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Mar 17, 2018 β€’ 14 tweets β€’ 5 min read β€’ Read on X
πŸ€”πŸ”’ WEEKEND NUMBER CRUNCHING THREAD πŸ€£πŸ€“

This thread is about @UniversitiesUK hiring an "external communications firm" to "improve capacity", and guesstimating how much that might cost.

Screengrab: Letter from Churchill College 16 March 2018

#USSStrike #NoCapitulation
1/ RUMOUR MILL: UUK has hired Saatchi & Saatchi (London). I'm not going into detail into Saatchi & Saatchi's history. You can check it out on Wikipedia. Here's an image of what they have at the entrance of London office. "Nothing is impossible": does that include rescuing UUK?
2/ CAVEAT EMPTOR: I'm a historian, not specialised in anything to do with PR. If you're an academic specialised in the history and present of the PR industry, I'd deeply appreciate it if you could verify/falsify my speculations.
3/ RETAINERS: Most PR/Advertising/Communications firms prefer this pricing. Typical contract length: 6 months to 1 year. Could be USD 5,000-50,000 a month. Prestigious PR company retainer: USD 100,000 per week.
4/ PROJECT-BASED: Or you could get a PR/Communications firm to charge you for a one-off project which may last for a month or two. Could be USD 100,000-200,000 minimum per project.
5/ ONGOING CRISIS: but let us say you have an emergency PR meltdown/crisis and you need round-the-clock PR management. This could be charged by the hour, anything from USD 500-1,000 per hour. 1 week has 168 hours. So 1 week crisis costs USD 84,000-168,000.
6/ PAYMENT PER PLACEMENT: usually used by smaller PR companies, you get charged for each item/ad/statement placed. Each "thing" could be USD 1,000.
7/ My guess is that Universities UK has gone for some sort of project-based arrangement, since it is a meltdown that does not necessarily require round-the-clock care. If it is a prestigious PR company, my guess is USD 250,000-500,000 altogether for this pensions fiasco.
8/ There is tremendous irony in that UUK (run by PR man Alistair Jarvis), whose raison d'etre is to be the "voice of universities" ("voice of the managerial class") i.e. doing PR/Communications, now needs to hire an external PR firm to do, er, PR work. We should take the piss.
9/ Churchill College says "It is the message that is the problem". By making to move to hire PR firm, UUK basically says it does not care about the message. Expect the PR firm now to saturate media/public with spin & lies, smears & disinformation in the next weeks & months.
10/ It highlights that UUK lives on a different planet from HE sector. It's an organisation that is capable of throwing that much money at a prestigious, global/corporate PR firm. UUK's money paid by MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS, so it is uni's money--your money--UUK is pissing away.
END/ So make no mistake. This has always been a protracted, asymmetric, attrition warfare. One side with buckets of your money to throw at PR firms. The other side has an army of guerrilla nerds on Twitter. Keep your wits about.

#USSstrike #NoCapitulation 😑😑😑
POSTSCRIPT/ In case you miss some of the comments/replies, huge thanks to @craigh_ for clarification. The numbers are a bit high but with a top firm like Saatchi & Saatchi, I am probably not far off with the fees. #USSstrike #NoCapitulation
BONUS GRAPHIC/ 🎡 FOR USS I HAVE TO DE-RISK IT ALL COS THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL🎢 #USSstrike #NoCapitulation

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More from @acupunctureUSS

Sep 13, 2018
πŸ›’πŸ›οΈ SUPERMARKETS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND ICE CREAM ✊🍨

*EXTREMELY ADAM CURTIS VOICE*

1/ This is a story about a supermarket chain that uses artificial intelligence, and how workers are then bullied into buying ice cream by their managers.
2/ A friend of mine is a trade unionist. The trade union has over 400,000 members, many of whom work in the biggest supermarket chains in the UK--including minimum-wage labourers who work through the night to ensure supermarket shelves don't go empty. He shares this story.
3/ At a supermarket chain, a CEO bought an "artificial intelligence and machine learning" stocking system. The old system was that night-shift workers, who put items on shelves, were responsible for checking levels of stock and making orders. The new system would automate this.
Read 18 tweets
Apr 24, 2018
⚽ #USSstrike #football STICKER THREAD ⚽

The Panini World Cup 2018 sticker album is horrifically expensive. I'm a cheapskate and I'm obsessed with pensions. Therefore I'm making the official #USSstrike sticker album.

#aesthetic #beetroot #aubergine #backofthenet
1/ First up is @MikeOtsuka. USA is not in the World Cup this year. So Mike will have to play for Panama.
2/ Next up is Bill Galvin, who has played for the following clubs: @DWP @TPRgovuk and USS. His position is DC. He is quite defensive about things. He plays for Switzerland because @UBS is just one letter away from USS.
Read 23 tweets
Apr 11, 2018
πŸ€” In this long thread below, I look at the Pensions Regulator's (tPR) website, and ridicule it πŸ˜‚

#USSstrike #aesthetic #beetroot
This is the logo for the Pensions Regulator @TPRgovuk
This is not a standard font. The tail of the "e" is elongated.
It suggests that money was paid to design this specifically for tPR.
According to tPR, the employers provide the teabags.
Fun fact: MY EMPLOYERS DON'T PROVIDE ANY TEABAGS.
It does provide an overpriced Starbucks/Costa/Nero's on campus.
Or you can bring your own PG Tips. And your own kettle of course.
Read 36 tweets
Mar 19, 2018
* EXTREMELY ADAM CURTIS VOICE *

This is a story about an Edith Wharton scholar who became embroiled in the largest industrial action in the history of higher education in United Kingdom.

* SOON ON BBC STRIKE CHANNEL *

#USStrike #NoCapitulation @alicecbennett #HouseofMirth
1/ It is also about a small group of managers who shared a vision of universities built on the freedom of choice and the logic of the market.
2/ But that vision turned into an never-ending nightmare. A nightmare for university staff and for students.

* SOUNDTRACK KICKS IN: John Carpenter - *

#USSStrike #NoCapitulation
Read 145 tweets

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