Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Thought I'd take a moment on this Sunday afternoon to do a quick revisit of the variables I track regarding the recession we are in and whether such variables are getting better, worse, or unchanged. You can see my past posts on this topic here: Top 10 Reasons This Recession Will Never End Update 1 Update 2 Update 3 Now for Update 4: 1.  Crashes hurt for a long time - worse -   All you have to do is take a look at a six month chart of the DOW to see that the pain continues and is actually get worse. Every time the market finds an excuse to push back upwards, it inevitably comes to its senses and crashes back down, reflecting that the situation is not fixed and that no fix is really in sight. While corporate profits are stable in the US, employers have been laying people off, clearly demonstrating they do not see a recovery at hand. Nokia Siemens to lay off 17,000 worldwide Wall Street Layoffs Top 200,000   Ford Plans 4,000 Temporary Layoffs on Weak Dem...

If you're still wondering what is actually going on in America I strongly suggest you read a blog post over at The Burning Platform entitled - Comfortably Numb . This might be the best summary of what is going on with the economy and society that I've seen to date. It also explains how both OWS and the Tea Party are essentially protesting the same thing, but they are attacking different heads of the same beast. I've held for a while that as things get worse, both OWS and the Tea Party will come to realize this, and despite their polar opposite views of small gov versus big gov, will actually intersect in a common purpose, that being addressing the corruption that those in positions of power are free to engage in. While OWS is an amorphous organization, they would do well to create insightful articles such as the one at The Burner Platform (which as far as I can tell is not an off-shoot of OWS or the Tea Party, just a blogger with insightful commentary). It's th...

In a previous post I had a video that showed students at UC Davis being pepper sprayed by campus security. In the video below you can see UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walking to her car and the students protesting in silence over the actions taken (not sure, but I believe they are calling for her resignation). It's a very creepy video. The video actually reminds me of something out of the movie Village of the Damned , with Christopher Reeve. Generally speaking silence is not the best form of getting your point across, but in this case I don't think the students could have chosen a better PR tactic for being heard. Nothing says 'shame on you' more than silence. Maybe it's just me, but when you know that all those students are angry as hell and yet they are all able to contain themselves and remain silent, there's something very ominous about that. It communicates that if they can be disciplined in a situation such as this, then you don't want t...

Occupy Wall Street continues on. The politicians must be getting worried at this point, two months in and people are not letting up. I'm sure no one expected the 'ADD-Twitter-Post-MTV' generation to have this kind of staying power. OWS has gone from being branded a 'bunch of communists' and being told to 'get a job' to now being seen as a bunch of people 'determined to change the system' - ironically, this is why people voted for Obama (he was suppose to be changing the system). OWS is quickly becoming a vehicle for those disappointed that Obama did not bring hope or change to the country (at least I think it is). Anyway, some interesting videos associated with OWS that caught my attention this week: Pepper spray makes a return. Student protesters get doused by the cops. 84 year old protester gets pepper sprayed by the police. (Really? spraying old ladies might go down as one of the dumbest PR moves of the police yet.) Ok, now this is...

Two interesting political videos caught my attention this week and they show how negative events get far more attention in the media than positive ones. The first was Herman Cain, who when asked about Libya had a Rick Perry moment. The YouTube video is nearing the million hit mark and the video was on just about every news cast out there. It's scary (to me) to think that Cain could be the President of the United States. On the flip side, this off-camera moment with Ron Paul, which is only hitting the 4,000 hit mark (and not surprisingly got zero media coverage), shows that politicians aren't all sociopathic narcissists. To me, the Paul video is more important in terms of assessing a presidential candidate than the Cain video. Of course it's important whether Cain knows what he's talking about, but the Paul video is an example of how character is something you either have or you don't. If you want a just system / society, then you better elect someone who liv...

Admittedly a non-PR related post... I've never seen the show Glee and would consider it a form of torture if someone ever made me watch it, so I was quite surprised to find out that one of my favourite shows was created by the co-creators of Glee. American Horror Story , which airs on FX, is really good. I can't think of a tv show that actually felt like a really good horror movie, but this one does. I guess maybe some of the older Twilight Zone episodes were creepy enough to qualify, but AHS really hits the nail on the head when it comes to creeping you out. The trailers don't do it justice, but regardless here you go:

Stumbled on this new service called The Interviewr - it's basically an online portal where you can set up interviews and their system will call out to you and the person being interviewed and connect the two of you for your interview. You can attach files and notes to the interview, as well as record the interview. The best part - it's free! The value here in my opinion is the 'reminder' factor. It's not uncommon even with calendar reminders, to miss a conference call because someone's day got overly hectic. However, with The Interviewr, the system calls you, so you can't miss your interview (unless you choose not to answer your phone). There's also a serious cost-savings factor at play here. This provides both parties with a 'no cost' long-distance option. After all, the system is calling you, so you aren't incurring any LD fees (nor is the other person on the call). Not sure what the call quality is like, but provided it's not bad,...