Who thought databases could be fun? Not me until Friday!

Claire Thompson, freelance PR consultant, Waves PR

So the first thupr event happened on Friday. A lot of fun was had, a lot of lessons learned, a lot of beer consumed (ahem!) and a lot of conversations had. I left around 10pm, and the party was still rolling on. I hadn’t expected that from a business event on a Friday afternoon.

It worked well. There are some great things coming out of it. There’s an awesome campaign coming up which could help PRs to serve journalists & bloggers better in future – more on that later. An attending friend had a great idea which has nothing to do with databases, but merits a separate blog. And some exciting emerging tools that those attending will share with you later.

I plan to revise the thupr format a little for future events.

There was some nervousness amongst suppliers who were concerned about showing off their wares with other suppliers there, and no-one summed this up better than Cision. Despite being a customer of theirs, and offering to download it to my laptop to show anyone present if they wanted to see it (which incidentally, as a customer I’m entitled to do), they didn’t want me to do this as they didn’t want their customers to see their product. (I’m really unhappy with them, in case you were wondering. They’ve truly mucked me about.)

This time’s ‘tools’ will have more confidence for future events, but new ‘suppliers’ may not, so I shall have a think about how to reassure them.

It speaks volumes for the suppliers that came that they had enough confidence in their own products and services to be there; and even more for those who helped promote in some way, including Press Dispensary and NeonDrum. And it was brave of those attending to trust me not to allow the whole thing to be a big sales pitch (trust me, suppliers were well briefed not to!)

Some suppliers were surprised to find that all have very different services aimed at very different markets. Most complement each other – I personally use at least three of the services for different things. (The supplier pages on this blog may be useful for anyone looking, and I’ve asked suppliers to update the wiki with their contact details for anyone looking.)

I didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked of the newcomers. I didn’t get enough time to speak with people attending as guests.

I was delighted with the support and goodwill sent my way, including from people for whom the date was really bad. And I am eternally grateful to the people who, despite an untried format, stepped up and sponsored parts of the event:

- DW Publishing (drinks)

- Gorkana (food)

Big thanks all round.

If you missed it, a bit more about the event is here:

http://thupr.wikispaces.com/thupr1+contact+databases+and+wire+services

Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/claireatwaves/sets/72157623141380575/

You can leave feedback on the event on this post, or on the feedback wiki: http://feedback1.wikispaces.com/

Tags: PR, press release, public relations, thupr

PR practise, tech & telecoms, thupr | claireatwaves | January 24, 2010 8:05 pm

2 Comments

By Dan Waldron, January 24, 2010 @ 8:16 pm

I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
By admin, January 24, 2010 @ 10:03 pm

Thanks Dan. That’s lovely of you.