My Day

6.30am: The alarm goes. And I hit snooze three times. I’m not a morning person.

7.05am: I roll out of bed, put on my running kit and head to work. Normally I cycle but I’m out tonight at an awards ceremony so can’t take the bike (someone tries to steal it if I leave it out overnight).

8.30am: I arrive at work to a bemused look from "John The Security Guard" – he thinks anything except the tube is madness. Upstairs I put the coffee on, then head round the corner for a shower.

8.55am: Toast at my desk reviewing the press cuttings from Precise. I then check the tasks for the day. The major items of the day: writing a short article, the PRCA National Conference, the awards judging day, our meeting with the ASA on Thursday, the High Court case with the NLA, an announcement about a new alliance and review of progress on the new website.

9.15am: Meeting with fellow members of the comms team Katie Goodrum and Reda Haq. Katie updates us on progress with the Awards. Table bookings are looking good, and the day’s focus will be preparing the packs for the judges so that they can choose the winners from the shortlist. Reda is focusing on distributing the release announcing the new partnership and writing two mailings to members, one promoting our Frontline Quiz Night and the other raising awareness of the trek up Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for the Leonard Cheshire Disability, the chairman’s charity.

9.25am: Back to the desk with more coffee and answer some queries from members. Some we get asked regularly like “What is the standard hourly rate a mid-sized agency charges a client for an account executive?”, others require research.

9.45am: Catch up call about the National Conference with Don’t Panic then invite two more speakers for the “Marketing convergence” and “The future of social media” panel sessions. Tweak the design of the conference brochure and write a covering letter to go with it. Curse mailmerge and our contacts database repeatedly (the new website will make life much easier).

10.30am: More coffee and back to the emails. Share a few of the enquiries among the team and answer a few more member questions.

10.35am: Write a quote for PRWeek, get Francis to sign it off (well, more accurately rewrite it) and then submit it.

10.45am: Look through the PRCA tweetdeck column ignoring all references to the “Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association” (Curtis Cassidy is doing well in the South West), any mentions of the “Protestant Reform Church of America” (not big tweeters) and “Pure Red Cell Aplasia” (a medical condition I still don’t understand). The sectoral groups are starting to tweet about their activities and people are still sharing the Awards shortlist.

10.55am: Speak with Sarah Evans-Toyne (Broadgate Mainland) and James Poulter (Lexis PR) about our understanding of the proposed extension to the ASA’s remit in relation to online marketing communications in preparation for our meeting with them.

11.30am: More coffee (I drink too much of it) to take into a catch up with Francis Ingham, chief executive, and David Ding, membership director about designatory letters, the PRCA AGM and forthcoming meetings being organised by our sectoral groups. Francis outlines a new initiative we will be announcing next month.

12.00 noon: A glass of water … and back to the desk to review the witness statements for our High Court case about the NLA. Wish I’d gone for more coffee to help me through the legalese. Our arguments against the introduction of the Web End User Licence (or hyperlink tax as we called it originally) remain strong. Check that the court case dates are in my diary.

1.00pm: Pop out and grab a sandwich then back to my desk. Review the BBC News and Sport.

1.45pm: Go onto the new PRCA website (launching next month) and look at progress. I’m impatient about this one. It’s going to change the way we work. It will make it easier to access our services, raising the profile of our members, improving sharing of best practice, making it easier to book onto our training, qualifications and events, and reducing the admin that all of us do day to day.

2.00pm: Meet with Stuart from the website developers and go through what still needs to be done and update the timeline.

3.00pm: Coffee and a quick twitter check. Tweet about the National Conference speaker line-up.

3.05pm: Write a first draft of an article on Public Relations in the Midlands and commission the accompanying artwork.

4.00pm: Work with Jessica on the marketing for a couple of the courses.

4.30pm: Check googlemail and hotmail for some light relief.

4.40pm: Review the judging packs containing the shortlisted entries with Katie – really looking forward to reviewing them properly at the judging day. Katie will invite the agencies and in-house teams responsible to present them at masterclasses over the next 12 months.

5.00pm: Review my budget areas and check progress against the comms plan. Some objectives we’ve already exceeded this year. Some we need to review and others need to be added in. Note them down for discussion at the next team meeting.

5.25pm: Final check of twitter.

5.30pm: Answer member emails relating to industry KPIs, evaluation and preferred suppliers.

5.45pm: The phones are quiet at last. I review the communications that we plan to put out over the next six weeks to press and members. This is the toughest part of the job and needs focus. Between new initiatives, consultations, surveys, general news, training emails, group updates, event promotions, industry updates and a range of other messages it is very easy to spam members so I look to schedule these by channel to avoid people becoming overloaded. I know that within 48 hours, the plan will have to be rejigged, but the discipline ensures that we remain focused on communicating the key messages and read rates remain high.

6.30pm: Shut down the computer and off to the awards for some networking.

1.00am: Set the alarm for 7.10am. Bliss. I won't be running in.