At a recent function the blog attended one of the speakers said change was made difficult in Australia because of lack of political leadership – the absence of ‘conviction, courage and communication.’ The function was conducted under Chatham House rules so we can’t say who said what but the speakers were focussing on things Australia needed to do in the future. read more

The problem with irony is that if it is sufficiently dead pan, and readers are sufficiently literally-minded, the irony can get lost.

Some 20 years ago the blog wrote an article for IPRA Review (1993 16 (3)) asking whether PR was the first post-modern profession. At the time the blog had been reading a lot of Umberto Eco, not just the novels but also the semiotics work and his collection of essays Faith in Fakes. The latter basically focussed on how in a post-modern world for many people the fake was more real than the real. Eco also talked a lot about how perceptions shaped reality. read more

If there is one really significant thing about the health thought police it is that they are predictable. Whatever the issue – obesity, alcohol abuse, road safety etc etc – the same old answers of taxes, regulation and anything other than personal responsibility are inevitably trotted out. read more

The bane of many a university PR course admissions officer’s existence is the bright young thing who says they want to get into PR because a careers advisor told them they “were good with people”.

Now there is some interesting research on the real reasons why people want to get into PR. And it’s not for the glamorous lifestyle, the fascinating people or the cocktail parties – it’s because they want to become managers and get on in corporate careers. The finding is from a research paper by Christopher Wilson of the University of Florida presented at the March 2013 International Conference on Public Relations Research. The full set of conference proceedings is available at http://www.iprrc.org/  Thanks to Tony Jaques for drawing their publication to the blog’s attention. read more

While the Olympics’ motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius the motto for PR agencies might be some selection of words from fastest-growing, largest independent, largest, largest in the State, leading (insert appropriate discipline description).

But like the Olympics of course it all really gets down to money.  Glen Frost’s PR Report has followed up its list of biggest PR consultancies with a series of lists on independent and practice specialisation (www.theprreport.com/) ranked by revenue. The largest independent PR agency is Rowland; the largest independent consumer/FMCG agency is Liquid Ideas; largest independent health/wellbeing Cube PR; Financial/IR BlueChip Communication; Government Relations Crosby Textor; and, fastest growing independent agency F4 Consulting. read more

It may be a first in Australian political history – an Australian Prime Minister calling on someone to repent. There have been many PM’s that have been unrepentant about their actions and saying sorry has been the hardest thing to do for some such as John Howard.

But now we have Tony Abbott suggesting Bill Shorten and the ALP should ‘repent’ for putting a price on carbon. No journalist seems to have asked the PM what the precise sin the ALP committed although he would no doubt reply that it was because the policy was based on a ‘lie’. The really interesting things about the word though are the extent to which religion is thundering back into Australian politics and a vivid reminder that our PM is a Roman Catholic who likes to appear alongside his daughters while they are clad in virginal white. read more

How do you get started in public relations? Recently the blog has come across a couple of perspectives on possible answers from two former colleagues who prompted him to think about what advice he would offer to potential PR people.

One, Roger Haywood, has recently published Getting Started in Public Relations (available as an e-book on Amazon). The second, someone who moved from working with the blog at Turnbull Fox Phillips to starting  a company which was later acquired and then becoming a senior executive in the acquiring business. read more

The 2013 PR Report list of the top 25 PR agencies is out and it raises an interesting question – of all the top 25 PR lists one can imagine which would be more useful than one on agencies.

The blog asks the questions because of the reality that while PR agencies are an important part of the industry they are in decline when compared with numbers and salaries in the corporations and the public sector. So fascinating lists would be top paying jobs in listed companies; government departments and agencies employing most PR people; salary surveys listing differences in salary levels between companies, NGOs and government departments and agencies; and lists of the most influential players in the market. The online newsletter, crikey, had a go at the last in a series of articles a while ago and it was useful if a bit limited. read more

Generally speaking modern conservatives are very good at three things: framing issues (with the help of media and business elites) to make their views appear common sense; denying modernity and its implications; and, hypocrisy.

The framing issue the blog has dealt with many times before in many different forums, including the recent post on What Orwell Didn’t Know and in the e-book on the blog’swebsite, but the other two have been highlighted by the events of the first couple of weeks of the Abbott Government. Many conservatives had, of course, been at the forefront of social and scientific change. The British Royal Society founders were generally rich and royalist although their scientific researches were no doubt helped by the leisure their riches brought. Deborah Harkness’ The Jewel House triedto suggest that they were actually preceded by hard-working artisans and feminists and, although the argument is interesting, it is ultimately unconvincing. Roger Bacon is probably a better predecessor. read more

What have ALP internal party reform and the performance of Bach’s The Art of Fugue got in common? The question popped into the blog’s mind this week after hearing the great Angela Hewitt perform the Bach work and spending some time talking to Race Mathews and Local Labor people about their campaign to reform the party. read more