Here are a few snippets:

On 9 January, Netflix, the popular US TV and film streaming service launched in the UK, giving our client ANT Software, a digital TV specialist, the opportunity to air its opinion on the connected TV market.  Result: Five pieces of national newspaper coverage in January: Telegraph: Netflix launches in Britain, How Netflix and Lovefilm are reshaping movie rentals, Connected TVs will be the norm in 2015 and Blockbuster exclusive rentals target Lovefilm and Netflix.

On 18 January, we pitched a story about the opening of Associated Press’ new news bureau in North Korea – the first international news bureau of any agency in North Korea. The story was centred on the recent death of Kim Jong II, explaining how Associated Press writers and photojournalists can work in North Korea on a regular basis, documenting the people, places and politics Korea across all media platforms at a critical time in the country’s history. Executive editor, Kathleen Carroll appeared live on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, while other coverage was spread across the news hour slot on BBC World Service, Daily Mail, The Independent The Guardian and the BBC.

On 22 January, Phil Packer, founder of the British Inspiration Trust appeared on Sky News Sunrise. Phil talked about his 2012-mile walk this year and his vision to build a ‘centre of excellence’ for young people facing adversity. Sky News is broadcast to an average 1.5 million people.

On 23 January, Tesco Beauty’s Skin Wisdom Day was featured in a fashion and beauty article in the Daily Express designed to help Brits beat the January blues.

On 25 January, The European Commission outlined planned changes to EU data protection rules that included a ‘right to be forgotten’ clause. Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia, talked about why Facebook and cloud computing companies are better positioned to adopt the legislation – BBC World News

On 27 January, John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of The Economist, was interviewed on CNN’s World Business Today programme. John spoke live on the issues discussed at Davos, and where the world’s economy now stands compared to at the previous World Economic Forum. CNN airs to 200 million-plus homes in 200 countries.

I’ve never run a session yet that hasn’t celebrated both the art and science of newsjacking, and the insight behind strong creation of a client’s own headlines. Well done to the team.

The question isn’t necessarily if  O2 is going to fix this? It will no doubt resolve the issue in the next 12-24hrs, but it’s more about how it communicates the steps it’s taking to the people like Matt who broke the news, or influencers like Ewan MacLeod (Editor and Founder of Mobile Industry Review) who has been tweeting about it since the story broke.

If it were me, i’d make sure that i bring these guys in to everything being done to fix this problem, have an open conversation with them about how this happened in the first place and the company’s next steps. People like Matt and Ewan have a huge audience, specifically in the mobile industry and by talking with them, it can help spread the word of action far quicker. They both write for widely read news sites, but perhaps just as important is the fact that they’re both extremely active across a number of social media channels, be it to cross-publish stories, or to simply deliver thought.

Just my thoughts, but needless to say i’ll be keeping an eye on this.

UPDATE:

As what usually happens with these things, first the news is broken by a digital news site (in this case The Next Web), the community and industry influencers then test and verify what’s happening, then the national journalists start investigating (around 3hrs since it broke). At this point, it’s just a matter of when a national will run with the story. Around the same time, broadcast journalists put their reports together and then the issue comes to the consumer from a number of different channels and O2 will have a whole lot more explaining to do…

As far as i’ve seen there has been little or no update from O2 aside from the slightly varied message of “we’re looking in to it” tweeted around three times a minute. If it had been able to bring those who initially broke the story in to what it’s been doing to fix the situation, it would have several platforms to communicate to the industry as a whole – which would have undoubtedly filtered through in to any stories national newspaper journalists would be writing.

Update 2:

O2 has now published a Q&A blog post to help answer some of the questions customers might have about what’s been written.

http://blog.o2.co.uk/home/2012/01/o2-mobile-numbers-and-web-browsing.html

Last night at a Speed sales event we heard Alistair Campbell (@campbellclaret), Will Whitehorn (@willthewisp)and Stephen Waddington (@wadds) talk about the end of spin and the need for a more authentic style of communication in the future.

The main take away from Campbell was routed in why strategic communications is the only type of communications that counts. Having cited the infamous bad handling of the BP Oil disaster as a total failure of strategic communications, Campbell went onto explain why Bill Clinton was the best strategic communicator he has ever met.

Recalling a telephone call between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair on the decommissioning of soviet weapons on the same day the Starr Report revealed the Monica Lewinsky affair, Campbell was impressed by Clinton’s focus on the task at hand.

Years and a Campbell and Clinton interview later, how Clinton weathered the Lewinsky scandal was revealed:

“Bill’s objective was survival. He defined his strategy to focus on things that only he could make a difference to. And his tactics – to make sure the American public knew what he was doing. It seems simple. But, your strategy is the cornerstone of survival in a crisis,” said Campbell.

Speed clients Darcy Willson-Rymer (@KingofCardz), CEO for Clinton Cards and Russell Buckley (@russellbuckley), CMO at Eagle Eye, joined the speakers for a panel Q&A, hosted by Steve Earl.

Here are a few other snippets from the evening:

• Don’t forget that you need to communicate with the public, not the media. It is your relationship with the public that matters.

• The 24 hour news cycle will get worse. The mobile will do to the PC what the PC did to mainframe. And, this will press the fast-forward button on news cycles.
• Your reputation belongs to customers, employees and the public. The job of the CEO is to understand what is going on and participating in online communities is just an extension of that. Sometimes you start the conversation, sometimes you are involved and sometimes you shut up.

• For communication directors who are restricted by the fact their operational business hasn’t adapted to the ‘always on’ nature of today’s media, acknowledge problems quickly and explain that the resolution will take time.

• And, if you want to take the micky out of David Cameron, take a look at www.mydavidcameron.com.

In a world where you will never have complete control over your brand’s reputation, don’t just focus on what everyone else is saying about you, focus on what you can change – your organisation.

You have control over your own PR strategy and it is this strategy that can save you in a crisis.