Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

So this video has gone viral - it shows a golden eagle snatching up a baby in Montreal -  and folks can't tell whether it's fake or not.  My two cents: It's fake people.  Reason why I think it's fake: 1) I live an hour from Montreal (in Ottawa) and I've never seen a bald eagle in Ottawa in my entire life.     And I don't know anyone else who has ever seen a eagle either! 2) If you saw an eagle swoop down and snatch up a baby I'm pretty sure your reaction would be stronger than merely a mild 'Oh shit." 3) The guy filming is clearly French speaking (you can tell by his accent) so you would also think he'd swear in French 4) What are the odds that he just happens to be filming the eagle as it decides to swoop down and snatch the baby? Like 1,000 to 1. 5) And the real kicker... at the end of the video they have the music from the Chariots of Fire playing. If your baby almost got snatched up by an eagle I'm pretty sure you wou...

You won't hear commentary like this on NBC.... Cenk's comments were in-line with my conclusion that ultimately nothing is going to change after the recent mass shooting of elementary school children  - why the gun issue will never be resolved . From a PR perspective this is why I've never been a fan of Obama. Too many empty words not enough action (or often when he takes action its the wrong action to take). Yet it's surprising how few media outlets actually hammer the president on saying one thing and doing another.  Even Fox news hasn't hammered the president on this issue (for obvious reasons... they represent the right so they can't really criticize Obama without going against their own position of guns are good).

Since the shootings in Newtown , perhaps the most horrific incident of a gunman shooting up a school ever (with 20 elementary school children being killed), the issue of guns in America is front and center yet again. The PR Storm Begins... This time, according to Obama , something must be done. The only problem is that nothing likely will be done. Sure, they'll ban semi-automatics, but handguns probably won't be touched. Which means these incidents will happen again, just with handguns instead of semi-autos. The PR aftermath of this incident has been predictably chaotic. The news has jumped from one focus to another over recent days hypothesizing over what could drive a 20 year old man to do something like this. The focus lately has been on violent video games because he played Call of Duty. They've focused on the fact that his mother was a 'prepper' (someone who prepares for the breakdown of society). They've focused on the breakup of his family ...

Looks like Canipre has some teeth and is out to get folks who download files they shouldn't off Bit Torrent. Teksavvy announced that Canipre and Voltage Pictures are seeking the names of over 2,000 Teksavvy customers so they can file suit against them for (allegedly) downloading Voltage movies off Bit Torrent. You can read the full story here -  Get a lawyer: file-sharing lawsuit possible for TekSavvy clients in Canada. Both Voltage Pictures and Canipre's Web sites are currently down, suggesting their servers are probably getting overloaded with folks checking out who they are after Teksavvy informed their customers that these two companies could be suing them at a later date.   Why Teksavvy customers are getting sued and not Rogers or Bell customers I couldn't tell you - or maybe Rogers and Bell are next, who knows.  On the PR front you never really know how the public will react to these things until you they happen. I have to admit, I didn't know how ...

Just thought I'd do a quick blog about a presentation I watched that I thought was really good -  The Problem With Money in Politics - Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law . This powerpoint presentation is what powerpoint presentations should be, interesting! It must have taken many hours to put the presentation together, but the time spent was worth it. The slides continually complement the speaker at every turn and really become the focus of the talk, with the speaker acting more as a narrator. Too often with powerpoints a visual is put on the screen and left there while the speaker talks for one, two, five or even ten minutes. The result? The audience starts asking themselves 'Why am I even looking at this screen?' or worse they start asking themselves 'When are they going to change the slide?' instead of actually listening to the speaker. Often times presenters would be better served not even using a powerpoint presentation. Just standing up and speaking di...

So RIM has exploded over the past few months, up from $7.50 a share to over 12 bucks. That said, over the past five years the stock is still down over 85 per cent. But I'll give RIM its due, I thought there was a real chance it was going to five bucks, but it proved me wrong (in the short term anyway).  I had bought some shares at $7.50, but when it didn't pop, I unloaded them. I still would not be a buyer or RIM simply because I'm still not seeing anything from them on the marketing front that suggests they've changed.  I mean, the blackberry site hasn't changed at all and the micro site for BB10 is ugly as hell . We are now in mid-December and I haven't seen anything exciting regarding BB10. That said, apparently this is leaked footage out of Vietnam that shows more of BB10 than we've seen in other demos. To be honest, I wasn't blown away. Although I was slightly impressed. BB10 looks ok. The real question is whether RIM can get custome...

Safety campaigns are a tough sell if only for the reason that often times the message is self evident. As such, people are prone to ignoring it. Don't do drugs... umm, ya, I already know that. Drive safe... ummm, of course. Don't drink and drive... no kidding. Yet, despite their agreement, people will do drugs, drive unsafe and drink and drive. Not everyone mind you, but often times those that heed the safety warnings are folks that would behave responsibly anyway. And the folks committing the dangerous acts often times aren't internalizing the safety message for a particular behavior, it's not getting through to them. We could discuss the dozens of reasons this occurs (because it's not a simple, single antecedent issue), but I believe in large part it's because the safety messages they've been exposed to failed to make a large enough impression within their neural network (ie. their brain / mind) as to become not only memorable but truisms to condu...

So a fascinating story broke last week out of Montreal - One Million Canadians Tracked For Illegal Downloading.  A montreal-based forensic software company, Canipre , says it has one million IP addresses of Canadians who have downloaded illegal content.  Those which it decides to go after could be slapped with a $5,000 fine. This created quite a stir last week as ISPs started taking calls from customers with inquiries about the security of their information. My own provider, Teksavvy , issued a statement to their customers indicating that their information was secure and would only be released under request of a court order. What's Really Going On? When I read this story something smelled a tad fishy to me. I took a look at Canipre's Web site and it wasn't great (definitely not reflective of a company racking in the cash). They don't list any clients in their client section (suggesting they don't actually have any big clients). I then checked them out on Linke...