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PRspectives

Commentary on communications by Ross Hendin

ABCP In the Canadian SpotlightDecember 7 2007

While I have worked in the Asset Backed Commercial Paper niche for over a year through two clients, the last few months in the Canadian industry have become very interesting from a PR point of view. I’m going to be writing more about this, and pointing you to critical points that make for good case-studies in litigation communication and crisis management.

The first one to note is my guest blog entry on the Clarity Financial Strategy website . A Canadian investment firm that prides themselves on being independent has sued a bank saying that they knew the ABCP market in Canada was going to crash, and yet they did nothing to warn the firms that bought the product from them. The suit is a response to the investment firm’s clients suing the firm for giving bad advice.

So, a company that calls themselves independent thinkers is suing a bank because they took bad advice (as opposed to looking on their own for products to recommend) and they didn’t do proper independent due diligence on the advice they received before giving that bad advice to their clients.

Please look at the Clairty blog entry. It’s an interesting story.

Upgrading The BlogDecember 7 2007

I am working to try and bring a new theme to the blog and to fix the columns that are usually on both sides of the window.

I’m not a tech guy. I am currently looking for somebody who can fix this for me, but as I’m in London on business I am not sure how long it will take.

Thanks for your patience with the site.

Ross

Leave A LegacyNovember 28 2007

November 26 marks an important day in Bush’s legacy: it will forever be known as the day he tried again to bring something other than shame to his legacy.

The idea behind it is simple.  Iraq, the war on terror, the war on drugs (yes, it’s still being fought) and the war against alien residency, are all being lost… so, why not go for broke and try to solve the middle east issues instead?

Bush hasn’t really been interested in the Middle East much over the past 7 years, and to me, it’s a bit late in the game to start now. His peace talks would be great PR, if only Bush were able to pronounce the names of his guests properly.

This article from Sky News quotes bush as saying:

“I pledge to devote my effort during my time as president to do all I can to help you achieve this ambitious goal,” Mr Bush told Mr Abbas and Mr Olmert.

He has less than a year to make this happen.  It’s his last year to leave a mark.

And while the publicity around the event asks the question if this could be the turning point for issues in the middle east, I think that since Abbas speaks for less than half of the people in the area, and there is riots in the streets very often, Abbas’s putting a plan together and the people he represents following the accord are two very different issues.

The End Of The Little LaptopNovember 27 2007

Thansgiving weekend, WSJ, page 1, is an article about how the 1 laptop per child program is being destroyed.

I wrote a post about how positive the PR was around the project. Its here.  Read it before reading the article link above.

Since this is a blog about perspectives and perception.  I have to say this is probably some of the worst PR Microsoft or AMD can possibly imagine.

It’s a poorly managed reaction to a campaign the public loved, and I am SURE that there are a number of ways the companies could have positioned the move to look a bit better than this. I know what I would have done, but I’ll save that for another blog post when the dust settles.

 

 

Great Marketing Or Too Much Free Time?November 22 2007

One of the things that facinates me about the Apple products is how well they are covered on the internet, and in a “grass roots” way. People always seem to be coming up with funny facts and ideas about them. Now, people are doing hacks and tricks with all kinds of toys, but its rare that they are feverishly forwarded around the internet.

Here’s a great example.