Action PR Group

August 31^st has (unofficially) been set as International Blog Day, an initiative of blogday.org since 2005. BlogDay is an opportunity for each blogger to recommend 5 blogs that he or she finds interesting, along with a short description and a link for each blog.

As blogs and bloggers are an integral part of how we all receive, process and use information, we wanted to pay homage to local blogs that stand out from the crowd in some our markets, and share them with you. Here are 5 blogs, by country, that our local offices reckon are worth reading (most blogs have a focus either on PR and communications, our clients’ industries, or are just plain interesting):

BAHRAIN Blogs

1. Mahmood’s Den (Political / General Interest)

URL	http://mahmood.tv	Language	English
About	By far Bahrain’s most read blog. Mahmood comments on everything related to Bahrain – from local politics to international events; from consumer items to Formula One.

2. Bint Battuta in Bahrain (Social)

URL	http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/bint-battuta-in-bahrain	Language	English
About	A blog about the authors’ life, musings and anecdotes.

3. Babbling Bahrania (General Interest)

URL	http://bahraniat.blogspot.com	Language	English
About	A blog by a Bahraini woman covering various social, cultural issues. A candid opinion by the blogger makes it an interesting read.

4. Birding Bahrain (Wildlife)

URL	http://www.hawar-islands.com/blog	Language	English
About	A blog about the wildlife observation (primarily bird watching) in and around Bahrain with a focus on Hawar islands. Mainly a photo-blog with some lovely visuals.

5. Lost in Bahrain (Personal / Humorous)

URL	http://lostinbahrain.wordpress.com	Language	English
About	A young fashion designer from London documenting her search for fun, friends and happiness in Bahrain.

BULGARIAN Blogs

1. Izbrano (Technology/ Gadgets)

URL	www.izbrano.net	Language	Bulgarian
About	An interesting blog about technology news, gadgets, music, movies and entertainment, around since 2007.

2. Salted Lemons (Cooking)

URL	http://loisslokoski.blogspot.com	Language	Bulgarian
About	A blog dedicated to cooking. This blogger enjoys culinary experiments and is always ready for new culinary challenges.

3. Kreativen (Online Marketing & Social Media)

URL	www.kreativen.com	Language	Bulgarian
About	A blog dedicated to Web2.0, online marketing and blogging, focusing on giving advice to webmasters and bloggers.

4. Auto Equipment (Automotive)

URL	http://авто-части.net/	Language	Bulgarian
About	A blog about auto parts, automobiles and moto-accessories. Its aim is to provide up-to-date information and useful advice in regard to auto parts and accessories.

5. Lets Gym (Health & Sports)

URL	http://www.letsgym.com	Language	Bulgarian
About	The blogger, young 31 year-old Polly, has wide experience in various physical exercises and focuses the blog on giving advice to young mothers, women etc on all things sports, beauty and health.

CYPRUS Blogs

1. I Pellara en POLLON Logion (Financial / Politics)

URL	http://fortheisland.wordpress.com	Language	Greek
About	A blog that shares the blogger’s views mainly on the various aspects of the Cyprus economy, politics as well as other more general topics.

2. Chrysanthos Tsouroullis (Politics / General Interest)

URL	www.sigmalive.com/blogs/tsouroullis	Language	Greek
About	A blog by one of the most influential TV journalists in Cyprus focusing mainly on politics and politicians. Also comments on various topics the blogger feels he needs to express his personal opinion on.

3. Sometimes YES Sometimes NO (Public Relations)

URL	sometimesyessometimesno.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	One of the few blogs focusing on Public Relations in Cyprus.

4. Sports Gazette (Sports)

URL	http://sportsgazette.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	Blog focusing on sports (mainly football) in Cyprus, Greece and other countries. The team of bloggers also share news and views on the Champions League, EURO 2008, EURO 2012, EURO 2016, Europa League, superleague, UEFA Cup, World Cup 2010 etc.

5. Charalambos Theopemptou – Epitropos Perivallontos (Ecology / Environment)

URL	http://theopemptou.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	A blog by the Cyprus Commissioner for the Environment, writing on green issues.

GREECE Blogs

1. Athensville (City Life)

URL	http://athensville.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	A blog which documents what’s going on in the city of Athens, from events, to buildings, streets and people.

2. Fashion Architect (Fashion)

URL	http://fashionarchitect.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	A personal style and fashion blog from an architect, living in Athens. The blogger covers every fashion associated issue, from simple outfit posts to fashion shows such as Athens Fashion Week and other fashion related events.

3. Enteka (General Interest)

URL	http://enteka.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	An eclectic blog on all that is of interest to the blogger. A blog of ‘someone who is interested about everything’ as the blogger says.

4. A,mpa? (Lifestyle)

URL	http://a-mpa.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	A witty blog which deals with a range of subjects from a more serious 80’s New York subway crime, to celebrity-watching in an unconventional way, to 90’s tributes.

5. Iparhoume…Siniparhoume (Journalism / Society)

URL	http://gazikapllani.blogspot.com	Language	Greek
About	A blog about social and journalistic issues written by Gazmed Kapllani, an Albanian writer and journalist for “Ta Nea” newspaper, residing in Athens.

KUWAIT Blogs

1. 248AM (Social)

URL	http://www.248am.com	Language	English
About	An entertaining blog created by two expats, husband and wife, Mark works in Advertising and Nat works in TV.

2. Frankom (General Interest)

URL	http://www.frankom.com	Language	English
About	This is a refreshing blog that talks about all daily matters, with its stories usually being ones shared by thousands of incoming emails by readers worldwide.

3. Q8 Black Market (Entertainment/ Events)

URL	http://www.q8blackmarket.com	Language	English
About	Created by 2 college students, this informative blog focuses mostly on what’s going in Kuwait event/exhibitions/bazaars/movie reviews etc.

4. 4th Ring Road (General Interest)

URL	http://www.4thringroad.com	Language	English
About	An entertaining blog from “a bunch of guys” sharing their insights on what’s going on in Kuwait, along with things they love, hate, love to love and hate to hate.

5. Some Contrast (General Interest)

URL	http://somecontrast.com	Language	Arabic/ English
About	This blog covers a very wide range of topics, creating some contrast as the name promises. An overall interesting blog with its eclectic topics.

KYRGYZSTAN Blogs

1. Mirsulzhan Namazaliev (Social Media, General Interest)

URL	http://www.namazaliev.com	Language	Russian
About	Mirsulzhan Namazaliev is one of the most well known bloggers in Kyrgyzstan. He writes about social media, the internet, blogging, as well as social, political and cultural issues in Kyrgyzstan.

2. Discovering of Environment of Central Asia (Environment, Science)

URL	http://gulnura.wordpress.com	Language	English
About	The author of this blog, Gulnura Toralieva, writes about environmental issues in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia and also covers science communication topics.

3. Kloop Media (General Interest, PR)

URL	http://kloop.kg	Language	Russian
About	Kloop.kg is a collection of blogs which mostly deal with political, economic, cultural issues in Kyrgyzstan. Kloop also publishes press releases for free unlike information agencies which will usually request money for PR material.

4. Bugulab (Design, Art)

URL	http://www.bugulab.blogspot.com	Language	Russian
About	Bugulab.com is a blog from the creative Studio Bugulab about design, art, photography, creativity and corporate identity. The blog also features a database of their corporate identity works which they have done for many organizations in Kyrgyzstan.

5. Bektour Iskender (General Interest, Political)

URL	http://bektour.com	Language	Russian
About	Bektour is one of the most well known bloggers in Kyrgyzstan. His blog is mostly about traveling, economy, politics and social issues in Kyrgyzstan.

LATVIA Blogs

1. Slava Se (Personal)

URL	http://pesen-net.livejournal.com	Language	Russian
About	This is the most popular blog in the Baltic States and also one of the most popular blogs in RuNet (Russian Internet). The author – common Latvian inhabitant Vjaceslav Soldatenko – has reached thousands Russian-speaking readers all over the world.  He has recently published his first book based on stories from his blog. Vjaceslav writes mostly about his life, family, work, friends, interesting events etc. Each blog post is a funny short story.

2. Telecommunication and IT, Juris Kaža (IT and Telecommunications)

URL	http://blogi.nozare.lv/kaza	Language	Latvian
About	A blog written by a Latvian journalist who could easily be called a “pioneer” in the Latvian blogosphere. He has an international experience as a journalist, is now working in the national news agency LETA and blogging about IT, new gadgets and telecomms.

3. Stuff-n-Style (Fashion)

URL	http://stuff-n-style.blogspot.com	Language	English
About	A popular Latvian fashion blog, where the two authors Denis Shevelev and Maija Meiere (or Boy and Girl as they call themselves – PR specialists in real life) are blogging about essential fashion events and news, both in Latvia and globally. Their aim is to popularize local fashion designers worldwide.

4. Public Relations, Marketing, Ingars Rudzitis (PR, Marketing)

URL	http://blogi.nozare.lv/irudzitis	Language	Latvian
About	The blog’s author, Ingars Rudzitis, worked for years at McCann-Erickson Riga as a PR consultant. His blog is devoted to PR and writes from new, interesting and original items he finds in publications, to books he read, to observations, opinions, events, advices etc.

5. Ansis Egle (Tourism, Personal)

URL	http://ansisegle.lv	Language	Latvian
About	The blog’s author is the marketing director of Aerodium (vertical wind tunnels). Apart from work and tourism issues, his blog is also filled with personal observations, experiences and stories.

LITHUANIA Blogs

1. Dansu Dansu (Marketing & Communications)

URL	http://dansu.lt	Language	Lithuanian
About	A blog about marketing and communications, the base of resources of these fields and comments on market news.

2. Marketer.lt (Internet Marketing)

URL	http://www.marketer.lt	Language	Lithuanian
About	A blog about internet marketing and review of related news.

3. Uagadugu (TV News)

URL	http://uagadugu.lt	Language	Lithuanian
About	A blog on Lithuanian TV news and trends of the media market.

4. Mediana.lt (Sociology, market research)

URL	http://www.mediana.lt	Language	Lithuanian
About	A blog about sociology, social market researches and public opinion.

5. Komunikacija Facebook’e (Social media news)

URL	http://komunikacija-facebooke.lt	Language	Lithuanian
About	A blog about social media news and trends.

OMAN Blogs

1. Muscat Confidential (Current Affairs)

URL	http://muscatconfidential.blogspot.com	Language	English
About	This blog offers a refreshing injection of impartiality and honesty into the often obsequious and feeble Oman press. It provides information about local and national affairs by combining the “word on the street” with insightful analysis and rapier wit. Often controversial, always entertaining, never intimidated; Muscat Confidential sets the benchmark for online reporting in Oman.

ROMANIA Blogs

1. Comanescu (Media)

URL	www.comanescu.ro	Language	Romanian
About	Iulian Comanescu, highly active and well-known media analyst in Romania, outlines in his blog posts intriguing and relevant issues on communication, media, personal branding, advertising and Web 2.0.

2. Cristian Manafu (Social Media)

URL	www.manafu.ro	Language	Romanian
About	Cristian Manafu is one of the best known bloggers in Romania and writes about the media industry, internet, advertising, technology and blogging. He organizes events and seminars about blogging and social media.

3. Puterea Comunicarii (Media, Communications & CSR)

URL	www.dragosdehelean.ro	Language	Romanian
About	This blog is aimed at Communications and Public Relations issues, covering mostly the corporate social responsibility field.

4. Return to the com(m)unity (Media & Advertising)

URL	http://danpetre.wordpress.com	Language	Romanian
About	Dan Petre’s blog emphasizes the world of advertising, highlighting creative moves in the Romanian advertising market and also offering relevant tips in qualitative research.

5. PR Wave Blog (PR & Communications)

URL	http://www.prwave.ro/blog	Language	Romanian
About	The PRwave blog, part of PR Wave community, outlines topics on how to build your personal brand, internal communication, media relations, novelties and trends, PR and marketing 2.0, Online PR and relevant chapters related to the PR industry.

RUSSIA Blogs

1. Drugoi in Russia (Social & Political Photo/Video Blog)

URL	http://drugoi.livejournal.com	Language	Russian
About	The most popular and influential blogger in Russia. His blog introduces modern political and social life in Russia via photos and videos.

2. Sergey Dolya’s Blog (Travel and Tourism)

URL	http://sergeydolya.livejournal.com	Language	Russian
About	The blog is maintained by Sergey Dolya, the most popular blogger in Russia on the topic of traveling and tourism. It contains posts with interesting reviews of the world’s most beautiful places and unique photos.

3. IT Blog (Information Technology)

URL	http://itblog.name	Language	Russian
About	A blog which focuses on how to use IT technologies, solutions and applications more effectively. An interesting blog for both professionals and beginners.

4. Medvedev in Russia (Political)

URL	http://blog.kremlin.ru	Language	Russian
About	The official video blog of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

5. Mikhail Prokhorov Blog (General Interest)

URL	http://md-prokhorov.livejournal.com	Language	Russian
About	A blog by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov covering social, political, economic, sports, cultural and charity issues. The blog is one of the most popular among Russian readers given Mikhail Prokhorov popularity and charisma.

SERBIA Blogs

1. Dragan Varagic (e-Business, e-Marketing, Online PR)

URL	www.draganvaragic.com/weblog	Language	Serbian
About	A blog by an online PR/e-marketing consultant with very interesting posts around internet oriented business.

2. Basta Balkana (Lifestyle/ General Interest)

URL	http://www.bastabalkana.com	Language	Serbian
About	This blog tries to educate people in Serbia but holds no specific ideological or political orientation. The authors’ wish is to create a better Serbia through their writing.

3. Svet Nauke (Science)

URL	http://www.svetnauke.org	Language	Serbian/English
About	A blog posting news from the world of science explained in a very interesting way.

4. Veza Blog (Online Marketing)

URL	http://blog.veza.biz	Language	Serbian
About	Mission of this blog is to help guide its clients in developing a dynamic marketing strategy in order to achieve high quality communication with customers and users online.

5. Trzisno Resenje (Economy)

URL	http://trzisnoresenje.blogspot.com	Language	Serbian
About	A blog which covers mostly economic analyses as its authors are economists, while occasionally blogging on a wider area of interests.

UAE Blogs

1. Informed Comment (Middle Eastern and Islamic Affairs)

URL	http://www.juancole.com	Language	English
About	Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context, writing widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia, commenting extensively on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Iraq War and the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan among other.

2. Life in Dubai (Dubai Economy/ General)

URL	http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com	Language	English
About	A blog on daily life, things people come up against, the laws, the weather, along with other things which are of interest to UAE residents at large.

3. Hellwa Fashion (Fashion & Lifestyle)

URL	http://www.hellwafashion.com	Language	English & Arabic
About	Be fashionable, be beautiful. A fashion blog for the stylish ladies in Dubai. This blog covers fashion, current trends and the social scene in Dubai. It also has a fantastic columnist called Scarlet who writes weekly columns on the men, fashion and friends in her life.

4. Something To Chew (Advertising / Design)

URL	http://somethingtochew.wordpress.com	Language	English
About	A blog filled with general meanderings of a person in advertising. That combined with a smart and funny writing style, it’ll keep you entertained for a while.

5. Arabian Money (Finance & Economy)

URL	http://arabianmoney.net	Language	English
About	A professional blog with information on UAE / regional economy.

A big thank you to the contributors of this blog post: Rohan Shanker (Bahrain), Toni Stankova (Bulgaria), Dimitris Ioannides (Cyprus), Panayiotis Othonos (Cyprus), Angeliki Kiofiri (Greece), Amina Al Jarery (Kuwait), Elira Turdubaeva (Kyrgyzstan), Marija Makarevicha (Latvia), Jolita Jukneviciute (Lithuania), Camelia Cristache (Romania), Ruxandra Scortea (Romania), Grigory Lugovoy (Russia), Anna Vavilova (Russia), Srdjan Crnogorac (Serbia), David Baker (Oman and UAE), Meredith Carson (UAE).

Any blogs you’d like to recommend? Add them to the comments section along with their country of origin. Happy Blog Day!

Paul Holmes – founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Holmes Report – gave a talk at the Beirut PR Forum earlier this month which was so entirely bang on that I couldn’t even live tweet it, I could only sit there and absorb every word. In my world, this is a rarity.

While he covered a variety of subjects, such as crisis communications; the irrelevance of Ad Value Equivalents (AVEs); internal communications; the incorrect positioning of PR under the marketing umbrella, it was what he had to say on one particular subject that caught my attention, big style.

Holmes put forward the case by stating a given; the success of an organisation’s ability to make correct decisions at boardroom level is dependent on an open internal culture and effective corporate structure. He claimed that, while some organisations have an open and welcoming internal culture, few organisations possess the correct corporate structure at boardroom level to safeguard the company’s reputation.

The success of a company is dependent on its ability to make good business decisions. When an organisation makes a significant business decision, there are four main factors to be considered:

Operations

Finance

Reputation

Legal

Do you agree?

Holmes argues that only three out of four of these factors are regularly considered. When a serious decision is on the boardroom table, the legal team is present, along with the CFO, COO and CEO. That’s Operations, Finance, and Legal covered … but where’s Reputation?

Public Relations is the guardian of reputation, responsible for the relationship between a company and society. Holmes was strident in his assertions that PR must be involved in policy-making in order to enhance a company’s reputation.

As a business philosophy, PR tends to be an after-thought in the decision-making process and is not treated with the seriousness it deserves. Subsequently, attention is not being given to the reputation implications of decisions as and when they’re being considered.

Of course reputation is everything. Yet so many large companies – and CEOs – fail badly at reputation management. BP’s Tony Haywood has become synonymous with poor crisis communications. Toyota failed to address the issues in a transparent manner. It’s a daily occurrence. For instance, right now in Dubai we are witnessing the fallout of Emirates NBD’s policies towards people who default on loans. Do you think that if PR had been involved in corporate decision making concerning penalties and payment plans for those who default on credit card repayments, things would have worked out better?

Holmes asserts that a major reason for these fallouts is the absence of PR consultation at the point of decision; when a business decision is fiscally feasible, legally obtainable and operationally sound, all that’s left may be those awkward, nagging reputation considerations. Without reputation representation, these awkward nags are all too easy to overlook; it’s easier to simply ‘spin’ a little further down the line. This is entirely counter-productive.

PR representatives must be present at the point of call and be confident in making a case to their peers. Failure to do so does, has and will continue to have major repercussions for organisations which mushroom to encompass operations, reputation, legal and fiscal.

Our role needs to be about upping the ante! We need to claim responsibility for asking the tough questions of our C-level peers. We need to understand and appreciate business administration just as much as we do journalism. In doing so our perspective is better appreciated, we’re empowered to evaluate outcomes with regards to reputation and challenge company seniors on important issues when required.

True Public Relations is about a great deal more than simply writing press releases and hosting media roundtables. It’s about defending the honour of your organisation, fighting the good fight with the right people and crucially – at the right time. It means ensuring there is a correct and honest cascade of information through an organisation, to the media to the public.

It means encouraging decision makers to think and behave as though every decision made behind closed doors at executive level has the potential to become the headlining story on Al Jazeera or the New York Times. Because who knows? One day it just might.

One of the best things about working in Action is knowing that you belong to an international and very diverse team. While most of our working day is taken up with focusing on daily client duties, we love it when we get the opportunity to reach out to team members in other countries within our network for support and ideas.

It’s an aspect of Action life that I enjoy, as it’s a chance to hear different perspectives from different parts of the world and a chance to see that although we are all extremely different in many ways we are also the same.

Just two weeks ago, we experienced a network bonding experience where our agencies from the Middle East, Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe came together to support a request from Elira – our Country Manager in Kyrgyzstan. Elira asked how the network could show their support for people and refugees displaced as a result of ethnic violence in her country.

Between us, we came up with a simple but effective way to raise awareness and some money, whereby all the people within the Action Global Communications network came to work on the same day wearing white as a symbol of peace. Employees were also invited, if they wished, to make a donation to the cause – the company then matched all the money donated by the teams across the network. It was an effective way to generate awareness around a cause while also giving a healthy donation to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Sharing with each other images of the local teams wearing white created a real sense of teamwork!  Thanks to everyone for sharing and supporting.

When I first wrote about this project, I thought the title embodied perfectly how we all felt in the agency – it’s just so rewarding to work for a good cause! Fast forward three months and with campaign results in, I’ll say it’s more than good; it’s fantastic to work for a good cause!

Thanks to OMV’s customers, no less than 23,000 Euro was raised for the dyslexic community through the OMV Move & Help – Moving on With Reading programme.

Since the campaign started at the end of April, almost 28,000 postcards were sold in OMV filling stations across the country, with the proceeds going to the project partner, the Romanian Association for Dyslexic Children. The Association will now be printing more educational materials for dyslexic children, including an Abecedary, and will support parents and teachers alike through seminars and advice.

A small ceremony took place last week at the OMV Romania HQ and a Social Media News Release (SMNR) on this occasion was distributed.

One of the things that we communications professionals miss (too) often is an evaluation of a project’s impact, beyond media coverage analysis of course. And with this programme, we are in for a treat. We knew the campaign worked, as ultimately a lot of money was raised, but we were thrilled to find out that OMV was the 4^th most visible retail brand in Romanian social media during May, according to a study by Zelist.ro.

We’re also pleased that…

500 campaign support materials were displayed in filling stations

approx. 350,000 educational materials were distributed to OMV customers

the media covered the campaign in 63 stories in print, online and radio

2 TV stations announced the campaign with stories on primetime news

the Facebook cause to support fund raising counts 280 members while the Facebook page of the Romanian Association for Dyslexic Children is slowly growing as well

30 “I read better” Guidebooks were ordered online at www.dislexic.ro

Numbers aside, the feedback from the dyslexic community was great. More teachers and parents are now better informed and the first database of speech therapists in Romania is taking shape.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. And with dyslexia being such a low-profile topic in Romania, there is a long way to go. But with 1 in 10 children being affected by it in the world – we know that every step counts!

As they say, in every end there is a beginning. At this time, OMV is looking past the pilot project and into potentially creating more opportunities for children to have access to equal education. As for me and my team, we are getting ready to do more of that good cause.

The casual and topical Russian word for rain, дождь, became a top mystery for Twitter users worldwide yesterday.

The growingly hot weather in Eastern Europe was interrupted by a rainfall in region on Tuesday, July 20th. This event lead to the Cyrillic word “дождь”, which means rain, to instantly become one of the top Twitter trending topics. Every minute, 10+ tweets containing the word would appear. This is the first time when a Cyrillic word has been featured in Twitter’s trending topics.

As a result, Twitter’s English-speaking audience had an overwhelming interest for the unknown word, which resulted in rumors and funny guesses by more than 70 million users, with some tweets saying:

What is дождь?

#дождь is a time when the vodka falls from the sky and polar bears begin to walk on the red square with AK47

дождь is Putin’s new pet name

I know what is Дождь! Follow me!)

Rumors that “дождь” is a new Russian nuclear bomb or a new phone which is better than iPhone 4 had also started circulating.

By the end of the day, the word дождь had a viral flashmob-like effect in Twitter.

Even the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, posted a tweet containing the word дождь:

Evening news on one of the central TV channels in Russia even reported on this funny case.

So why was a plain subject as the rain such a popular topic among Russian-speaking twitterers? Well with so many people being as exhausted by the unusually hot weather, they were so ecstatic to see some rain coming to cool things down and so started to instantly tweet about it as soon as the first rain drops hit the ground. And with more than 200,000 Russian-speaking Twitter users tweeting about it at the same time, it made the other 69 million and 700,000 Twitter users take notice.