Healthy news from the codgers of COVID this week with evidence that the valiant vehicle of vaccination was on its way to pacify Australia’s pandemic panicking population, promising payloads of potently powerful panaceas professionally prepared to prod our pessimistic paranoia.
Leading the provocative promise was the national Minister for Health whose parliamentary prudence persuaded him to predict the presence of the potion so promptly as to have it possibly preceding his own presumption.
“I can also confirm that the vaccine is scheduled to land in Australia before the end of the week, if not earlier,” the enthusiastic Minister promised, adding a new concept to the science of ‘time’.
Assuming the good minister was himself speaking at a time that was ‘before the end of the week’, by his adding ‘if not earlier’ he created a second time that was ‘earlier’ than the time he spoke.
This ‘earlier than before the end of the week’ prediction could only mean the medicine was ahead of the minister at that time, leading the pedants among us to assume it must already be in the country.
PS-sssst! wonders if there’s a vaccination for painful pedantry!
Rewarding an award
Fascinating almost-story in the Queensland edition of PS News last week with the sunshine State’s usually high powered Police Force issuing an exciting announcement for the media (that’s us!) that it had been recognised for one of its community safety initiatives by receiving an extremely distinguished Premier’s Award for Excellence.
“The QPS’ specialist COVID-19 response team was named the winner in the Keeping communities safe category at the ceremony last night” the Police reported boastfully.
But just as the PS News’s printing machines began to crunch the Queensland edition a conscience-troubled sub-editor was unaware the awards were awarded this time of year and found they’d been awarded six months ago.
The time distance doesn’t change the extraordinary significance and prestige of the Awards of course, but for future years, the Premier might consider presenting winners with clocks or calendars!
The Ps and Q’s of PR revisited
A modest response to last week’s snippet about internationally acclaimed Aussie journalist Hamish Thompson and his free state-of-the-art guidance for PR practitioners, all ready to be used and put to work by PS public relations officers.
Hot on the heels of his Guide on ‘How Not To’ botch public relations comes an even more impressive and useful service for the PS PR ranks – an online website called ‘The Buzzsaw’ which automatically strips all the jargon and buzzwords from press releases, statements and speeches, converting PS preferences to the outside world’s preferred presentations.
“Paste a press release into The Buzzsaw, press the button, and the document is checked against a database of thousands of terms submitted by editors and correspondents over the years,” Hamish directed.
“ Rest assured that ‘repurposing’, ‘reach out’, ‘circle back’, ‘solution’, ‘best of breed’, ‘next-generation’, ‘web-enabled’, ‘leading’, ‘value-added’, ‘ping me’, ‘leverage’, ‘seamless’, ‘awesome’ and many others are already in the database.”
He said the purpose of the Buzzsaw is to improve the quality of materials that are sent to the media and the Buzzsaw can be accessed at this PS News link.
The return of Rama!
To Rama Gaind’s first giveaway for 2021 now in which three lucky readers get the chance to win a free copy of the handy go-to reference book F.L.Y.: Financially Literate Youth simply by answering a simple quiz question set by Ms Gaind herself.
To be among Rama’s winners all we need to do was tell her how many tips the F.L.Y. book said we needed to succeed.
The answer was in the book’s motivating chapter on mindset and goal-setting which finished with the ‘Top Ten Tips’ we need to succeed.
The three winning correct readers whose entries scrambled from the PS News Barrel of Booty were Les C from the Department of Defence, Jacki G from the Department of Social Services and Andrew P from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
Congratulations to all three winners and thanks to everyone who took part in the competition. The books will be on their way to their new owners very soon.
For another chance to join Rama’s Army of winners simply tune in for her latest DVD giveaway at this PS News link and her other DVD giveaway at this link.
Good luck to all who do.
Week excuse!
And finally an apology.
For all the readers keen to know what was going on in the public sector 10 years ago this week – as promised by PS-sssst! this time last week – we’ll all have to wait till this time next week due to a technical hiccup this end.
All is expected to be fixed in time for next week so last week’s promise becomes next week’s.
Until next week…..
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