…the ad agencies again, mainly. For the PR jury, including former colleague Rene Wilson of MS&L and its President, Dave Senay of Fleishman-Hilliard, it must have been frustrating, as it was for his predecessor, former H&K CEO Paul Taaffe. According to Senay, too many entries from PR agencies once again relied on case studies trumpeting media coverage. And despite a huge increase in entries – up 43% on 2010 - the PR agencies still don’t...

Classic contrasting styles on stage this PM with Ariana Huffington, aka The Huff, bringing much needed warmth and humanity to the tired AOL brand. Not fair on AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong to have to share a preso with her as she engages with the audience (jokes about sounding like Kissinger: " Being totally incomprehensible has never been a problem in American public life ...") and shows why she is now even richer after the sale...

Congrats to the Commetric team for their new site, which visualises the people and brands getting prominence in formal and social media at Cannes Lions. Check out the visual discovery video (below) for nice background as to why visualisations are a powerful way to make sense of the huge amount of info on the web, 80% plus of which is still unstructured. As a co-founder of Commetric while at Hill &...

Meanwhile, back here in Cannes, the newly renamed International Festival of Creativity is underway for its 58^th year. Formerly just about advertising, it’s a lot more than that these days and whether it’s ad agencies or PR firms or promotion or direct or outdoor, everyone is pushing ‘social’ in their seminars, workshops and publicity directed at the 9,000 plus delegates and 600 or so accredited journalists here. This year the organisers had some difficult managing...

Despite the social media revolution, most organisations aren't run by social media gurus. Smart people no doubt, but not necessarily fully up to speed on the ole twopointzero thing. So those that want help try to get it from their agencies: advertising, PR, etc. And therein lies the problem. These agencies may or may not be great but they are agencies. Their business model is to pitch and win clients – and then hold onto them at...