The latest issue of Property People magazine has a one page profile on me. It's not available on-line, so I've reproduced it here:

Property People Workplace

ffice:smarttags" />Stuart Bruce is the managing director of NetworxPR and a board director of Leeds South Homes. He can be contacted on 0870 751 2235.

What does your job entail?

My job is varied and no two days are the same. As a PR consultant my role splits into two. Half of the job is about helping clients to plan their communications and marketing strategies including making sure they have robust tenant participation programmes. The other half is implementing these communications plans. That can range from writing and producing newsletters, dealing with journalists and getting articles in the press, organising events, designing and producing leaflets or organising consultation programmes. I also deliver PR and communications training.

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As a director of Leeds South Homes I concentrate on contributing to areas where I have professional skills. I am on the tenant communications sub group and chair the editorial board of the tenant newsletter. I am also an elected councillor and am the Lead Member for Communications so I have a council wide remit to develop and monitor the authority’s communications strategy which includes everything from media relations and the website to the council newspaper and how we consult with residents and staff.

Can you describe a typical day?

It starts at 7:00 with me checking my email and browsing some news sites on the Internet. As well as Property People I like to look at Guardian Society. I also keep two on-line diaries or ‘blogs’ both at www.stuartbruce.com. One is about communications where I comment on PR issues and offer advice and tips, and the other is as a councillor to keep my constituents informed what I’m doing on their behalf. The rest of the day is normally spent writing articles for clients or liaising with designers about newsletters, leaflets and events that I am producing. A lot of my time is also spent producing communications or consultation strategies for clients. I usually have at least one meeting a day, either for work or as a councillor.

What is your background?

I’ve spent almost 15 years in public relations mainly working for consultancies but also with a spell in-house when I was in charge of PR for one of the UK’s biggest accountants. I was first elected as a councillor in 1999, the same year that I started NetworxPR. I’ve worked for a huge range of clients from government departments, quangos and local authorities through to businesses, campaign groups and the voluntary sector.

What is NetworxPR up to at the moment?

Our main focus at the moment is on winning new business from ALMOs, RSLs and local authorities. We’re also in the process of converting an old block of stables into our new head office. For clients we’ve recently completed a communications strategy to promote kerbside recycling and we are now working on a communications and tenant participation strategy for an ALMO.

What are NetworxPR’s main objectives?

To be the UK’s best provider of communications and marketing consultancy services and training to ALMOs and RSLs throughout the UK. We also want to work with more local authorities and other public sector bodies, such as Local Strategic Partnerships, to assist them with communications and consultation for regeneration projects.

And your personal objectives?

To have a happy family life; provide good leadership for NetworxPR; and be a good community leader in Leeds and my local ward.

What do you most enjoy about your work?

The fact that in some small way I am making a difference to people’s lives.

And least?

How long it takes to do things. Working in both the private and the public sector I’m still frustrated by how long it can take some public sector organisations to do things. Occasionally there is a good reason, but too frequently it’s “but we’ve always done it this way”.

What is your proudest achievement?

My proudest professional moment was running a PR campaign to help miners suffering from Vibration White Finger. As a result thousands of miners received compensation totalling more than £150m. The campaign received a prestigious professional award from trade magazine PR Week.

Do you have any burning ambitions?

Simply to do my best at everything I try to do.

How do you see yourself in five years’ time?

NetworxPR will be a lot bigger and we’ll be doing even more grassroots communications work.

What do you do in your spare time?

What’s that? No seriously running a business and being a councillor means that I have very little spare time. But I enjoy both jobs so much it doesn’t really matter. If I want to unwind I most enjoy spending time in the kitchen experimenting with creating new recipes.

Tell us about your favourite film

Has to be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m been a fan of the books since before I can remember and was really worried that the films would be a travesty. Luckily Peter Jackson is also a fan and has done a brilliant job of interpreting Tolkien’s vision.

And mad thing(s) you did when you were younger

In 1991 I ran a human rights campaign as a result of which I was invited to Lebanon to visit 400 Palestinian deportees in no-man’s land between Lebanon and Israel. This involved a hair-raising journey through the Bekáa valley where every few miles we were subject to another Hezbollah checkpoint.

Martin 'Sick'smith was on BBC Breakfast News this morning peddling his novel. It must have been the most sycophantic interview I've seen in a long while. The more I hear about 'Spin' the more nauseating but strangely fascinating it sounds. Sixsmith is a shining example of why journalists can't just jump across the fence and become senior PR people. They are very different professions that share a lot of transferable skills.

There were a couple of interesting PR related articles in the national press over the weekend (I'm still catching up on Saturday and Sunday's papers now). The first in The Guardian was 'PR with integrity - the acceptable face of spin' a rather patronising look at ethical PR. It appears to simply describe what lots of PR companies and PR people have already been doing for many years.

Since I started NetworxPR in 1998 we have always been an ethical PR company, it's just that we've never chosen to 'spin' it that way. We've always had a very clear understanding of what clients we will work for and those that are totally unacceptable (e.g. tobacco, arms industry etc). In fact I remember turning down a very lucrative contract to handle media relations for a company being sued by its employees for industrial injury. They were impressed by the work I had done on behalf of solicitors representing the victims of asbestos contamination and vibration white finger. I am happy to work for the victims but not for the perpatrator, no matter how much money they offered.

The second article was 'Flattery will get you everywhere' in The Observer, which was a very brief history of financial PR. The author, John Coyle, is one of the founding fathers of financial PR in the UK and was a financial journalist before turning his hand to running a financial PR firm.

Coyle believes that the PR industry needs "more recruits from the professions, with appropriate qualifications" and that "the vast number of media studies degree courses are not the answer". I'm not entirely sure what he's getting at here. I'll agree that a media studies graduate is no better, in fact possibly less, suited to a PR career than any other graduate. However, a graduate of a PR degree course is a different kettle of fish entirely. In my belief the key phrase is "with appropriate qualifications". Transferable skills and experience from other professions are all very well, but they need to be underpinned with proper PR education, training and qualifications from an IPR approved course.

In fact training and qualifications is the thread that links the two articles. PRs with proper training and qualifications are far more likely to be ethical PRs than those who have just drifted in.