This piece is one of my most-read blasts from the past. Its content remains vividly contemporary. Enjoy.

Richard Edelman’s Voodoo Academia replies to Professor Aneel Karnani of the University of Michigan’s Business School’s The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility. But who’s voodooing whom? Read on ›

In the late 20th century PR had to manage an increasing number of controversial issues. It became part of the corporate story: the spotlight was turned on its own activities. Firms were invited – rather forcefully – to address their reputations the way they once addressed profits. Read on ›

Here’s a manifesto in favour of decent top-down adult leadership rather than the febrile fashions of the crowd.   Read on ›

Of course PR is about building relationships. Even more than most, our business is diplomacy and even schmoozing and wooing. But let’s not get too soft about our game – or our clients’. Read on ›

So, the scandal-ridden English FA accuses the scandal-ridden FIFA of corruption. The media are calling for Mr Blatter’s head on a platter. PR Week’s PR “experts” are urging FIFA to cringe and apologize, reform and move on. (What we call ARM PR.) Meanwhile, Mr Blatter asks, crisis, what crisis?

Read on ›

Welcome to my redesigned online review. It’s got one big new feature: it handles essay-length material better. These pieces are intended to last longer than your average blog. That’s part of my wider mission now. I want to sketch out some scenarios for the future of PR and produce a book about them. They are mostly to do with how respectable our business ought to be. Read on ›

We PRs cannot avoid philosophical matters because, as Martin Sandbu says in his new book Just Business – Arguments in Business Ethics, decisions made by business have consequences for other people. Read on ›

Public relations professionals don’t really do philosophy: we’re in the people business, and sound-bites suit us better than Immanuel Kant’s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785). As for our clients, well, we’re bound to note their lust for the latest guru-speak getting lift-off from an airport bookshop. Read on ›

Prudential CEO Tidjane Thiam has just learnt the hard way that he is accountable first and foremost to his shareholders. His climb down over the £24.6 billion proposed bid for AIA now looks set to cost his company £450 million and might yet cost him his job. We care partly because the Pru has for decades been the watchword of, well, prudence. Read on ›

Note: This piece needs to be treated with care. I was the victim of a sophisticated hoax. I apologize to anybody who was mislead. But I’m leaving the post here as a spoof of a spoof. It shows how even if the anti-Shell campaigning trickesters got their way, it would not address the problems in Nigeria in a sensible or realistic manner but would actually make things worse.

Yesterday “Shell” (go to hoax press release) said it was going to clean up the Niger Delta, compensate local communities for past injuries, and institute a local stakeholders’ program that will help lift the region out of poverty. That sounds like good news. But what if the real victim is the truth? Read on ›