Communications Directors in distress

 

LONDON — Last night’s black-tie film premiere was a great chance to catch up with some people in the business.  There were too many people to talk to properly, unfortunately.  But some conversations I’ve been mulling over in my sleep.

Quite a few senior people working in communications at the moment are in distress.

I’m not saying it’s a [...]

The IMF, BRIC, Prince Philip and working in teams

LONDON — Last night there was an interesting recounting of a discussion in a television interview.  It went roughly like this:

“I asked him about his son and started to imply differences and he stopped me and he said…  
‘Ah, yes, but he is a romantic.  And I am a pragmatist. 
Sometimes romantics think that pragmatists are unfeeling.’ “

The exchange [...]

Do DSK and Arnie suffer from Batman Syndrome?

FITZROVIA – Batman Syndrome* is when you have achieved all sorts of fame and fortune, and regular life holds no challenges, so you start to do anti-social, dangerous things.

In the case of Bruce Wayne it’s putting you knickers outside you tights and fighting crime.

In the cases of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn [...]

“I don’t want to go to school…”

CROMWELL ROAD — There was a little girl with her dad on the bus today.  She cried the whole trip.

“I don’t like the teachers…!  I don’t want to go…!  I want my MOMMY…!!” 

That kind of crying that is so deep and, after a while, so filled with mucus that breathing is affected.

The adults shifted uncomfortably.  Because half [...]

Conspiracy theories are nuts, right? (Not at work.)

LONDON — It’s fair to say that people who are deeply suspicious of… everything… have had a banner week.

The President of the United States of America released his birth certificate.  Why?
Friday’s Royal Wedding was staged to get a FIFA vote for a UK World Cup. Obviously.
OBL wasn’t really killed. Not this [...]

Merging airlines: When 1+1=1.25

DULLES – I used to work for IATA.  It was one of my first corporate communications jobs.  And it was a great introduction to a complex industry.

I had grown up in airplanes, so why not see how they’re run?

And what a world it was.

Largely started by former military pilots out of the Second World War, the business [...]

Empathy, distance and communications… and newsprint

Washington, DC — It’s great to read good American newspapers again, like the Washington Post.  For the first time ever it has made me think about retirement.  Because that’s when I will be able to read the Post, and weekly editions of the New Yorker, from cover to cover.

It was alarming to hear two [...]

Japan from a far: Information ≠ knowledge

LONDON — We have learned not to be impatient.  Which is an odd thing. 

We know that real knowledge of the disaster in Japan won’t emerge for days.  In the place of that knowledge we have lots of information.

This is in a world where we used to wait weeks to hear about the Normandy landings or the sinking of the Titanic.  [...]

“This week’s themes are change and retrospection”

TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD — Or so says Andy Gill in today’s Independent review of new records.

And what a week it is.  A new Elbow album.  A new REM one too.  And a third from Noah and The Whale.

All well reviewed.

Any one of those would be good enough to [...]

The real inflation: The cost of a human life

MY KITCHEN, VERY EARLY — Out of the corner of my eye I spotted an article this week:

The Environmental Protection Agency set the value of a life at $9.1 million last year … [recently] the agency [had] used numbers as low as $6.8 million.

So said The [...]