Blog Archive
Vacation cold rush
Today on my way to work, I noticed the large windows on the King Street entrance of Metro Centre were completely frosted over. It looked spectacular. But it did remind me of what happens to my glasses when I come indoors from extreme cold. (The temperature was -22C.)I...
Born to broadcast
Everyone who has studied Canadian history has at least heard about the Family Compact, a ‘wealthy, conservative, [and] elite’ group that controlled the government of Upper Canada (Ontario) from just past the War of 1812 and up to approximately 1841 (though some...
Of pocket protectors and other little things
This June I'm leading a roundtable discussion at an upcoming PR industry conference. The subject is client relationships. So I've been thinking about what I can talk about and something happened last week that felt like a good starting point.A client gave me a plastic...
A passage of rites
When I was a kid in Winnipeg and my family went out for a drive, the radio was tuned to CBW, which I found a bit dry and dull (hey, there was no music, no Edison Lighthouse). But even at a young age I recognized that grown-ups liked CBC’s ‘content’. And I thought...
No more fake IDs
I tuned into episode two of the CBC Radio documentary, 'Spin Cycles', a six-part series focusing on the often uneasy relationship between journalism and PR. I wasn’t crazy about the show concept when I first heard about it. For one thing I had my doubts about whether...
More craft, less crap
In Wampeters Foma & Granfalloons (1974), the always playful, original and somewhat cranky, Kurt Vonnegut, says of the 'writing trades': 'They allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like...