The IT girl: a dedicated follower of fashion

In the second instalment from her memoirs, high-tech PR executive, Tiggy Familiar, sits through a painful client meeting and ends up thinking about midgets. Some liken the IT industry to the fashion business - but not our Tiggy...

People say this is a fashion business. OK, they're probably saying that because they don't want to let a whole meeting go by without them adding their contribution. "We're entering a whole new paradigm" doesn't really cut the mustard on this side of the Atlantic because there's always someone who'll ask you what that means. But, as we were all delighted to discover at the pre-launch-party meeting for lovely Ally Ludlow's new venture, OnlineIT, the analogy does hold water. In fact, given that the author of this theory was making the definition up off the top of his head, bless him, a lot more strands could be drawn together if we were all working under different circumstances. Trying to help each other. Co-operating, that kind of thing. But two things mitigated against this. First, the author was Nigel, my account manager who isn't known for his creative thinking (although he surpassed himself on this one). If he ever went mad with a machete in a shopping centre, the neighbours would almost certainly describe him to door-stepping journalists using terms like "nice" and "solid" and "dependable" - "tormented genius" is a quote the reporters would have to make up later. Secondly, this was no place for co-operation, being the brutal hegemony (Nigel pronounces it hedge-money) of a client meeting. There are no friends at these meetings. Spice was added by the delightful presence of Imelda Ball-Leigh, who Nigel once had the pleasure of managing when she started her career with us as an account executive. Imelda's now working for the lovely Ally as PR manager, which she thinks means she gets to manage us. Though Imelda didn't ask the question herself, (her little assistant did the deed, some drone from WordPlayer PR, who she's got doing 'the odd little project' for her) the diction had her name all over it. "What exactly does that mean?" (I can just hear her rehearsing him for it). So Nigel surprised us all by drawing several parallels between the fashion industry and this fantastic white-knuckle rollercoaster ride we call the IT business. He mentioned the cyclical nature of business with things coming back into fashion every other decade, how thin client is mainframe computing with bells on (an observation that could be tidied up), how one company's form and function will always be trumped by another one's superior marketing campaign. He was doing so well until he started on hem lines being a good indicator of the state of the economy at which point I had to step in and rescue him. Still, at least he didn't suggest any ideas for the launch party. His reputation has never recovered from the SecureSoft debacle. It all seemed to make sense on paper. The theme of the launch was that hackers, well kids, are stealing money from the nation's banks, who really should be protecting themselves. For the party, held in The City, we couldn't get any child actors to play the 'snot nosed kids who are robbing London's banks' (as Securesoft MD, Bart Finklehammer III (Jnr), described them). Well, not in the budget he gave us. So we asked the agency to send along some midgets, who are amazingly affordable outside the pantomime season, and asked them to wear handkerchiefs over their faces. Who could have foreseen that some jobsworth in security would spot these small men with masks hanging round outside the bank and alert the police. And I must say it wasn't Nigel's fault the armed response unit overreacted. He should think himself lucky none of our clients got caught in the ensuing gun battle. Unfortunately for Nigel a midget did take a bullet and, how predictable of our cynical press, the papers decided this would be the main story rather than Version 3.3 of SoftwareCop. As if to totally destroy Nigel's already tattered reputation, the tabloids then dragged out the story for weeks, with lurid headlines along the lines of 'EastEnder's Bedside Vigil for Coma Midget' (just our luck they had to shoot the only midget who'd been in a soap opera). Bringing the meeting to a close, I thought of a more apt analogy for the IT business. I don't know how it came to me (perhaps it's the thought that Imelda, my former employee, is now 'in bed' in both senses, with the MD of WordPlayer PR) but it certainly focused her attention. The IT business, I said, is like the beginning of a new relationship. You spend all day on the phone and you're constantly getting shafted. That brought the colour back to her cheeks.