Archive for September, 2008
September 25, 2008 at 12:29 pm · Filed under America
I have been off-blog as I’ve tried to reconcile my growing frustration and anger with a public point of view. Clearly the leading issue of the day is the USA financial mess. Linked to that is the USA presidential race.
What’s angered me - and led to a delay in posting - are comments by candidates and their management of the campaign.
“This election is not about issues,” said Rick Davis, the campaign manager for John McCain. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” (Source: Washington Post)
Rick Davis is the same man who was paid $30,000 per month to lobby government on behalf of failed mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In essence he pushed for less government intervention - leading to today’s financial meltdown. Today his political capital is falling faster than a Lehman Brothers executive compensation package - see US News &World Report.
If this is not about issues (such as Iraq, Wall Street, FEMA, Subprime) then it’s about people - like the moose hunting soccer Mom Veep candidate. (Now immortalised as an action doll.)
Now McCain has called for a hiatus from campaigning. He wants to head to Washington to solve the financial mess he allowed to build up over his 26 years in office. Maybe Davis has to work for the $30,000 per month lobbying fee, too.
Professional public relations is about honesty and integrity and action. These tricks and distractions are base beyond compare.
Bring on the election. We need change - now!
September 18, 2008 at 10:45 am · Filed under America
As an American in Australia people ask me every day about my view of politics in the USA. I answer - honestly - that it feels like I’m watching politics in Zimbabwe or Kenya or Serbia. There are thrills and spills that feel completely foreign. The USA election is playing out like a dark comedy - or is that a travesty? It’s largely incomprehensible.
Two things I’d like to share - the first was last weekend’s opening skit on “Saturday Night Live” - really priceless:
Finally another rabid Democrat sent me a soul-searching list as she tried to understand politis in America:
| I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight….*If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re ‘exotic, different.’
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers - a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.
*If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.*If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, left your disfigured wife and married an heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s. *If your husband is nicknamed ‘First Dude’, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and was once a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.OK, much clearer now.
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September 8, 2008 at 2:22 pm · Filed under America
Is McCain electable?
Coming off the Republican Convention plenty of people tend to think so. McCain’s topped Obama in the polls over the weekend. Maybe it’s the boost from Palin and the global coverage that achieved. (Front page articles in Sydney count as global coverage. In America’s 24/7 saturation media environment I can only imagine the plastering Moose Hunter got there.)
Yet the Republican Party is suffering after eight years under George W Bush. The majority of Americans feel the country is heading in the wrong direction. Fewer people identify themselves as Republican.
Could the poll swing be a dead cat bounce?
Those who haven’t spent time on Wall Street may not be familiar with this technical term. Basically it means what it says. When a stock has hit rock bottom some times it sputters to life and jumps up a notch or two. However anything dropped will bounce - a little. Hence the term - dead cat bounce.
But it’s hard to say if kitty has life. Some columnists say the Democratic Party may have chosen the one candidate who cannot get elected in America. This was their election to lose - and they may have given it away.
For those yearning for change the wait is awful. We’ll have weeks more before we find out if McCat was alive or dead - and whether the old cougar has life still in him.
September 5, 2008 at 8:52 am · Filed under Public Relations, Social Media
In public relations we debate words, search for alternative phrases and aim to keep clients on message. Yet simplicity and beauty often escape us - we make it too complicated.
The Cannes Film Festival has awarded its prize for the best short film to “The Story of a Sign”. Please - invest 2-3 minutes and you will be well rewarded.
September 4, 2008 at 2:01 pm · Filed under Social Media
Yesterday I presented at the New Media Summit in Melbourne, organised by Frocomm. I was the last speaker on Day Two which wasn’t as bad a slot as you might imagine. After hearing the “hows and whats” of new media, I was able to discuss the “why”.
Our trust in major institutions has deteriorated. Now we’re more likely to trust “someone like me” over a company, government or the church. Enron, Weapons of Mass Destruction and Paedophilia have destroyed our trust in major institutions.
We’re also able to access the web - and the change from Web 1.0 (reading content on-line) to Web 2.0 (publishing - like this blog) has made us all instant experts. Finally this on-line empowerment has made us all an “army of one” able to take on our foes and friends in a public sphere.Hence the need to pay attention to Social Media.
The Arthur W Page Society is named after one of the greats in the public relations industry (see also Lee Ivey, Harold Burson and Dan Edelman). The august group conducted a great survey among CEOs and also published a white paper. (Get a copy now - here.) I presented the highlights - see my show at SlideShare.
There were 150 people in the audience and questions centred on “dark” or covert marketing. That’s when people don’t alert you which company is sponsoring a social media marketing program. These are inevitably disasters - like WalMart and its happy camper van bloggers.
All in all the event was well attended and well received. Glenn Frost at Frocomm said I was “tied for first” among best presenters. (That blog darling Laurel Papworth and I will take turns sharing the crown.)
Take a gander at all these presentations - it is great stuff and will help you convince CEOs why they need to engage in social media.
September 3, 2008 at 7:46 am · Filed under America
You’d think distance would provide perspective. But no such luck with the US Republican party, its VP pick and the hurricane that wasn’t. I am flabbergasted to read that McCain’s VP choice was foisted on him by conservatives. He wanted Lieberman or Ridge but the conservatives chucked a fit. So Palin was chosen at the close of a short meeting. She’d had little review.
The mooseburger-loving Governor of Alaska has five children aged 18 years to four months. Her 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant - “and will be married.” Her son is on his way to Iraq. She’s got a lawyer defending her in the Troopergate Investigation, as she’s accused of using pwer to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss wouldn’t sack him she got the boss sacked. Her husband drove drunk and was arrested. But she’s Christian and opposes abortion and gays.
It is a comedy but given she’d be a stroke away from presidency it’s a travesty.
McCain has shown his hand. The firebrand Republican folded like a house of cards when under pressure. I don’t want his hand hovering over the button that declares war. His hot-headed reputation has an underbelly - he’s also a quitter when he can’t get his way.
Look out Washington DC - Sarah Palin is in town and she’s armed and dangerous!
September 2, 2008 at 12:31 pm · Filed under Social Media
At New Media conference in Melbourne today lawyer Michael Park of Deaconsdiscusses the legal issues surrounding social media. Many workplaces are blocking Facebook as it drains server capacity and blurs the line between personal and professional behaviour.
Like the Christmas party we’re to use common sense. Yet for some organisations it’s led to legal issues when employees use it for harassment or discrimination or exclusion.
“The same rules that applied to old media apply to new media,” said Park. He told a story of setting Internet policy a decade back when executive questioned why employees would need email. But like the phone the new media was regulated like the old.
In short when you’re at work you’re on the company’s server. Use it like any company property.
Misuse it and the legal beagles will be all over you like a cheap suit…
September 2, 2008 at 10:57 am · Filed under Public Relations, Social Media
Interesting advice from Laurel Papworth - great public speaker and well-connected blogger. Here at a New Media Conference in Melbourne the over-arching commentary on social media is that you need to remain true to your values.
“You are a brand of one,” says Papworth.
This ties in perfectly with the presentation I’m to give here tomorrow - “The Authentic Enterprise” by Arthur W. Page Society.
Great concept - now, what’s my logo?
September 1, 2008 at 10:30 am · Filed under Media Industry, Australia
Today’s front cover of The Australian shows the impact of well-chosen photographs. Today is the first a of the Republican National Convention. Candidate John McCain is featured laughing and smiling with his Vice Presidential pick - Sarah Palin - and her husband Todd.
Immediately below is a photo of evacuees fleeing New Orleans. One man’s luggage is a plastic bag. Yet above are the white, well-fed images of Republicans celebrating.
It shows that public relations people have more than journalists to deal with.
Now McCain has called for a hiatus from campaigning. He wants to head to Washington to solve the financial mess he allowed to build up over his 26 years in office. Maybe Davis has to work for the $30,000 per month lobbying fee, too.
