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Article Focus: Compensation in a downturn
Many companies are in a predicament right now. Their financial performance during the first half of the year was fairly strong and, as such, their full-year numbers are good enough to provide bonuses to key staff members who performed well.
But the second half of the year, especially the fourth quarter, has been terrible, with signs that things will only get worse in 2009. In an environment of staff and budget cuts, how can a company also pay out bonuses?
This dilemma raises two questions, one financial, and the other moral. First, is it financially prudent to pay out bonuses ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Leadership, Compensation
Article Focus: Activism on the Internet
It has been more than 40 years since a group of Columbia University students staged a sit-in at the office of the president, Grayson Kirk, to protest (among other things) the school's affiliation with a consortium that did military research for the government. The incident led some to conclude that a generational revolution had begun with radical college students leading the way.
While the recent presidential campaign saw a return to the headlines of one of that era's revolutionaries – William Ayers – many observed that today's college students seemed pretty docile compared to their parents' generation. Where were the anti-war protesters? Where were the anti-globalists? Why weren't more students displaying anger with the corporate greed that had sown the seeds for financial cataclysm? ... More
Keywords: Social Media, Influence, Activism
Article Focus: Keys to leadership: confidence, consistency
I'm going out on a ledge here, and writing this column two weeks before Election Day. There's a decent chance you're reading this after we know the identity of our next president. So if Sen. John McCain won the election, what follows won't hold much water. But, if Sen. Barack Obama is our next president, I think there are some lessons we should all consider.
The last weeks of the campaign were particularly volatile due to intense problems with the economy. The quickly assembled bailout package, followed by the wild fluctuations of the stock market, created a crisis mentality, adding to the already combative election cycle ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Leadership, CEO Counsel
Article Focus: PR Education: The value of guest speakers
Much has been written about the unprecedented transfer of wealth that will soon gain momentum as a generation of baby boomers passes along a lifetime of upward mobility to its children and grandchildren. While the financial turmoil of the last few months has trimmed many nest eggs, it still promises to be quite a haul for the Gen-Xers and Millennials.
But we baby boomers have another precious holding in our portfolios, one that hasn't lost any of its value as the markets have tanked. It is the sum total of our vast knowledge and experience, gained through years of trial and error in the all-too-real world in which we have lived ... More
Keywords: Commentary, PR Education
Article Focus: Maximizing productivity from agencies
Most chief communications officers right now are coming under intense pressure to streamline their budgets. CEOs and CFOs seem to be preparing for a further downturn in 2009.
One area that often gets attention is outside agency spending. Having held senior positions with Burson-Marsteller, Ketchum and GCI Group, and as a former client-side CCO, I know something about this subject.
Let me offer some tips. If you’re a CCO, before you focus on the agency, focus on your own practices. Some things to think about ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Managing Agencies, Productivity
Article Focus: PR Education: Theory vs. practice
As I write this, all across the country thousands of faculty members in schools of communication, journalism and related disciplines are beginning a new academic year. While estimates vary, it is safe to say that well over 50,000 and perhaps as many as 75,000 students of communication, journalism, public relations and similar majors are cutting the tags off their new back packs, scuffing up their flip flops and saying goodbye to their summer friends as they head back to campus ... More
Keywords: Commentary, PR Education
Article Focus: Taking action in a crisis
This month I’m going to shift from internal management to issues management, and our case study comes straight from the last few weeks’ headlines:
Day after day, we’ve seen pictures of Koreans jamming the streets to protest lifting of a ban on U.S. beef imports. The protests were inflamed
... More
Keywords: Commentary, Crisis & Issues Management
Article Focus: PR's growing gender gap
Anyone who has spent time lately in college classrooms speaking to students in public relations and communication disciplines has seen first-hand an unmistakable trend. The field is finding it increasingly difficult to attract male students. I have spoken .. More
Keywords: Commentary
Article Focus: Managing budget cuts
I’ve been friends for a long time with a guy we’ll call Marvin Blotnick. Marvin was flying home from Chicago the other day having spent a tough two days at a corporate senior management meeting. Marvin was stressed. He told me every executive at the meeting was asked to do scenario planning, which meant Marvin had to come back with two new budgets, one reflecting a 10 percent cut ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Organization Design, Resource Allocation
Article Focus: The importance of business in PR education
I recently joined thirty colleagues from the academic, agency and corporate worlds for a symposium co-sponsored by the Arthur W. Page Society and the Institute for Public Relations, organizations I currently serve as a trustee. The symposium was hosted for the third year at the Tuck School of Business ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Professional Development
Article Focus: Helping tacticians become strategists
Why do many CCOs I meet these days express frustration that their people are often viewed in their companies as tacticians, not strategists? Take the case of two people I know: Sid Lipschitz and Zelda Schpondulix, executives at the Acme Explosives Corporation. (Okay, the characters are composites and the company name requires credit to Warner Bros., but the situation is real.)... More
Keywords: Commentary, Organizational Design
Article Focus: Lessons from new recruits
I recently accompanied a group of 37 college students on a fact-finding trip to Atlanta. The purpose of the trip was to provide these students—mostly seniors majoring in Communication—a first-hand view of the world of corporate communications, a world they are about to enter as graduates. Observing that world through their young eyes ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Professional Development
Article Focus: How to do more with less
Based on recent work, Feldman & Partners has identified the following trends and insights that we believe will have serious and long-term ramifications on the world of communications. All observations link to the warning bells we now hear: the economy is tightening and many companies will be in for a rough ride. That means more potential crises, more tough issues and, unfortunately, pressure to do more with ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Trendspotting
Stepping up to the Gen Y Challenge
Article Focus: Managing and retaining the future workforce
Fortune magazine’s recent cover story on Gen Y is fair notice:
There are a lot of them and more are coming!
And many are coming into the world of PR.
GenY, estimated by recent census data at 70+ million, isn’t just the future of business, they’re here today forcing companies to adapt to their unique set of values and ... More
Keywords: Commentary, Professional Development, Organizational Design
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