Blog Line

Last night I went to hear contrarian writer, Christopher Hitchens at the University of Toronto. For those of you unfamiliar with Hitchens he wrote a rather infamous criticism of Mother Teresa. He is the same man who wrote a sarcastic essay for Vanity Fair on Princess Diana’s demise. Whatever you may think of his views he is a very good writer. Biting, highly intelligent, highly literate and with a “take no prisoners” wit. What’s not to love?

So last night I trudged out to see him speak, in the flesh, at UofT. A groupie. With envy (I write) he is also an amazing speaker. First, of all is the incredibly plummy British accent. Second, is the literary and historical analogies and anecdotes that sprinkle his comments. I felt like I needed to enroll in kindergarten, start over, because I had obviously missed alot. His intelligence in crafting and dissecting an argument is a blood sport. I could have listened to him for hours. Obviously others felt the same because disciples followed him into the rain and gathered round while he lit the ever present cigarette.

Today I had the opportunity to meet with a photographer, Janet Kimber, and study her portfolio. Her work can be found on www.Janetkimber.com. The images are beautiful but what was even more compelling were Janet’s comments as to the thinking and strategy behind each photograph and even her emotions at the time she was shooting. The photographs I was looking at were for commercial purposes. While they were fine art photographs they were meant for brochures, advertising, postcards etc.. That said, the creative process reflected in each image was intriguing. As I looked at the images it made me consider the process we use in developing communications programs.

It also reminded me how important it is not to get stale which is of course an occupational hazard. It is good to be reminded of how important creativity is to my business and how important it is that I ensure the creative process is strengthened in my team - as important as ensuring they have working phones and computers. To that end, I have invited Janet to come to GCI and take our team through her images and describe the creative process that went into making each one.

Last night I was catching up on the mound of reading piled on my couch. In the October 2, 2006 issue of BusinessWeek is an article entitled “MySpace for the Sandlot Set”. Basically it profiles social networking sets targeted to tweens and pretweens. Wow! clubpenquin.com, imbee.com to name a few. The author writes about his nine year old son’s experience on clubpenquin.com. That’s where his friends are. When I was nine my friends lived down the road. In my next career I am tempted to take a Ph.d in anthropology because I am fascinated by the prospect of what the impact will be on our society over the long term, particularly as these kids get older. Forget about how they will interact in the online world when they are 20. How will they interact as members of society in the physical world? I am not prejudging the answer as negative, I think it’s just interesting to think about.

Recently I attended the first seminar in an excellent four-part series for current and aspiring corporate directors offered by the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. There was a great deal of animated discussion regarding the recent Hewlett-Packard misadventures. Several of the people attending the seminar were veteran board directors and were perplexed by how the issues facing HP had snowballed into a full fledged corporate meltdown so fast. Of course, one of the dimensions to the HP story is the accelerated compression of the traditional news cycle, due to the rabid competitive demands of battling news outlet websites, coupled with the new found ability of stakeholders to weigh in with their views in real time through blogs and emails directly to corporate executives or media. It was a “click” moment for me. The challenges and opportunities derived from online communications will have the same wholesale impact on corporate governance as Sarbanes-Oxley. The HP saga gives a peek into this new world’s expectations regarding investor transparency and timely disclosure.

With this phrase we launch the GCI Canada blog. Like others, we believe that blogs are just an extension to the town hall meeting, the coffee klatch, or simply stopping to chat with your neighbour on the side walk after a morning jog. Communications on blogs are rambling, top of mind and of course absolutely, indiscriminately democratic. Some times eloquent and sometimes not. We cannot promise that we will always be eloquent. We hope to be engaging and at our very best provocative. At the very least we will always add to the conversation. That’s our goal. You will let us know if we are being successful.