These Women Are on Front Lines of Harassment Fight

As has been said many times by those in our business, you can’t communicate your way out of bad behavior.  It’s also true that silence doesn’t fix things, either. From Meg Fry, writing for ROI: Sexual harassment. It is common, career-altering and currently celebrity-driven. And it is a serious workplace issue that three New Jersey […]

Could It Happen Here? Talking about Somebody Else’s Accident.

Last summer’s deadly Grenfell Tower fire gave risk management expert Peter Sandman cause to consider whether a tragedy in one place should give encouragement to owners and managers of similar facilities reason to proactively talk to their stakeholders about similar risks. Conventional wisdom usually leads most to avoid drawing comparisons – or any attention whatsoever […]

Lawyers Who Do Their Own Media Strategy Have a Fool for a Client

From our good friend, Gene Grabowski: A disturbing sidebar to the story about accusations that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein engaged in decades of alleged sexual misconduct features the performance of his former lawyer, Lisa Bloom. Bloom, who resigned after clashing with the Weinstein Company’s board of directors, was recently exposed for presenting to the board […]

How Social Media Fires People’s Passions – and Builds Extremist Divisions

From Robert Kozinets, at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, writing for The Conversation: The people of the United States continue to learn how polarized and divided the nation has become. In one study released in late October by the Pew Research Center, Americans were found to have become increasingly partisan in […]

10 Body Language Myths That Limit Success

From our industry colleague, Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D, writing in CommPro: Body language plays a key role in your career – from your first job interview to the ongoing process of building professional relationships to being perceived as having  leadership presence. But not everything you’ve heard about body language is accurate. Don’t limit your success by buying into […]

Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. Bad Apologies: Papa John’s

By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications   Papa John’s has delivered the latest example of a too-little, too-late, too-lame apology. As noted just about everywhere, including CNN, Papa John’s attempted to apologize on Twitter, in a series of tweets, after CEO John Schnatter said on an earnings call that sales of the official pizza of the NFL […]

The Future of Truth in the Post-Truth Era

By Howard Fencl/Hennes Communications Here’s a frightening quote from a founder of Wired magazine – perhaps the most frightening quote about the future of truth I’ve yet encountered: “Truth is no longer dictated by authorities, but is networked by peers.” The rise of “fake news” and the proliferation of misinformation – particularly in the social […]

Not a Regular Cease-and-Desist, A Cool Cease-and-Desist

From The Atlantic: Phrases that are not often used to describe a cease-and-desist letter: “the best,”“hilarious,” “cool,” “perfect,” “super classy.” And yet that is exactly the praise that Netflix’s lawyers received this week, from a variety of media outlets, for going about that most lawyerly of tasks: telling people they aren’t allowed to do a thing. In this case, […]