Over the weekend there was yet more coverage (see here and here) around how one of the groups most affected by the rise in unemployment is working mums.

The Alliance Against Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace believes that pregnant and new mums are more likely to face redundancy in this recession. 30,000 mums actually lose their jobs each year as a result of becoming pregnant.

As a new mum myself, with a beautiful 14 month old son, I was unlucky enough to face redundancy just six weeks after returning to work from maternity leave. As an ambitious professional it was certainly a blow to my confidence – and made me wonder if working life would ever be the same again.

I have experienced, as many working mums have no doubt similarly gone through, negative reactions to my wish to work part-time – from eyes glazing mid interview when the topic of part time was raised to people commenting that anyone wanting to work less than the traditional working week is doing it purely for ‘pocket money’.

Mervin Straughan is a management consultant specialising in PR and corporate social responsibility

On the face of it, being able to send an email to our future self might seem like an amusing diversion but it could be an invaluable tool for helping us manage our personal and corporate PR.

A number of email services provide this type of facility including http://futureme.org/ which, at the time of writing this post, reported that almost 790,000 letters had been written to the future – and counting.

If we were to receive a message from our past self, how would our reputation measure up to what we had aspired? Would our past self be proud of the family member, employee, practitioner, business leader, politician or celebrity we had become?

There are plenty people in the media spotlight whose PR has been built on shaky foundations and now lamenting the reputation they have earned.

It’s important to remember that PR, whether personal or corporate, is built gradually over a long time and has authenticity is at its core.

This “authenticity” resonates with one of Quest PR’s clients, the international leadership and change management consultancy, Primeast.

On the subject of personal and corporate branding, Primeast’s deputy chairman Clive Wilson, says: “Who or what we associate with and how we look, act and communicate is all part of our brand. Being authentic is recognised as key to delivering great results especially where collaboration with others is imperative.”

This means that MPs wanting to avoid “sloppy accounting practices” or banking chiefs wanting to enjoy their pension benefits free of criticism might do well to log on to their email now and go back to the future.

Another guest post from budding journalist Hannah Baker.

Today I come to the end of my week’s work experience at Quest PR. It’s been an interesting few days. As well as helping out the team with admin tasks (not to mention the occasional cuppa – a rite of passage for every work experience student) I’ve been able to see first hand just how proactive PR professionals are in ensuring clients receive every inch of exposure possible and how much new media helps them do this.

In particular, I’ve seen how Quest uses blogs – somewhat of a speciality for the team – to provide a powerful platform from which to make an influential mark on an increasingly virtual world.

I have to admit for someone who likes to keep update with our ever-changing world, I’ve been rather slow off the mark here. I browse a few blogs most days but I still get my opinion-fix on most issues from newspapers and their websites. Until this week I’d never posted on a blog and I hadn’t realised just how useful they can be in raising the profiles of individuals and companies.

I’ve helped the team work on its clients’ blogs, updating the blogrolls, searching for new and interesting bloggers – as well as researching some relevant topics. The team have shown me how posts need to be informative as well as helpful in guiding readers to further information and – particularly for business blogs – reassure the reader of the blogger’s authority and expertise on the subject.

Also, I’ve seen how personality can be injected into a blog without revealing your innermost secrets and that way readers engage more with your posts – and are therefore more likely to comment, recommend and act upon the advice they read.

One thing I hadn’t thought of before was how Quest uses blogs to feed stories and ideas to journalists. Something I’ll definitely take with me into my future career.

But while blogs play a significant role in raising profiles, traditional media are certainly not neglected at Quest with client folders brimming with magazine and newspaper clippings. It’s been interesting to see just how much different media complement each other.

So thank you Quest PR, for an insightful few days as well as all the digestives I’ve consumed while I’ve been here.

Guest post by budding journalist Hannah Baker who has been on a work experience placement with the team at Quest.

As our capital and the largest metropolitan area in the EU, London tends to lead the way in most trends to hit the UK. And, according to a report by the Social Media Library, it is also leading the UK’s new media charge.

The report highlights that although the city only has around 10 per cent of the UK’s population, those residents produce one third of “influential” blogs.

In fact the south of England accounts for more than half of blogs written in the UK, with a mere seven per cent coming from Scotland, just five per cent from Yorkshire and the Humber and two per cent from the North East. North West stats are slightly more “healthy” at 13 per cent due to its vibrant music scene.

But it’s with micro-blogging site Twitter that things get interesting. This social networking phenomenon where the likes of Stephen Fry and Britney Spears tweet to their heart’s content has caught on just about everywhere, not just in London. Site traffic increased by more than 1,000 per cent last year – with reports of a TV spin off in the pipeline.

The capital accounts for 11 per cent of Twitter users, followed by Cambridge with 8 per cent and Manchester with 7 per cent. However, intriguingly the areas where users have an average the highest tally of followers – and therefore potentially influence – are Coventry and Leicester, which top the table with an average of just under 600 “avid” followers each, followed by Bristol and Manchester.

Despite having the highest share of people posting on the site, London ranks towards the bottom of pile with 256 followers.

Appealing to our nosiness and love of intrigue, Twitter provides the perfect platform to spy on what others are up to – perhaps the key to its success across the whole of the UK.

Pinnacle of success path requires different thinking.

If you are emotional, trustworthy, niche and possess an iphone – then you’re on the starting block to be a potential winner in the brave new business world over the next three years. This is the message from the world’s biggest chief executives’ organisation Vistage International which is hosting a series of UK events for its members who include MDs and CEOs of small and medium sized enterprises. I was bowled over with the energy and passion of  inspirational author Peter Fisk whose call to action was to rethink our markets, be integrous and the best (not the biggest), collaborate, engage and build global social networks through a series of new media tools to create competitive advantage and be profitable.  With people-to-people selling  creating 70 millionaires a year, the ability to adapt and get inside our customers’ minds has never been more crucial. Knowing what and why your customers are demanding is a must – as is giving them energisers (something small which will excite them), enablers (things that will help them to achieve what they couldn’t do otherwise) and essentials (their basic needs and expectations of your business). This potent combination will strengthen the emotional bonds – which in turn will create your competitive advantage. So let’s all maximising the opportunities of the new landscape, be inspirational –  and  delivering experiences as opposed to flogging products and services. So let’s take off the blinkers,  hang on tight and enjoy the rollercoaster ride ahead – and have one helluva party and hangover to celebrate being among the success stories of 2012.

This is guest post by Mervin Straughan who is a communications and corporate social responsibility consultant

Off the rails? Branson’s PR stunt slated by employees.

What connects Richard Branson and Joanna Lumley? The answer is trains.

One went off the rails with a planned publicity stunt while the other derailed a government minister in a majestic display of dignified PR during an impromptu press conference.

Branson, the tycoon almost loved by everyone, went off track with a clumsy portrayal of a rail worker while promoting his West Coast train services. Dressing up in dirty clothes, having teeth blackened and being covered in temporary tattoos was never likely to go down well with the workforce.

No surprise, then, that rail staff and their national union of railwaymen accused him of patronising them.

It was business expert Nigel Piercy who wrote: “Treat employees like customers for they will treat customers like employees.” This is good advice for business tycoons.

Meanwhile, Lumley shunted immigration minister Phil Woolas into the climb down  sidings during a chaotic press conference called at a minute’s notice to discuss the latest development in the fight for the Gurkhas who had been refused entry to the UK under the present rules.

Lumley’s hopes had been high after a meeting with Gordon Brown earlier that week but it turned out the prime minister was unaware about the latest rejections. How’s that for good communications? The signals were not good.

But she was conciliatory, dignified and graceful, listening carefully and offering the minister ample time to state the case. He attempted to take the opportunity but by then, it was too late. For Woolas, the PR train had left the station.