Dunbar’s number

Social media has changed everything! Well despite the frequent assertions of that it apparently hasn’t changed the validity of the Dunbar number.

In 1993 Dr Robin Dunbar of Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology came up with the number, a rough measure of the number of stable relationships that people can manage, while looking at the size of the neocortex of different species of social primates. He then applied the findings to humans and postulated that we should have social circles of about 150 people. Looking at archaeological and other records he identified that people had traditionally organised themselves into groups of between 100 and 200. This has become known as the social brain hypothesis although commonly termed the Dunbar number. read more

Back in the 20^th Century (the blog has been looking for an excuse to write that for a while) the former Victorian Liberal Premier, Dick Hamer, was opening an exhibition at Melbourne’s Chinese Museum.

Towards the end of a typically graceful and erudite speech about history, the Victorian Chinese community and the exhibition he was opening Dick spoke a bit about the similarities between the Chinese and the Scots (he was of very Scottish heritage) and talked about the commonalities such as a widespread diaspora, mutual support, emphasis on extended family ties, links to the homeland and commercial success. He then paused for a few moments, looked down, and then said with all seriousness: “of course there are some differences in cuisine.” read more

When a secretive individual or organisation has become notorious one of the best PR defence strategies is some calculated transparency which seems to break down the secrecy while really only being a careful re-framing of reality.

The strategy has recently been adopted by Charles Koch, one of the brothers who head Koch Industries, a private company with annual turnover of $US115 billion. Charles Koch is estimated to be worth about $43 billion in his own right. The brothers are also major funders of ALEC, an industry group which seeks to get legislatures to pass extreme free market ideology bills it drafts for supportive legislators. High among their priorities is climate change denial activities and their talking points are regularly picked up by US politicians and sympathisers around the world such as Australia’s Maurice Newman. The Centre for Media Democracy has done much to expose the Koch brothers’ activities through its PR Watch website and its special Koch project. read more

For most people summer is all about the proverbial long hot lazy days. Yet for some consultants, and many others in the PR industry, January is a time for planning and undertaking projects which need space and thinking time to do properly.

For PR consultancies one of the many rules of thumbs they operate under is that a very busy December is important to carry you through a slack January when holiday pay and lack of activity can throw you into a monthly loss. That’s why smart consultancies work really hard at getting summer promotions and projects to offset the usual downturn or use it for long range planning for themselves and clients. Other rules of thumbs: when you are busiest and consultant chargeable ratios are at their highest a fall off in revenue in a couple of months becomes inevitable because too little new business development has been done; consultants should bill three times their salary to be profitable; and, retainers have moved from being a way to maximise profitability (that’s a euphemism) to becoming a way clients can screw consultancies. read more

Syria and climate change – reaping what you sow

It is a curious fact that many of those most gung ho about committing troops and other assorted massive military options to Syria are often among the leading climate sceptics – with some preeminent examples being our former PM Tony Abbott and various US Republican presidential candidates. read more

The blog is taking a break for a while – back in the New Year unless some sudden inspiration on some obscure topic provokes a post. In the meantime – some odds and sods – in two parts.

Politics and brands

For decades people have bemoaned politics being marketed like soap powder – despite much political discourse resembling the soap powder market in having lots of activity and lots of promotion about products which underneath are pretty much alike. read more

Anyone puzzled by Treasurer Scott Morrison’s bizarre comments about tax and spending ought to remember that the man is a fundamentalist Christian who spends his life believing in the unbelievable.

As the blog remarked recently about Galileo – when he showed sunspots through his telescope to believers in an Aristotelian universe they couldn’t see them – and despite the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment not much has changed since then in some minds. read more

It is very useful to be reminded, from time to time, just how amazing the polymath and National Treasure, Barry Jones, actually is.

The blog first met Barry Jones when it was a student active in the University of Melbourne anti-hanging committee when Barry was leading the opposition to the Ryan hanging. Later the blog worked for the ALP Parliamentary Party when Barry was a Victorian MP and like everybody who knows him is constantly amazed by the breadth and depth of his knowledge. read more

Recently the blog has has seen two dramatic contrasts to US climate change communication – one from academics and one from Exxon Mobil.

The first, from the George Mason University Centre for Climate Change Communication, comes in the form of a new peer reviewed paper on how best practice insights from psychological science can be used to improve public engagement with climate change. The second, from the US Centre for Media and Democracy (publisher of PR Watch),  regarding the New York Attorney General’s current investigation into whether Exxon Mobil deceived its shareholders and the public about the impact of fossil fuel burning on climate change and the oil business’ viability. read more

For as long as the blog can remember someone in the PR industry has been telling it that something or other is transforming the industry ensuring it will never be the same again.

The latest transformation allegedly comes from social media and the blog concedes that while it is actually transformational the worry is that too many PR people are obsessed by the tool itself and give insufficient thought to how it can best be used and what the risks and limitations are. The last blog post on Tony Jaques’ analysis of the Victorian Taxi Association Twitter campaign disaster and similar “hashtag bashtag” results are an example of what can go wrong. Yet questioning the role of social media is a quick way to get dubbed a Luddite or a grumpy old man. read more