Why Every Communicator Should Agonize about France’s “Game of Death”
The power of the media and the ethics of communication are recurring themes for PR professionals and other communcators. Can an authoritative media voice push anyone to cross ethical lines they think are non-negociable?
Isolated on the Web
This week, five francophone public radio journalists (one Belgian, one Canadian, one Swiss and two French) are evaluating new media. Isolated in a cabin in a rural region of France, they have vowed to consult only Twitter and Facebook the entire week.
Reaching out to Generation Connectivity Online
Public administrations have a reputation for inertia, so it’s always refreshing to see innovative counterexamples. The French Office national d’information sur les enseignements et les professions (ONISEP) is tasked by the Ministry of Education to help students, parents and educators to learn about existing professions and various opportunities for training or further studies.
Corporate blogs and social networks: The experience of Ericsson France
Guest post by Olivier Cimelière, Vice President Corporate Communications, Ericsson France
The boom in blogging has precipitated a radical change in external communications techniques deployed by corporations and institutions. Companies are having to switch from a conventional and comfortable “top-down” model to incorporate “bottom-up” contributions from individuals who are able to openly question, criticise and contradict [...]
Have More Walls Come Tumbling Down?
Co-authored with Mike Klein
In the later part of the year that ends today, much attention has been paid to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But another wall seems to have been definitively torn down this year with much less brouhaha: the distinctions between social, political, commercial and employee communication. The [...]
Pink Gloves, Hashtags and Lost Opportunities
A few weeks ago on the Hobson and Holtz Report (For Immediate Release 493), Shel Holtz mentioned that participants at this year’s Blog World Expo had been requested to use the Twitter hashtag #fightcancer during the day in order to raise awareness for the fight against the disease. At the time, I remember thinking, “So [...]
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 [...]
The End of the World as We Know It?
PR Conversations talked to Silvia Cambiè (top left) and Yang-May Ooi (below left), authors of the recently published International Communications Strategy: Developments in cross-cultural communications, PR and social media about their new book and the changing world facing PR practitioners today.
Action diplomacy, just like action PR
As I was reading the thoughtful article by Carne Ross in Europe’s World on the need to re-think national diplomacy, I was struck by the parallels with discussions of the evolving role of public relations as a profession. For instance, he states, “For some reason, diplomats and governments have believed that somehow the message about [...]
Really “strategic” communications!
In an analysis of the speech John Brennan delivered yesterday about the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism efforts, Steven R. Corman notes that one of the five elements seems to be “stop framing this as a conflict of interests and start framing it as a pursuit of common interests.” In my view, this is exactly the point [...]