Atomic's Munich office is hiring!

Would you describe yourself as an open-minded PR professional with a can-do attitude and strong written and communication skills in both German and English? Do you happen to have 1-2 years of experience in technology PR and are looking for a new job in Munich? You might find it right here:

For its growing Munich office, Atomic PR is looking to hire an

Account Executive / Junior-PR-Berater/in

As an Account Executive you can expect to perform activities such as media and analyst relations, social media outreach, writing, research, tracking and reporting and client service for a broad range of innovative and dynamic technology and web brands. Atomic PR is part of an international network, so you will have the opportunity to work with colleagues in our international offices on a daily basis.

Atomic PR, founded in 1999, is committed to re-engineering a more effective approach to public relations and communications that is in tune with the realities of the digital communications era. The agency has high-profile experience in technology and consumer markets, far reaching public relations media and influencer relationships, and strong expertise in new media. To this, we add a bit of creativity and science -- the experimental mindset, strategic orientation and sophisticated analytics more often found at ad agencies. Atomic PR has offices in Munich, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York and is in the process of opening offices across Europe.

Requirements

• 1 - 2 years of public relations experience preferably with technology brands (completed traineeship, B2B and/or B2C)
• Confident in media relations
• Proficient in the use of a variety of PR tools
• Active social media user and proficient in the use of Web 2.0 tools
• Fluent English
• Educated to degree level

At Atomic, we not only enjoy working in a fast-moving international environment, but are also social media savvy, love gadgets, have a passion for analytics, are strong planners, great writers, well organized - and fun and easy to work with.

If this description fits you and you would like to join an exciting international PR operation, send your application to

Atomic PR
Annette Wiedemann
info-de@atomicpr.com
Landwehrstraße 61
80336 München

Silicon Valley tells London: Be original and open your kimono

Investors and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley met with more than 300 tech company CEOs at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in London last Saturday. Organised by LinkedIn's co-founder Reid Hoffman and investor Sherry Coutu, the 'Silicon Valley Comes to the UK' conference was the perfect end to a series of tech and entrepreneurship focused events happening over the past two weeks, which also included the European tech awards The Europas and the Prime Minister's visit to Tech City. Hoffman opened the conference with these words: "Entrepreneurship is throwing yourself off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down." By the response, many of the attendees were already in a free fall.

At the North Greenwich arts college, Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs agreed on two main recommendations for European start-ups. The speakers repeatedly urged European start-up founders to be original instead of emulating the US and take advantage of some of the areas where Silicon Valley can't compete: music, culture, financial services and fashion. Already we are seeing these areas explored by several successful European start-ups and there is so much more potential, advised several of the speakers.

300 Tech CEOs come to an arts college to meet with the Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs

The second main message of the tech filled day was well articulated by Hans-Peter Brøndmo, director of social experience group at Nokia: "Open your kimono," he urged. His suggestion, shared by many others, was that European start-ups need to be less protective of their ideas and start talking more, sharing ideas, collaborating and helping each other. It's one of the things that has made Silicon Valley such a great ecosystem. In Europe, attendees agreed, most people don't want to share what they are working on, they're worried that someone will steal their idea. One of the panellists, DJ Patil from Graylock, would like to see more interaction and asked the Tech City to consider organising more hackathons. To hammer the point home VCs and angel investors added: "We are not in the business of stealing ideas."

Hans-Peter Brøndmo, director of social experience group at Nokia tells Olivia Solon from Wired UK that entrepreneurs need to 'open their kimono'

From engineering to design

Silicon Valley comes to the UK was hosted at an arts college for a reason. Many of the most successful companies of today are design companies with excellent engineering, a major change over the past few years. Previously, as Matthew Hawn of Last.fm pointed out, tech companies were first about engineering and the design was something added at the end to make 'things look good'. Nowadays, design is absolutely essential and excellent engineering is expected. "We started as an engineering company and became design led," Hawn cited his own firm as an example.

DNA of an entrepreneur: have you lost it?

Angel investor Ali Partovi (on the far right) tells the tech editor Ben Rooney from the Wall Street Journal Europe that everyone is born an entrepreneur, but some people lose the required curiosity, appetite for risk, ignorance and drive as they get older and 'wiser'

Tech editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe Ben Rooney led a discussion on the DNA of an entrepreneur. What stuck with me was a view expressed by angel investor Ali Partovi who claimed that everyone is born an entrepreneur. In his view some of us lose the entrepreneurial drive when we are growing up. We stop being curious, wanting to take risk and as another panellist Raj Kapoor noted we are no longer ignorant (or less so). Ignorance is an important trait of an entrepreneur, Kapoor said. You do things that other tried and failed, but oftentimes you succeed. If you knew someone else already failed, you might have never tried. Keeping some traits from childhood might not be a bad thing after all. So, keep jumping off the cliff.

In conversation with Silicon Valley from NESTA UK on Vimeo.

AtomicPR and Grayling amongst PR Week and Reputation Online's top tech/ digital agencies

In June, PR Week and Reputation Online announced their UK agency rankings for tech and digital PR for 2010 and we are very excited to have secured listings in both tables after a strong first 18 months of operation in the UK market.

The ranking for both lists was determined on fee earnings for 2010; based on this criterion, Atomic PR was listed 30th in PR Week's list of top tech agencies, while Grayling's tech practice listed 27th. In the Reputation Online rankings of top digital agency's AtomicPR placed 40th in the league tables with Grayling ranking 15th out of the hundred agencies listed.

Since the acquisition of AtomicPR by Huntsworth PLC earlier this year, AtomicPR and the Grayling tech practices have merged to form Grayling Atomic in Europe, with our US offices continuing to operate under the Atomic brand name.

The Grayling Atomic, combined offering mixes classical PR and media relations with social media, video and search engine optimization, enhanced with the sophisticated use of ComContext communications analytics platform and processes for strategy building, creative planning and detailed program measurement.

Grayling Atomic has plans to expand further through Europe and Asia in the near future.

Carolyn Watt joins Atomic as the Managing Director Europe, co-Director, Global Digital

Carolyn Watt, a marketer with 10+ years' experience in strategic and tactical marketing, PR and digital communications, has joined Atomic PR as the Managing Director, Europe Co-Director, Global Digital. Carolyn was previously Founder and Managing Director of Yabber, Profero's social marketing division and the former Head of SEO, Digital PR and Social Marketing at WPP's Mindshare where she set up the SEO and earned media division incorporating online brand positioning, SMO (social media optimisation), analytics and tracking technologies as well as the design and creation of content. Previous clients include LG, Volvo, HSBC, 3, Talk Talk, Unilever, Nestle, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, COI, Department of Health and Diageo.

Carolyn was also the Client Services Director at Netrank Ltd both pre and post Netrank's January 2008 acquisition by LBi and the Strategic Marketing Manager for Intel's first foray into services. This combines with five years' experience as a print, digital and broadcast journalist writing, editing and presenting news and features for a range of TV, radio and print media including the Guardian, The Sunday Times, Voice of America, GMTV, BBC, CNN, Sky and Channel 4.

Carolyn has a BA Hons in Politics, NCTJ accredited (National Council for the Training of Journalists) and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

UK's media focus on 'cloud' catches second wind

Cloud computing has been on the radar of the UK media for some time, but in general, adoption of cloud technologies seems to have been slower to gain acceptance in the UK and Europe than in the US and this has been reflected by the media.  But now it looks like we may be reaching a tipping point.  Analyst firms put the size of the market for cloud computing in the $100s billions, with Gartner predicting that by 2012, 20 percent of companies will not actually own any IT assets, the tech behemoth HP is getting behind cloud, and in the UK, we have the launch of a publication dedicated to Cloud Computing,  Cloud Pro.

Part of the Dennis Publishing family, the launch of Cloud Pro highlights not only the increased media interest in this area, but also signals the fact that this technology is gaining traction.  Cloud Pro will be focusing its coverage of the topic not on technology driven stories, but on business strategy as companies begin to realise the impact the technology could have on their bottom line. The publisher and editor of Cloud Pro felt that UK tech titles were still very focused on the technology and they plan to cover 'cloud' from a stronger business perspective.  The publication will target C-level executives and technology department managers explaining cloud without being too technical and using cloud jargon. Cloud Pro also aims to highlight real world experiences from the various professions impacted by cloud from lawyers, accountants to CIOs.

Dennis Publishing already publishes other tech titles including IT Pro, Channel Pro and PC Pro and they all write about the cloud. "They do cover cloud but it's part of a range of technologies that these publications cover," Max Cooter told us in an email.  "Cloud Pro will have a different brief: it will be aimed at C level executives, as well as techies, as these will be the people who make many of the financial decisions. Not only will Cloud Pro be covering the business decisions but we will also go into more depth on some of the analysis."

There are a few UK titles that write about cloud topics including BusinessCloud9, which the Cloud Pro publishing director Jon Westnedge described as the closest to Cloud Pro in focus, but the number of UK cloud publications and blogs is still quite small when compared to the US. That is beginning to change. As Silicon.com wrote at the end of last year in a Cloud Computing special report, the "hype is becoming a reality".