Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

One of the things that I've always found frustrating in my career in public relations is how much who you are working with impacts how much you enjoy the job. Unlike a lot of careers - accounting, medicine, plumbing, etc. - in public relations your ability to thrive can be highly augmented or prohibited by the creative and personality forces around you. PR simply cannot succeed in a bubble, it needs to draw on all the resources around it.  I recently got the opportunity to work with someone that I've wanted to work with for some time - Paul Goyette over at PG Communications .We'd interacted quite a bit over the years, mostly in various companies that were doing business together, but we never actually had the chance to work on the same side of the fence. It was really nice getting the chance to do so for the first time. The process of PR is so much fun, stress-free (as much as it can be) and productive when you are working with someone that understands what you are sa...

Wow, RIM stocks are down 14 per cent today based on lowered forcasted earnings. It's really too bad because they are trying to stay competitive, but it really looks like they've lost the brand war. I honestly couldn't tell you what RIM stands for anymore. What do you think of when you think RIM? Does an image of a Playbook come to mind? Or does one of their older blackberry models pop in to your head? (When I think of RIM the first image that pops in to my head is still the old blueberry I had - perhaps because it was a truly unique time when blackberry moved from just email to email + phone). Take a look at the difference in how apple markets the ipad and how RIM markets the playbook... (click on the image to see it larger) It's just night and day. Obviously RIM made the decision that if Apple was going to go 'white' then it would go 'black'. Big mistake. And RIM is still using lines like "Work smarter. Play harder."  Ummm... the w...

A good viral video doesn't just get millions of hits, it also ends up with endless variants as users modify it. The Nyan video I posted yesturday has entered its full viral stride with dozens of audio and video remixes popping up all over YouTube in the past day. The folks over at Poptarts must be throwing poptarts up in the air in celebration. Having said that, I wonder if the folks at Kellogg's even know about the video (it's hard to believe that they don't). I say this because you'd think they'd jump on board the Nyan train by at least posting a link to the video on their Web site. They have a giant multimedia section, which is clearly their attempt at creating 'viral buzz'. They even have a Pop-Tart dance video, which has racked up a staggering 15,000 views in just under a 12 months! (yes, I'm being sarcastic - compare that to 3.7 million views in under 30 days of the Nyan video). Kellogg's in all likelihood likes the dan...

One of the things that makes going viral so difficult is that the key to going viral is often to think outside the outside of the box. To go so far off in to left field that by conventional logic it makes almost no sense. Very few people have the ability to do this and even fewer have the ability to convince their organizations to take the risk. The line between plain stupid and viral is often a hair's difference. Which is why there are so few viral videos that actually take off. Take this video of the Nyan cat - a hybrid of a cat and a poptart. I mean, we're talking a 1980s atari-like graphics (was atari around in the 80's?) and a soundtrack that just repeats over and over - you can't get more basic than this in an attempt to create a viral video. And yet, this video has racked up over 3.2 million views in less than 20 days. Now, I doubt the makers of the poptart made this video, but they should cut a cheque to whoever did. You can even buy Nyan poptart t...

I found this article fascinating, it states that 1/3 of Canadians can't afford their basic expenses. 38 per cent of Canadians apparently have no savings at all. 92 per cent said they found it a struggle (if not impossible) to save money. On the plus side, 60 per cent of Canadians did have enough savings to cover their living expenses for four months (which to me is only slightly better than nothing).  Either way you cut it, things keep getting harder on Canadians as a result of the recession and inflation. Partly why I find this article fascinating is that if you are in PR you may think your audience demographic is different than it really is. If you are making good money in PR (and many PR folks do ok) don't make the mistake of thinking everyone in the world is getting by like you are. We often assume there's a large middle class out there - the same 'type' of middle class that existed in the 80s and 90s. Yet what the stats are showing is that, while ...

Finally one of the parties makes a statement regarding the internet. The NDP has come out and stated that they will unlock cell phones and put an end to the notion of UBB. It was the first thing you see when you enter their Web site today. Putting this issue at the forefront may just be enough for me to vote NDP this time. I've never thought of myself as NDP though as I've always thought their policies would hurt economic growth and favor special interest groups (ie. unions) over the concerns of all Canadians. But I think Internet and mobility billing is such a crucial part to Canada's future (and their stance is the right one) that I may vote for them anyway. The Liberals have a good digital economy platform - including enabling Canadians to vote over the Internet - but it's not front and center in their platform. It's mind boggling that with 50 per cent of Canadians not voting that we haven't enabled electronic voting (ie. over the Internet) yet. If ...

This is beyond cool, YouTube adds live channels . PR folks take note, this is the future of PR (or at least a component to it). I've talked about this months ago in a post called The Power of Video . Provided the carriers fail to strangle bandwidth expansion to the consumer (which they are trying to do, but I think will fail), video will grow more and more important. Toss in the ability to stream live video casts from your YouTube channel and we're talking some seriously powerful communications tools that creates a closer connnection between brands and stakeholders than ever before. Can you stream live video today? Yep over at ustream . Charlie Sheen streams live video from there I think (don't ask me to find the link though, I'm not interested in Sheen's live rants). The big difference with YouTube entering the picture is simply that everyone knows YouTube and visits it regularly. So live streaming will become common practice when YouTube offers it.

I have to say for some reason I'm totally stumped this time around as for who I will vote for in the coming elections. In past years it's been easier because of one party or the other has been incompetent enough for me not to want to lend them my vote. By the way, I'm an odd voter because I don't vote based on ideology alone, I vote more based on competence. Small government? Great with me, as long as it's competent. Big government? No problem, as long as it's competent. Taxes increases? Fine, as long as the money is spent wisely. Taxes cuts? Great, as long as it truly stimulates the economy and job creation and doesn't just makes the rich richer. So for me the whole fear-mongering - Harper will make the rich richer, Ignatieff will kill jobs through wealth redistribution - doesn't even register, I just ignore it all and I'm more interested in who might have a sliver of a chance of running an effective government. So today I took a look at ...

So the Liberals have launched their Family Pack initiative . I'm fairly disappointed in their messaging. I'll give it to the Conversatives, they message with decisiveness. The Liberals seem to message based on a strategy that I'd call 'quarter measures' or band-aid solutions. University is too expensive? We'll give you $1,500 a year towards it. Ok, great, so people will graduate with 35k of debt instead of 40k of debt and still have no job. Healthcare is a mess? Ok, we'll let you take six months off work to care for a sick family member at home. Energy prices are going through the roof over the next 10 years? We'll give you a tax break so you can renovate your home with more energy efficient solutions (but don't ask us to actually address energy costs themselves). Worried about retirement? We'll let you contribute more to CPP (even though you probably aren't contributing enough to your RRSPs as it is and if you are unemployed, under...

Poor Charlie Sheen's one-man show has bombed as he got booed off the stage in his opening night. Any PR person could have predicted this would happen. In a previous post I said the road he was going down would not end well.... Charlie Sheen is a good example of what happens when you ignore cause and effect or fail to understanding it properly. Yes, he is garnering attention, but it's the wrong type of attention. It is attention that ultimately will damage his brand equity with stakeholders.    There you have it. His brand is now skimming the water before it finally crashes and sinks. What's sad in all this is that this is really a story about mental illness and drug abuse but instead, as so often is the case, it is turned into a story about brand suicide - the strange fascination the media and the public have with watching someone who was on top self destruct beyond repair. What Charlie really needs is a good PR person and to listen to the advice that PR per...

For those just starting out with Twitter I thought I'd make a quick post on Twitter lists. When I first started using Twitter I found it sort of confusing. As I started following people I found there were simply too many 'tweets' pouring in every day and making Twitter a somewhat unpleasant experience. People who only tweeted a little would be buried in the hundreds of other tweets that heavy users were making (so I'd often miss their tweets). I found myself having to make decisions on who I would or wouldn't follow. Then I discovered Twitter Lists and realized you don't have to make that choice. With a Twitter list you simple create a list, name it whatever you want, and then you can 'follow' people in that list instead of following them in your main Twitter page. So on your main Twitter page you may only be 'following' 15 people, but you might also have a Twitter list where you following another 20 people. What's nice is that you wi...

Interesting Public Mobile commercial that I recently stumbled across. All in all I'd have to say job well done. They use two colors, which as we know is the rule behind good design that resonates (and yet for some reason so many people forget this). They clearly establish their value proposition (save money). Lastly, they attach their proposition to a greater ideological trend that their consumers care about (dislike of the big three telecoms in Canada and lack of competition in the wireless sector). What I also find interesting in this is that advertising is generally the realm of marketing. There's a lot that goes in to making a commercial usually - hiring models/actors, a film crew, editing footage, ad buy plans, etc. - all of these things are generally outside the realm of public relations. However, an ad like this could be done by a PR person. In fact, I'd argue a PR person would probably make a better 'text-based' ad than a pure-marketing person would...