robshepherd

Most bloggers are perhaps overly zealous about keeping themselves very much to themselves and I always find that disappointing, to the point where I almost feel cheated, having read their work. So, in a slight reversal of that, here are other places where I can be found.

Business

By day, I run the international press release agency, Press Dispensary. Based in Brighton, England, Press Dispensary works for a wide range of clients across all business and organisational sectors, writing press releases and distributing them in a highly targeted manner wherever in the world our clients wish to reach. We also provide some training and build customised online press rooms.

The generic email address for the company is ask@pressdispensary.co.uk and if you want to reach me there, replace ‘ask’ with my first name. The company is @pressdispensary on Twitter and the generic UK phone number is 0845 430 4433 (+44 845 430 4433).

In addition, I’m one of the three founders running UK Press, a wonderfully useful email discussion forum for professional journalists and PRs that we started back in the last century.

I also have a LinkedIn profile but I must confess I don’t interact with it every day.

I do a certain amount of public speaking and stage presenting with, I hope, some humour, warmth and great accessibility, so do tweet me or drop me a line if this is of interest.

More me

This site is my main personal window on the world. It’s new and somewhat empty at the moment but I’m also very active as @robshepherd on Twitter.

I’ve just revived my old (not widely known) blog from the ’90s, Brighton Beach Memos, which is also pretty empty just now but will be used for short posts that are kind of making a point.

Before I did what I do now, I had a brief career as a musician and then a proper career as a scriptwriter and director, working in various media from Radio 4 and Channel 4 (and other telly, including the obligatory BBC stint) to being, for a while, one of the kings of UK corporate video in its ’90s heydays: tons of bluechip clients and a few US and UK awards, including Best Director in 1999. My old website from the ’90s remains pretty untouched.

And in May 2007 I stood for election as a councillor in Lewes, East Sussex: an independent on a fairly specific platform. I didn’t get in but I was OK for a first-timer, the results (with two seats available) being LibDem, LibDem, Green, me, Green and then a big drop down in vote numbers to Labour, Tory and others. Interestingly, in 2011, despite the nationwide thrashing of the LibDems, those two LibDems easily retained their seats. For the archivally curious, I have retained my election site online. One nice result of that is in the 2011 council elections (when, for the avoidance of doubt, I didn’t stand) a supportive voter offered a donation towards my previous campaign expenses.

I try to call myself robshepherd on all social media so that I can be easily found (and I’m somewhere, if not frequently, on tons of sites from FourSquare and Gowalla to oldies, such as Friendfeed and Digg, and internationals such as Viadeo). I have consciously bought into the idea that those of us who embrace social media are diving into goldfish bowls and I’m watch the effects with both a personal vested (if course) interest and a dispassionate, almost academic regard.

The one major site on which I didn’t get my own name (I was beaten to it by an Australian who, because of timezones, got there before me on the day personal names were released – bah!, but I know your name, Rob Shepherd …) is Facebook, where I’m robshepherduk. But I should add that I’m unlikely to accept a friend request there unless I genuinely know you or we have real friends, acquaintances or family in common and it seems to make sense to me.

I’m not giving a personal phone number here as, so far, I manage not to be plagued by salesy cold-calling and would like to keep things that way.

Not me

Please don’t mistake me for the political producer Rob Shepherd (as has happened a few times when our careers have nearly crossed), nor the former News of the Screws football correspondent who is perhaps most famous for falling out dramatically with Graham Taylor and paying the price.