People throughout history have been pretty hopeless at assessing risk.

The blog was in France last year after the terrorist attacks and in the UK after the first London Bridge attack but before the current ones. It was struck by how often people asked whether it was a good idea to go or not. The blog sort of shared the concern as far as the UK was concerned because it was driving a car in Britain for the first time in years, and driving it much more slowly than just about everyone else on the road, but not because of the terrorist risk. In France in crowded markets there were more soldiers and police than one could imagine and at train stations even obviously off duty soldiers (they’re easy to spot if you know how) were showing high degrees of alertness. And in the UK, even though IRA bombings are long in the past, people are still very conscious of left parcels and bags. read more

One of the most depressing things about contemporary life is the realisation that, despite the Enlightenment and modern science, we live in societies in which many of the most vocal and most powerful people demonstrate astonishing ignorance.

The Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes the condition in which truly incompetent and/or ignorant people, believe they are really very, very awesome is very, very much in the news these days with Donald Trump as its poster boy. But as details of the views of some of his appointees emerge, for instance in leaked discussions during the recent seven days Trump world tour, it is clear that the condition also affects more in the Trump administration than just him. read more

If there is one historian all PR people should read it is Peter Burke, author of The Fabrication of Louis XIV and the multi volume A Social History of Knowledge.

The blog has frequently referred (in books, presentations and this blog) to Burke’s work because much of it throws light on the history of communication and PR and how rulers and others created and nurtured their images. Now he has collected a series of essays, Secret History and Historical Consciousness, which among other things looks at personal, contextual and historical self-fashioning. In particular the book looks at how inter-disciplinary insights impact on this self-fashioning – from other cultures and disciplines such as sociology, geography and anthropology. These are the sort of insights essential to developing effective communication strategies. In passing he also looks at the post-modernists who challenge the way we perceive things. read more

After a busy month the blog is taking a break to do, among other things,  some preliminary research for one updated, and one new chapter, for the second edition of Mark Sheehan’s book on political lobbying – The Influence Seekers. New edition is due in 2018 and will reflect the new and the timeless realities of lobbying. The blog will be back in late May. read more

The blog was asked to speak at this year’s local Anzac Day service. With some trepidation, which turned out to be totally unfounded, this is what it said:

You may be surprised to learn that, despite being a veteran, this is the first Anzac Day commemoration service I have participated in since I returned from Vietnam 48 years ago. read more

One of the great characteristics of traditional Jewish humour is its capacity to change a statement from its seemingly obvious meaning to its exact opposite simply by an implied upwardly questioning tone.

A famous example is the apocryphal story about the man who went up to Stalin after a speech soon after Lenin’s death. Leon Trotsky was away from Moscow at the time, a bad decision as it turns out, and according to the story he sends a telegram to Stalin saying: “Stalin, you are the true heir of Lenin.” Stalin gleefully reads it out but the man comes up after the speech and tells Stalin that he’s got the telegram wrong. Instead, with a big shrug, he says the telegram actually says “Stalin you are the true heir of Lenin????? read more

The loss of faith in expertise raises a very interesting question about the extent to which PR people share some of the blame for the situation. Of course this is not just a matter of PRs spruiking corporate and industry messages but also the messaging and tactics of campaigning groups, health organisations and others. read more

For many years historians of PR have been identifying a much more complex history than the traditional one focussing on Bernays, the US, the arrival of Gen MacArthur in Australia and so on.

But while we push our knowledge of the industry back further it is also interesting to look at the changes in PR and the changes in the backgrounds and approaches of those who practise it. read more

The advantage of subscribing to a variety of news outlets – particularly when few of them are Australian – is that you keep finding instructive snippets.

In Australia you might find them with Tim Colebatch on Inside Story, Michael West’s website, or Fairfax’s Adele Ferguson and Ross Gittins, but generally you can rely on getting from the Australian mainstream media either the pompous reiteration of the conventional wisdom or harangues about issues which even Barnaby Joyce has ridiculed. read more