Yesterday I was up in Newcastle presenting at the CIPR Northern Conference about Medway Council’s Mixit Podcast (slides and notes here).

As well as my presentation I stayed around for the morning of the conference, including the keynotes from Graham Goodkind (Frank PR) and Paul Corley (GMTV) and an interesting workshop on PR for arts with Claire Byers (BALTIC) and Diane Green (NewcastleGateshead Initiative).

Paul’s keynote focussed on media regionality, and how digital technology is breathing new life into regional content delivered through the internet. He put forward the view that localised television content and the compelling power of localised advertising will work together to bring about innovative localised media services.

Unfortunately I had to catch a flight so missed the afternoon session, including Stephen Davies’ workshop on online PR.

I really enjoyed the whole experience, and particularly finding out about PR in the north-east and meeting new people including Claire Byers (Director of Communications, BALTIC), Liz Lewis-Jones (CIPR President-Elect) and Laurel Hetherington (Laurel Hetherington Associates).

It was, of course, also nice to catch up with familiar faces Andy and Nicky (Don’t Panic) and Stephen Davies too.

[tags]CIPR, Chartered+Institute+of+Public+relations, mixit, medway+council, podcast, newcastle, don’t+panic, BALTIC, claire+byers, laurel+hetherington, liz+lewis-jones, stephen+davies, nicky+wake, andy+wake[/tags]