Transparent talk

There’s so much talk about the importance of transparency in the communications business these days.And that’s great. My approach as a PR person has always been to disclose who I am, who I represent and what I’m asking up front.Then, it’s up to the person being...

Monitoring the monitor

I (and probably numerous other Canadian PR people) received a letter recently from the company-formerly-known-as-Bowdens*, informing me that they changed their name.And while I appreciated the news, I wondered how this might affect my agency.It didn’t take long to...

In praise of news releases

Call me old fashioned but I really like news releases.I’m talking about the one to two page documents, usually written by PR people, that have a headline, subhead, dateline, the words ‘for immediate release’ (they still thrill me), a story (information and quotes),...

Cluetrain leaves me at the station

I finally finished The Cluetrain Manifesto. And about two-thirds of the way in, I just wanted to get off. As far as I was concerned, that train had run out of steam long before that. (OK Thomas, the rail puns have stopped.)The book was repetitive and frustrating. The...

How I know I’m Canadian…

…Because sometimes I arrive at my regular Tim Hortons at a normally busy time and there’s only one person in the line-up ahead of me as opposed to the 30+ people that are usually there.And that’s all it takes to make my day.

So you want to work in PR…

Every week I get resumes from students or young people who want to work in PR. First off, let me thank you. As they used to say in showbiz, keep those cards and letters coming. For an agency owner, it’s good to know you’re out there.But what can you do to make me take...