Get the Champagne!

Wow! Yesterday I won a social media award for the Best Practitioner/Researcher blog at the European Public Relations Education and Research Association Spring Symposium or #ess2010 for short.

This year’s conference is a 3 day affair taking place at the wonderful University College Arteveldehogeschool in Ghent, Belgium and plays host to many of Europe’s top PR academics. It has been a teriffic opportunity to network and actually meet people face to face having read many of their tweets, blogs and feature articles over the years.

I’m delighted to have won the award and must confess that I’m exceptionally proud, if slightly surprised given the strong standard of blogs that SWT was up against. As I said throughout my presentation with Neville Hobson and Philip Young, the success of SWT has little to do with me and much to do with the many people who have kindly given their time to answer Q&As or give opinions – which in turn have stimulated much debate. So thank you all.

In particular, I’d like to thank the following:

• Antonia Katsambis
• Marshall Manson
• Matt Churchill
• Ollie Money
• Stephen Waddington

It is their views and insights which have added real value and a fresh perspective to SWT.

I recognise that over the last couple of months the blog has taken a more employability focused approach – this was not a deliberate change, but is something that the blog is increasingly becoming recognised for.

Rest assured I still plan offer my views, as well as hoping to become something of a resource for graduates and young people looking to get into the PR industry – I seem to have found something of a niche. Indeed, it is these topics which people seem to engage with most and for me creating a dialogue, rather than a monologue is always pleasing.

I didn’t quite manage to find that bottle of Champagne last night, so ended up toasting the success of SWT with a couple of tasty Belgian beers.