Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Forgot to mention this in my earlier post on the launch of BB10, but Research in Motion has now changed its name to Blackberry . I guess this was the big branding mystery that the company was eluding to months ago. RIM will now trade under the ticket symbol BB on the TSX. Not really sure what this accomplishes myself. I get the notion of a fresh start and leaving the old RIM brand behind. But was RIM's problem ever the name RIM?  Or rather has it always been poor marketing and a product that got behind the curve (no pun intended)? I mean, can you imagine Apple deciding to call itself iPhone instead of Apple? Or what if Microsoft decided to be called Windows from now on? I don't think the name change will do any harm per se, but I don't see any benefit in it either.  And it's a lot of hassle for no real benefit. The amount of paper work, legal costs and marketing overhaul that is required to get rid of the RIM name is quite a bit (far more than people might s

The thing I've always loved about PR is that at its core it's meant to be a two-way mode of communication. Marketing is a one-way mode... you develop a message and then you push that message out. With PR you may develop a message, but you do so based on the on-going conversations you've had with your key stakeholders. What they think matters as much to you as what you think. It's that give-and-take that makes PR special because, in my opinion, it is ideal for bringing people together. Communication is what brings people together, failure to communicate is what drives people apart. In recent years, politicians and many institutions have not been practicing good PR. In fact, the opposite, they've been practicing marketing and calling it PR - they tend to push out 'their' message and are completely tone-deaf as to what their stakeholders think of it. One such message, which has been pushed for the past 10 years, is that increased security measures are requi

RIM launched BB10 today (the Z10 and Q10 models) and perhaps the most surprising element was that they named Alicia Keys as their new Creative Director. According to the press release ... In her new role, Keys will work closely with app developers, content creators, retailers, carriers and the entertainment community to further shape and enhance the BlackBerry 10 platform, and inspire creative use through its remarkable capabilities and functionality. From music to books, to film, to apps, Keys will lead the charge of enhancing entertainment consumption and distribution, through the power of BlackBerry 10. My view on this announcement is that it may be one of the dumbest, worst, silliest, ridiculous, idiotic, absurd, moronic, irresponsible, unrealistic  moves in corporate history.  SINGERS SING! They are NOT marketing gurus.  SINGERS SING! They have no clue how the day-in and day-out workings of a corporation unfold.  SINGERS SING! They have no experience in

Looks like someone might finally take a hard and honest look at why the bank(st)ers got away with criminal activity and why the US government never charged anyone.  Tomorrow on PBS Frontline at 10pm they are running "The Untouchables" which delves into this issue. The expose can (they say) be viewed online as well. Visit here after tomorrow to view the episode. We all know what actually happened... Clinton and Greenspan removed Glass-Steagall Act GW Bush and Greenspan then removed a ton more regulations The banks leveraged themselves to kingdom come Credit rating agencies rated junk debt as triple-A debt so it could be sold to suckers around the world The whole ponzi scheme blew up in 2008, resulting in: massive unemployment massive loss in net worth due to the stock market crashing massive home foreclosures and loss in property values bailing out of the banks using tax payer money (sorry, can't fix up the school this year, we gave all the money

Looks like the market is highly favourable to RIM's BB10 launch. The stock has soared in the past few weeks, currently sitting above $15 a share. As I stated back in December - BB10 sneak peak - I figured RIM would either crash to five bucks or rise to 20. Looks like it rose, primarily as a result of various analyst reports about the potential of BB10. Having said that, one has to wonder how much of the rise is due to money moving out of Apple and parking itself in RIM short term. Apple's stock has cratered over the past few months, from $700 to $500 a share. I think RIM's rise is purely a speculative play. The stock will rise until actual end-user reviews start appearing. If the users themselves praise BB10 then I think RIM will rise to 20-25 bucks a share and settle in there for quite some time (until quarterly sales results beat market expectations). I'm glad to see RIM has finally put BB10 on the homepage of their Web site, but I have to say the marketing c

Lance's interview with Oprah for those that care: Overall I'd say he did a poor job. A lot of pausing and hemming and hawing. To me I suspect he lied during this interview based on his body language and cadence in his responses. As I said in my previous post on Lance - 2013 Biggest PR Idiot Award Goes To: Lance Armstrong - I think Lance's brand is dead. After seeing this interview I think I was bang on the money. It still makes no sense why Lance did this interview. If you lie once and then confess shortly thereafter people can forgive you. But if you lie hundreds of times over years, the 'I confess' tactic will not save you generally speaking. It can save you if the lie was something mundane. So if you pretended to be straight but were actually gay, people understand that type of thing. But the way Lance lied and the nature of his lies do not lend themselves to forgiveness.

Just added the Grammarly plug-in for Chrome and have found it to be a great little app. The plug-in is free and for the Chrome browser you can download it here . At first I was not impressed. The 'lite' version says it checks spelling, grammar and punctuation when you are typing online. However, I found that it does not do a good job on grammar or punctuation (in fact it does a horrible job). That said, it does a great job on spelling, allowing you to double click on a word you've misspelled and replace it with the right one from a drop down menu. You can also right click on a word and get a list of synonyms.  For those that have ever had to Google search to find out how to spell a word correctly, you'll know what a pain that is. Grammarly makes it super easy to fix your mistakes without leaving your document. Now with regards to grammar and punctuation. I find it misses a ton of mistakes and the ones that it does catch, it fails to make it easy for you to fin

It's been months since I revisited this post, but I figured it was time to take another look. If you've read my past post you'll know that there are 10 variables I look at to gauge the recovery from the 2008 crash. The previous posts can be found here: Top 10 Reasons This Recession Will Never End Update 1 Update 2 Update 3 Update 4 Update 5 Update 6 Update 7 So without further delay, let's take a look at where these variables are at today. 1) Crashes hurt for a long time - unchanged Well interest rates are still rock bottom (meaning savers are getting nothing on their savings). Housing has flatlined and shows little to no sign of growth. Unemployment is still in the high seven per cent range. Overall the pain has not eased in anyway. The only 'reprieve' has come in the form of slack monetary  policies which have lead to low-interest rate loans, which in turn has allowed people to borrow more than they normally could afford to. But all that is d

Greg Sandoval, senior writer at CNET , resigned when CBS (CNET's parent corporation) interfered with the Best of CES award . Basically Dish Network won the award and CBS came along and told CNET to remove them from consideration for the award due to litigation issues CBS was having with Dish Network. CBS policy is now such that no writer working in a CBS company is to write on or review any company in which CBS is involved in litigation.  (What would be hilarious would be if every tech company out there filed some small suit against CBS, resulting in CBS being unable to cover anything tech related). For all those that say the media is bought and paid for, this is a great example of how that is not the case (and also how it is the case). Kudos for Greg for showing the world that journalists still do, in fact, have integrity.  I'm not surprised by this as most of the journalists I've come across are in fact fair and balanced. That said, news outlets generally a

So after promising the nation that the time to act was NOW and that he would take actions even if the congress wouldn't, Obama showed his hand today. From Obama's side, he will take 13 executive actions, which you can read here . Basically, he's doing next to nothing. Almost all of his proposals are vague statements about awareness campaigns, increasing background checks, and launching a 'dialogue' on mental health. Not a single one of his executive actions will do anything to curb gun violence. On the flip side, the tough measures - a ban on assault rifles and limiting clip sizes to 10 rounds a clip - he's punted over to the congress to vote on. The congress, being a Republican majority, will likely not vote for such restrictions. So as to be expected, Obama was full of sound and fury but ultimately did next to nothing from the executive office side of things. Were his hands always tied? Of course. He can't make laws on his own, he needs c

Horrible ad by the NRA.  But as I've said in previous posts, nothing is going to happen on gun control in the US (nothing of substance that is). Too many people fear their own government in the US, so taking away their guns just isn't going to fly. While I find this NRA ad unpalatable, the one thing it does do is fuel the fire that there's an 'us' and 'them' and that THEY are coming to disarm YOU while they don't disarm themselves. For those Americans that don't trust their government, the ad will resonate with them and further entrench the view that the government is something to be feared (as opposed to it being a representation of the people's will).

Courtesy of reddit... how Canadian's deal with cold winters...

I haven't seen his interview with Oprah yet, and we are only in January of the new year, but I'm going to go ahead and call it, Lance Amrstrong wins this year's biggest PR idiot award. If you haven't heard, turns out Lance WAS doping all along.  I've said this a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand more times... want your PR life to be easy? WORK WITH THE TRUTH! Seriously, even if it costs you in the short run, working with the truth will be hugely beneficial in the long run. You can manage almost any situation as long as you don't lie. Lance lied, lied, lied... took a breath then lied some more... took a nap then lied again. So after denying that he doped, what, a thousand times, he's now going to confess that he did dope. The question (some) people are asking is can he save his brand? The answer, with absolutely 100 per cent certainty, he can't. Lance Armstrong will forever be remembered as a cheat, but even worse, a liar. I do

In the old days when any two entities - persons or organizations - had a contract the biggest concern over breaking that contract was the legal and financial repercussions. Don't get me wrong, reputation management still meant something in the old days. When you shook hands you were putting your reputation on the line. While the 'contract' might not hold you to everything implied during your initial discussions, burn a client and you would get a reputation for doing so. I once knew a COO who told me that contracts don't mean anything really (as you can always hire lawyers to ensure you are covered no matter what unfolds, hence why corporate contracts are so lengthy with caveats) and that the only thing that really matters is someone's hand shake. If they shake your hand and later stab you in the back, no contract in the world will ever cover you in any kind of working relationship with them in the future. In the past when a contract was broken, the reputation

A bit over simplistic, but a funny video explaining how government works. This is a great example of how a video doesn't have to be a super high-end production to be interesting. The politicos should watch videos like this because this is how everyday folks think. So your messaging should be tailored to someone who views the world in the fashion that this video explains. Now, I think the video's argument is a tad over simplistic in that the 'masses' aren't controlled simply by government. They are controlled by local police, legal contracts, the economic system and associated policies, the business environment, technology, global trends and events, mass media, etc. But there's no question that a small group of people who have been elected to the government do influence a lot and probably impact the 'rules' of society and how society evolves more than any other single factor.

Someone mixed celebrity statements against guns with movie clips of them using guns. The video points out the absurdity of people who glorify gun violence in cinematography yet in the same breath come out against guns. If you were REALLY that committed to stopping gun violence, then you'd turn down any role that glorifies gun violence right? Not that it would solve the problem, but at least you could say you were not contributing to the problem. But none of these actors/actresses are going to do that, for obvious reasons (cha-ching... money). This is one of those cases where the PR makes sense - denouncement of gun violence - but no one took the time to think about the fact that these people make millions glorifying gun violence, which ipso facto  makes them not the best spokespersons. They should have done this using musicians, sports figures and tv actors (from comedy sitcoms perhaps). At least then there wouldn't be such a glaring hypocritical element to the messa

Check out flightradar24 and catch a glimpse of how many planes are in the sky as we speak. Apparently their service only tracks about 60 per cent of the planes in the sky, but it's still mind boggling to see how many planes are out there flying around right this minute. They also have an app for the iPhone and Android. Not really sure why they created this service or what the purpose of it is, but pretty cool regardless. It's not done by the airline industry, but it would have been a great PR tool for them to have created as it really impresses upon you just how amazing airline transportation is and the amount of work that must go in to managing so many planes.

Sad news today, Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit , committed suicide at the age of 26. While the full story is not fully clear , it appears the stress of charges being brought against him by the Federal Government, with a potential prison sentence length of up to 30 years, pushed him over the edge. What's truly sad about this is that the two institutions who he 'wronged' - MIT and JSTOR - had no desire to press any charges. But the Fed, people are assuming, wanted to make an example out of Swartz (or simply further their own careers) so they pushed for prosecution. Essentially, from what I've seen all Swartz did was take content from a database of publicly-available research papers. So what's the crime? Well, you can't 'take' the whole database of content, I guess you're suppose to access the content on an as-needed basis. Essentially it's tantamount to stealing a copy of every book in the library - so you don't take the actual

If you haven't seen it yet, you should watch a recent interview Piers Morgan did on CNN with Alex Jones. It revolves around the debate the Americans are having over gun control and harkens back to the good old days (I say sarcastically) of Jerry Springer, where people screaming and yelling passed for entertainment. I wrote a post on this issue a while back - Why the gun issue will never be resolved in the US - and what you see in this interview is in keeping with my views, primarily that, regardless of how many people die from guns, many Americans view guns as their ultimate protection. So even if guns make society a less safe place, they view 'their' gun as increasing 'their' personal safety. At the core of this is a huge PR problem that is the direct result, in my opinion, of the American government lying over and over to its population. Many view the American government as an empire that has an agenda of its own that is separate from the will of the people