In the past year, the issue of unpaid internships has been a hot topic, particularly in the PR industry.

The question essentially boils down to whether or not it’s acceptable to ask someone to work for free for a sustained period of time, in order for them to gain the experience they need to secure a full-time, paid position.

In 2011, PR Week and the PRCA launched a campaign to end unpaid internships in the PR industry, and in March this year the CIPR launched a toolkit for both employers and interns to help explain the issue – but still it rumbles on.

Having experienced the struggle of getting a foot in the door after graduating (in 2009, the worst possible year) and also working for free to get the experience I needed, I have quite strong views on the issue.

First of all, it should be clear than an unpaid internship is not the same as work experience or volunteering. As far as I’m concerned, work experience is expected to be unpaid, but should last for no longer than a month, and volunteering should be for charities, not-for-profits or community groups, and is something you do in your spare time rather than instead of a full-time job.

Age comes into it as well – a 15/16 year old living with their parents who wants to get some work experience in the summer holidays is not the same as someone who has just graduated from university and needs to start earning their keep.

When I graduated, I saw A LOT of internships advertised in the media industry that were either three or six months long and completely unpaid – not even any travel expenses.

For the business, of course I can see why they would want to do this – why hire a paid employee when you can have a stream of unpaid interns coming in to do the same job?

But for the majority of graduates, and for the industry, it’s not good at all, as it breeds a culture where only the wealthiest and best connected young people are able to find the experience they need to get ahead in their chosen career.

I certainly don’t know many people who can afford to move to London and work for six months unpaid – even if you already live there with your family you’ll need a lot of financial support to get by for that long with no income.

I believe that long-term, unpaid internships are simply exploitation – but exploitation that businesses have been able to get away with thanks to the incredibly tough competition for jobs.

So what do you do if you can’t afford to do an unpaid internship?

Well for me, I got lucky – I was able to work part time as a shop assistant to fund working part time as a PR assistant for a not-for-profit organisation, which gave the experience I needed to land the job I’m in now.

I would also strongly advice anyone still at university to get as much experience in now as you can – at least you’ve got your student loans to support it!

If you’re lucky enough to be doing a degree with an industry placement year, you should definitely try and make the most of it. Although they don’t legally have to be paid as they form part of your degree, a lot will at least give you minimum wage or cover expenses, and the experience you get can be invaluable – I also know quite a few people who have finished their placement to be told that when they graduate a year later a job will be waiting for them.

For any current PR students in Cornwall or Devon, there’s more good news – DCA is recruiting! We’re looking for someone to spend the sandwich year of their degree with us, starting this summer – so if you’re interested get in touch!

Posted by @natblachford

There is no doubt that the London 2012 Olympic Games are going to put the UK in the spotlight this year. But what can we make out of it in the Westcountry, being so far from London and with so many restrictions around aligning marketing activity with the Games if you’re not an official sponsor?

Whilst for commercial ventures this might prove difficult, for destination and visitor marketing the Olympics – and the Torch Relay in particular – present a great opportunity to showcase our visitor offer to the world.

This week (Monday 19 March) the route of the Olympic Torch was announced along with some of the torchbearers, many of whom had been nominated by their local community to carry the flame through their city, town or village.
 

Plymouth's Olympic torchbearers, Andy Netherton, Poppy Mills, Jordan Anderton, Frances Johnson and Ian Sherriff

Down here in Devon and Cornwall we have the incredible advantage of being part of the first day of the Torch Relay, one of the most iconic elements of the Olympics.

Starting in Lands End on the morning of Saturday 19 May, the Torch’s first day will see it travel through Cornwall, across the Tamar Bridge and into Plymouth. Destination Plymouth (a DCA client) will welcome the Olympic Flame on Saturday night for its very first evening celebration, with a glittering party up on Plymouth Hoe.

An iconic flame, in a dazzling location on Plymouth’s stunning waterfront, with fantastic free entertainment – what a proposition! What’s more, the international news interest in the start of the Torch Relay will broadcast beautiful images of Plymouth and Cornwall around to the world.

In terms of promoting our region’s visitor offer on a regional, national and international level we need to grasp this moment in the global spotlight and make the most of it – we can be sure we won’t see it again in our lifetimes. 

Posted by @MissBishops

Last night I had a conversation with a group of friends, who don’t really ‘get’ social media. They’re all on Facebook, and one uses LinkedIn, but apart from that they don’t really understand or see the benefit of using anything else.

In my work life, I’m surrounded by people who are avid users and advocates of social media, so it was quite refreshing to talk about it with people coming from a different perspective and they rose one point in particular which I think is worth discussion:

“Why on earth would you want to tell the world where you are?”
 

Or in other words, why do people use geo-location sites like Foursquare and Facebook Places to document their daily movements by ‘checking-in’ to every place they visit?

There are A LOT of things that irritate me when I see people checking-in, and a lot of really sensible reasons why you shouldn’t want to, so I can certainly see where my friends are coming on.

Firstly, checking-in can be just plain annoying. Top of the list of check-ins that annoy me are people who do it every day when they arrive at work. Lets be honest – who cares?! Congratulations, you’ve become the ‘mayor’ of your own office! You’re at the place you’re expected to be! What an achievement, you really should be proud.

Next up, check-ins which are just plain embarrassing. I think the worst I’ve seen so far is “Joe Bloggs has just checked in to X-Town Magistrates Court”. Seriously?! You want the world to know you’re in court?! For as long as I work in social media, that’s one that I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around…

My final entry for the irritating category of check-ins is the show-off. You know, the one that has no tangible benefit to it, which no one will be interested in, and clearly has just been done as a location-based boast. A great example of this is people who check-in at the gym every day (or more). Why do that? Do you think that I’ll subconsciously remember all those check-ins next time I see you and complement you on how buff you’re looking? I think not.

Aside from making you look rather foolish, there are actually some serious reasons why it might be better not to check-in.

One of the most obvious is the “Jane Smith is at Heathrow Terminal 5”. I absolutely get that you’re excited about your holiday, and want to make you’re friends jealous, but telling the world that you’re off on holiday for a fortnight is like sending an open letter to opportunistic criminals telling them they have a two-week window to break into your house. And if you’ve also recently checked-in at “Jane and Jim’s love nest”, giving everyone your full address… well, really you only have yourself to blame.

You should also think about who is going to see your check-ins, and whether or not it’s appropriate to be telling them where you are. For example, my colleagues, employers and clients all have access to my Facebook updates and Tweets, so I’m always cautious about my work and social lives crossing paths.

Imagine you check-in to a bar at 1am on a Sunday night. Then on Monday morning, your car won’t start so you’re late for a 9am meeting with your boss. If your boss saw your late night check-in, it’s easy to see how, even if you do have a genuine reason for being late, they might still put two and two together to make six…

So with all these reasons not to check-in, why should you use sites like Foursquare?
 

Well, if you’re somewhere that will be of genuine interest to your friends, I say go for it. If I ever get an invite to Buckingham Palace, I think that would be worth a check-in. Yes, that does slightly fall into the boast category, but I think it’s an acceptable one.

Then of course there are the places that reward you for checking in. If your local pizza takeaway wants to give away a free pizza to whoever has visited the most that week, it’s definitely worth risking your friends thinking you’re a bit of a porker to keep checking-in and get the freebie.

It’s also great if you want to recommend somewhere where you’ve just had a really good meal, or offer future visitors a tip about the best table to sit at or where you can get free wi-fi. If you’re at an interesting event or conference, by all means let people know about it, or if you’re out at the weekend you can let your friends know where to find you.

What does everyone else think? Do you like the world to know what you’re up to and where you’re going, or do you prefer to keep things private?

Posted by @natblachford

Those of you who know me know that I have a tendency to get a little bit excited now and again – it is par for the course in this job. This month I am particularly giddy that I have a copy of the 2012 Plymouth Visitor Guide in my sweaty little mitts.

Creating the Official Plymouth Visitor Guide was a very special project to us here at DCA: we love Plymouth, we love to tell people why we love it and even better, by working with our fabulous friends at Fuel Communications (who worked some super design and sales magic) we were able to produce this fantastic visitor guide at NO COST to the client… that’s right, zero, nada, zilch…See – free stuff – told you it was exciting!

A foreword from the city’s newest celebrity chef, the lovely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, very aptly describes Plymouth as a city of undiscovered gems. If you haven’t discovered Plymouth for yourself yet then grab a copy of our shiny (it’s actually matt – printed on untreated stock for the paper geeks amongst you) new Visitor Guide.

Download the Plymouth Visitor Guide here or pick up a copy from the Tourist Information Centre on the Barbican. It’s also going to be winging its way around the south west so keep your eye out for a copy while you’re out and about in the region.

Enjoy reading and I hope you have fun exploring Plymouth!

Jenny x

Posted by @MissBishops

Pretty much every week, a new social network comes along, hailed as ‘the next big thing’, and then just as quickly it’s gone again.

While I always like to keep an eye on new developments, it can become a bit overwhelming with so many new sites appearing, making it hard to pick out the real gems that actually have a chance of becoming popular.

Although Pinterest has been around for a while (it was launched back in March 2010), it has received a huge surge in popularity in recent months, and in December made Experian Hitwise’s list of the Top 10 Social Networks with more than 11 million visitors per week.

Since then, naturally, it has become the darling of social media professionals, and now people are keen to leverage it for business as well as personal use.

So what’s it all about?

In essence, Pinterest is an online pin board where people can express their interests – see what they did there?

Users create themed boards, such as ‘incredible looking chocolate cakes’ or ‘cars I’d like to own’, then pin images or videos they see online onto it. You can add comments to the things you pin, and create as many boards as you like, categorised by theme.

The social element of Pinterest comes through being able to comment on, like and repin other users’ content, follow other people to keep up with what they’re pinning and share your own content with your followers. You can also connect your Pinterest account with Facebook and Twitter, helping you to find other friends who are using it and allowing you to share your pins on either site.

Your homepage will feature all the latest content from people you are following, and you can also search by category for more inspiration. A ‘pin it’ button can be added to your bookmarks toolbar, making it easy to pin content from anywhere on the web.

How can it be used for business?

Well as Facebook was in its early days, Pinterest is designed to be used by individuals, not by businesses, and it isn’t supposed to be for self-promotion. But that doesn’t mean a business can’t create Pinterest boards, or put it to good use.

Use it as a focus group

You don’t even need to create your own pin boards to start using Pinterest. If your target customers are using Pinterest (think women aged 25-45) you could use it as a real-time research tool – find out what people are talking about and sharing right now, and use this to influence your promotions.

Show people how to use your product

One of the groups first to embrace Pinterest was the food blogging community. If you’re a food producer, you could capitalise on this by creating a board of recipes made by bloggers using your product as an ingredient. Say you make a certain type of cheese, and create a board of cheese recipes – this will show people how versatile an ingredient it is and maybe even inspire them to go out and buy it to make one of the recipes.

Share your expertise

Pinterest can also provide an opportunity to position yourself as an expert in your field. Nina Garcia, fashion director of the US Marie Claire magazine, has created boards for current and upcoming fashion trends, demonstrating her expertise – and more than 75,000 people are following her.

Something like this could work equally well for designers or architects, sharing both their own work and their inspirations, and it doesn’t just apply to creative industries either – a kitchen appliance retailer could pin the latest in cutting edge washing machines if they wanted!

Be more than just a company or brand

A company that does nothing but push sales of its own products is the biggest turn-off in social media. Think wider than just your product or service. If you own a bridal wear company, don’t just pin photos of dresses – people who might buy a dress from you are going to be interested in every other aspect of planning a wedding, so think about creating a board of stunning wedding venues or floral displays, which will show people that you really care about helping them plan the perfect wedding, and that you’re not just about making sales.


As Pinterest is all about beautiful imagery, it will obviously be better suited to some sectors than others. To get an idea of whether or not it’s right for you, take a look at the list of categories for the boards – if you can fit into one of those, chances are you will be able to think of a way to use it.

The one downside of Pinterest becoming more popular is that it has now become invite only. You can request an invite from the site itself, which might take up to a week to come through, but you can also ask an existing user for one – I’ll be happy to invite anyone who asks.

And if you want to see what I’ve been pinning, follow me at pinterest.com/natblachford – but be warned, it will destroy any healthy New Year diet you may be attempting…

Posted by @natblachford