Denise Young Smith, Apple’s first vice president of diversity and inclusion, went on the record opining that there can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation. Declaring that diversity is the human experience, Smith said: ‘I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of colour, or the women, or the LGBT.’ Read on ›

When a leading global provider of research on corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) positions ethical banking as a feel good investment package, we should push back. Ethics is about what we ought to do. It is not about what’s expedient and driven by self-interest.

 Read on ›

Blimey, talk about the emperor’s wardrobe. Look around, and PR professionals will quickly come across a new-ish crop of pseudo-science which is supposed to guide them as to what their trade is and how to do it. They shouldn’t need the warning. But some, such as participants in The Holmes Report’s recent Global Public Relations Summit 2012 in Miami, who discussed ‘Persuasion, Empathy, and Neural Coupling‘ and ‘Unlocking the Brain’s Secrets About Creativity And Decision Making‘, seemingly need it stated plainly. This stuff is likely to be claptrap. Read on ›

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

Edelman’s Trust Barometer is a major highlight of the PR calendar because it provides global and historically comparative data we can mull over. This year there’s a welcome shift in Edelman’s narrative. Gone is the anti-profit, anti-business and all stakeholders are equal tone that I’ve criticised in the past.  Read on ›

I love Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer, not least because it offers year-on-year comparative data. But its findings should come with a health warning. Read on ›

Jonathan Porritt’s, Britain’s leading environmental campaigner, speech to the Royal Society in London this week is entitled The Growth Fetish and the Death of Environmentalism. Here’s why PRs should take him seriously, if only to debunk him. Read on ›

Here’s a critique of the tyranny of apologies and the hypocrisy of sponsors and the general public. It’s a call to all to stop faking it. It is a cry for the return of commonsense, reserve and a mind-your-own-business attitude. Read on ›

Unaccountably, neither WEF nor Richard Edelman invited me to Davos (I’m just down the road, chaps) to discuss the latest Edelman 2010 trust study findings. So, I’ve decided to interrogate the findings anyway from my Zurich lakeside villa. Read on ›

Financial Times (FT) research suggests that the public trusts itself to look after savings and investments more than banks, building societies or independent financial advisers. Yet most respondents said that, despite their lack of trust, they had not reduced their risk levels in these bodies. Read on ›