have to drink with my boss and that cannot be good. I've only been to one CiB event before and I thought it was a great way to meet like-minded folk - for communicators we can be a bit rubbish at talking, let's hope things are changing.

2006-06-27T16:47:00.000+01:00

It's all MagIC!!

What a fantastic magazine!

Am greatly surprised I didn't think of it myself....

In IC we encourage our clients to be better communicators, but even with our extensive know-how, we can be very poor at sharing information with our colleagues and industry peers. I especially like the jotted comments in italics...it creates a fun but informative tone. Well done.

I must find out who the mysterious creators of this fanzine are, as I'm sure they'd benefit from my wealth of experience.

Looking forward to the next issue.

2006-06-26T15:31:00.000+01:00

Thank you for my first issue which I read with interest. MagIC is a right little gem. I loved the cheeky, irreverent tone of voice. Among the many features that struck a chord and raised a smile was YOUWHAT? on page 7. So I would humbly suggest three of my all time favourites.

Ducks in a row = preparedness; show of unity. Used by anxious managers to impress upon their teams that no mistakes will be tolerated. It is likely that said manager will go on to suggest they must be "on the same page", with "all the boxes ticked" and, most importantly, "singing from the same hymn sheet".

Fat man in a canoe = an influential person or an obvious obstruction. If he moves, everyone must move too.

Wash its face = break even. A smokescreen assertion of faith - in the hope that no one will recognise that they are throwing away absurd amounts of money.

NB The following phrases are to be used entirely at your own risk.
("Do You Speak OFFLISH?" The Times magazine 01/10/05 .)

2006-06-26T14:00:00.000+01:00

CARTOON CORRECTION
Our wonderful cartoon on page 2 was published by Simon Pearsall. Unfortunately we spelt his email address wrong. Our sincere apologies to Simon and for your FYI, his correct email address is simon@pearsallcartoons.com

2006-06-23T19:52:00.000+01:00

hey there,

thanks for the magazine, and the invite to your blog. interesting reading,

looking forward to the next one, how often can we expect to see a pink envelope in the post?

jon

2006-06-23T16:27:00.000+01:00

CAPTION COMPETITION DEADLINE: FRIDAY JULY 14TH
Does no one like pink champagne or what?!? Our efforts can't be that good and the champagne is lovely and cold and ready to go. Come on people!

2006-06-23T15:40:00.000+01:00

Thanks for my lovely pink envelope. I thought I had a new admirer, but then realised this quirky little magazine had something to do with internal comms. It's cool - and really refreshing to see someone putting a blog to good use alongside traditional print media. MagIC has a slightly underground feel to it, but contains some interesting and lively content. The piece 'unmagic magazine titles' made me smile ;-). One complaint - please don't ever show Nick Andrews on the dancefloor again! I've added you to my own bloglist at www.talkingic.typepad.com/.

2006-06-23T08:50:00.000+01:00

How refreshing... something to read that I didn't have to write! Thanks for the first edition, I look forward to the next.

David

2006-06-22T15:08:00.000+01:00

Love MagIC! Well done mysterious people who publish it. Just one request: fewer photos of me next time?

2006-06-22T14:49:00.000+01:00

PHOTO CAPTION COMPETITION

Ok guys, you've seen and hopefully laughed at the pictures on the back page. As aforementioned, we're running a competition for the best alternative caption. I'm sure you can improve on ours - especially with a very fine bottle of pink champagne as inspiration!

Just click Post a Comment to this entry and make sure you tell us what number photo your caption refers to.

1. Sun, sand, sea and seminars - the Royal Bath had it all

2. National chair Nick Andrews waxes lyrical

3. ... before showing off his 'best' moves on the dancefloor

4. Not everyone was impressed by speech or dance

5. The client/agency relationship took on a familiar stance

6. who said IC was full of men in suits?

7. Outdoor sessions were the order of the day

8. The Tube Lines IC team were in fine form

9. New CiB Scotland chairman Darren Crozier meets his constituents

2006-06-20T12:09:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the MagIC magazine blog site. The blog for internal communicators.

So what did you think? Are you bothered by TUPE? Do you agree that it's a hard slog making a profit in today's IC market? What do YOU think is the biggest issue facing internal communicators today?

We're looking forward to reading your comments - so get writing!

P.S. Any alternative caption suggestions for the photos? Small prize in store....!!