+10%! those increasingly muddy waters between evaluation/measurement and return on investment

A few days ago, I accompanied a few colleagues to an important pitch for a global public relations program on behalf of a prominent market leader on which we had been feverishly working for the three preceding weeks.. We went through the whole proposal and, at the very end, the Ceo asked: ‘ok, this is all very fine and dandy, but how would you estimate the impact of all this on our bottom line?’.

Til Death Do Us Part? Models of Engagement

Last week I had the pleasure of discovering the Champagne Bar at St Pancras station in London in the company of Michael Klein, an excellent internal comms professional currently based in Brussels. The subject of engagement came up, and Mike got pretty passionate. He thinks that the term “engagement” is bandied about too lightly and that organizations haven’t really thought through what kind of engagement they mean or really want. While he has articulated his...

Message pointer: Demonstrating value

I'm pointing you to the Message from the President, which recently went online on the Canadian Public Relations Society’s website. In his message, Dr. Terrence (Terry) Flynn, APR, FCPRS, outlines an organizational need for public relation

Jon Iwata at the Yale Club last night. Are corporate ideology and cultural integralism back in town?

Last night, at New York’s Yale Club, I participated in the Institute for Public Relations’ Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards event. The lecture was by Jon Iwata, IBM’s Senior Vice President, who heads the marketing, communication and citizenship organization departments of that company. A full house, jammed with many of America’s most senior and reputed public relators. On my side, a lot of curiosity for Iwata. I have always admired IBM and, as he’s been...

A stakeholder relationships approach to global climate change

Business as UnUsual as the reset for organizational thinking and Changing Mindsets by focussing on the consequences and not the concept of climate change for the public debate. These are my major takeaways from last Friday’s closed door sherpa meeting of global experts, leaders and thinkers of sustainability convened in Rome by Enel. Basically this amounts to what I would call, mostly a stakeholder rleationships agenda. Period. On one hand, the Business as UnUsual concept...