With Paul Holmes of the Holmes Report in Davos, Switzerland

I’m a digital comms consultant working out of London and have worked specifically in digital and social media since 2005. Well, back then social media was just known as ‘blogging’. I’ve worked for the world’s largest PR agency Edelman as part of the online team and worked on some early pioneering digital initiatives for brands including PlayStation, National AIDS Trust, the Greater London Authority, Creative Arts, Shell, Orange and Creative Arts.

These were the days when doing any kind of social media audit required an active subscription to BrandPulse at $120,000 a pop. Of course a lot has changed since then (including the price of monitoring software, thankfully) but it’s been great to have been working in this space early in its evolution.

I worked for European online distribution company, RealWire, helping the company develop relationships with influential bloggers around the world. I also helped the company introduce its Social Media News Release (SMNR) platform, which was a European first. We subsequently (and Realwire continues to) create SMNRs for some fantastic brands and pretty much every medium to large PR agency you have heard of.

Delivering training for Israeli and Palestinian NGOs at the EU Partnership for Peace initiative by the Dead Sea in Jordan

Late 2008 I set up my own consultancy, 3WPR, and worked as an independent consultant for four excellent years. During this time I consulted with a range of great brands including Sage Group, Power Plate, Imedeen, PAN Parks, the EU’s ENPI Info Centre, 72 Point and a range of UK PR and marketing agencies. I also spent three months in Cyprus working with Action Global Communications, helping the agency set up its digital offering among its forty offices around the world.

Before joining Ruder Finn I worked with digital and social media agency, 33 Digital, where we worked with a fantastic range of clients including Microsoft, Red Bull, Pearson, Financial Times, Bluevia and Butlin’s. I was incredibly lucky to work with such a smart and friendly group of people who I learnt something from each day. Culture is massively important in an agency and 33 have it nailed.

Over the years I’ve been recognised for my work in social media some of which include:

• Named Europe’s number 1 PR blog by US publication Adage
• Added to the PR Week PowerBook which claims to include “the most powerful and inspirational PR people in the UK” twice
• Named most influential PR among journalists on Twitter according to Apollo Research

Innovation

I love innovation and strive to include it in to everything I do. Doing the same old tried and tested ways of digital comms is, for me, like standing still. When most people were doing regular PR I was exploring how blogs could be used for communication and reputation purposes; when the mobile web was barely being used in 2005 I built my first mobile website; when most PR people were happy sending plain text press releases out to journalist I helped create a one which incorporated social media and multimedia elements, and when Twitter was becoming popular among journalists I created (and subsequently sold) a database to categorise and monitor them. Innovation is, quite simply, the lifeblood of business but especially this digital world in which we all inhabit.

Speaking

I actually love public speaking and have been lucky enough to speak at a events on topics close to my heart around the UK, Europe, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. A list of the events I’ve spoke at along with the accompanying topics can be found on my speaking page.

I am a committee member of The World Communication Forum, an annual conference held in Davos, Switzerland which covers global developments in communications. The event is in its fourth year and truly is a global PR event with speakers and delegates participating from around the world.

I’m also a Slideshare junkie (a fantastic creative community) and generally put some of my best presentations up there. Click on the image to the right if you’d like to have a look at them. So far they’ve collectively garnered around a quarter of a million views to date.

Digital Health

I am also passionate about the oncoming tidal wave of disruption technology is about to wreak on healthcare. Technology has disrupted numerous industries in its wake including music, publishing, news, customer services, media and, of course, the industry I work in, PR and marketing. Now it’s healthcare’s turn and, what’s more, the digital health revolution is going to improve (and in some instances, save) people’s lives. Exciting times indeed which I cover on my other blog, Bionic.ly,  which is dedicated to all things digital health.

Any questions, queries, opportunities feel free to get in touch.