A warm welcome to all our new colleagues in the enlarged European Union.

Richard Bailey at Leeds Metropolitan University has now been joined by Philip Young at the University of Sunderland

Asks Elizabeth Albrycht over at CorporatePR. An emphatic no say I! And Richard Bailey at Leeds Metropolitan University appears to agree. Like Elizabeth I frequently represent small, or emerging, technology companies and I've also represented some of the biggest IT firms.

She's right that you are granted an automatic audience if representing a market leader, but it's not impossible to secure coverage for a smaller, nimbler competitor. You just have to try harder. Much harder. If the CEO of a top 100 company blows her (or his) nose then some sad journalist somewhere will cover it. If you represent a tiny start-up you've got to come up with a creative, newsworthy idea that will grab the interest of that journalist's readers. It's probably not going to be about products or services but could be about customers, solutions, issues or surveys.

Marketing Sherpa is sponsoring "The Reader's Choice Awards for Weblogs" and this blog has been nominated as one of the only six PR blogs to make the final shortlist (there are easily over a 100 to choose from). In the words of Clint Eastwood ""Go ahead, make my day"" and vote for this blog. And while your at it cast your eyes over some of the other short-listed entries, especially Seth Godin's seminal marketing blog. Seth is the author of "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers". So please vote here.

My blog as a local councillor has already been a runner-up in The Guardian Best Political Blog Awards.

Leeds-based NetworxPR has been appointed by Game Frontier to handle the media and public relations campaign for the ffice:smarttags" />UK finals of the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC).

fficeffice" /> 

The UK final is being staged at the Magna Science Adventure Park in Sheffield on June 12-13 and will feature more than 200 of the best British gamers with thousands of spectators. The British champions that win through will attend the world finals in Paris to compete against 500 champion gamers from 50 countries for a $150,000 prize fund.

“We appointed NetworxPR because we thought they had the personality, vision and creativity needed for such an important event in the gaming industry. The games industry now rivals the film industry and many major sports and we are committed to investing to make this event a success,” explained Jaffer Mir, managing director of Game Frontier.

NetworxPR managing director Stuart Bruce added: “It’s apt to hold the UK finals in an old steel works as the UK video games industry is now worth more than £2 billion a year, which is more than the value of UK steel exports. Yorkshire now has a thriving games industry with some of the best developers and industry experts based in the region.”

Leeds-based Game Frontier (www.gamefrontier.com) is one of the official premium partners of the Electronic Sports World Cup and its managing director is a member of the global strategic board responsible for regulating the competition. As well as the UK Game Frontier is also responsible for organising tournaments in the United Arab Emirates.

In 2004, the second Electronic Sports World Cup is holding preliminaries in 50 countries, involving around 250,000 players all over the world and 500 champions during the finals at the Futuroscope Park in Paris, France. The UK qualifier is organised in two sections with eight regional qualifying rounds and the UK finals. Each qualifying round selects two Counter Strike and two Warcraft teams. The Pro Evolution Soccer 3 is a single player knock-out competition at the UK final.

Leeds-based NetworxPR (www.stuartbruce.com) is a boutique public relations consultancy specialising in technology, business-to-business and public sector communications. Its clients have included the University of Leeds, Privilege Insurance, Skills for Justice, East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Silicon Valley software company Rockliffe.

ENDS

For further media information please contact Stuart Bruce, NetworxPR, 0113 282 5703 or prcounsel@stuartbruce.com

Editor’s Notes

1.       Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne is © Blizzard Entertainment. All rights reserved. The Frozen Throne is a trademark and Blizzard Entertainment and Warcraft are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment in the US and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.