tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-233086122009-08-05T13:48:38.348-04:00What we've got here is a failure to communicate.JMPnoreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-89072684800161284772009-08-05T13:30:00.004-04:002009-08-05T13:48:38.365-04:00

The father that let his 7-year-old drive the family SUV at 40 klicks with seatbelt-less mom and toddler sibling in the back seat came forward. After letting his kid drive down a remote logging road and fliming the spectacle, he put the video on youtube to brag about his son's driving skills. When questioned, he said:"I regret having done it. It was a bad decision on my part," the father,

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-4973751114282046042009-07-29T15:02:00.002-04:002009-07-29T15:06:45.149-04:00

A property management firm in Chicago decided to sue one of its tenants for a Twitter post that spoke ill of the company.  The company, Horizon Group Management, says that the tenant sent the message maliciously and filed suit asking for $50,000 in damages. Asked about the suit by the Chicago Sun-Times, Horizon owner Jeffrey Michael noted: "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-53153167616895692362009-07-24T16:01:00.006-04:002009-07-24T16:23:33.028-04:00

Fire at the White House is out. Time to go back to the health care debate.Wow. President Obama just went in front of the Whitehouse Press corps and said he'd erred in his comment on how the Cambridge, Mass. police arrested a prominent African American professor. Immediately after the arrest, Obama had said:"the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-30946464931082033702009-07-14T22:26:00.004-04:002009-07-14T22:43:18.729-04:00

There's a certain type of PR hack that drags down the whole profession. It's the flack that tries to spin something beyond the realm of credibility. In the process they leave a trail of disbelief, skeptics and second guesses at what is actually going on in the organization. Case in point - the Chicago Blackhawks fired their GM, Dale Tallon, today and put in place his subbordinate, Stan Bowman -

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-60074166298265801322009-07-10T21:17:00.004-04:002009-07-10T21:34:37.891-04:00

At the end of the G8 conference Canadian Prime Minister Harper attacked Liberal opposition Leader Ignatieff for a quote that ended up being from someone else. How'd it happen? Harper's press secretary Dimitri Soudas was e-mailed the quote from a colleague in Canada; briefed the PM on the fly; and the PM then let fly a verbal pounding against Ignatieff. When it soon became clear the quote that

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-77898732867640445042009-07-07T15:21:00.003-04:002009-07-07T15:30:59.226-04:00

Bernie Ecclestone owns the commercial rights to F1 racing. In an interview with the Times of London he somehow wandered from discussing racing to Hitler. You can guess where this went. "It's probably my fault in that I got dragged into something I wasn't supposed to discuss – we got out of F1 into something else," Ecclestone said. However, Ecclestone said he does not regret praising Hitler's

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-90471510804490337322009-06-18T21:49:00.005-04:002009-06-18T21:56:22.721-04:00

Even if others say you should, sometimes saying nothing about a good deed is best. A 10 year-old with cancer had a dying wish -- see Pixar's new movie, Up."After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue. The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-39269413334095117312009-06-18T14:47:00.002-04:002009-06-18T14:57:30.742-04:00

This from Honeywell's European President:"We have a 100 percent recovery rate of all the black boxes that we have installed that unfortunately may have been involved in accidents so we hope that we will be able to maintain our record and be able to shed some light on what happened." They made the 'black box' aboard Air France flight 447, which crashed in the sea off Brazil. I think this is an

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-4673278186848478002009-06-18T10:35:00.003-04:002009-06-18T15:03:13.050-04:00

Toronto Star story about one hair salon in Yorkville suing stylists that left for a competing shop. The silliness of it all makes it news, I guess. The salon owner launching these law suits calls the Star because she says she wants to talk:Until yesterday, Abrahamse had declined comment. Yesterday, she called the Star expressing her desire to talk on the record."There are two sides to every

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-75512475411615469232009-05-13T23:44:00.004-04:002009-05-13T23:57:58.738-04:00

Not that many people outside politics are paying much attention to it, but former Prime Minister Mulroney testified again today about the Schriber/Airbus affair. At one point he started to break down on the stand. His PR team was quick to post on Mulroney's web site:"...Mulroney struggled to tell the story. As he did, he looked out into the audience and saw the producer of the Fifth Estate,

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-85413197564370577302009-05-01T00:42:00.005-04:002009-05-10T21:24:08.919-04:00

CTV just announced that it's selling three TV stations it had slated for closure for $1 a piece to Shaw Cable."I think it's great," said Ivan Fecan, President and CEO, CTVglobemedia, and CEO, CTV. "We've accepted their offer of $1 per station. Cable is rolling in money and can obviously afford to underwrite the losses. Good for them." Zing!Why even bother with the window dressing of civility?

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-72665316899582570112009-04-27T11:23:00.004-04:002009-04-27T11:34:26.126-04:00

Over the past several years, Room 40 has had the benefit of developing a number of pandemic flu communications strategies for public and private sector organizations. While we're not yet at the pandemic stage with the current outbreak of swine flu, it's worth keeping in mind one of the important tools organizations will have should this outbreak turn into a pandemic - social distancing.Social

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-17987182145462193272009-03-09T08:15:00.005-04:002009-03-09T08:27:51.120-04:00

Lawyers often have a tough time being spokespeople, but in this case, I'm not sure even the best spokesperson could pull off this messaging. A dispute involving a trademark request filed by Rehava Real Estate Store, a small agency in North Charleston has got the attention of Re/Max lawyers, saying the Rehava name and logo design are too similar to its own.Here are the logos in question.Here's

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-82838831017119691032008-06-06T01:16:00.003-04:002008-06-06T01:21:44.166-04:00

I know police are all about the facts when they communicate publicly, but geez, this Detective Quinn quoted below could take some lessons in how to better position his track record:"Police credited the kidnapped men for not panicking during their ordeal.'Mr. Hoying and Mr. Deganian solved this crime,' Quinn said. 'Without them, we would've had an unsolved mystery. Most of my kidnappings end in

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-37802015396939259212008-06-06T00:56:00.001-04:002008-06-06T01:04:00.106-04:00

In the wake of the timbit tempest, an Owen Sound restaurant owner fires a waitress for shaving her head in a cancer fundraiser. At least give him points for honesty:"Hilliard admitted the story isn’t great PR for the restaurant"

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1164750826455807552006-11-28T16:53:00.000-05:002006-11-28T16:53:47.070-05:00

Michael Richards uses "Black Friends" DefenseAfter declaring jihad on his own reputation and career, Michael Richards has engaged big time PR help to begin repairing the damage. His advisor, Howard Rubenstein, has apparently recommended that he throw himself at the feet of Jesse Jackson as part of his rehabilitation. The result has been nothing short of a circus. Clearly Richards has issues

JMPnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1159324992758659072006-09-26T22:43:00.000-04:002006-09-26T22:43:13.653-04:00

Apparently in addition to his skills, albeit limited, as a hockey player, Tie Domi is apparently a commodities broker. Among the sordid details of Domi's alleged infidelity is the following quote from his estranged wife, Leanne:Domi's secret life: commodities broker :"Tie assured me that Belinda was nothing more than an important 'business contact' and said I should be nice to her since she held

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1158851815425589082006-09-21T11:16:00.000-04:002006-09-21T11:16:55.530-04:00

This story appeared today talking about how mourners attending the funeral of the young woman killed in the shooting at Montreal's Dawson College were given parking tickets. I draw your attention to the quote from the Mayor's office. This is an example of where communicators need to give their bosses a good shake and tell them that a mistake was made and we need to make good on it. Which is a

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1157034081598929902006-08-31T10:21:00.000-04:002006-08-31T10:21:21.693-04:00

Kudos to RadioShack - business must be booming. I mean, it would take far too long to tell people face-to-face that they're fired. So they probably saved at least $20 in staff time by e-mailing 400 head office employees to tell them not to come to work anymore. RadioShack Uses E-Mail to Fire Employees:RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1154294078287900422006-07-30T17:14:00.000-04:002006-07-30T17:17:40.390-04:00

From time to time, companies or people do things wrong. Sometimes it's by accident, sometimes intentinally. Often their reputation going forward sinks or swims based on how they say 'I'm sorry'.This is often where managing one's reputation bumps up against lawyers trying to manage liability. Far too often the immediate math of 'what will we lose in court' trumps the loss to reputation and the

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1152735436733617422006-07-12T16:17:00.000-04:002006-07-12T16:27:45.526-04:00

North Korean state-run news brings us this scientific breakthrough:New Cosmetic Agent Developed Pyongyang, July 7 (KCNA) -- A new kind of cosmetic agent to make skin supple with radiance and purity has been developed by researchers of the Aromatic and Cosmetic Engineering Institute of the Branch Academy of Light Industrial Science under the State Academy of Sciences in the DPRK. They analyzed in

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1152642651573825512006-07-11T14:30:00.000-04:002006-07-12T15:42:05.583-04:00

Another interesting example of the front-line communications challenges companies are facing. In this case, we see where the ever present lawyer community butts up against providing customer service. Cingular wireless is apparently the target of a class-action lawsuit by some customers and to join in customers have to be in possession of their billing records. Here's the upshot of this

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1152619771794043982006-07-11T08:09:00.000-04:002006-07-12T16:37:39.840-04:00

Read this story on Consumerist re: a Fee Increase Letter Covered In Gobblydegook :"Pat writes:"I received a letter today from our company's wireless provider that reminded me again of the fine art of 'customer management'...[it reads:]" At Bell and Bell Wireless Alliance, we want to keep you informed of any upcoming changes that impact your wireless account(s). We appreciate your business and

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1152236443541775122006-07-06T21:39:00.000-04:002006-07-12T15:43:40.356-04:00

This letter was sent to Paramount Pictures by the blogger who runs themovieblog.com after Paramount threatened his web host regarding an alleged copyright infringement. I post it because it's another example of how big companies are backpedalling big-time when blogs take them on to expose horrible service or terrible decisions. In this case Paramount has called this guy to personally apologize

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23308612.post-1152077935315686792006-07-05T01:29:00.000-04:002006-07-05T01:41:01.696-04:00

Recently there have been a number of stories about individuals using blogs as a tool for pursuing grievances. A case in point was an openly gay lawyer in Vancouver who quickly launched a blog in an attempt to embarrass his employer whom he felt had a work environment that was hostile to him. In the media discussion around this case, the point was raised about blogs and how organizations should

JMPnoreply@blogger.com0