My day

6.30am: I know it’s Friday today because I sense the colour yellow. Odd I know, but I have a little quirky trait called Colour Synesthesia. It’s where “an individual's perception of numbers, letters, days etc, is associated with the experience of colours“. And yes, I have a colour for every day, person I know, dates, and even clients!

6.40am: A rush of blue and in runs my two year old son, Dylan. He’s incredibly vocal for his age and certainly knows what he wants. Somehow, I manage to get ready within that half-an-hour window – I can’t always guarantee a great result, but haven’t left the house with two odd shoes yet! After a quick check of my emails and couple of early morning Tweets, I jump in the car to drop off Dylan at nursery, before heading to my first meeting of the day.

9.00am: I arrive at Yellowspring IT bright and early ready to discuss new business. It’s always a great start when the client understands the relevancy and importance of PR, in all its guises. What starts off as a whirlwind of ideas, involving Japanese presentational concept Pecha Kucha, through to some quirky virals, soon becomes the bones of an ongoing campaign set to engage the professional services marketplace.

12.30pm: A journey down the A12, a traffic jam and a quick bite to eat later, I arrive back and brief a press release to one of my team as part of our latest integrated PR campaign. The irony is not lost on us both as the news involves an online solution to the number of vehicles on the road! Knowing the national transport and logistics press well, the team and I secure opportunities for coverage ready for the site launch, complete with embedded links. Our in-house developers and search team are equally poised as the launch represents another full-service marketing effort.

14.00pm: I get a call from alcoHELP, a charity we provide PR for – it has developed a “Drinking Time Machine” to raise awareness about the detrimental effects of drinking alcohol. Testing the software, I upload my picture and take a look at myself in 10 years – thankfully it could be worse given I don’t drink too much! My team and I then get to work on launching the regional PR campaign, which involves a few calls to some local MPs and journalists willing to have their photograph manipulated. The response is extremely positive and we get to work on tailoring press releases for each locality to maximise offline and online coverage

15.15pm: The Southend Echo calls to confirm that it can make an interview with the MD of my client PACE. It needs quite a bit of background information on the lettings and estate agency and our winning Sunday Times Award submission proves invaluable. I quickly identify all of the key points, highlighting its commitment to providing everybody with a home. I then prepare a full brief for the client to make sure it covers the same points sent over to the paper. Wanting to make as much use of the material as possible, I instruct one of my account execs to adapt the material for a blog post for Landlord Today, to be sent over once the paper has published its write-up.

17.00pm: There’s an air of excitement in the office, and it’s not just the usual Friday fever. We’re all off to see Tom Jones perform at Newmarket Nights for our summer social event. After setting my to-do list ready for Monday, I hop on the coach ready for an evening with my colleagues.