Ran the WorldSkills London 2011 Media Centre

The PM doing interviews after his visit to WorldSkills London... taken on a shaking iPhone

It’s not often you get the chance to run one of the largest temporary media centres in London – and even rarer that you have to set one up from scratch. But that was the exciting role I played at WorldSkills London 2011 as the Media Centre serviced 1,000 journalists, press officers, film crews and photographers from around the world at the biggest skills Competition, jobs and careers ever seen in the UK.

You can see more pictures from ‘behind the scenes’ at the media centre in this album.

In a unique and exciting role as Media Director, I was responsible for:
– Developing crisis communications lines and delivering crisis communications training
– Arranging media calls and media handling for visits of the Prime Minister, Mayor of London, HRH The Princess Royal and the EU Commissioner for Young People
– Managing the day-to-day delivery of the Media Centres at ExCeL (for the Competition) and at The O2 (for the opening / closing ceremony) – with over 20 professional and volunteer media staff
– Managing the agency team responsible for delivering proactively generated media coverage in advance of the event
– Approving copy and press releases
– Delivering daily media briefings and acting as reserve spokesperson
– Co-ordinating daily media grid and schedules
– Working with the other media directors to co-ordinate daily schedules for host broadcaster / photographers and ensure media needs were met
– Working with the social media team to monitor discussion and spread the word about WorldSkills online

Over 200,000 young people attended WorldSkills London – with significant numbers driven by in-week PR coverage.

Hundreds of print and online articles were generated by in-house, partner and agency teams. Broadcast highlights included live outside broadcasts by Daybreak, EuroNews, BBC News Channel, Radio 1, Radio 4, Radio 5Live, BBC World Service coverage and around 50 regional radio interviews taking place from the Media Centre ISDN room.