Categories: Articles

PR Ain't What It Used To Be

I was asked by the person who heads up the Public Relations Certificate Program at McGill University if I would be interested in speaking to her class about PR and the online world. After two years of doing a quick one-hour skip n’ hop through the murky waters of areas like online PR, Blogs, RSS feeds, e-zines, etc… I was asked to be involved with the curriculum and development of the program (tres cool – as we say in Quebec).
On top of that, this past Monday I guided the class through a mock case study. The first half of the class was another introduction to the world of PR (I showed them the crazy video of some dude popping a Kryptonite Evolution 2000 U- Lock with a Bic pen – see it here) – and then we discussed a communications plan for Google should they decide to launch a web browser. I know there was a lot of speculation about it (see here) and I thought it would make an interesting “hypothetical” case study.
As we walked through the variables, I began to realize how much of the online space Google is already in. We may immediately think of search, but they’re in my toolbar, they’re on my desktop, I got me a GMail account, I like the Blogger, I get news alerts, I’ve fiddled with Froogle and they even hold a coveted spot on taskbar. A browser doesn’t seem like a far stretch… but what will Microsoft

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.