global discussion. local perspectives.
I had a new experience yesterday that helped me understand the “social” in social media a little better. I use Facebook to maintain with far-distant friends and to get back in touch. So, contrary to today’s teens who chat with each other online, I am more likely to talk to my current, nearby friends on the phone and in person and to use Facebook to interact with people who are not in my immediate circle. But...
Some 77% of american public opinion (if such an animal ever existed) is reported to consider media reports largely responsible for the worsening of the global economic crisis. What is however even more relevant and scary, is that many governmental and corporate leaders vociferously adopt the same argument, to the point were repetition inevitably ends up digging into collective opinions. For example in my country (Italy) Prime Minister Berlusconi has repeatedly abused the media (his...
The first half of 2008 was a blur for me. When the global food crisis hit, the fertilizer industry went from obscurity to centre stage in the blink of an eye. There was little or no time to build up resources, so all of the communicators I know in the sector went into overdrive. While I think we collectively handled the situation pretty competently, I also learned a lot from the situation. Here are some...
With the announcement of the Institute for Public Relations Research Fellows to guide this organization’s overall research program, Bulldog’s Daily Dog gave me the opportunity to write an op-ed.
1. The perspective of this new-year note on ‘the business of business is responsible business’ is that the current economic crisis is only one of the consequences of a historic discontinuity (see here) in which we all find ourselves immersed since the end of the twentieth century. A discontinuity originated by the radical subversion of the way we think of space and time induced by communication technologies and their impact on the acceleration of the...
What does the year ahead hold for PR practitioners? Is the emerging global recession an opportunity or threat to our industry? Here are my predictions for 2009, a year when, I believe, proactive PR career planning will prove vital in helping the strongest to survive and indeed flourish.
A recent Security Exchange Commission investigation on an insider trading scam, innocently involving a Brunswick New York manager, spurs calls for the regulation of the public relations profession. Nina Devlin, an experienced pr professional specialised in acquisition and new listing activities on behalf of clients of the highly reputed Brunswick firm, has been temporarily suspended without pay by her employer when an investigation by the SEC accused her husband Mathew (a trader for Lehman Brothers)...
I asked a couple of friends to share their thoughts about the year 2008 for Portuguese PR. The sector is growing firmly despite of the economic context. Important steps towards professionalism have been given with new courses being offered at the post graduate level, and the recent publication of the Code of Professional Conduct by the Portuguese Association of Business Communication is a landmark.
On the doorstep to Christmas, I thought I would mention my favourite game this year. ‘Spore’ lets you evolve from a tiny cell into a creature that you nurture over time. In order to play you must move from cell to creature stage to form a tribal group, then on to determine your own brand of ‘civilisation’, before finally evolving into a sentient intergalactic space being (only one of my sons has managed this so...
1. Please discourage my colleagues from offering, arguing, pushing individual as well as organizational visibility as a ‘strategic’ and desirable objective. Peeing in the pot is more strategic and less polluting. If it makes sense to expect a substantial reduction in organizational advertising investments, it also makes sense to anticipate a reduction of editorial pages which, in turn, reduces media relations activities. Subsequently many of my colleagues will find time to think about many other...