Posted By Matt Wardman
I dropped in in mid-August ago when the Radio 4 interview about Bonkers Conkers was on air.
I have continued the conversation on my blog, and there are now about a dozen articles - including professional contributions on PR and Health and Safety.
I hope you don't mind me posting a list with short excerpts below. The web address (follow the "Bonkers Conkers" link at the top) is:
www.mattwardman.com/blog/I'll keep track of any responses on this thread.
There will be some more articles over the next fortnight, including on how blogs could be used in dealing with "H&S gone mad" stories.
There have been something like 35-40 responses so far.
Matt Wardman
Sept 02: Bonkers Attitude - Time to Take Responsibility? (2)
It’s always someone else’s fault isn’t it? Any media story about a daft claim leads to a flood of comments about how ridiculous it is, but how many of us would do exactly the same if it was us who slipped on something someone else had dropped? We all know that where there’s blame there’s a claim don’t we?
Aug 30: Sensible Safety - Dull, Dull, Dull? (0)
“Sensible”. It’s not a word that inspires the heart to beat faster is it? It reminds us of the shoes we had to wear to school and the boring kid in the class that our parents always wished we could be a bit more like. “That Rodney, he’s such a sensible boy”. My dictionary says it means “judicious, moderate and practical”. I think it just means dull, dull and dull. However on the next line it gives an alternative meaning – “aware, alive to (a thing or idea)”. Now that’s more like it.
Aug 30: Training PR practitioners in risk assessment (1)
As the general secretary of the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association (MIPAA), I develop training and workshops for our 450 members. One area that we have identified as key, especially in relation to organising launch events with journalists, is risk assessment.
Aug 28: Bonkers Compo - Myth Or Reality? (1)
Ask the man in the street – or at least the man in my office – what he thinks and he’ll tell you that compensation culture definitely exists. Ask the TUC and apparently it doesn’t. So who’s right?
Aug 28: PR perspective on Health & Safety (3)
Maybe you think that if only those PR people would do their job properly, there wouldn’t be all the media outrage about “health & safety” gone mad - and the public would have more respect for risk management.
Well, as a professional public relations consultant, I thought it would be interesting to borrow Matt’s blogging chair and provide the PR perspective.
Aug 28: Blogs which cover Health and Safety Questions: Dealing with Bonkers Conkers (0)
We have been covering the questions around “bonkers conkers” stories on this blog, here and here .
I put out a plea for some Health and Safety blogs to emerge. I have found a few options, but the coverage is currently woefully thin. Here are those I have found.
Aug 27: Off The Ropes, Onto The Safety Wire (0)
It feels a bit like one of those meetings where a group sits in a circle in some bleak church hall waiting for one of their number to begin. Finally someone braver than the rest stands up and says “Hi, my name is Not Important and I’m a health and safety professional.” So begins a week or so of ramblings from me based on nearly 20 years in the H&S profession.
Aug 21: Britblog Roundup #131 Audio Podcast (0)
This 5 minute podcast on Radio5 included a discussion on the Health and Safety stories on the Wardman Wire.
Aug 20: Britblog Roundup #131 (6)
One of the jobs of blogs is to help groups talk to each other who normally exist in separate worlds, and I’ve been causing trouble in the Health and Safety world.
On The Wardman Wire I’ve been looking at what Health and Safety Officers call “Bonkers Conkers” stories - an equivalent from the Health and Safety world of “EU outlaws bent banana” rumours.
Aug 17: Bonkers Conkers and Health and Safety: Response from the Institution of Occupational Health and Safety (5)
I have had a detailed response from the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health to my article “Do Health and Safety Professionals Get too Much of a Kicking?” I reproduce it full here.
Aug 15: Do Health and Safety Professionals Get too Much of a Kicking? (21)
Recently I have posted about how “health and safety” concerns lead to - in my view - too many urban trees being removed unnecessarily, as exemplified by this quote:
“The council says the trees are a trip hazard but as far as we can establish nobody has ever fallen over them.”