Reality check on Leveson, Murdoch and Hunt
Hating the Murdochs is a sport in some quarters. It is almost all the old British left has left. Socialism is not doing well, but loathing Thatcher and her biggest media supporters still resonates. In the case of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, we have what looks like the perfect mirror-image foolishness from the right-wing of politics....
Limits to digital networked PR and business
There has been lots of talk in PR circles about value networks and the networked society. Here I take a closer look at what the fuss is all about and issue a note of caution and a call to moderate the hype. Utopian PRs have been dreaming about “one world, people and planet” in which all...
Why Chaos Theory in PR is hogwash
I have noticed that there’s an increasing interest among PR pros in chaos theory. It might be because we’re in recession, the result of recent earthquakes and tsunamis, or even the new complexity that social media throws up. But whatever motivates them, here’s some insight into why they are misguided. Writing this piece has forced...
PR should help leaders lead, not listen
My profession seems to be obsessing on stakeholder relationship management. I see why. When the angry mob is howling at the gates (normally not so much a mob as a media and Twitter scrum), it seems sensible to pretend that crowds have wisdom. Like politicians, media and most bosses in the West, public relations professionals...
Message to bankers: how to win the PR wars
The advice from financial PRs should be: stand your ground; defend yourselves; get the rest of the business community behind you
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Reflections on Edelman’s 2012 Trust Survey
Edelman’s Trust Barometer is a major highlight of the PR calendar because it provides global and historically comparative data we can mull over. This year there’s a welcome shift in Edelman’s narrative. Gone is the anti-profit, anti-business and all stakeholders are equal tone that I’ve criticised in the past. In has come a bold recognition that business...
For PR’s reputation: let’s define ourselves candidly
Why are so many PR pros embarrassed by what they do for a living? This normally hidden angst becomes transparent whenever they attempt to define the essence of our trade. Nothing illustrates this better than the four supposedly modern definitions of PR being discussed by PRSA and CPRS, all of which share one fundamental flaw: evasiveness about what...
PR is more about messages than relationships
Of course PR is about building relationships. Even more than most, our business is diplomacy and even schmoozing and wooing. But let’s not get too soft about our game – or our clients’. All businesses are about relationship-building. Butchers, say, depend on it. As in: “I’ve some nice sirloin today. A bone for the dog?” One pitch of...
Message for Xmas and New Year to you all
Dear Readers, Merry Christmas! Or Seasonal Greetings if you prefer non-religious, holiday wishes. Or Happy Winterval, if you like the full-on, pagan, northern hemisphere, feasting and even dark-side approach (go on, let yourself go). I’ve had, and hope I’ve shared, an absorbing PR year. It’s been threaded-through with a stab at a long-range, long-form piece of...
Origin of the message with Homer, Sappho and art
This examines the moment when the manipulation of the message became a game of representation, positioning and managed perception that is recognisably modern.
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The strange failure of OWS on social media
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters supposedly speak for 99% of us. Some reports in the mainstream media, such as a recent National Journal survey, suggest that the anti-capitalists have the backing of the public. But does the evidence of activity on social media support the claims? It would appear not. Jeff Jarvis in Public Parts,...
The strange failure of OWS on social media
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters supposedly speak for 99% of us. Some reports in the mainstream media, such as a recent National Journal survey, suggest that the anti-capitalists have the backing of the public. But does the evidence of activity on social media support the claims? It would appear not. In his book Public Parts,...
