Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Starting in March Rogers says it will stop throttling its customers. About friggin time is all I can say. While I'm not a Rogers customers, I run off their network via Teksavvy and it's annoying as hell how they throttle connection speed between 6 pm and midnight. The decision was not made because Rogers cares about it's customers though. Rather, it appears it was the result of the CRTC working with Cisco in response to complaints by the Canadian Gamers Organization . Last month, the CRTC notified Rogers it was violating federal net neutrality rules by deliberately slowing or throttling time-sensitive internet traffic, specifically online games. The CRTC based its findings on the results of an investigation in collaboration with Cisco Systems, the hardware and software vendor that Rogers uses. The probe was launched last year after a complaint by the Canadian Gamers Organization that accused Rogers of hindering online games, such as  World of Warcraft  and  Call ...

For anyone that doesn't think we are living in the Twilight Zone, you might want to read WSJ story about Obama's plans to triple tax rates on corporate dividends for anyone who makes over $200,000 a year (or $250,000 per household). You can't 'hit' those making $200,000 without impacting everyone unless you hit them in a spot where they aren't interconnected with everyone. You hit the capital gains tax then stock prices fall - after all, why would you want to put your money in a stock where the dividend you are getting gets taxed at 45 per cent - you'd be far better off buying property with that money. So money moves out of stocks and goes elsewhere. Who knows, perhaps that is Obama's plan to steer the rich (if you consider making $200,000 a year rich) away from stocks and dividends and back in to the housing market. But remember, if money starts moving out of dividends, then companies stop offering dividends (or do so at lower yields) which then...

The Gaurdian reported that Ken Livingstone, a candidate to be the mayor of London, has been 'joking' that  bankers should be killed / hung one by one to set an example to the others. The British Bankers Associated has responded by saying: “Continual demonisation of the entire banking industry . . . is unhelpful and won’t attract jobs and business to the UK” From a PR perspective Livingstone has some balls. I don't think his messaging strategy is a bad one given the sentiment among the public and given most people would take what he is saying as an expression of condemnation more than an actual call to murder bankers.  Anyone who is even marginally aware of the causes to this world-wide recession we've been going through since 2008 know that the bankers (in conjunction with the politicians) caused all this and that it is every day people who are getting destroyed by it.  The fact that not a single banker has gone to jail in all this is why you are seeing ...

Just because I love infographics.... If you have trouble viewing the image (click to enlarge) you can view it at source here . Not exactly the America people imagined when they voted for Obama in 2008.

For those who haven't been following the news, Bill C-30 gives police the powers to snoop on Canadians Internet activities. As the National Post puts it: It has been met with fierce opposition from Internet privacy and civil rights groups, who say the bill would build a state surveillance system into Canada’s Internet. The Bill is termed the   Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. The group Anonymous 'attacked' Vic Toews, Public Safety Minister, over it.  From a PR perspective the bill has been meet with mostly outrage by Canadians. The reason is a simple one. After all, 99.9999 per cent of Canadians are fiercely against child predators (the .00001% who aren't are the predators themselves) and would be willing to put up with almost anything to catch such criminals, so why the outrage? In my opinion, it's because the public is no longer fooled by the naming conventions associated with government actions. In the US they called it th...

If you haven't been following the news on Greece you can catch yourself up with the following article: Euro chiefs consider bailout delay until after Greek polls But basically, a quick synopsis of the situation is as such: - Greece owes a ton of money (a lot of it bogus CDS debt they were suckered in to over the past 10 years) - If Greece goes bankrupt a lot of banks and pension funds and rich people lose a lot of money - In addition, if Greece goes bankrupt then the rest of the PIIGS would do the same (compounding the losses for banks, pensions and rich people). - On Sunday they implemented fiscal austerity rules on Greece, the rules being dictated to Greece by the rest of Europe (primarily ECB, IMF and Germany). - And so you basically have Greece no longer in charge of it's own Country any more and outside forces enforcing strict austerity measures on the population (ie. driving Greeks in to poverty). In response to these measures on Sunday Greek's rioted. ...

The Globe&Mail had an interesting article suggesting that corporate blogging is on the decline, big time. On the decline? Company blogs still offer many benefits The article states: According to a recent  study,  the number of Fortune 500 companies that had blogs stayed flat in 2011 from 2010, while the number of Inc. 500 companies, the fastest-growing private companies in the United States, dropped to 37 per cent from 50 per cent. Am I surprised by these findings? Not really.  During recessions companies tend to retreat in to their shell. They fear engagement with their publics because they don't want to have a two way communication model in play when negative news comes out, whether that be corporate earnings misses, corporate restructuring, or a number of things which are common during recessions.  In addition, their marketing departments are having to do more with less, so managing a blog often times takes a back seat to other priorities. Not to m...

Stumbled on this online (free) service that converts any YouTube video in to an mp3. Simply input the YouTube url and it converts it to an mp3 - works great. http://www.video2mp3.net/index.php

As the economy suffers and Greece burns (more on that later) I've noticed a strange phenomena, more and more religious content is finding its way on to YouTube. I stumbled on this kinetic typography video that I thought was pretty creative. It's also interesting to note that it's not the churches creating this content, but rather, just every day people. In fact, the Vatican has a YouTube channel, but suffice to say the content will nearly put you to sleep it's so boring. This trend I've been watching, the democratization of ideas if you will, backed by the emerging access to video editing software in the hands of every day folks, continues to impress me. What we're seeing are people who believe in various ideas taking the 'marketing' of said ideas in to their own hands. This trend stems in part from very poor marketing efforts from the people who are suppose to be leading the charge on said ideas. In this case, since the Christian church isn...

So I've had my Google Nexus now for a little over a month and I'm liking it. I'm always saying though that apps are way over-hyped when it comes to smartphones. I still stand by that belief, but I will say I've found a few (free) apps for my Nexus that I actually like. Given there are millions of apps out there, it's kind of sad that there are only half-a-dozen that I actually find useful. Out of Milk - a 'to do' list application GPS Navigation  - voice-enabled GPS navigation from your phone. Probably the best app on my Android (comes as part of the Android system). SoundHound - simply press a button when a song is playing and your phone analyzes the audio and within seconds tells you who the artist is (it's amazing how accurate this thing is, it has yet to fail). Tape-a-Talk - free voice recorder. Works well and saves files as mp3s, a MUST have for PR folks. A bare minimum it's a great back-up to your existing stand alone voice rec...

PR folks should really pause and consider their messaging strategies in the world we live in TODAY. Things have changed and with that change you have to assume that the psychology of your audiences has changed as well. Just how much has the world changed? Zerohedge has a great article back in December that uses charts to show we are truly living in a different world than say 10 years ago. Some of the charts I found interesting were: What your are seeing is a society where everyone is getting squeezed. The impacts of such trends aren't hard to figure out. - Customers who are very cautious about how they spend their money - Customers who are leery of 'claims' companies make that aren't supported by proof - Customers who aren't interested in your 'vision' or wild claims of how you will change their life, but rather, customers who want very specific solutions to immediate problems they have - Customers that value thrift over flash and who have f...

Looks like there's no floor for RIM. With the departure of their CEOs, the company doesn't seem to be having any luck regaining market confidence. Some interesting stories broke on RIM that paint a gloomy future: VW agrees to kick the "Crackberry" habit RIM’s BlackBerry loses ground to Apple, Android in the U.S. federal government RIM falls on report big customer also buying iPhones On a positive note (or at least what passes for a positive note on RIM) photos have leaked of BB10. Leaked BlackBerry 10 Pics Reveal Slick New Interface To be honest, it doesn't blow my socks off. It basically looks like the Android system. RIM's stock hit $14.55 today, when I called $15 bucks a share six months ago I thought that was a brazen call, turns out it wasn't brazen enough. I continue to argue that RIM's problem is less on the technology and apps side and more on the marketing side. No one knows what RIM is about anymore and more importantly ...