Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

At first I thought this was a great story about a selfless boss who fired herself instead of her employees.  And I guess it still kind of is. But I realized, wait a second, how is that any different than tons of CEO's who have taken one-dollar-a-year in salary during this recession? I don't know why she wouldn't do that - allowing her skill set to still be of benefit to the organization. I suspect there's more to this story about why she quit than CNN articulates in their coverage (nothing bad per se, but something else that wasn't covered in the story).  I know average folks watching television don't think about this stuff, but PR folks see a story like this and start thinking 'How did this make it in to the media? Who pitched it? What's the back story?'

So I talk a lot about reputation management, because,well, it matters. When you have a strong, trusted reputation - one in which people believe in - it's tantamount to driving down a desolate highway (essentially, no one gets in your way and you can accomplish things you want with minimal resistance). It strikes me that we are witnessing the beginning of this with WikiLeaks. Yes the government communications were interesting, but that was only the beginning of WikiLeaks beginning its path towards building a reputation as defender of the public trust. Let's be honest, the public is split 50/50 on whether WikiLeaks is a good thing (actually probably more like 70 per cent who are not in favor of WikiLeaks) - many feel it should not be allowed to reveal confidential information.  Many don't see it as a 'defender of public trust' and in fact see it as a rogue, irresponsible outlet for publishing information that should not be made public. But I have a feeling that ...

If you haven't seen, WikiLeaks is back in the news . I was blown away by how many comments were left on the CBC story - over 750 (the most I've ever seen on a story).  You can view the leaked government documents yourself at WikiLeaks.org From a PR perspective this continues to emphasize just how important reputation management is. Realistically, there is no 'damage control' you can put on something like this. At best, and I suspect this is what will happen, the government can admonish those who leaked the communications and try to make the story less about what was in the communications and more about the need for increased security and limitations on internet media. When you can't control a situation though (as is the case here) the only armor you have to protect yourself with is your reputation. We've seen a variety of situations wherein negative publicity impacts the organization or person differently based on their existing reputation. BP (oil s...

The Holmes Report has come out with Global Rankings of PR agencies worldwide and estimates that revenues in 2010 shrank eight per cent. It's no surprise really, what hasn't shrunk in the past year? What I found interesting was that in every part of the world economic conditions topped the list of concerns for PR folks. Except in Europe, where talent was the top concern most PR agencies had. I suspect a big part of the drop is simply due to turmoil within many organizations. After two full years of budget cuts and staff reductions, those employees left standing are focused primarily on keeping the boat afloat (and a lot of them are tired and slightly burned out).  Pushing for increased spend is not going to be top of their priority list. It's too bad really, because as I've said many times, I think PR is more important during a recession than during boom cycles - not just to organizations themselves, but to the economy as a whole. The tougher the B2B and B2C env...

Alberta Health Services' CEO, Stephen Duckett, made a bit of a slip up with the media recently . Instead of saying 'no comment' he chose a more colorful response of 'I'm eating a cookie." He's catching a lot of flack for the response. I think part of the problem in situations like this is that we've crammed it in to spokespersons heads that you never ever say 'no comment'. So when they find themselves in a situation where 'no comment' is actually appropriate - like this one for instance where media questions were to be fielded at a specific time - they don't know what to say. Really his response should have been 'I'll take all your questions in 30 minutes at the media Q&A sess6ion." This to me is the fault of the PR profession. I'm not saying the folks who work for Duckett, I'm talking the industry as a whole. We tend to make the media an 'entity' and set out all these 'guidelines' f...

One day after a "shellacking" in the congressional election, President Obama acknowledged Wednesday that he needs to improve his relations with business. "As I reflect on what's happened over the last two years, it's one of the things that I think has not been managed by me as well as it needed to be." Read the story here . It's mind-boggling that he's saying things like this. Who is managing his PR strategy at this point? Anyone? All that matters right now - or for the past two years really - is jobs. So the last thing Obama should be saying is that the one thing he didn't manage well was the very thing that creates jobs, that being the business community. But it runs deeper than that - Obama's flaw was treating all business as one amorphous entity and having a one-dimensional messaging strategy as it relates to business. The reality is that some businesses are good, some are bad and others are neither here nor there. What O...

Fascinating story about a doctor who dealt with a spinal injury and how that changed his view on health care. One of the things that is rarely talked about in PR, yet which is so essential, is the degree to which executive management truly understands the business they are running. This ties back to the book Good to Great , and also ties in to vision and mission statements. When executives and personnel are personally connected to their business - when they eat, breath and sleep the organization's mandate - PR is typically very easy as there will be a myriad of activities, projects and spokespersons for PR folks to mine to tell the organization's story. However, when an organization is disjointed or silo'd, when people are merely clocking in and clocking out, the task for a PR person becomes extremely difficult because there is no over-arching 'spirit' or vision that underpins all activities. As a result, various aspects of an organization end up standing...