There is one word – change – which unerringly strikes fear into people in private, public and not for profit organisations. When it is linked in the meaningless two word mantra – change management – it is about as damaging to organisational cultures as Tony Abbott’s three word slogans were to politics. read more

It is always a sad day when one of your favourite authors dies. No more books (perhaps a posthumous one completed by a colleague and for some a collected works) and as a result no more of that frisson of anticipation you feel when you hear of the author’s forthcoming new book.

It is a doubly sad day when it is Umberto Eco whose work as a cultural critic has regularly informed the blog’s work as a communicator; whose novels are endlessly satisfying; and whose essays are constantly thought provoking. Talking about his work in 1986 (all dates are first English publication) when Faith in Fakes was published Eco said: “My way of being involved in politics consists of telling others how I see daily life, political events, the language of the mass media, sometimes the way I look at a movie. I believe it is my job as a scholar and citizen to show how we are surrounded by ‘messages’, products of political power, of economic power, of the entertainment industry and the revolution industry, and to say that we must know how to analyse them.” read more

There is much to be said about the Public Relations Institute of Australia – after all it is capable of being anomalous, anachronistic, irrelevant and from time to time very irritating.

The most irritating, for the blog at least, is the insistence of some of the leadership on talking about the industry as a profession. Quite evidently, while PR people can be professional, just like any other industry, it is not now nor has ever been a profession in the accepted sense of the word. Although a blog (non-PR) friend did once say there may be some point in the description – if only in the sense of the usage coined for the ‘oldest profession’. read more

An organisation which embarks on an issues and risk management strategy around a contaminated site and can’t win support from neighbouring residents; and, which launches a widespread community consultation project on future directions, policies and budgets with a preliminary leaflet which gets ignored probably has significant cultural and communication problems. read more

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