Unlike Donald Trump the people who ran the British Empire realised very early that understatement was a more effective communication tactic than hyperbole.

Certainly there was racism and awful exploitation (see Shashi Tharoor’s Inglorious Empire – or just watch the YouTube version of his contribution to the Oxford Union debate which preceded the book) but lots of aristocratic mumbling was a good way of hiding massacres, mass famines and contempt for the lesser breed and colonials. Indeed, the Brits did a good job of convincing many people (eg Tony Abbott and the historian Niall Ferguson) of the virtues of Empire. read more

Watching its granddaughter search for Easter eggs in the garden the blog suddenly thought how much the Turnbull Government’s and the Business Council of Australia’s arguments for company tax cuts were like belief in the Easter Bunny.

When you are young you believe passionately in the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas but after a while some kid tells you it’s not true, or worse you discover when half awake, that the eggs and presents are actually being left by your parents. The blog began to suspect the truth when it couldn’t understand why it couldn’t leave Coca Cola for Father Christmas and had to leave Passiona – which just happened to be its mother’s favourite soft drink. read more

At the recent Adelaide Writers Week an authors’ panel, sponsored by the Copyright Agency and moderated by its current CEO and former blog colleague, Adam Suckling, discussed the books that had changed their lives.

Interestingly all the speakers nominated a variety of books but were unanimous when asked about indigenous influence – nominating Sally Morgan. This may be a generationally-determined answer because when the blog tested the indigenous version of the question on a friend a few days later she nominated Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) who was more influential for her and the blog’s generation. read more

The City of Port Phillip provides a never-ending series of case studies of how not to undertake communications and/or community consultation.

Regular readers will remember how the Council created a new benchmark in issues management – failing to convince residents that action had to be taken on soil contamination in a local park. In all the blog’s decades in the issues management field it had never experienced a situation in which the usual proponents and opponents positions were completely reversed. read more

One of the most profound insights into everything from politics to the stock market is J.K.Galbraith’s observation that the conventional wisdom is always wrong.

The ongoing relevance, and power, of the aphorism was on display  over the weekend with the South Australian election and the Batman by-election. For a week we were told by the media that  the SA election would result in a hung Parliament and the Greens would win in Batman thanks to strong votes in the southern part of the electorate. read more

While the public relations industry has a much better record on gender diversity, and penetrating glass ceilings, than many other industries the situation is still complicated.

It was often thought that female PR practitioners didn’t confront the glass ceilings that women in other industries did and that pay parity was common. Back in 2014 the blog reported on US and UK research which indicated that women were a majority of PR practitioners but they were not predominant in C-suite roles – except in many consultancies – and that salary levels were still not equitable. The blog suspects that the C-suite role and salary situations are still the same in large private sector companies and organisations although not the case in politics (well at least among ALP staffers) or the public sector. read more

The Age recently carried an op ed by a Visiting Professor at UTS, Mitchell Landrigan, suggesting we need to be careful about granting honorary doctorates and claiming that recipients “may – forever more – call themselves Doctor.”

Up to a point Lord Copper and Professor Landrigan. In fact the custom is that a recipient should not refer to themselves as Dr, any more than an Adjunct Professor should refer to themselves as Professor, unless within the university or on university business, for example, speaking as an expert associated with the university. The awards can obviously be listed in CVs but not beyond that. The reaction to a former Canberra Department Head, Jane Halton, apparently using the Professor title is an example of how this rule has been interpreted. read more

President Trump has said that if had been at the school, whether he had a gun or not, he would have rushed in to tackle the gunman.

Just like he rushed into the US Army to fight in the Vietnam War!

While the mindless bleatings of many businessmen and women about the benefits their faith-based mantras will bring to humanity are as persistent as their mindless bleatings about how some change or other to business regulation will be disastrous for the world there are some signs of existential angst amongst the business boys and girls. read more

The most common error in developing communication strategies is to confuse tactics with strategy – an error that PR students learn to avoid while highly-paid political advisers have ensured the error is endemic in contemporary politics.

Indeed, you can easily see the problem on any given day in Australian politics. While political campaigning is supposedly becoming more professional – and has become so in areas such as data mining and target market identification – the day to day hurly burly of politics is so awful in communication terms that it is hardly surprising that people look at Parliament and politicians with contempt and that the annual Edelman Trust Barometer rates Australia at 21st place (out of 28 and just 4% ahead of Russia) for trust in institutions. As veteran journalist Mungo McCallum, says: “Australian government has in recent years, become debased – opportunist, secretive, poll-driven, fixated on short term political gain and unwilling to engage in serious issues when (as is always) they interfere with its internal wranglings. It has been depressing and demoralising, and the public has responded by branding our parliamentarians a bunch of untrustworthy go-getters, obsessed with their own well-being rather than the public good.” (John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations 8 February 2018) read more