Thoughts & Insights

The inhabitants of PS Programmes Towers have had entrepreneurship and freelancing on their minds of late: Tom has been to the National Freelancers Day event at LSO St Luke’s, and Ian has been talking about the ups, downs and sideways of being a freelance writer to...

R H Tawney: The WEA’s business '…is not to organise classes for whom, in the circumstances of today, it may for one reason or another be easiest to attract. It is to create a demand for education in individuals and bodies who at the moment may be unconscious of its...

Monica Lewinsky’s speech to the Forbes Under 30 Conference this week coincided with a trip by Ian Hawkins, one of the PS Programmes team to New York City. Lewinsky, even today, is something of an enigma. A public figure – who hasn’t spoken in public for over a decade....

This serious-minded and business-oriented blog may be your first port of call for thoughtful discourse on the current trends in communications and public affairs, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how to let our hair down, and this week, we had a great reason to do...

By a strange coincidence, the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband faced the nightmare that according to our recent survey, most terrifies people: he forgot a key part of his speech. Normally forgetting your words isn't a big deal, we tell clients. Only the speaker...

On Thursday 11 September, we attended the Global Trust Conference at the Grange Hotel, Tower Bridge. The day was a balance of interesting speakers, break-outs and networking opportunities (among the new business contacts, we met a plumber – it was an eclectic crowd),...

To successfully complete the Ice Bucket Challenge, you will need a bucket, a tap, a deep freeze, and two vindictive friends: one to nominate you, and one to get their hands dirty (figuratively; wet, literally) dumping cold water over your head. Anything that raises...

‘Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think.’ Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate. Surveys – be they on issues of vital importance or profound triviality – are a seemingly endless source of intrigue: are you in or out of step with how...

Politics, the old joke goes, is showbusiness for ugly people. But that joke might be on the way out: if you have a great face for local radio, that might no longer be enough if you aspire to hold public office. Our mothers always told us to sit up straight and smile...

What motivates employees to do well at work? A Gallup poll, conducted regularly since the 1940s, points to an unequivocal answer – and it’s not the answer that most bosses think. Bosses have been asked to answer what they think motivates their employees, and they tend...

When the first railway track was laid between London and Bristol (one of her richest satellites), an unexpected problem arose: midday in the capital came several minutes earlier than it did in the west. Before the trains or telegraph – let alone email – this hardly...

“That was only a yard away from being an inch-perfect pass.” Murdo MacLeod It’s the World Cup, and at PS Programmes Towers we are very excited by the drama and spectacle of the Beautiful Game. We don’t expect everyone to share our passion, but we had hoped that Phil...

Speaking to a group of students, we were asked what qualities were necessary to be a writer. The library in which the event was taking place was intimidating: shelf after shelf of books from anthropology to Zoroastrianism, millions of minds contributing from antiquity...

So what do we in the media make of the significant gains UKIP have made in this week’s local and European elections. It’s a big achievement for a small party – and even more impressive when you look back through the recent UKIP appearances in the media and notice that...

Whatever you think of Jeremy Clarkson and Russell Brand, a significant minority of young people think either of them would make a better Prime Minister than Nick Clegg, though it's hard to imagine any of them getting the trains to run on time. They think, too, Nigel...

Sometimes, it’s hard to be a woman,’ sang Tammy Wynette, decades before The Spice Girls hinted that being a woman might be fun, too. And despite knowing that the next few months are going to see an awful lot of hard work as part of the organizing team of an awards...

Busy times at PS Programmes Towers: the contracts are signed, the editors are furiously blue-pencilling adjectives, and the inky-sleeved printers are awaiting the first pages of copy to be sent down for typesetting. We are writing a book. 'We' is crucial. The process...

It's, um, like, y'know? Every eye is on you, the microphone is live, and the stage lights are so bright, you can't see beyond the first line of the audience. But you can see the floor manager twirling their finger in the little circle that the world over means 'you're...

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Google+ (if that's still a thing)... The beauty of social networking is that your message can be up online for all to see at a speed impeded only by your typing speed. The downside is that once published, it will leave a fossil...

The racist, xenophobic, and thoroughly buffoonish Major from Fawlty Towers once pronounced that he 'hates Germans...love women.' 'What about German women?' asks Connie Booth, mischievously. 'Good card players!' is the Major's immediate response. When we watched Angela...

The recent passing of Shirley Temple at the age of 85 came only a few days after what would've been the 101st birthday of Rosa Parks. Both names conjure an immediate, powerful image: the dancing girl, all dimples and ringlets, and the footsore unmovable passenger who...