Wednesday November 27, 2024

Internal PR

More than sparking sales, McDonald’s needs to rebuild its relationship with its franchisees.  They are hurting and as a result, their view of corporate is negative.  McDonald’s can’t afford to go to war with its franchisees.  What it needs to do is to listen to them closely then decide what to do to regain growth. […]

When PR Is Not Enough

Google Books started out as a generous and innovative idea.  Google wanted to scan all of the books in the world and make them available online.  Then, it ran afoul of authors and publishers who didn’t want their works made available free when there was still a chance of remuneration.  Since then, Google Books has […]

Price And Healing

As this article points out, the cost of healing or delaying fatal symptoms in healthcare is hard to determine and fraught with cost-benefit calculations.  If the only regimen is a high-priced medicine for a particular condition, health care providers have to hold their breath and pay.  They can scream later to the government that it […]

Rankings

Collegiate rankings are a much fought-over area of education, and as the White House discovered, it is best not to do them.  The reasons are clear.  Using a single measurement ignores multiple outcomes.  It is poor PR to proclaim rankings on the basis of one or even two measurements.  The publicity factor is high, of […]

A Black Eye

News has come out of a flaw in General Motors’ OnStar GPS and communications system for vehicles.  It turns out that five years ago, university researchers demonstrated a software hack of OnStar that would allow someone to take over control of a car except for steering.  GM did nothing about it until this year.  Apparently, […]

Time To Give Up?

Book stores were among the first businesses to be affected by the internet and it hasn’t changed.  Try as they might, bookstore chains haven’t found the key to unlock increasing sales.  The public has found other means, such as Amazon, to buy books.  This raises the question of whether it is time for the mass […]

Cost Accounting PR

University of Utah health Care is pioneering cost accounting in health care and in the process is controlling expenses as it has never done before.  Traditionally, cost accounting was reserved for manufacturing where stop watches and minutely examined activity were the norm.  University of Utah Health Care has brought that standard to medicine, something that needed to […]

Country PR

In the migrant crisis enveloping Europe, Germany has stepped up more than any other country in taking refugees in.  It will absorb 800,000 this year, and it claims it can handle 500,000 a year for several years more.  This is a river of humanity entering a country that historically was standoffish.  The numbers will change the culture of Germany […]

A Master Of Public Relations

This fellow was a master of public relations.  He knew what his customers wanted and he maintained a guarantee of satisfaction that built the company to what it is today.  That L.L. Bean is a household name with an aura of quality is directly due to him.  He should be placed in the pantheon of executives […]

Exascale PR

There is a race between the US and China over who can build the world’s most powerful super computer.  The contest has the hallmarks of unhealthy competition and building to boast — something like the space program of the 1960s.  One wonders whether there is a true need for a machine that can crunch one […]