September 5, 2007
Productivity enhancing widget from TWL…
If you’re in technology PR, at some point in the next few weeks one of your clients will ask you to write a press release about The Cost to UK Business of…something. Anything.
They will. It’s the law.
It might be about Facebook. It could relate to downloading smut at work. It will possibly highlight a forthcoming sporting event, the main action of which takes place during office hours. In fact, we’d like someone to write a press release about:
The Cost To The UK PR Industry Of People Writing Press Releases About The Cost To UK Business of Anything In The Least Bit Fun Or Interesting
But then we thought we’d do something far more useful. We thought we’d design a time-saving, productivity-enhancing template for The Cost To… press releases. Aren’t we nice?
Headline: AAAA To Cost UK Business £BBBBm in lost productivity, where AAAA = less than cutting edge online activity/application or forthcoming sporting or cultural event and £BBBBm = suitably large number calculated through complex and spurious equation (see ’supporting evidence’ below)
First paragraph: Repeat headline, but add ‘according to research undertaken taken by’, client area of business and name. E.g. AAAA is set to cost UK business £BBBBm in lost productivity, according to research undertaken by the world’s leading CCCC specialist DDDD
It’s going quite well, isn’t it?
Client quote: Try to sound like a responsible businessman, yet cognisant of people’s passion for interests outside work. Talk about the establishment of ‘clear policies’. E.g. “While we understand that people are passionate about AAAA, the cost to UK business cannot be overlooked. £BBBBm is a lot of money after all. Employers need to establish clear policies for employees, something which DDDD, as the world’s leading CCCC specialist, can help with.”
Supporting evidence: Tricky bit, this. Come up with suitably complex reasoning behind £BBBBm. Something like, “Based on the assumption that everyone in the UK of working age might have access to a computer for at least 94 minutes a day and possibly spend 35% of that time doing AAAA and also based on my boss’s annual earnings added to mine and the office cleaner’s to give a reasonable average across the UK working population, we wrote a lot of big numbers on pieces of paper, stuck them in an empty Starbucks cup that I nicked this morning and got Wayne from IT to pull one out.”
Finally, expect very little coverage.
Comments
countryboy:
Try working from home. There’s no end of stuff that you could attribute to losses in productivity. 1. masterbating 2. walking dog 3. eating biscuits 4. masterbating 5. hanging out washing 6. watching ‘Homes Under The Hammer’ 7. shagging the cleaner (on Thursdays) 8. picking up sock fluff from the carpet 9. masterbating.
...the world's leading...:
For someone who I happen to know is quite the expert, I’m astonished that you can’t spell ‘masturbating’.
It’s probably your eyesight.
Iain T:
This is closely related to the “Widgets are major problem, says anti-widget manufacturer.
Vice:
Where on earth can you pick up one of those Handy-Hand devices? I want for for, er, my friend. Plus I’m thinking potential new biz client . . . .
Matt:
Agencies who let their staff watch the Rugby World Cup during office hours will reap the benefits, say …er …. the lads. By indulging rugby fans and turning to ITV on all availble TV sets, smart thinking agencies will get far less suspicious ’sickies’ being pulled, and once the tournament has ended (six weeks?) will have higher levels of loyalty than competitors …
Figgis:
Isn’t this whole post just churning over the same thing itself? I think irony may be on the verge of eating itself.
eke:
TWL Costs Tech PR Firms Minutes of Billable Time With Each New Post
Max:
I agree with Figgis: I was going to write a blog on this very topic (having been sent a completely crap release about the Rugby WC) when I realised that writing about it would give the company it so desperately craved.
But you’re right to highlight a desperate ploy by vendors - and one that seems to used more frequently.
Kasteera:
Excellent point Matt but the main action of the world cup doesn’t take place during office hours. Most of the home nation games are on the weekend or if not they kick off at 8pm so minimal office time skiving will be needed, unless you consider the USA v Tonga a key match.
Matt:
Fair enough, and I thought the same but assumed (as one does) that TWL had researched the issue and was making a telling point. So actually, it would be a very clever ploy for agencies to make a point of allowing their staff to watch the games on the office plasma, and provide cans of stella, because they would stick around ’til 8pm every game and, through sheer boredom, put in a bit of extra grunt.
Genius.
...the world's leading...:
Never assume, ’cause it makes an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me’, as my other half says (frequently).
But it is Marshall, “leaders in email and internet security” which reckons the RWC is going to be a problem because, as its press release says, “it is expected that 10% of employed Britons will spend half an hour of each working day watching coverage of matches or browsing the web for updates on scores.”
Expected by who, for fuck’s sake? Marshall doesn’t say.
Then it comes up with its own equation…
“…if one in ten of the UK’s 29 million employed people - with an average hourly wage of £14.42 an hour - spend 30 minutes a day catching up on the Rugby World Cup for the 22 working days that rugby is played, the result will be more than 31 million hours of lost productivity.”
What utter bollocks.
crunchie:
…and the answer is £130m a day - that’s how much Facebook costs UK business, according to the chaps at employment law firm Peninsula. Only problem is, this is merely a conservative estimate as they have only counted ‘minimums’. Grand Fromage Mr Mike Huss ain’t happy…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6989100.stm
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