Welcome to Management-Issues

Remember where you heard this first: technology is about to change the face of PR. If this sounds like a trite piece of PR itself, Nicola Hunt, who today celebrates a year of NHPR and launches journalist's news and research portal Management Issues has one piece of advice. "Try it yourself."

Management Issues puts journalists in front of news, research, synopses ideas and most crucially puts them into contact with approved experts in their chosen field for the most incisive comment on HR and management topics. It is built on a technology platform that allows for rapid updating and intelligent searching that will find matches so sensible it puts other search engines to shame. Management Issues will, Hunt predicts be one of the only places journalists need to look.

"Management Issues is a marriage of technology and sound PR experience which enables a more seamless relationship but still doesn't remove any vital human intervention."

By concentrating on an industry she knows best - Hunt has worked for two of the UK's foremost consultancies and corporates like Texaco - Management Issues will not only be a one-stop shop, but one which she believes will enhance creativity.

"This is not about automating queries," she says "but giving journalists choices, giving them an alternative route to accessing information. Journalists still need to decide their sources for themselves rather than be told. My role is pulling together disparate sources of information, but using the discipline of technology."

So far Management Issues is discussing partnerships with Cranfield School of Management, The Institute of Management and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. This will, says Hunt, populate the site with a quality of information not found in other sources, and several other partnership deals are being negotiated and will be in place shortly.

Because the site is niche, Hunt says it's not the quantity of journalists that will attract clients to subscribe to the site and offer their spokespeople, but rather the quality of the interaction the portal allows. Similarly, journalists will use the service because of an unparalleled technology-driven user experience.

Sixty-five spokespeople are already signed up with Management Issues. By April next year the aim is to have 350. Those on board already include HR directors from some of the world's best known brands including Xerox.

"It's important to emphasise that the launch is only the beginning," says Hunt "but the technology allows us to showcase the real value-add PR can offer. In the longer term, journalists will be able to rate their interactions with our experts and this will enable each party to have much more fruitful and meaningful relationships."

"Management Issues is not about PR alone, it's about how the technology can power PR into a new dimension."

Created using new electronic publishing and web site management technology developed by Sedasoft, an Anglo-US software partnership, Management Issues is a showcase for a variety of online tools that Sedasoft will shortly be offering to small and medium-sized enterprises through pay-as-you-go online services. Maintained via Sedasoft's simple online publishing interface, Management-Issues will be ported to wireless devices and WAP phones. Improvements such as Artificial intelligence pattern matching software are also under development.

Remember, you heard, saw and tried it here first.