Here’s to working with friends

March 13th, 2010 / 6:00 am

Yesterday Burson-Marsteller announced that my former colleague and good friend of many years Margaret Key* will become our new Market Leader in Korea. PR Week in London ran a story with the headline: “Burson-Marsteller lures Edelman Japan MD Margaret Key to take charge of Korea”

Especially knowing the British journalistic sensibility and personal style of the fellow who wrote that story, I found the choice of words apropos to the situation. Just for fun, I then looked up the word ‘lure’ in the dictionary, and noted that it is defined as “the power of attracting or enticing.”

In the small town of the global PR industry, when you’ve been living there for a decade (as Margaret has) or for two decades (as I have), you get to know all the local notables of the trade. You find out who has a reputation:

for quality work or for mediocrity
for being trustworthy or for being duplicitous
for fair play or for doing whatever it takes to win
for keeping confidences well or for being indiscreet
for actually being a thought leader or for just claiming to be one
for heralding the accomplishments of others or taking credit themselves
for inspiring the loyalty of direct reports or for suffering constant turnover
for embracing diversity or for wanting to work with people just like themselves
for knowing how to actually do things or for just how to be a cheerleader for others
for supporting employees to improve their lives or for exploiting them for personal gain
for reliably delivering on commitments or for making promises that never seem to be kept

Most people fall between these polarities, but the point is that every industry has its stars and its scoundrels, its utility players and everyday people. Lately there has been a lot of research about how birds of a feather flock together on social networks. Check out this study on homophily (i.e. the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others).

In my case, getting back to the point of this post, I don’t think I ‘lured’ my new colleague so much as I feel we were both attracted by the idea of working together again because we are friends who share in common a trust in each other, a respect for each other, and confidence in always being there for the other while constantly having fun as colleagues.

I’m 45 years old now. The other day we did a demographic study of B-M’s predominantly young and majority female staff of approximately 600 people in Asia, and I was stunned to discover that we have only 14 people who are my age or above. PR is indeed a younger person’s game.

So, for me as I get older, the journey is becoming much more important than the destination. Some people are willing to put up with a lot of work unhappiness hoping to get some big payday in the future, but I’m with Eckhart Tolle when it comes to ‘the power of now,’ focusing on the possibilities of the present moment. Thus when I saw a chance to work again every day with someone who is such a fine friend, I was immediately convinced that this would be a good idea.

Why?

Because one thing I know over a long PR life is that as careers evolve, the friends you work with during special and formative phases of your career scatter to the winds, so if those winds should ‘lure’ those friends together again, then life is pretty good.

* Margaret is one of Asia’s foremost public relations professionals and one of the region’s great healthcare communicators. Korea is a key strategic growth market for us in Asia and she has a proven track record of business success in Seoul. I worked with her for years at Edelman and experienced first-hand how Margaret inspires colleagues, clients and communities by setting the standard for PR excellence. She is emblematic of the entrepreneurial, digital, and ambitious new generation of diverse talent we are now rallying in Asia.

Categories: friends
comments(2) Tags: b-m, friends, homophily, margaret

Fortune 100 social media PR study

February 24th, 2010 / 12:00 pm

Check out Burson-Marsteller’s interesting new study on the social media communications of Fortune 100 companies:

2010 B-M social media check-up

Categories: Burson-Marsteller
comments(0) Tags: b-m, PR, social media

Two weeks into a great PR job

February 16th, 2010 / 7:00 am

The expression ‘drinking from the fire hose’ seems an apt one for my first two weeks as the new CEO of Burson-Marsteller in Asia-Pacific. In starting a new job in the information and networking business that is modern PR, the amount of data one needs to instantly absorb and the extent of relationships that must be suddenly forged is fantastic. It’s a pity we humans don’t come pre-equipped with pattern recognition software hard-wired into our brains.

My first day was spent in our firm’s Washington, DC office, which is a research-rich public relations and public affairs powerhouse. Given my lifelong passion for politics, I felt really alive there, like I was in a campaign headquarters with election day looming just around the corner. What I especially noticed is the ubiquity of bright and talented young people working in senior positions alongside profoundly experienced colossi of the PR and research worlds. In a way, the place had the meritocratic feel of Star Trek, where the best and brightest have well earned the top spots on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Then I proceeded to New York, where the B-M office has all the hustle and bustle that one expects of a Big Apple operation. Its substantial quality atmosphere is a distinguishing characteristic, evidenced in the apparent confidence of people who know that they are at the top of their game. The history and gravitas of the firm are unmistakable and I found the NY folks friendly, focused and unusually dedicated to their clients and colleagues. Many of them were kind enough to come and hear me provide a presentation in tandem with the showing of this superb TED video that plots the future trajectory of Asia’s economic rise. On my last day, I shot this video with the delightful Rose Gordon of PR Week.

Following that, it was on to Singapore aboard SQ-21, the world’s longest non-stop flight. As a Canadian who a few days earlier had been shivering in Toronto’s bracing -20 weather, I found Singapore’s +30 degrees an extreme antidote to the winter. The warmth of the welcome I received was commensurate with with the equatorial heat. Our office in Singapore is bursting at the seams owing to rapid growth, and having met many of the staff, I can understand why space will continue to be at a premium.

A few days later, I discovered much the same in our fast-growing Hong Kong office, where I learned first-hand about the massive bench strength B-M offers in public affairs and corporate communications. What I didn’t know beforehand is the top talent and growing business of the firm in the area of brand marketing. I also noticed here, as elsewhere in the region, the fact that while my new firm excels at telling the stories of world multinationals in Asia, it also champions Asian multinationals communicating their stories with the world.

Actually, compared to what I was expecting and to my past experience (having competed staunchly against B-M for years), I found that my new consultancy:

is considerably larger than what I had been told and also faster growing
excels at doing all kinds of great digital work that clients count on every day
offers an above average consistency of quality service across practices and geographies
has a far more sophisticated program focused on large multinational clients than I’ve ever seen before
consists of generally happy people who seem to feel that the journey is just as important as the destination
offers advanced financial systems and a well developed human resources infrastructure competently run with a sincere interest in employees’ lives
invests heavily in serious evidence-based intellectual capital that’s actually applied to the task of devising client communications programs (rather than just agency marketing)

B-M is not perfect and there are certainly areas for development in my turf (foremost among them is spreading the word more about the under-appreciated positives above), but these are the stand-out characteristics that I noticed.

Now that I’m into my third week (four if you include the days I spent personally responding to 778 congratulatory e-mails after my announcement went out), I feel confident in saying that B-M in Asia:

will always aim at setting a new PR standard with a relentless focus on achieving certainty of positive business outcomes delivered through client-centric consulting excellence
will be driven by an ambition to be the best we can be through continuous improvement to maintain our premier position

Yes, you can tell that I am now advocating my new company’s point of view, and more likely to emphasize that our glass is half-full. One of the things I have respected most about B-M over the years is that it didn’t need to call itself a thought leader to actually be one. But this is no time for complacency about our offer. These days, the competition is out there self-heralding its attributes more aggressively than ever, so I feel we need to underline where we are strong and growing with an evidence-based confidence that I am told by our veteran players has always been at the core of B-M’s corporate character.

I’m a greenhorn in the company with lots to learn (and no doubt many mistakes to make), but these are some of the the experiences I’ve gained during these early weeks. I’m so busy now that maintaining this blog will be hard, but I’ll try and keep at it.

Categories: Burson-Marsteller, blog
comments(2) Tags: b-m, culture, PR

Now I’m a ‘Burson Person’

January 24th, 2010 / 11:30 am

Now that it’s official I will be joining Burson-Marsteller as the firm’s new President and CEO in the Asia-Pacific region, I would like to offer a few reflections about how I got here.

When I elected to leave Edelman (where I served as its North Asia President) after six years of service, Harold Burson was kind enough to send me a personal e-mail message wishing me well. I was intrigued that he should take such an interest in my career trajectory, and I made a mental note to follow-up with him in due course. That I did a few months later, and so on the brisk morning of October 22^nd in New York City, I met the legendary founder of my new firm for the first time.

During our pow-wow at his Park Avenue office, I was blown away by the depth and breadth of his feel for the public relations industry. I was especially impressed by his sense of people in PR and his understanding of what makes them tick. It became clear to me that one key ingredient of his success over the years is his acute awareness of the other person’s point of view and a sensitivity to their needs and concerns. This I found very refreshing, because in the small town that is the global public relations industry, there are a lot of fast talkers but not nearly as many good listeners.

The antique radio in Mr. Burson’s office caught my eye, because I collect them as a hobby. In the old technology of radio, like the new technology of social media, there is a term called ‘signal to noise.’ Let me just say that I left our hour-long meeting thinking that this man has probably more ’signal’ and less ‘noise’ about him than just about anyone else I’ve ever met in the industry.

In many ways, I felt as though I had met Mr. Burson repeatedly during my career through his consistently premium-grade representatives, aka ‘The Burson Person.’ My first PR mentor and a co-founding partner of my old firm in Canada cut his teeth at Burson-Marsteller. When I first moved to Seoul, Burson was the class act in that country and I very deliberately applied lessons learned from its winning ways when I was in charge of Edelman Korea. Later, as I traveled across Asia, I discovered that a large proportion of the region’s top talent earned its spurs at B-M and when I met Simon Pangrazio and asked for his advice about building a business in North Asia (an experience that my predecessor and I share in common), he — like all the other B-M pros I’ve met since then — could not have been more impressive.

Fast forward to New Year’s Eve a few weeks ago, when I first spoke to B-M’s Global CEO, Mark Penn. I had almost signed on with another firm by year’s end, but I found his intelligence and vision most compelling and I decided to pursue the B-M option with enthusiasm. Especially because I’ve been giving these lectures on campus of late about how public relations is becoming more of a science than just an art, I was immediately drawn to B-M’s new, data-focused approach to PR called “Evidence-Based Communications.”

I’ve really enjoyed my 18 month sabbatical, but now I am looking forward to working with a tremendously talented team of the highest caliber and professional character. This is a business that’s going places (for many of the reasons I wrote about in this blog post about choosing the right PR firm).

With a rich inheritance of wisdom and experience gained during nearly four decades of experience in Asia-Pacific, Burson-Marsteller is addressing the future with confidence as we focus on setting a new PR standard of excellence in communications achievement.

Categories: Burson-Marsteller
comments(28) Tags: asia, b-m, burson, careers, penn, PR