EARL’S COURT — Not sure how I missed this one.  But The Independent has been running a investigative series on lobbyists.  And they’ve chosen one of the biggest and most respected firms to ‘expose’.

In summary, some journalists pretended to be wealthy potential clients from a large foreign country and they recorded the communications professionals bragging about things they shouldn’t have been bragging about.

It’s pretty white-knuckle stuff.  It doesn’t look good in print.

But…

You can easily see where it comes from on both sides.

NEWSPAPERS – Have been the centre of attention from politicians and communications professionals for months over phone hacking and other unsavoury practices.  They probably feel betrayed.  Some columnists are already revelling in the chance to someone else “dirty” and “seedy”.

LOBBYISTS – See themselves as great facilitators, bringing people and politicians together.  And helping the democratic process. They are well paid and unregulated. But perform and important service.

The impact that journalists and a story like this can have can be frightening.  (Although few would argue that journalists themselves can coordinate and wielded it with any precision.)

Furthermore, yes, the lobbyists in question look pretty silly, and their contacts are knocking each other over to get out of their way.  And even Buckingham Palace has launched a stinging (oh!) rebuke.  But what business conversation wouldn’t look silly on paper?  Would the Boardroom and kitchen discussions of any average Briton not be surprising and alarming to many people who read them?

It makes me think of the amateur sting operations in secondary school that caught Harris admitting he’s stolen someone’s can of Coke.

SELF IMOLATION
However the real sport in this story may be elsewhere.

It’s interesting to see some of the Dons of the communication agency businesses lining up to betray each other.

It’s mild at the moment, questioning the accuracy of the other CEO.  Filing toothless complaints with gummy bodies.  Or suggesting that exaggeration is not healthy.  But some of these fellows are pretty tough.  The backroom brawls of the past — though generally unreported — are legendary.  When communication bosses take each other on, it can get messy.

I recommend standing back.  And maybe getting some popcorn.

/df

LONDON — I am still a bit disturbed by an interview I read while on holiday. I have no idea why, while off the grid for a fortnight, I managed to read Lucy Kellaway’s interview with Roland Rudd. But I did.

Have a quick read of it and then come back.

Let me start by saying that I have no agenda with either. Lucy Kellaway will never report on my business.  I have seen her speak once, but never met her.  Rudd is in a parallel business to mine, and although I have met him once, I will never be invited to dinner at his, and for many reasons out companies are guaranteed never to work together.

There is no doubt in my mind that Public Relations (PR) is a dark art.  To many it seems like a job that isn’t really a job.  Even if the PRCA Training manual just landed on my desk and has 55 pages of courses.  Many people feel that PR people sell influence and that influence is hard to measure.

Again, I don’t want to argue that point.  What I am interested in is the way in which Mr Rudd is fairly ruthlessly dispatched.  He’s been “making a handsome living” advising CEOs.  It’s all about people “having their egos tickled”.

It’s not a wholly abusive article.  But it’s not exactly like other profiles in the FT either.  It’s gossipy, dismissive and not particularly fun in the process.  There is something about it that is quite dark.

And I wonder if the uncomfortable relationship between journalists and business has something to do with it?  Why is it for example that these two people in the story, who started their careers together, can have had such different lives as a result?

What I wonder is would a film producer, or a Royal Academician, or a computer company owner have received the same treatment…?

/df

PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The Guardian.  The Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I find myself hanging around late in cinemas just to stare in awe at the screen. Why do we need to have “credits” for the caterers assistant?

Why do the arts and the softer sciences need to be so self-congratulatory?

It does none of us any good.

Can you imagine a great big banner being pulled behind an aircraft: “And the guy who polished the wing was called Gus…”?

/df

HOME — I’ve been wearing my dad’s tie all week. It’s a university tie from Bishop’s University outside Montreal. My dad was president of the University earlier this century. He was always quietly dapper without being too flash. [Okay, the man-bag he carried while we lived in Paris was a bit cutting edge.]

There’ve been some nice things written about my dad in Canadian papers last week.

By today’s standards 72 is quite a young age to die.

Like all dads he was my hero. He did amazing things as a political journalist, a foreign correspondent, a history buff, a francophile, an African aficionado, an actor and someone who loved a good laugh.

I wish you could have met him.

/df

LONDON — There seems to be quite a bit of excitement out there about Google Wave. Here’s a blog I was sent to earlier today. Look how many comments there are in a few hours.

There’s a lovely short video here too that will show you what Google Wave is all about.

To me it looks quite similar to the demo I saw in August of Microsoft’s OneNote. A lovely guy from Pfizer explained to a group of us how it’s should change their project processes. And I find both quite compelling. Here’s a video about it too.

In many respects I am dying to try both out.

In many other ways I suspect that I won’t and I can’t. My brain is already programmed to using email and other software. I recognise that this is better. I even suspect that in a few years or month I will be using it. But I can’t get excited now.

The Google Wave video says “email was invented more than 40 years ago, Google Wave is what we would do if we invented it now.” Well, I was invented 40 years ago and I don’t think I have out-stayed my welcome yet.

In fact, I am still quite keen on writing letters. You know, start at the top and work down from left to right on a piece of nice paper? I like that too and people are still doing it (although not in Britain with a Royal Mail strike).

/df

CHELSEA — Don’t ask me about underlying influencing factors in the economy. I’m no economist. But I do know when I am being sold some old pile of rubbish. And that’s what the media in the UK is pitching us now.

We seem to have reporters who are used to covering train wrecks covering the economy. And it shows. Yesterday’s Independent carefully detailed the extensive job losses in the public and private sector… And told us (ho! ho! ho!) that many, many more businesses were clearly waiting until after thhe holidays to layoff droves more people.

What piffle.

It would appear to be the reflected Jo Moore school of journalism…. If you want to sell papers, create a crisis.

News is today that BBC financial reporter Robert Peston has been working round the clock to keep his business blog up to date.

The readership is large, I am told.

Why?

It must have something to do with the incredible hurdles put in front of businesses when it comes to their communications. Because who would you rather heard explain the problems in commodity or petrol prices… a guy who won a comedy award for impersonating Margaret Thatcher, or the guy running BHP or BP?

Let’s hear what they say.

/df

AL DUOMO, FIRENZE — I know how I feel about graffiti on historic monuments. I don’t like it. There is no value in defacing ancient monuments, like Lord Byron famously did at The Temple of Poseidon in Greece.

But as I stumbled, puffin down the 463 steps from the top of the cathedral in Florence this afternoon, I saw a big black pen scrawling saying something like “Do something exceptional by treating people well and you will be rewarded with grace.” It was well positioned and written in a striking hand. And it was noticeably different from the other graffiti on this historic site.

It was the only religious message I actually got in visiting churches all day.

I am quite ashamed to say that. Because even in the Uffizi Gallery the only real message I left with was that there were a lot of wealthy Americans who contributed to it. And that gallery has some of the most striking art I have seen in my life. (Even through a bus-load of hopped-up French school children.)

What I appreciate about the religious graffiti in the Duomo was that it was unexpected. It was different. It was delivered in a new way. Even though the message was not new, or the location all that unexpected.

It broke the rules. And that broke through all the other noise.

We, as organisational communicators often have to do that. We risk our jobs by doing it sometimes. And we risk breaking down our entire system if we do it a lot. But it’s often worth the effort. It’s often the only thing we can do to shake up the world. To break people out of their complacency.

Just don’t get caught.

/df

When the wind of change whistles into play
will I blink or flinch away?
The wind of change wont whistle me away
if I spin my tails and sail.
And sail away, let yesterday become today.

CIRCLE LINE — I recognise that I am not the right demographic for the Brummie, bedsit, white rapper The Streets. But I have just bought the new album and I had to choose between a CD and a limited edition USB.

(That’s a compact disk and limited edition universal serial bus!)

I don’t know which sounds worse. I liked LPs. I liked the big cover art and sleeves that decorated my dorm room wall. I liked making thunder sounds by shaking the vynil.

But that’s not coming back. It’s the day of the USB key.

We like our media mobile now. And we’ll buy more than one copy if we really like it.

How does the company newsletter fit into this world?

Uncomfortably. At best.

All hail the mobizine. You heard it here first.

/df
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