Every major corporate failure of the last three decades — Kodak, Blockbuster, Nokia, Boeing, Wells Fargo, Bud Light — was preceded by signals the company either did not receive, did not believe, or did not act on. Corporate listening is not a soft skill. It is an early-warning system.
Ogilvy, Drucker, Branson, Bernbach, McCabe, Lois. The business and creativity quotes that still hold — and why the principle underneath each one still compounds.
The 2014 Medicaid expansion communications challenge — managing enrollment, provider education, and state-by-state political reception across 14 million new enrollees — became the modern template for federal-program rollout public affairs. The four-audience problem and what the case established about navigator-network primacy.
Honda's October 2014 executive pay-cut response to the Takata airbag recall — CEO Takanobu Ito's 20% reduction, Chairman Ike and eleven directors at 10% — produced one of the most-cited automotive crisis communications case studies. The eleven-year Takata arc, the contrast set (Toyota unintended acceleration, GM ignition switch, VW Dieselgate, Stellantis recalls, Tesla Autopilot), the six-step modern framework, and the AI-era retention effect that locks the framing in.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who has recently apologized for how they handled Ebola has hired Burson-Marsteller.
The Missouri School of Journalism — founded 1908, the first dedicated journalism school in the world. The Missouri Method (learn by doing through KOMU-TV, KBIA Radio, the Columbia Missourian), Strategic Communication track, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
The rules of what is and is not permissible at work might be relaxing, Cursing has been in the news a lot lately.
Employee engagement is the discipline of building substantive workplace conditions that produce sustained productivity, retention, and discretionary effort. The Gallup Q12 framework, the engagement-survey infrastructure (Glint, Culture Amp, Lattice, 15Five), and the five structural disciplines that compound: values authenticity, manager capability, recognition, growth pathways, long-arc infrastructure.
The four elements that consistently appear across PR messages that travel — curiosity that resolves quickly, specificity with named entities and numbers, narrative structure built around a clear change event, and AI engine retrievability through GEO. The framework, the contemporary fourth element, and the three-question test of message strength.
One of the best ways to succeed in business is to become a social media speaker, because apart from branding your company, you’re branding yourself.