Friday, November 16, 2012

NYSE Euronext Rings our Bell

We’re delighted to announce a new partnership with NYSE Euronext – the global operator of financial markets and a provider of innovative trading technologies. We’ve been following the NYSE Euronext story with keen interest since their arrival to Belfast in 2008, following its purchase of Wombat, and with the financial technology sector booming in NI it's fantastic to now be working with one of the biggest names in the business.
Morrows will deliver an integrated communications strategy for NYSE Euronext including public relations, design and advertising helping the business drives its recruitment and brand profiling needs. Check out www.nyxjobs.co.uk for the latest local developments.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Morrow Events team 'Up their Game' with InterTradeIreland


The events team at Morrows have just completed a series of three cross-border Meet the Buyer events hosted by InterTradeIreland which took place in Athlone, Cookstown and most recently in Kilkenny. Other partners involved in the event were Central Procurement Directorate, National Procurement Service, Enterprise Ireland, Strategic Investment Board and Invest Northern Ireland.
The “Upping Your Game – Meet the Buyer” events programme gives SMEs from across Ireland the opportunity to meet with procurement managers from public sector bodies, North and South and help overcome barriers to winning public sector contracts and inform SMEs of boosting their capability in doing so. The parallel session programme also gave SMEs a chance to boost their tendering knowledge with workshops on ‘Refining Your Pitch’, Procurement Clinic’, and ‘Sourcing Low Value Tenders’ among others.

Morrow events team – Jane, Karen and Nicola worked together in co-ordinating stands for over 50 Buyers and managing over 1200 delegates in total over the series! Kilkenny was the most successful event so far with over 450 supplier companies attending on the day, which made the 3 ½ hour drive worth it!

Check out the Meet The Buyer highlights video below which Morrows AV team produced from the Cookstown event in September and watch this space for more Meet the Buyer events in 2013!
 

Boys' Model are 'Rocking All Over the World'

Secret rockers in Morrows relived their misspent youth recently in the presence of rock legend and former drummer of Status Quo, Jeff Rich who shared the secrets of his success during a music masterclass with students from Boys’ Model School, Belfast. We have just started working with the North Belfast School to help it effectively communicate its successes,  state of the art facilities and community engagements to key stakeholders and media. 
The world-famous musician treated pupils to a creative tutorial offering a first-hand insight into the opportunities and challenges of the music industry. On the day, students discovered the history of drumming and listened to Jeff’s path of success, from playing in bands at school to recording with chart-topping artists including Def Leppard and Status Quo. After an exclusive performance from Jeff, Boys’ Model students got the chance to put their skills to the test by performing a mass percussion piece with the drummer.   You can see Jeff in action in the UTV news piece below.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Beware of 'Twibel' Law

One of the many potential fall outs from the now infamous Newsnight broadcast on 2nd November may have major implications for users of Twitter. We now know that the broadcast carried mistaken claims by a former care home resident that he had been sexually abused by a prominent Conservative politician.

Following the broadcast, there was much speculation as to who that politician was. Some of this discussion was via Twitter, with a large number of individuals linking Lord McAlpine to the Newsnight report – which in turn caused his name to appear as a "trending topic" on Twitter alongside that of Newsnight itself.

Following clarification that this was mistaken identity, recent media reports suggest that Lord McAlpine may now be considering suing some of those for libel and if he proceeds it may represent a significant landmark in the development of what has been coined ‘Twibel’ Law.

In recent months and following some high profile cases there has been increasing clarity around the legal position of Twitter posts which everyone would do well to be mindful off. When you post content online, be it Twitter, Facebook, Blogs or even on the many comment sections of online news pages, you are responsible for that content. In effect when you post online, the law suggests you are acting as a publisher and those publications are subject to the same laws as other publishers, such as newspapers. Importantly, retweet’s also amount to a further publication and makes the retweeter responsible. In case you’re wondering ignorance of the law is not a reasonable defence.

In addition, the individual who originally tweeted the defamatory tweet is also likely to be held responsible for any retweets, as in publishing it in the first instance they may reasonably expect others to retweet it. Neither is it a defence for retweeters to say they were simply repeating a statement made by someone else even if they do so verbatim. Just because something is already circulating out there does not make fair game and the more retweets received the more damage it can do and hence the greater and more costly the libel action it may then trigger. As the law currently stands, libel is actionable without proof of damage and so, on the face of it, you can even get sued if you tweet something defamatory and don’t have any Twitter followers. That sad fact may just lessen the perceived damage done.

If Lord McAlpine does sue (and let’s face it, unlike many others he may well have the wherewithal and necessary support to do so), this high profile case will join the increasing number facing the courts.

In England’s first libel case involving Twitter in March of this year, New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns was awarded £90,000 in damages after he was wrongly accused of match-fixing by Lalit Modi, the former chairman of the Indian Premier League. Modi was also ordered to pay Mr Cairns' £400,000 legal costs ! Lawyer and defamation expert Niri Shan, said at the time: "'This case demonstrates that posts on Twitter are taken as seriously, in the eyes of the law, as comments printed in mainstream press. Whilst people may feel less cautious about tweeting- the level of risk they are taking, and protection of those being referred to, remains the same.”

It would seem that with total costs amounting to over £1 Million in that case, we should all be a little more careful with the next ‘140 characters or less’ message we tweet or retweet– at the full 140 characters that equates to £7,142.85+ per character – ouch !