Tuesday October 8, 2024

Short-term Thinking

This report reveals that SUVs are growing larger.  No one is thinking of the mileage for these behemoths nor the cost to operate them.  As long as gas prices remain low, they will sell.  It is short-term thinking in a warming climate.  The attitude is “I want more.”  The reality is that for every SUV […]

Off With His Head

The CEO of Boeing has received a cruel Christmas present.  He has been summarily fired and the chairman is taking his place.  His failure to get the 737 Max back into the air was a proximate cause but also his ham-handed PR attempts made the situation worse.  He apologized to the victims of two air […]

Shouldn’t Have Done It?

Elon Musk has pitted his Model S Tesla against the Porsche EV, Taycan.  The Taycan won.  Now it is winning the social media chatter as well.  Some commentators are predicting that Musk will need to do a total redesign of the Model S to stay up with the competition.  He can barely afford to do […]

Big Fine

If Goldman Sachs settles fraud charges relating to 1MNB, it is possible it will pay $2 billion as a fine.  That’s a huge amount even for the legendary trading and banking house.  It, however, will not win the Wall Street firm’s reputation back.  The fine will serve as a reminder for Goldman and competitors that […]

Deepfake

This reporter did what good journalists do when confronted by new technology.  He used it to create a deepfake video by supplanting one person’s face for another.  It cost him $500 and two weeks of time.  His conclusion?  It’s not as easy as it sounds and PR practitioners and others might not need to worry […]

Struggle

When you’re a minor player in a tough, unforgiving marketplace, you should be allowed to merge to survive.  But that is not the way state’s attorneys general see it with the proposed merger of Sprint and T-Mobile US.  They say that reducing the wireless market to three big players rather than two and a group […]

Communication

Communicators can boast that they have one of the oldest known jobs in the world.  The recent cave paintings found in Indonesia are proof of that.  Why then is the job so difficult?  It seems everyday individuals and organizations suffer from communications breakdowns.  It is as if there is an innate denial of the need to […]

Government Lying

This article details how the US government misled the American people on the Afghanistan war.  It painted a rosy picture of the conflict where thorns were growing.  Now, more than a decade later, we’re mired in the country with few ways to get out.  There is little worse than government fabrications.  We are forced to […]

Cautious

Waymo, Alphabet’s driverless technology company, has taken a go-slow approach to robot vans.  It is deeply aware of the negative PR and potential regulation that could befall it should it push the software and hardware too quickly.  Waymo is offering “rider only” transport in Phoenix suburbs and has plans to extend its service to other […]

Consulting Fees

Consulting fees can be a crisis when working for the government.  That’s because contracts are usually made public and are subject to criticism.  Few like the dollar-per-hour charges consulting firms have.  They don’t understand that overhead, salary and profit are worked into the billing amount.  They do have a point when juniors are elevated to sky […]