Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

This is awesome and hilarious (and kind of sad that it has to happen). You can watch it here  live on CSPAN. Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky, is filibustering the appointment of John Brennan as CIA Director until Obama officially states that he will not kill non-combatant Americans with drones (which the president has refused to officially state so far). The only way he can filibuster is by delivering a protracted speech on the senate floor. They can't officially vote  Brennan in until the senate finishes voting, and they can't do that until Rand Paul finishes speaking. From a PR perspective this is a great move by Rand Paul as it shows he has conviction in his beliefs. Will see how long he's prepared to talk, but it's been six hours already .  Apparently the longest anyone has ever filibustered through talking was 24 hours.  I hope he goes at least that long - it's great to see this form of peaceful protest occurring within government. Some highlights t

Sales guys are so lucky, they get to yuck it up. I'm waiting for the day when it's permissible to be this funny in a news release.

Simple. Interesting. Stylish.  Cool. These use to be the words I'd use to describe Apple's marketing, but instead they are the words I'd use to describe a new e-mail application called Mailboxapp . Their Web site is minimalist, using basic white and blue as colors. The product video is very easy on the eyes. And perhaps most importantly, there's no techno-jargon, just a super simple overview of the features. The application itself is basically a new user interface for your existing Android or IPhone email. This is such a great example of how marketing doesn't have to be complicated and how sometimes less is more. When it comes to tech, if the product is great it should almost stand on its own. People should be able to view a demo of it and instantly react with 'I want that!" And Mailbox accomplished just that. There is a ridiculous 800,000-person waiting list to get the application. You can sign up for the application, but when you'll ac

I don't often praise Microsoft for much. Heck, I think their new 'surface' commercial is horrible. After watching that commercial it makes me NOT want to buy their product. Having said that, I just tried out the new Microsoft Outlook online and I have to say, they did a really good job.  Basically, this is the new Hotmail (a new look, integration with social apps, etc.). It's not earth shattering, but it's definitely nice. I currently access all my email accounts through Microsoft Outlook on my PC (part of the office suite).  I never go in to Gmail because I read all my Gmail's in my Outlook application on my PC. I've always found Gmail to be an ugly design and not easy on the eye. With Outlook.com though, I'm tempted to toss in my various email accounts into that program just because it looks like a good user experience. Microsoft definitely appears to have kicked Gmail's butt on this one if you ask me.

Ron Paul recently appeared on the Smiley and West's NPR radio show. The reason this is worth a listen is because it's a great example of how people on polar opposite ends of the ideological spectrum can still have a civil and mature conversation. For those that don't know, Ron Paul is a Republican / Libertarian who believes in small Federal government and as few taxes as possible. Cornell West is a professor at Princeton and a Democrat / Progressive who believes that government is the way you address social issues. It's refreshing to hear two men with such different views not only act respectfully towards each other, but converse beyond mere 'talking points' and actually listen and respond to each other's ideas. If the rest of the politicians and media interviews were like this there would be a lot more of a positive 'hope and change' attitude in America and throughout the world.

With Ron Paul no longer grilling Bernanke in Washington, it's nice to see Senator Elizabeth Warren has take up the task. Watch the 3:20 mark for a laugh as Bernanke tries to explain why after five years the 'too big to fail' banks are still 'too big to fail'.

It's not to often that I praise CNN anymore, but stories like this are damn good journalism. There's not enough of these types of stories in the West anymore; it could be a big part of why everything continues to fall apart. Without constant exposure to stories about people doing the right thing, it's no wonder that culturally 'right and wrong' become fuzzy concepts for many people and institutions.

Crazy... Fido sent a B.C. dad a bill for 22 grand for charges his son ran up on his cell phone. You can read the full story here . I don't know why carriers don't offer customers an option to cap charges. So for instance, if your bill gets above say 70 bucks, the carrier cuts off your data connection. This kind of stuff is a PR nightmare for carriers because customers read about it and worry 'Oh my god, if I go with Fido and I'm not careful I could end up with a $20k bill'. Fido did cut the bill down to $2,200. While this was wise from a PR perspective, what would be far wiser would be to implement either some kind of optional billing cap for customers OR be very very specific about how billing works (as in spend 30 minutes explaining it to them when they buy the phone). You can't expect a kid, or many seniors for that matter, to understand roaming fees and the like. So you either have to educate them or put something in place that cuts off service (and

I really like well done infographics, but the following video takes it a step further into video format with narration. It's a great explanation about where the one per cent versus the 99 per cent narrative comes from. The other thing I like about the video is that it's not aggressive. Generally when it comes to the 1% vs 99% debate you have one side that argues the 'job creators' fuel the economy and shouldn't be attacked for being successful and the other side that argues the 'job creators' control the system (through lobbying, corporate monopolies, the legal system, funding campaigns, leveraging global labor pools and markets to drive down wages, financial services tailored to the rich, tax loopholes, and on and on) and as a result reap the benefits of the economy while others do not. So as you can imagine it becomes very easy for the two sides to simply yell at each other: "Don't envy the rich why don't you get off your lazy butt