There has arguably never been a more exciting time to work in the PR industry. As traditional media continues to be disintermediated by technology practitioners have the opportunity to engage directly with an organisation’s audiences.

The deck covers three of the key areas where individuals need to skill-up to operate in this emerging environment, namely content creation, community participation and personal networking.

Thinking Digital is one of the most inspirational conferences that I have ever attended. It takes place in the North East of England each May and draws speakers from around the world to discuss the impact of technology on different disciplines.

I’ve booked for 2012. Have you?

Related posts (from this year’s event):

• BBC Companion media multi-tasking project
• The New York Times’ Cascade project
• Book publishing industry yet to have its “Radiohead moment” says @twitchhiker
• Future gazing: personal healthcare monitoring
• Reinventing the dictionary in digital
• Answer engines and the future of maths education
• Dan Lyons on why Facebook smeared Google

He’s the founder and editor of JesmondLocal, a hyperlocal project targeted at the Jesmond area of Newcastle.

Recent stories covered live by the site include a political hustings event and a web chat with the cast of GeordieShore, much of which was filmed on JesmondLocal’s doorstep.

We talked about the role of local media within a community, generating an income from hyperlocal media, and the future of the journalism.

You can listen to the interview by clicking on the player or you can download a MP3 file of the interview by left clicking on this link with you mouse and selecting ‘save as’.

Ian spent 15 years as a staffer at The Guardian and now writes for The Financial Times, Monacle, and Management Today, and teaches at both Newcastle and Sunderland universities.

Six days in and thanks to the extraordinary generosity of our networks we have shot through the half-way point in our target to raise £2,000.

Thanks to everyone that has made a donation so far. And if you haven’t, please consider making a donation to whichever charity is closest to your heart.

The mankini is on order.

mmm in the Grainger Arcade is that most precious of independent retailers: a fantastic food shop with a mission to connect small food producers from ‘close to home’ with consumers. This local philosophy lies at the heart of its social media success on the micro blogging service Twitter.

I recently caught-up with husband-and-wife team Simone and Ian Clarkin to discover how they’ve used Twitter to engage with customers, build their brand, generate sales and all sorts of serendipitous connections.

You can read his interview in full on Reputation Online and you can follow mmm on Twitter at @mmm_newcastle or even better visit the shop for yourself.

If you’re based in the North-East you might also be interested in a workshop that I’m running on media fragmentation and the future of digital communication on Friday, 15 October, at the Malmaison, Newcastle, kicking off at 8.30am.

It’ll be based on content collated from the recent CIPR Summer Social series in London and is being hosted by the CIPR’s North-East committee.

Traditional media is fragmenting and social networks are connecting organisations and their audiences in a direct relationship. The editorial, influence and engagement skills of the PR industry mean it has a crucial role at the heart of these changes.

It’s an incredibly exciting time.

But it’s also incredibly daunting. Practitioners must learn new skills and expertise if they want to have a future in the industry. Planning and measurement become crucial disciplines as we seek to influence audiences and digitalisation turns our profession from a craft to a science.

Tickets (including breakfast) are £10 for CIPR members and £20 for non-members, from Sally Keith or 01670 515098 or Sally Pearson on 0191 244 6656.

It’d be great to see you there if you’re based in or around the Newcastle.

Thorph describes himself as a software artist, writer, and educator. He’s also a contributing editor for Wired UK.

His session described how data could be represented in a visual format. That’s the premise behind his Just Landed project.

The application scans Twitter for mentions of “I just landed” or “I just arrived” and using MetaCarta adds Longitude and Latitude data.

The Just Landed application uses these data point to plot the flights taken by Twitter users over the course of several hours.

By contextualising data in this way Thorp explained that it’s easy to understand the story behind data – in this case the flights that Twitter users are taking.

We Feel Fine takes a similar approach to plot instances of “I feel…” from social networks.

Thorph said that these same techniques could be used to predict the spread of a disease.

I’m speaking in sessions at IPEX (#IPEX) at the NEC in Birmingham today and Monday and am then heading to Thinking Digital (#TDC10) at The Sage in Gateshead from Tuesday to Thursday next week. The latter is a short commute from my home in Northumberland.

Do look me up if you’re at either event.

IPEX is a trade event for print, publishing and media where my contribution will be to debates on the future of printed media. With the iPad’s impending launch in the UK it couldn’t be timelier.

Thinking Digital will see 500 delegates descend for the third year on what has become the UK’s answer to US conferences such as SXSW, TED and PoP!Tech. Among the speakers for 2010 will be execs from Creative Commons, Futureworks, Ogilvy Group UK, Sony Pictures Digital and Wired.

I’ll be blogging interesting content from Thinking Digital here and on The (Newcastle) Journal’s NEOtherBusiness business web site.

Young is the co-author (with David Phillips) of Online Public Relations and is one of the leading academics in the UK researching and teaching on social media. Over the last five years he’s established his faculty at Sunderland as a centre of excellence.

We’re always keen to take up any opportunity to talk to undergraduates that are learning about traditional media, online and social media, and might want to pursue a career at Speed in the future.

Remember the sunset shot that I took of the Cheviots in Northumberland a couple of weeks ago? Probably not but stick with me.

I posted the image to the Your Place Northumberland Flickr group that’s curated by the hyperlocal team at the Newcastle Journal. It made the Your Place hyperlocal web site. And now the Northumberland Journal Extra local newspaper.

I think that its an important step because it shows traditional media engaging with its audience and sourcing content via a social network.