Punch

So, as the team have mentioned in various posts here and elsewhere, Matilda Daisy Goold was born on November 18th at 2:17pm, weighing 7lbs11. She's the mirror image of our other daughter, Annie and all appears to be well at this stage, with her being extremely calm and Mum recovering well.

Whilst I've been on a the odd holiday over the last five years, it's fair to say that I tend never to really switch off mentally - this time however was different. So, I've managed to maintain (almost) complete radio and social media silence throughout.

Having now been back for a few days, I'm at least as sleep addled / deprived as expected. Fortunately the team has done a terrific job of not just holding but expanding the fort in my absence...

We've been feeling pretty festive in the Punch offices for a while now but somehow, Christmas has still managed to creep up and surprise me!

Normally I would have finished my gift shopping by now but this year, I've not even bought a bean. I have a suspicion that I'll be one of those frantic shoppers dashing around on December the 23rd doing a panic shop if I don't get a move on soon!

I think the only think keeping me sane is the fact that Punch clients Boxwish and Karacha have some pretty cool Christmas gift guides on their home pages at the moment - I wonder if my mum would like a blue Sax this year...

There are constant mutterings in the Punch office that Kath and I eat too much. Now, neither of us feel that three or four packets of crisps a day is excessive and in fact, McCoys multipacks are the only thing that successfully staves off the hunger pains between meals.

Plain and simple I love food. And whilst other people play golf or collect stamps in their spare time, my hobby is eating and I'm pretty sure Kath's is too. So it was to our surprise and excitement that we learned of Punch's newest food client, Chez Jules - Birmingham's premier French Bistro.

However, interestingly neither Kath or I have been assigned to work on the account - does Pete think we are not to be trusted with food around? Does he think we would spend most of our working week paying visits to the restaurant in Birmingham to ‘test' the new menu?

To be honest it was probably a wise move...

When thinking of topics for my blog this morning only one popped into my mind - Pete and Emma's new arrival!

Matilda is finally here and the Punch team cannot wait to meet her - Congratulations guys!

There's been a lot of online chatter about PR people using Twitter over the last two or three days, kicked off by this post by Stephen Davies.

Subsequently a wiki has been set up showing which PR people are using Twitter - which includes the Punch team.

I've been playing with Twitter for a little while and love it. I can't pretend that I'm as immersed as some but certainly it has it's uses in terms of receiving and, moreover, distributing information in a way that people are happy to receive it.

Aside from the current hype, my personal interest started when the BBC ran a feed of two journalists' exploits whilst driving to and gadding around the rugby world cup in 2007, which struck me as both a shamelessly cheap yet completely engaging means of telling ther tale in a format that I could genuinely devote the time to reading.

So, for the record, the Punch team's respective Twitter feeds are as follows:

Abbie Upton - http://twitter.com/abbieupton
Ben Leuty - http://twitter.com/bleuty
Claire MacDonald - http://twitter.com/clairepunchcomm
Katharine Parker - http://twitter.com/kathparker1
Pete Goold - http://twitter.com/petegoold
Philip Keightley - http://twitter.com/PhilipKeightley

Surely it's only a matter of time before someone does the same for Linked In (great linkbait - if only i had the time...)?  There's a list of UK Journalists using Twitter here too (again by Stephen Davies/PRBlogger) - now that really is a valuable resource...

I'm loving the write up on Boxwish in The Independent.

Also, iMedia went really well. The presentation, delivered by Reality Digital's CEO, over from San Francisco and our head of EMEA was well received by an audience of 120 industry heads, who are collectively not known for being anything less than a cruel audience. If the whooping was anything to go by, showing a live-to-web video re-mix of Britney Spears on stage may have helped, frankly. Unsuprisingly, the party continued into the wee small hours and I've had not nearly enough sleep but it was a great platform to get the word out.

We have our round table event at Soho House tomorrow in front of an incredible group of twenty or so top folk from across the sector... 

I've been doing a spot of research this week for movie inspiration site Boxwish.

I have to admit, this particular research was great fun and just up my street - I've been looking at photos of the different dresses worn in films through the decades - from the 1950's right through to present day.

Some of the dresses I found were really stunning but it must be said that some of the numbers popular in the 1970's are a great demonstration of why it is known as "The Decade that Style Forgot"!

The ever changing styles I found have made me wonder what future generations will make of our wardobes - today I'm clad in skinny jeans, boots, stripes and a scarf - I like it, but my research has made me feel sure that in 10 years time, I'll wonder what I was thinking!

Substrakt, one of Punch's web design partners, has just relaunched it's new website to show it's web design services off using leading edge technology.

Punch is listed on the new site as one of substrakt's partners - and we have just added Substrakt to our strategic partner page.  

 

I have spent a lot of time on the Chez Jules site this week and now all I can think of is munching on some tasty Gratin Dauphinois - although the entire menu looks fantastic!

I'm a big fan of food made using local produce and Christmas is the best time to get involved with sampling some of the quality food that Britain has to offer.

Chez Jules use only the best ingredients and turn them into into the most delicious French food imaginable.

I'm planning to hot-foot it to Chez Jules as soon as I can, perhaps we could hold our various Christmas parties in Birmingham - now, there's food for thought!

Blog posts are flying around this week in our personal blogs, from my thoughts on the new flip camera in advance of our events with social media developers Reality Digital next week, the run up to Birmingham Christmas parties with restaurant Chez Jules and Claire's experiences with movie inspiration site Boxwish at the offices of Empire Magazine, The Daily Mirror and Heat, amongst other things.

Poor Ben's picked up the office lurgy and so all is quiet on Ben's PR blog. 

Having been out for a day or so, Phil's back in tomorrow so we can probably expect the usual Friday random question...