In Clayton Christensen’s new book, the Harvard Business School professor offers profound advice about priorities; specifically about the importance of investing in family, about living a life of integrity and having metrics that make it easier to make the right decisions.
Here you have a demand for less regulation while CEOs suggest that enforcement of the new regulations has restored trust; this is a baffling logic problem.
More 6 A.M. Posts
The most profound finding in the Edelman Trust Barometer 2005 – out annual study of 1500 opinion leaders in eight countries – is the rise of the “Average Person Like Me” as a trusted spokesperson. The average person now ranks as high as academics and physicians as a trusted source of information about a company. [...]
Three stories caught my eye this week. The first is Citigroup’s effort to change its corporate culture in the wake of scandals in the private bank in Japan and on the trading desk in London. The second is the revelation that a fraud ring has penetrated the computer system of consumer credit information house Choice [...]
Sunday’s New York Times article by Tim O’Brien, titled “Spinning Frenzy: P.R.’s Bad Press,” is a wake-up call for the PR industry. He suggests that the Armstrong Williams imbroglio is the result of the confluence of several trends, including industry consolidation, the boom in alternative media sources, and the continued tension between the two schools [...]
I read with interest an article in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal by Alan Murray. He challenges the wisdom of a chief executive officer attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. He contends that A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble in staying at home to make the deal to buy Gillette is serving his shareholders [...]
I just returned from the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. I will try to give you a quick sense of the tone of the meeting, then a specific report on each of the sessions I attended. In past years, I have told you that it was the year of technology (1999), the [...]
In the wake of the recent scandals that have engulfed the PR industry (willfully over billing a government entity, pay for play for a government agency), it is important to review how we manage our firms. These issues are obviously not limited to public relations. Note the disappearance of Arthur Andersen, one of the Big [...]
It has now been a week since USA Today revealed that a prominent journalist had been paid by a major PR firm to produce public service spots for placement on his TV and radio shows. This same journalist also received a fee for placing spokespeople from the Department of Education on his program and for [...]
Today’s story in USA Today on payments to a journalist by a major PR firm was profoundly depressing. The article states that prominent TV commentator Armstrong Williams received $240,000 from Ketchum PR to “regularly comment on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) campaign during the course of his broadcasts” and to interview Education Secretary Rod [...]
I am wondering how many of you had an ambivalent feeling as you began your New Year’s Eve revels. I just could not put out of my mind the images of the devastation wreaked on the largely impoverished communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India and the Maldives. The mother kissing the feet of [...]
Edelman held its end of year executive leadership meeting last week in New York City. We were fortunate to have three outstanding outside speakers who are experts on the evolution of the media business. They include Phil Revzin, who runs all of Dow Jones properties outside of the US, Jonathan Klein, recently named president of [...]