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| Images made available from Mir Hossein Mousavi's election campaign media operation, Ghalam News, via AP. |
This video does a great job of explaining how events unfolded:
20 years later, China remains a superpower. It has never been more economically powerful and a good argument could be made that it has never been as politically or diplomatically powerful. As the U.S. struggles to find its place in a new world economy, China is calling more shots and flexing its diplomatic muscle like never before. I am not an expert, but from what I understand, China's people enjoy more freedoms than in the past, but they remain under the control of single party rule. There is no free press. Dissent is not tolerated.
There are clear similarities between the reform movement in China and the protests in Iran. Like in China, a charismatic leader is urging the young protesters on. The protesters are capitalizing on sophisticated communications techniques to disseminate images around the world. The provoked government provides just enough latitude for the leaders of the revolution to reveal themselves. At which point, swift, definitive, deadly action will be taken and it will all be squashed. Literally and figuratively.
It is a generation later. Many of the Chinese citizens who sought reform are now in the 40s. However, lacking the charismatic leaders who were killed or imprisoned for treason, they remain powerless and voiceless.
I fear for the men and women in Iran. I worry that in their urgency to act they may be helping the government rapidly dismantle a fledgling Democratic movement. If you look at the movements that brought change to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, you will see that they took a long time and blossomed from the inside out. Between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, it took nearly a decade to bring Democracy to Russia.
Can change happen more quickly? Certainly. But will that happen? No. I just hope that the impending slaughter does not set Iran's reform movement back so far that 20 years from now -- in the year 2029 -- we are not wondering if Iran's reformers will ever re-emerge.
A big thanks to Brent Frei, co-founder and executive chairman of Smartsheet.com, for his illuminating piece, "Small BusinessesWill Inherit the Earth," published online at Xconomy.
Frei notes that specialized sole proprietors, such as independent public relations counselors, are the big winners in the current economy, which is forcing all organizations to do more with less. He writes, "On one hand, they provide the “just in time” component services no longer staffed at the downsized firms, and on the other, they are adept at operating with lean resources and contracting for component services themselves."
It just so happens that WSJ careers reporter Sarah Needleman also took on this subject in a segment on FOX this morning entitled, "How to Survive as a Freelancer." Thanks Joe Cockrell (@joePRguy on Twitter) for giving me a heads up about the clip.
"This atomization of business is...a function of the nature of work today, and of the growing availability of technologies that will soon transform this approach to business-as-usual.
"The ability to provide results electronically greatly benefits small businesses and individual contractors, as geographical location and infrastructure are no longer barriers. More and more opportunities will be available to productive workers to serve countless niches.
"The main barrier to this volume of atomization has traditionally been the “productivity tax” on the coordinator who manages all the players working outside the company. The information overload becomes intense with too many e-mails, spreadsheets, and overhead material with so many separate contributors. The logistics and technological challenges often outweighed the gains. But new online tools are changing all that.
"Collaborative work management tools will be tightly integrated with online work marketplaces (LivePerson, eLance, RentaCoder) as well as crowdsourcing technologies (Amazon Mechanical Turk, Smartsourcing). Think of these solutions as part of a global switchboard that connects real and virtual teams on an as-needed basis in order to accomplish specific work. They will be as universally accessible as Gmail, and available to all. And the important components—the tasks, milestones and deadlines, as well as the team members who own specific responsibilities—will always be clearly visible to whoever owns the end results."
I not only believe in what Frei is saying, I have experienced it firsthand. I have successfully used Get A Freelancer to identify writers and designers for various projects. The writers I've worked with have done a great job and deliver their work at an extraordinary value. The service provides an e-Bay style rating system (a 10-star scale) that enables the customer to quickly see which service provider gets the most positive feedback from customers. People and firms from all over the world bid on projects. I had someone in the Phillipines create a logo for a client. I wouldn't have been able to have a phone call with a local design firm for what it cost us. I use only U.S.-based writers, but they deliver similar value.
The bottom line in all this is that there is a global talent pool that is now just as easily accessible as the local talent pool. The fact that organizations are growing more comfortable with virtual relationships makes in unlikely that the Genie will ever go back in the bottle.
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| Bruce Springsteen's hand-written playlist from the Austin show is close, but not quite accurate because they took three requests from the crowd during the 3-hour show! |
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| "Crisis Communications: How to Recover from a Black Eye," was published in Perspectives |
Last week, I reported on Rachel Maddow's gutting of the public relations profession in general and Burson-Marsteller in particular in the post, "Public relations being hurt by public's cynicism about business." Unfortunately, the story didn't end there.
As reported by PR Week, Mark Penn, who heads Burson, issued an internal memo defending the company, its clients and its practices. Okay. Great. Get the facts out to the internals so they know the Company brass is aware of the issue and is acting appropriately.
As many of you are aware, especially in the US, a segment appeared on cable television last night that attacked Burson-Marsteller and the work that we do. The jumping off point for this commentator was our work for AIG – a company that has certainly been in the news a lot lately. We are proud to work for AIG – work that has nothing to do with “burnishing their image” but is all about helping this company handle the massive volume of media, government and employee interest in their situation. It is ironic to me that someone in the media is complaining about attempts by AIG to make sure they have the resources to respond and interact with the media (and other key audiences). It is the very fact that AIG realizes it has a responsibility, as a recipient of government money, to be as accessible and open as possible in its dealing with external audiences that led them to utilize our media relations services along with that of several other public relations and communications agencies.
Then he goes off the issues management response rails a bit. He says the firm only "works" for one of the companies that Maddow listed in her Thursday night skewering. As in they used to work for the others but they don't anymore. That's not much of a defense. Of course, you no longer do crisis work for Three Mile Island. It happened 30 years ago! It would have been so much better if Penn had not suggested that they are innocent because those bad guys aren't clients any longer. It is so much more powerful to argue that PR plays a role in helping companies be better corporate citizens.
The cable host also reeled off a list of other purported Burson-Marsteller clients of which she was critical. Of every potential client mentioned, we only work for one -- Phillip Morris (now Altria in the U.S.) and our work for them is largely to help with legislatively mandated smoking cessation programs; we do not work on the marketing of cigarettes at all.
This is disingenuous as well, because Burson most certainly DID do cigarette promotion work previously. I know people who used to be on BM's Phillip Morris account. Maybe you don't do it now, but you used to do it. Penn's insistence that his firm doesn't work for these clients now or help to market tobacco suggests that he IS embarrassed about the firm's past work for these clients and their tobacco promoting pedigree. That's too bad, because I don't think Burson has anything to be ashamed of. Their work delivers value and helps communities and companies come together. I'm not a smoker and have no tolerance for it, but smokers deserve advocates -- as do the bars and restaurants who believe patrons should have a right to smoke. That's a different story, but suffice it to say that Penn's weak-kneed defense of the company's clients and work leaves a lot to be desired.
But that's not the worst of it. Penn also attacked:
Her commentary also significantly mischaracterized the nature of the firm's past – for example, we never took a dime from Blackwater.
If that was true, it would be okay. But facts have a funny way of coming back to haunt you. Word of caution for anyone who is having a tit-for-tat with a journalist or media outlet: you better have YOUR facts 100 percent locked down before you accuse THEM of sloppy reporting. Here is Maddow's Friday commentary:
Here's a tip for Mark Penn that his leadership team may have been too proud to whisper in his ear last week. Let it be. You don't want to become the story. Your only concern should be helping to right the ship at AIG. If your firm's involvement makes it harder for AIG to advance its cause, you should consider extricating yourself from the matter.
After all, it is pretty clear that you will quickly deny any involvement with them in the future anyway.
There were more than a few cringe-inducing moments in last night's diatribe against public relations on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. It is illustrative of the populist sentiments of the moment fueled by the tsunami of bad economic news and unfortunate business practices.
I hear and understand what Ms. Maddow and others who are raising their voices in criticism of investing in PR are saying. She is not alone by any stretch. Chicago Mayor Richard Daily thisweek took steps to cancel 11 PR contracts with the city. His administration had come under criticism for wasteful spending and PR was the poster child.
It is important that we as a profession listen to these scathing critiques. It is clear that there is a difference between what we believe we do and what the public believes we do. That is a fact.
So what did Rachel say? Take a look:
| Rachel Maddow does her best impression of Keith Olberman |
"I...doubt very seriously that AIG is engaging public relations firms to soothe the taxpayers’ souls, or portray the company as just another innocent victim in the current economic meltdown. My guess, as it would be in any crisis, is that the reputable and highly qualified public relations firms working on AIG’s behalf are tasked with explaining what happened, what AIG is doing to fix it, why such steps will be effective, and why those steps will prevent future such occurrences. Only then can the process of rebuilding AIG shattered image begin."
Even with the laundry list of "evil" that Maddow read, public relations can play an important role -- not in seeking to manipulate or distract attention -- but in helping an organization understand how it needs to change in order to rebuild trust. We help organizations align what they do with what they say they do. And we provide a clear understanding of what the public wants and needs from them so they can make the necessary adjustments in their attitudes and behaviors.
In times of trouble, organizations have a tendency to turn inward, which is almost never in the best interests of their communities. Public relations can be a catalyst for positive change and greater openness. How do we get that point across in an era of growing cynicism and distrust?