Every New Year's Eve, my Mum used to send me out of the house with boyfriend/husband/any bloke with dark hair, a lump of coal and various other gifts in my hands, with strict instructions to come back inside (bloke first, mind) at the first stroke of midnight.
'First footing' was just one of her increasingly erratic and elaborate traditions that she claimed came from her Scottish roots, but that I also suspect was just a ruse to keep me and said bloke away from the pub on New Year's Eve, back home watching TV with her and the family.
But it was fun too, in a chilly sort of way, and I guess it is probably most appropriate that my first foray into the blogosphere with 'Footings' should happen this Christmastide 2008.
'Footings' is going to be a collection of thoughts, comment and ideas on the vast array of techniques and appoaches to good communications - particularly those that might be helpful to my clients or others looking to promote the best qualities of UK construction, property and the built environment.
I used to keep our 'top tips' notes and 'how to' guides tucked away in a password-protected area of our old website, accessible only to fee-paying clients. How old fashioned that seems now, in these days of open sharing of information made possible by the web!
So now, 'Footings' will be our way of sharing knowledge and inspiration to anyone who's interested in the foundations of good PR and communications.
We'll talk about the media (particularly the media of most importance to our clients), and how to work best with them. We'll touch on internal communications, crisis communications and sustainability communications... and anything else along the way that you would like us to cover.
'Footings' heralds a New Year full of opportunity, even in the face of the industry's harshest recession for a generation. I hope you will find it helpful. Your comments are always most welcome.
PS. You can subscribe to this blog by using the wizardry of RSS - it will tell you automatically when new content has been posted. If you're using Internet Explorer 7 to get onto the web, look out for the orange logo at the top right of your screen, or click on the 'Feeds' links to the right of this text. If you want to know more about RSS, read about RSS here.