Welcome

If I was feeling dramatic I'd be talking about today being the dawn of a new era or something equally trite. But the fact is that my first-ever blog is significant for me - if not the world at large!

I've been a keen observer of the rapid advances in communication mechanisms which the internet has brought to the PR industry. And I've always been something of a computer geek, spending many happy hours with Bluetooth dongles sticking out of the side of my laptop and attempting to pair it to my mobile phone.

But it took a student at Sunderland University to finally open my eyes about how to make these new tools work in my day job. Stephen Davies is well known in the blogosphere and has been spending a couple of days a week with my firm in Newcastle while he studies for his final exams.

It's thanks to him that I get the bulk of my news these days from RSS feeds, and he's helped me and a number of my colleagues get our heads around the opportunities and threats which are suddenly looming large in our industry.

It's Stephen who finally shamed me into starting a Presidential Blog and although I'm far from being an early-adopter, I am enthusiastic and promise to convert as many of my CIPR colleagues as possible into bloggers!

I struggle with believing that anyone out there is remotely interested in my musings, and I see my role as being more of a catalyst in raising issues on which the CIPR wants the views of members or simply flagging up things which might be of interest.

I'm encouraging the Institute's PR and marketing team to use this as another communications channel and will also be suggesting to the rest of my executive board that they use this blog as a way of reaching some of their stakeholders. Royal Charter, CPD, significant research into the PR industry and the move to St James's Square has given us masses of things to tell our membership.

Given that there is a limit to the number of press releases or member mailings we can issue, I hope this forum will enable those of you who are interested in what's going on to find out more - and more importantly let me know what you think.

If my blog can help improve two way communication between "Head Office" and membership then young Stephen will have earned that beer I keep promising him!