PR firms tap global expertise

August 21st, 2011 / 11:35 pm

Recently Burson-Marsteller announced that Professional Public Relations would be joining its global network as exclusive New Zealand affiliate partner. Click here for the news release and see the article below from National Business Review:

Categories: Burson-Marsteller
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Asia-Pacific social media infographics e-booklet

August 18th, 2011 / 4:30 am

B-M Asia-Pacific social media infographics e-booklet

View more documents from Robert Pickard.

Categories: Asia, digital
comments(0) Tags: asia-pacific, digital, infographics, PR

Weibo and the Chinese social media dynamic

August 10th, 2011 / 2:47 am

Last week when I was in China, there was one word that seemed to be on everyone’s lips: Weibo, which is the Chinese microblogging platform that’s analogous to Twitter (but it should be noted that you can get more across in 140 spaces using Chinese characters compared to the Roman alphabet).

After a terrible train crash on the country’s celebrated new high-speed rail system, there was a tremendous outpouring of emotion from millions of people in China who were expressing their sadness over the loss of life, disbelief at the official reports, and anger at why the accident happened and what seemed to be an inadequate explanation afterwards.

Among other things, Weibo appears to have become an easy way for people to vent about things in a country where, while the mainstream media is relatively freewheeling covering the commercial sector, it is much more circumspect when it comes to the government domain. Even if Weibo is a way to sound off, I was told that there are certain taboo comments that are blocked when one tries to post them, and that censors will delete impermissible comments after they have been posted.

This train crash incident is the latest one I’ve noticed where anger is amplified so quickly online, with riots of rage breaking out on social networks especially in jurisdictions where there are people who have felt politically or economically constrained. In many parts of Asia, fitting in with the group harmony rather than standing out can be the governing dynamic, but social networks may be changing this cultural assumption.

I think we saw this most recently in the Japanese social media reaction in Japan and China last September, when Japan accused a Chinese fishing boat of deliberately ramming two patrol vessels near disputed islands in the East China Sea, causing a massive digital diplomatic row between the two countries.

What happened on social networks after this incident and after the recent train crash shows how the emotions of millions can be experienced as a community’s collective consciousness…like a national nervous system. I reckon there can be positive mass manifestation of strong sentiment, but sometimes there’s an ugly side to it as well. What I find intriguing is the speed and intensity with which anger can cycle up into outrage online.

Even if microblogs can play a useful role protecting the record and holding institutions to account, sometimes troubling is the lack of hard information possessed by those making summary judgments who often overrate what they know as the basis for forming opinions. Then there is the apparent digital reduction of empathy for other people, ironic inasmuch as the technology offers so many new ways to bring us together as never before.

Despite the bold and fearless talk on Weibo, during the nine media interviews I did in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, while all of the journalists evidenced intense interest regarding digital crisis communications in general, none of them asked about the train incident in particular.

I asked all of the reporters if they use Weibo themselves, and they all replied in the affirmative. Some said they use it for work. Others declared that they use it exclusively for personal purposes. Some declared that they use it for both.

In this respect, whether it’s the psychology of digital networks or how individuals are sorting out their profiles and personality online, despite a very unique social media ecosystem, in these respects China shares much in common with the rest of the digital world.

Categories: China
comments(0) Tags: china, digital, social networks, weibo

Cliver

August 9th, 2011 / 4:02 am

The communications community lost one of its true greats last week with the death of Clive Hobson, a long-time client and dear friend of mine going back almost 20 years.

We met during the early 1990s, when he was in charge of public relations at the now defunct Tee-Comm Electronics, which was an early pioneer of direct-to-home satellite television in my native Canada. I was then working at Hill & Knowlton in Toronto, and he was one of the friendliest and most considerate customers I’ve ever worked with. It was then that I learned of his contagious mirth, a field of gravity that attracted people to him as a vital centre of social attention.

Indeed, even though he was earlier a journalist (in my favourite medium of radio), it was in meeting and greeting the public that I saw him truly excel. Clive was a networker extraordinaire: not the kind who coldly connects their contacts because they want something, but the sort of fellow who enjoyed the spontaneous warmth of friends just for the sheer pleasure of it all.

This is not to say that he liked everyone equally.

His spot-on critiques of the imperfections of others could be very funny and devastatingly accurate. His sense of the absurd was second to none, and he loved laughing with and at friends whom he would lampoon good-naturedly (in my case it was an alleged penchant for what he termed “shameless self-promotion”).

Nobody would tar Clive with that brush.

Quite the contrary, he was more modest than most in our profession and never took himself too seriously. Sometimes I feared if he didn’t sell himself more aggressively when he was looking for new career opportunities, he might limit his chances, but in business he kept pulling rabbits out of the hat over the years.

Certainly he helped do that for Environics Communications when, in August 1994, I was one of the co-founders of this North American PR agency. The high-flying Tee-Comm became among our first clients and soon our largest source of revenue at a critical juncture in the young life of the fledgling firm.

Clive was an unflagging champion of Environics from that point forward, and he helped grow the relationship with Tee-Comm’s Expressvu in Canada and its AlphaStar subsidiary in the United States. Inasmuch as his client-side support helped power the old firm forward, I think it’s safe to say — and I’m forever grateful for it — that his confidence and encouragement played a critical role in my career advance, especially my first international role in the New York area from 1995.

Despite his British accent and love for the rugged Canadian outdoors, Clive admired the success of America and thoroughly enjoyed his time in the United States. We travelled together to several events in the U.S. (“boondoggles” he called some of these), most memorably trade shows at Las Vegas, where the extent of his love for branded merchandise and PR tsotchkes was on ample display. Pens, coats, flashing buttons, USB keys, hats, mugs, T-shirts, and even snow globes…you name it, and he branded them with the logo of the day.

While he was no self-promoter, he excelled in the promotion of others, and of course that’s what we corporate communicators are supposed to be fundamentally good at in the first place.

Every company he served got great media coverage. His experience as a journalist going back to covering the Munich Olympics in 1972 gave him gravitas as an old pro. He lived in the present moment with an open mind and a youthful vigor; this gave him excellent connectivity with young media and he kept relentlessly up-to-date.

Despite Clive’s skepticism concerning digital media, he was appointed communications chief at Yahoo! Canada (not an easy feat for someone born in 1948) and I used to quite enjoy his boasting that he was the oldest employee in the company.

I’ve commented about Clive a lot professionally, but personally I also owe him a debt of gratitude. My life has not been without its complications and challenges, and he was always a trusted source of big brotherly advice and supportive counsel over the years at moments when it mattered most.

I’m going to miss Clive and his fire…not just for life, but actually the massive bonfires we used to build on his beloved five acres in Milton, Ontario. He called these mighty blazes “conflagrations,” and we always looked forward to these with relish.

Four seasons of the year, including on sub-zero winter nights, igniting one of these fires in the fresh Canadian air gave us pure joy and now, for me, the signature memory of our friendship.

Categories: friends
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