Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

While this video has nothing to do with PR, it's actually the perfect symbolic representation of what PR can do for organizations. Too often people think you have to spend a million dollars to get a big return, but sometimes it's just about taking a small step in the right direction and letting a chain reaction occur. The little domino to me represents the beginning of the communications process and the final domino falling is the establishment of brand value and stakeholder network.

I'm pretty negative on the state of innovation in the world today, but these guys will give you hope that people are still innovating out there. Also goes to show if you have a cool product all you gotta do is let people see it. Sometimes the best PR is simply to show off what you got.

My original 10 Reasons posts looked at the recession of 2008 and used 10 variables as benchmarks for assessing whether things were getting better with the economy.  To view the previous posts you can visit the following links: Top 10 Reasons This Recession Will Never End Update 1 Update 2 Update 3 Update 4 Update 5 Update 6 In my sixth update I basically said that it would be my final post on the topic. Yet, so much is going on in the world that I figured I'd do one last "last" installment.  And while this isn't actually a PR topic, in my view the state of the world is perhaps the most dominant variable in determining PR strategies. You can't pick message properly if you aren't aware of what is actually going on out there.  So without further ado, let's jump right into it.  1. Crashes hurt for a long time - both worse and better -  This variable has changed pretty radically since my last update. The stock market has gone WAY up...

We've crossed into the twilight zone here folks. On July 1, 2014, Canada will enact its anti-spam legislation that will make it illegal to communicate with someone without their consent. The fine for communicating with someone without their consent can be $1M for an individual and $10M for businesses. Now, the law's intent is logical - to basically stop spammers. Unfortunately though, the government, instead of writing the law around "unsolicited, automated marketing communications" (which is what the law is really all about) instead uses the term "commercial electronic messages". According to the act: (2) For the purposes of this Act, a commercial electronic message is an electronic message that, having regard to the content of the message, the hyperlinks in the message to content on a website or other database, or the contact information contained in the message, it would be reasonable to conclude has as its purpose, or one of its purposes, to en...

So Ben Bernanke, previous head of the federal reserve (and the man we can thank for the housing bubble and collapse of 2008, in conjunction with his predecessor and mentor Alan Greenspan), just pulled in a cool $250,000 for a 40 minute speech in Abu Dhabi . That's more than he made in an entire year as head of the federal reserve. If anyone believes that someone gets paid $250,000 for 40-minutes of their time just to "speak" I've got some property I want to sell you.

So while Russia is invading Ukraine, Obama is doing Internet comedy to drum up enrollment in Obamacare? Such a bad PR move here. Yes, the interview is hilarious. Does it make you like Obama more? Sort of, I guess. Does it reinforce confidence in him as Commander in Chief? Not in the least. This is one of those PR stunts which seems like a good idea and gets TONS of media attention, but which down the road actually hurts your brand. It's one thing to "connect" with people if you are the President, it's another thing to play the role of the clown making them laugh.  I honestly don't know what Obama's PR folks are thinking doing this kind of thing, other than on the surface it seems like a 'hip cool' thing to do. 

So things are a mess in Ukraine and we're getting to see how PR is being twisted and used for propaganda purposes, by both the Americans and the Russians. What makes this interesting is that it's really the first time we're getting to see Russia play the propaganda game using PR. In the past, outside of Western countries, propaganda was more of a marketing tool. This time around though Russia is showing its PR chops in the propaganda wars. So let's look at what the situation with Ukraine is and then what we're getting from Russia and from the US. Ukraine - what's really going on? You can fact check my interpretation of events, but basically this is more of an economic issue. Ukraine is bankrupt. They need $35B to get through the next two years. The European Union and the West saw this as an opportunity to expand Nato influence and offered to "help them out" with a billion or so, with more to come as required via the IMF. Russia stepped in tho...