Marketing and public relations, they’re the same thing – aren’t they? This is a question I get asked all the time, and my answer – No, public relations and marketing are different. Marketing is interested in the market – consumers and demand. Public relations is interested in relationships and reputation.
I think the confusion comes as they both deal with communicating an organisations message to its public. This is true, but public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour, while marketing is more ‘in your face’ to grab attention, such as advertising campaigns.
However different their functions and how they are perceived, marketing and public relations do and must work together towards one goal. Good public relations create a healthy environment for marketing.
Hopefully that has given some clarification to marketing and public relations and the differences between them. Both components are important and should be used to support each other as part of a management tool.

In the years I have spent writing for journalists and reporters I have discovered that writing for the web is a completely different ball-game.
Information is consumed differently online, from the readers’ attention span, navigation behaviour and scanning habits, not to mention how a website is ‘picked up’ by search engines and the important key words that they look for. Good writing for paper needs to be effective writing for the web.

This question raises its head from time to time, especially with older relatives. The answer has to be carefully crafted, I’ve discovered, to avoid an uncomfortable silence. Explaining “freelancing” to them can lead to miscomprehension, or glazed looks.
Searching the internet for help in dealing with similar situations led to this quote from Travis Chillemi on the formidable site webworkerdaily.com:

Them: What do you do?
Me: I am a web designer.
Them: Oh! My dentist also does web design. He/She is really good with Frontpage and stuff. He/She even has their own website. It has something to do with geocities…
Me: Yeah. I do dental work on the side, too. I even have my own drill and chair.
Them: Huh?

Maybe the answer should always try to reflect the knowledge of the person asking the question, if you are lucky enough to know it. For instance, “I help companies do the ‘eBay’ thing” has worked, along with “it’s like advertising, but on the internet”. But generally the old chestnut “I work with computers” is resorted to, with the inevitable “oh, can you fix my son’s computer, I think it’s got a virus…”.
But my favourite is: “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to discuss that – you understand?”, then look around you nervously…

Flash [Adobe Flash™, previously known as Macromedia Flash™] is primarily an animation tool that can be used to produce stunning effects to supplement a website, or indeed generate an entire visual experience for a website. However, there has always been great debate on whether a Flash site is acceptable in terms of best practice. Certainly, adding effects to sites can provide interest and flair, but using animation for every element on the page may be too much. It depends on your business:- the cartoon style that Flash delivers will suit a childrens site, art portfolio, or funky design studio, but is probably not appropriate for a supermarket or government body. At the end of the day, best practice cannot tell us when to use Flash and when not to – each business must choose its website persona on its own merits and decide whether Flash, or any other technology can help realise that persona in the best way. At the end of the day look around at as many examples as possible before making your choice.

Well, jQuery is now on to version 1.3 and it seems to just keep getting better. It has risen to stardom amazingly quickly, none more so than its bundling by Microsoft into its latest Visual Studio offering. This is a telling sign indeed. Microsoft have tried for years to counter the emergent open source market with various offerings of JScript, J#, J++, F#, and about 5 others that have since faded into obscurity. So why should Microsoft adopt this open source library now? Haven’t they got something up their sleeve this time? Well the simple reality is that jQuery is just too damn good. There’s simply no room left for another contender and to Microsoft’s (small) credit, they’ve rolled over. Now, if only they would do the same on browser standards…….