Sandy Gall is one of the UK’s most experienced newsmen. He was a familiar face for years as the ITN News at Ten anchor, but that was just one element of  a lengthy career that has seen him report from the Suez, Hungary and the Congo in the 1950s and 1960s, and filing reports from the Vietnam War, Uganda and the Middle East throughout the 1960s and 1970s. A main presenter, he also travelled extensively reporting on wars and crises around the world rather than always being stuck behind a newsroom desk.

He’s going to be talking and taking questions soon at Mandrake, a free and informal monthly networking club that is a long-term Speed friend, giving our clients and contacts access to some inspiring and high-level people.

Speed’s work for The Economist and the Associated Press gives us some pretty privileged access to some of the top journalists working in the UK today, but Sandy is someone I’ve wanted to meet for a long time, one of those newsmen from the grand old days of broadcast reporting that doubtless has some keen views on how media change has altered the shape of reporting recently, and how that may change in the future.

It’s a rare opportunity to hear from a man who at the age of 84 has reported on so many major conflicts and saw not just the world change but reporting change as television evolved.

7pm on 8th May at the Adam Street club, 9 Adam Street, off Strand, London is marked with an asterisk in my diary. If you’d like to come along, please let me know by comment, email, tweet or phone.

But that’s another story. Speed is beefing up how it handles work experience placements. Historically we’ve run it like a lot of other agencies – we’ve tried to give it some structure, tried to ensure people doing it get a chance to experience some of the more interesting work rather than getting stuck with the grunt stuff, and tried to use it as a longer-term entry-level recruitment tool.

Trying is good, but we thought we could do better. So we’ve reorganised it into an approach that should be better for us and for any budding Speedettes wanting to get some experience not just of working in PR, but of working at Speed.

It’ll complement what we already do to encourage entry-level applicants and enable people wanting to get into PR to learn from us, namely:

- Speed graduate scheme, which is what it says: a structured process for graduates looking to join and fast-track their learning through a full-time job

- Internships: these are paid (as opposed to the scourge of unpaid ones) periods of employment with Speed, normally as part of someone’s studies in related fields

Work experience will work like this:

- Placements of one week up to one month, in central London

- A continual stream of people on placements, so you pick up workload and projects from the outgoing person and hand it on to the next, rather than the haphazard approach or ‘anyone got anything for them to do?’ emails

- Travel expenses covered

- Secondment to client teams in a support role, with exposure to meetings, planning, content development and evaluation, plus an understanding of what we’re working to achieve. Diversity of client experinece acrosss technology, mobile, media, retail/consumer and corporate work.

- Time spent with directors in the business to understand how PR firms work 

- One placement at a time

- References given

All in, the intention is to make it an commercial asset for us rather than something done as a favour, and a career benefit for people taking part in it, so it helps them to make career decisions and bolster experience.

If you want to apply, send me a tweet or an email.

We’ll make sure any half-bricks are merely metaphorical.

As we toiled for 18 arduous months putting it together  – or, more honestly, dabbled with it in our spare time on trains, planes and as passengers in automobiles – we talked to lots of people, read and listened to lots of things, but hit a few barriers as well. We also came up against conventional publishing restrictions, and found some opportunities too.

So here are 10 things that you won’t find out about Brand Anarchy from reading it, but which were part and parcel of its making:

1. Brand Anarchy was not its original title. That was Brandf*cked, so a little risque.

2. One man made infamous by a media misdemeanour that saw his business and his brand crumble was approached for an interview for the book, but we never heard back. His name is Gerald Ratner.

3. All marketing/PR/comms people we approached agreed to talk except one, someone at the very top of the industry. It may have been because he liked the concept but couldn’t see what was in it for him if he got involved, and fair enough. We won’t name him but he replied courteously with the words “Not for me”.

4.  Banksy did not do the artwork but the overall concept was my idea.

5. Total time taken to proof Wadds’ chapters: 5.75 hours

6. I did want to come up with a vegetarian analogy, but went with roast lamb and mint sauce for populist reasons

7. The names of several FTSE CEOs and CMOs who confessed they were scared stiff by the internet and prompted the thought that resulted in the book are not featured in it

8. I had to update my chapters twice because the media world changed during the production of the book.

9. Some of Alastair Campbell’s comments at Speed’s pre-launch event in January have not been included because it was already on the presses by then. Shame, as they were even stronger than those in the book

10. There aren’t any typos. Or are there?

CNN’s business coverage frontman Richard Quest went a little further at a Gorkana breakfast briefing last week. In a crisp outline of what PR people can do to get their clients covered on CNN’s various business outputs, he was equally prescriptive in saying what he didn’t want.

“If you try and sell me crap you will hear about it fast. It’s the same as with any other successful pitch – you have to know what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to. For us, it must be of global interest or put into a European context,” he said.

But even if a pitch was successful, there was more PR folk needed to do in order to make the coverage a success. Even the most senior spokespeople out there can be daunted (not least by Quest’s interview style, which is always forthright and entertaining) when being interviewed live. “There is nothing more bowel churning than when you ask a question live on air and the guest just dries up, digs the hole and then keeps on digging,” he said.

A few other tips on getting exposure to a business audience via CNN:

- When you have a news story or want to offer some relevant comment on someone’s else’s news story, you should aim to hit as many CNN outputs as possible with it, not just the entry point. Work out how the story is likely to build acorss the different shows and platforms, and work with CNN on suggestions

-  The demand is always for topical or breaking stories. That means stories which are topical and/or breaking 

- The Quest Means Business slot is always the domain of CEOs. No-one else will do

- When offering interviews, consider what interesting props and backdrops you can also offer. And consider what the presenter can do to make story visual or bring it to life – this can be anything from getting their hands on the subject matter to doing something utterly unusual

- Men in pinstripes can be dull. Alternatives tend not to be

- There is a morning news meeting at 11.30am and the main show goes out at 7pm.

- Use the email addresses Quest@cnn.com or pitch@cnn.com

- Most of the shows have a current interest in ‘millennials’: employees aged 22 to 30 years, and their experiences in the world of work

- CNN Marketplace is a show about how macro issues affect people on the ground. It’s a 15-minute show and features a big-hitter interview, either CEOs or senior politicians. It has a small team, with Juliette Mann being main correspondent. It works two to four weeks out for some shows, which go out on Thursdays

- CNN Business Traveller is being relaunched on 15 March

Brand Anarchy will finally be published on 26 March. This is an informal drinks bash to wish it well, and say thanks for all of the help with it. RSVP with a comment below, or email/DM me.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese has form as a hangout for literary figures: Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton and Dr Samuel Johnson are reckoned to all have supped at the bar.

 And in many ways Fleet Street, the former cornerstone of the UK print industry, is the perfect location to launch a book about reputation and media change. Although it’s somewhat reassuring that some Fleet Street boozers never change.

Please note that the image above is merely representative of the book’s cover and may have been tampered with. You’ll never guess what the original title was going to be.

So why do we use LinkedIn groups so badly for communicating with other PR and comms people? While Twitter has emerged as a useful information and opinion-sharing tool, with many of us making new connections and gaining new insight through content shared – with rivals, prospective clients/agencies, journalists, colleagues and industry contacts – LinkedIn by comparison seems to be a dumping ground for drudgery.

Just take stock of some of the content that has been circulated on the LinkedIn groups (PR, comms, brand reputation, social media) I’m a member of this week already:

- Two messages from agencies wanting to hire people (fair enough I guess)

- Someone looking for a PR agency (we like that sort of thing)

- Discussion: what is your personal definition of a brand?

- Discussion: strategies for staying positive (suggestion: give up using this LinkedIn group and seek alternative thrills elsewhere?)

- Discussion: what is a brand promise?

- Discussion: Google+ and its “massive growth”

- Discussion: Facebook IPO is coming (shock, hold front page)

- Discussion: defining PR

- Discussion: is reputation management just rebranded corporate communicatons (don’t start me..)

- Discussion four steps to capture competitive market share and grow sales (never seen anything like this before)

I could go on – these are just some of them, but are representative. Perhaps I just joined the wrong groups, but their titles all seem to make them relevant. The point is that while few people just use LinkedIn as an extra way of touting their wares and needs to the PR ‘community’, and so be it, many others just pollute groups with so-called discussions which are largely mute because no-one wants to talk about them. Because they’re hackneyed, dull, vacuous or have an obvious commercial bias, or all four.

It is quite an achievement to make content so uninteresting, particularly when the audience is people whose careers should be built on doing the polar opposite.

There’s little active discussion, and too few PR people have worked out how to use LinkedIn groups to build relationships, credibility and knowledge.

And while it’s hardly the best starting point, I’ll start new discussions in my groups about this post. Is that a pin I hear in collision with a flat surface?

Like many of our training initiatives, the #speedvideo challenge was speedlearning – some instructions, some theory, and then put it into practice, with a prize for the winning team. The three-minute videos were then edited, formatted and finalised by our video partner Blueprint TV (thanks again guys for giving up your time to help with this).

The judges considered communication clarity, interest level for the target audience and strength of delivery of the message that video/SEO are now core components of expansive, true public relations, as opposed to a restrictive media relations-only approach.

Without further ado, the winning team was Cakie (sorry, Katie) Swan’s, which served up a recipe for perfectly-baked SEO in PR.

A close runner-up, by a mere point, was Lisa Corbridge’s team for a video about the fundamentals of video in PR.

Well done both teams, amazing what you can achieve under a tight deadline pressure with a camera, light, microphone and large bag of Sainsbury’s plain white flour.

I’ve long been a fan of Lucy Kellaway’s column but today’s piece on whether male executives should get hair transplants to extend their careers certainly bring matters to a head.

It’s a great article and made me chuckle enormously. Anything in the FT that mentions Wayne Rooney has comic potential. And it’s fair of me to do so - no I’m not bald as a coot, but as grey as a (greying) badger and have been heading that way since my early 30s.

But while Lucy gives a cutting assessment of the value of hair in senior career aspirations, there’s a PR point to this too – would having hair replacement treatment, or trying to deny the onset of baldness, have an impact on your brand’s reputation or your own personal reputation? Does being a baldie, a hair transplantee or a wiggy work against you in media interviews?

Well looks do play a major part in determing how someone is pereceived of course. But would someone who tried to cover themselves up look like they had something to hide? Would a silver fox like me appear to be past it? Does the insistence on keeping remaining hair as-is despite the rapid emergence of chrome dome glory smack of being ill-at-ease your own abilities?

Well there’s more to reputation than immediately meets the eye, but here are some hair tips for blokes in senior roles who have to face the media and their publics as brand ambassadors:

- If you’re going bald, shave it. It’ll show self-confidence

- If you’re going grey, get used to it. You might even look more experienced. Just go easy on the light clothing (particularly shirts) for TV, videos and pictures as you might look a bit like Fred in Scooby Doo

- If you’re not going bald or grey, try not to be too smug because the rest of us are. Equally, have answers prepared on whether you use dye

Bald can be commanding, authoritative and the basis of an aura. It’s part of you, it’s part of your reputation; revel in it.

Videos have had valuable since their infancy, but in the past couple of years agencies really seemed to have cottoned on to their value in explaining things, relaying stories, interesting the audience and stirring word-of-mouth.

Yet most agencies don’t really understand how to do videos well. Some agencies have restructured to develop expertise in content creation, which might help them but doesn’t always help clients looking for PR people to counsel them about more than content. That’s another discussion altogether though.

We’ve done lots of videos at Speed, but thought we can always improve skills throughout the team in applying a brand’s narrative to video, ensuring clarity of communication and apply understanding to make the content really potent. There are also lots of practical tips to consider too.

So we’re doing a Speed Video training morning today and have set two teams of all-rounder PRs a challenge: make the best video you can by lunchtime. The one that is clearest, most compelling and best tells the story of where Speed is heading as a business wins a prize. A very PR-ish prize. Being racy might help too, but let’s keep it decent.

The teams are hard at it at the moment. One video will be on the planning of editorial content for SEO, the other one best practice in using videos in PR campaigns. They’ve done their homework. Some people have brought props. Creative process PR rooted in audience nous has clearly been undertaken, rather than just one of those wafty PR brains storms that start with “what shall we do then?”

 Quite what they’re doing though, no-one is sure. Overheard in one plotting meeting:

“Sarah is going to roll, I’m going to sprinkle and then we need to work out what to do with the flour.”

And in another, awash for fluorescent sticky notes: “As cheesy as it is, it does make for a good link. I’ll just have to gaze into your eyes as I talk about rich media.”

Stay tuned for the results later.

There were other points about us not trusting the media very much, which given the obvious commercially-sensitive slants most media have put on the information - Huff Post says lack of trust in established media is a social media opening, The Guardian says trust in the media has increased - were surely a foregone conclusion anyway. When the media (new and old) spins something about apparent lack of trust in media, my eyeballs roll. 

Edelman has clearly long been onto a good thing with the Trust Barometer, but behind the headlines squats the whole issue of not just the fact (well, the fact according to a representative sample of people asked to give their opinions) that trust in business leaders and politicians is at a low ebb, but what can be done to improve it.

Of course the obvious points, mostly already made in coverage of the survey, are that transparency must reign and social media engagement to forge direct relationships with the public is something to cling to. But there are deeper issues to probe here.

Trust may be at the forefront of the story, but trust can’t begained without belief. And while the statistics have editorial appeal given the current state of the country and its economy, they do beg the question of whether Britons have ever trusted business leaders and politicians. We may need them, we may favour them over other alternatives, but we don’t necessarily trust them because we (probably) won’t ever really believe them - because they have a personal and commercial/governmental agenda to pursue. Their intentions are not typically seen as pure, so what comes out of their mouths and the way in which they behave will always be perceived with that in mind.

Sometimes I don’t completely trust my friends or those around me. That’s not a character flaw per se, but a consequence of me knowing that the thinly-veiled reason for their question, comment or behaviour may be something like giving me the ‘opportunity’ of some more work to do, or convincing me that it really is my round at the pub.

I doubt whether merchants in medieval times or past kings were trusted much by the public, and many may have been despised. We didn’t know about trust levels back then because we didn’t try to measure them scientifically, but I doubt a survey of the Holy Land about whether the local populace thought Herod was a nice chap would have given us fascinating and hitherto unknown insight. 

My point here is that while the powers that be do appear to be doing a worsening job of engendering trust in their audiences, that in itself is nothing new. Scepticism has always existed, and nowhere has it been more at home than in Britain. What communciators should be focussing on is how to make the truth believed.

A changed media landscape means the truth will out. So spinning it and trying to control media agendas won’t work anymore, and the public probably didn’t trust you any more even when you could do that.

These days your work to build trust must centre on a communications strategy that seeks to build reputation in layers over time, believably. To use Alastair Campbell’s analogy from the event Speed ran last week, it’s about landing dots on a blank page.

The difference is that – providing you tell the truth – the immediacy and transparency of digital media can be combined with the reach and calibre of conventional media to join those dots faster. No one media type will create belief, it needs to be built over time, using all appropriate media outlets in the right combination, with the right content, rooted in an intimate understanding of the audience. That’s how PR can best help to improve overall levels of trust.

It’s PR’s (public relations, not media relations) central challenge in modernising, and it will take time, trust me.