Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

For those following American politics, the past month has been a gold mine of examples of PR playing out in the real world. Newt Gingrich rose to the top of the GOP pack only to fall back to third or fourth place (and from what we can tell, he is still falling). Newt's fall was in part due to his assorted involvement with Fannie and Freddie and his past flip flops. Turns out that voters were impressed with his debate performances, but upon closer look didn't like what they saw. Romney continues to march along as first or second in the polls, but has failed to grow his base beyond what it was at the beginning of the race. The dark horse in all this, and the most interesting PR story, is that R on Paul has surged to the front of the pack in Iowa , where the first votes will be cast for the GOP nominee in a couple of weeks. An interesting thing happened when Paul reached the front of the pack, something very few people thought would happen. The media started digging for ...

Ron Paul is surging in the polls States-side and some of his supporters are creating videos to support his campaign. As I said a long time ago, I think YouTube provides you with a grassroots army of marketers as many people today know how to use video editing software to create interesting videos. This applies if you have passionate followers.  The other candidates don't have any videos being made by their supporters (not sure what that says about how passionate their supporters actually are or if they simply don't know how to use video editing software). The following video was made in response to things like NDAA and SOPA , essentially highlighting how Americans are losing their freedom at a fairly rapid pace. Heck, they even created a site called RonPaulFlix that houses all the video content created by supporters as well as content from media interviews. This is what is driving all the videos created by supporters. They are able to go to a site like this and ...

I won't go in to what a total mess Europe is right now (other than to reiterate, stay the hell out of the markets if you can, we are living in the world's biggest Ponzi scheme right now) but I will say the following video, which has gone semi-viral in relation to the mess unfolding in Europe, will make you chuckle at the notion of the European's working together to fix their problems.

This story hasn't had a lot of press, but the US recently passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  Basically it allows the army (that's right, the army, not the police) to detain any US citizen it believes a threat to national security. Should they deem you a threat (or suspect you to have any connections with anyone who might be a threat) they can bust down your door at three in the morning, swoop you up, take you away to some detention center and hold you indefinitely. You get no access to a lawyer, no day in court, nothing. You will simply disappear. Not sure what the US laws are right now regarding torture, but you can be assured interrogation will be part of your stay. Anyway, I found this ad that MTV is running interesting. Government should take note that the youth don't buy in to this 'you have to be my master to keep me safe' baloney.  If the US keeps going down this path, the implications for PR are huge. PR relies completely on fr...

Well I finally cancelled Bell and said goodbye to my landline. I'm now with Wind . So why did I make the jump. It's pretty simple really. With Bell, a basic landline, no voicemail, no caller ID, no call waiting, nothing but a basic line, costs 30 bucks a month. With Wind, for 35 bucks a month, I get: A free phone (I got the Google Nexus, valued at 380 bucks) Unlimited calling in Canada Unlimited calling any time of the day Unlimited data Unlimited texting All the benefits of a smartphone (applications, camera, video camera, etc.) Caller ID, Call waiting, Call holding And best of all, I'm not locked in to any contract (just 30 days notification to cancel) As you can see, for five dollars a month extra, the choice is simple.  (I should note, this is a special Wind is running right now, in 12 months when it ends, my bill will go from 35 a month to 50 a month I think. Unless they have another special running, in which case they will give you that instead. So I su...

So RIM reported another dismal quarter the other day and the stock is trading down 10-12 per cent so far. It's now trading in the 13-dollar range (even below the bottom I thought it would hit of 15 bucks ). A ton of negatives in this quarter, including: - BB10 being delayed until late 2012 - the CEO's saying that they will each take a $1-a-year salary - Emphasis that growth in emerging markets was over 700 per cent - Growth strategies in 2012 essentially come down to a marketing campaign I suppose you can see these things as positives, but I don't. Delaying BB10 is the right thing to do if it's not ready, but the point is, it's not ready . Taking a buck in salary might seem like a statement of commitment to the company, but what it really says to me is that morale within RIM is falling apart and a move like this is necessary to try and convince employees that the CEO's are committed to the company. Salary means nothing to CEOs compared to the value ...