Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

So Obama was on The View and plenty of folks have been critical of him saying that the appearance was an attempt to reverse sliding poll numbers for Democrats. They question whether or not it was a wise public relations move. Personally (and professionally) I don't get the criticism. The guy is the President... of everyone! It's absurd to suggest that he should only be speaking on certain outlets, of which we know only a certain demographic of the American public watches. At what point did speaking to day-time television viewers become beneath a president? Should he only be giving evening interviews because the 'important' people are all at work during the day? So forget the seniors, the stay-at-home mom's and dad's, etc.? It's one thing if he were out there shucking a book in the middle of a recession, but he's not doing that. He was on there answering pointed questions. Obama is a master at public relations... not necessarily because he's

Just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. I have to say I was underwhelmed. Basically the message of Outliers is that 'life is not fair' - that luck, access to money and social privileges, timing, heritage, geography, the random actions of others, social networks, circumstances of the times and (yes) hard work all cumulatively play a factor in success (or lack thereof) and how slight (often unassuming) events can make the difference between failure and fame / riches. I was only underwhelmed in the sense that any university grad who has studied psychology or history  is well aware of all this. In addition, many philosophic works delve in to the issue of fate, providence and fortune (not riches per se, but fortune as in one's lot in life) with far greater depth and insight than Outliers does. For this blog I always have an eye on PR. I think the relevance that Outliers has to the world of PR is that it reminds us of reality. Most PR people work for h

So Tony Hayward is stepping down as CEO of BP. Although his resignation letter obviously wasn't written by a PR person... "The Gulf of Mexico explosion was a terrible tragedy for which – as the man in charge of BP when it happened – I will always feel a deep responsibility, regardless of where blame is ultimately found to lie. "From day one I decided that I would personally lead BP's efforts to stem the leak and contain the damage, a logistical operation unprecedented in scale and cost. We have now capped the oil flow and we are doing everything within our power to clean up the spill and to make restitution to everyone with legitimate claims. "I would like to thank all of the BP people involved in the response and the many thousands of others along the Gulf Coast who have joined us in our efforts. "I believe the decision I have reached with the board to step down is consistent with the responsibility BP has shown throughout these terrible events. BP

Too funny. The guy dresses up as Darth Vader, robs the bank and then rides away on a bicycle. What I found interesting about this is the comments people are making on YouTube... - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Bank. - With the tough economy we are in, Darth Vader's death star was reposessed so he had to rob a bank to pay the finance company. - I find your lack of twenties disturbing

As an update to an earlier post I made on canceling my cable television... Yahoo recently did an article - "You Don't Have to Pay for Cable TV" - on how feasible it is becoming to live without a cable feed. Great article, but disappointing at the same time. No mention of NetGear, bit torrent, newsgroups, etc. - essential components to accessing content. Also, it doesn't mention the greatest benefit... which is access to ALL content. With traditional cable you only get access to certain channels. Up here in Canada that means limited access to US content. But through the internet you can get all that content - HBO, Showtime, etc. One of my favorite new shows is Penn and Teller's 'Bullshit' You can't see this show if you are in Canada. You can watch past episodes on YouTube though. But if you want to watch new episodes as they air each week, you've got to know how to get that content. This goes to show how important public relations / med

So I was recently reading about the now infamous Mel Gibson rant and came upon an article by David Brooks that lead to me to the book: Living in the Age of Entitlement: The Narcissistic Epidemic.   You can read the book on Google books (I'm currently half-way through it). What drew me to the book was Brooks' quote of a statistic referenced from the book: In their book, “The Narcissism Epidemic,” Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell cite data to suggest that at least since the 1970s, we have suffered from national self-esteem inflation. They cite my favorite piece of sociological data: In 1950, thousands of teenagers were asked if they considered themselves an “important person.” Twelve percent said yes. In the late 1980s, another few thousand were asked. This time, 80 percent of girls and 77 percent of boys said yes.  It was quite a shocking statistic to me when you consider most of the societal shifts that have occurred since the 1970s should have deflated self-est

This guy is pretty cool... he figures why spend $300 grand for a house when he can build a tiny one for $17 grand. I will say though, I think this idea is only feasible for folks who don't get six months of winter like we do in Canada. His idea is featured on the homepage of Yahoo. There have always been people doing creative innovative things like this, but with the recession still in effect (two years since the DOW crashed and we're still about 40 percent below it's peak 2007 levels) stories about innovative ways of living are starting to pop up. One thing that's really surprised me is that PR and marketing folks don't seem to be leveraging the recession at all. I look at myself and I've canceled my cable television... I was able to do that because of my Netgear box and yet you won't see Netgear marketing itself as a way to save money during the recession. There are so many amazingly innovative companies out there with products that have the

Steve Jobs held a press conference to discuss the issues with dropped calls on the iPhone and to announce that every customer will get a free bumper case for their iPhone 4 (which should solve the dropped calls issue). While I think the actions Apple took in this situation were appropriate - if the free case doesn't fix the problem they will also offer a full refund to any iPhone 4 users who want one - I wasn't impressed with how Jobs delivered the news. You get the feeling that he's really annoyed with the media for (according to him) blowing this antenna issue out of proportion. I'm not really sure why he called this press conference other to send the message to the media that they are over reacting. Which is a fairly pointless thing to do as the media aren't going to stop covering this issue just because Jobs tells them they should. The only reason to hold a press conference on this issue is to 1) apologize for any inconvenience Apple users have had

Amazing video of the BP oil spill. The footage broke not from any media source, but from a guy who took a plane and flew over the Gulf with a video camera.  You've got to wonder what the long-term (say 10-years out) future of journalism is when they are getting scooped by average folks.  Now, this video came from breaking a 'no fly zone' apparently... but regardless, it's amazing footage that you'd think the media would have gone out and caught first. Just brainstorming here... but Google should consider launching a YouTube news channel where people can get paid for breaking footage. 

Volkswagen Canada Appoints New Public Relations Manager This might be the funniest thing I've seen and something only PR folks can appreciate. So VW makes an announcement that they have a new 'public relations manager'. First, I've never seen a company put out an official news release to announce a sub-CXO/VP position, especially not one of VW's size.  But wait... it gets better. There's actually a picture of the new public relations manager ... once again, something traditionally done with CXO-type announcements (and even then pictures often aren't included).  And the pics are clearly just low res pics shot with a run-of-the-mill digital camera. But wait... it gets better. Who is the media contact on the news release? The PR person for whom the news release is about! I just can't imagine myself landing a manager position and then writing an official news release about it and distributing it over the news wire with myself as the contact. T

I found this recent CNN article interesting as it is basically making the same point I made a few days ago about Obama's messaging strategy and how it may be deeply flawed. I also found Fareed Zakaria an interesting watch. You can watch the whole show on CNN.com (or right below). Basically the point is that austerity does not instill confidence and that confidence is the key to getting out of this recession. Which is why I think Obama's blame game is a negative messaging strategy right now. It's a basic chicken and egg scenario - businesses and people won't spend until businesses and people are spending. What frustrates me with this entire recession / great recession / depression is how little PR is being used to restore confidence. It's almost like people are afraid to even try to restore confidence or make the case for confidence for fear that they sound optimistic and then storm clouds hit and they look incompetent. So instead everyone takes a 'w

Fascinating story of Ron Wayne , one of three co-founders of Apple. He sold his stake for 800 dollars, which today would be worth $22 billion. He has an admirable attitude towards the whole situation. From a PR perspective Apple should kick the guy a million bucks or something. After all, his leaving must have meant that his shares / options would have gone back to Jobs and Wozniak - which would today net them each $11 billion.  From a dog-eat-dog perspective he doesn't technically deserve anything - after all he didn't take the risks that Jobs and Wozniak ultimately took. But kicking the guy a million bucks for helping co-found the company would be great publicity and it wouldn't hurt Apple's bottom line any. It's the kind of thing that their customers and brand would support. There's no free lunches in life... but it would be a great PR move on Apple's part to give an old man the tiniest jewel from a kingdom of wealth he could have had if life had un

You have to give it to Obama, when he wants to turn it on he sure can. In this recent speech at a rally in Racine, he shows he can still captivate an audience. With elections coming in November he has to get out and frame the narrative now so that folks are voting Democrat in a few months. It's kind of funny though that a full year-and-a-half in to his presidency, he is still defining himself as being held captive to the Bush administration and the decisions they made, as well as the current Republican elements of congress. While there's some truth in all that (a great deal actually), there is no question that Obama has shifted his core messaging from "Yes We Can" to "I want to fight along side You". While the strategy may seem clever - positioning the public's interest as being the same as Obama's and that the two share the same challenges - there is a cost to abandoning your core messaging. Look at the passion and momentum of his "Yes