TWTWTW #16 ♀️ Women winning Taiwan’s PR war 🍪 Cracker radio 🦋 Digital transformation 📰 Biased news 🗳 TikTok election stars

Welcome

🙏 Thank you!

Thank you all for the great reception and feedback after last week's That Was The Week That Was. I originally started TWTWTW because I was already doing the 'hard' part of reading and collating news , opinion and research about the future of public relations and communication. I have to spend a lot of time doing it as I need to know it in order to counsel clients. The two best things about TWTWTW for me are firstly the great feedback I get every week and that writing it gives me time to reflect on what I've learnt each week. Let me know what you think of this week's edition.

News

🍆 How not to hold a presser

We've probably all struggled to find the right venue for a presser. But hopefully none of my readers have bungled it as badly as Rudy Giuliani's team who mistakenly chose a deserted car park outside a landscaping business next to a sex shop instead of the prestigious Four Seasons hotel it thought it had chosen.

♀️ Women are winning Taiwan’s PR war against China

An interesting explanation of how Taiwan is trying to win the soft war with China by winning the battle for public opinion. It is doing so by utilising some of the powerful women in its leadership team. These include Taiwan's female president Tsai Ing-wen and Hsiao Bi-khim, its 'ambassador' in Washington DC. Despite the fact there is no official diplomatic relationship she is frequently on TV and in the press pushing Taiwan's agenda.

Corporate affairs

🍪 Cracker radio keeps workers happy

People often forget that video and audio aren't new content formats for public relations or communication professionals. This is a wonderful story about how United Biscuits set up its own radio station in the 1970s to help keep factory workers happy and reduce staff turnover. It ran for nearly 10 years and many of its DJs went on to be stars of commercial radio.

🦋 Five factors for successful digital transformation

Diginomica is one of my favourite reads for keeping up to date on enterprise technology. However, it's usually articles by its founding writers that grab my attention. This is a sponsored piece by Simon Mulcahy, chief innovation officer at Salesforce, which explores five factors needed for successful digital transformation. These include how you make decisions, how you engage customers, how you work, how you embrace technology and how you serve society. All highly relevant to public relations and corporate affairs professionals.

Research and reports

⬛ 32% of employees don't believe their company's communication is authentic on BLM

Public relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Sadly too many people think PR is just about communication and forget what you do is far more important. This new research shows many companies fell into this trap when commenting on Black Lives Matter. Many of their employees simply didn't believe what they said.

🌍 ICCO World PR Report is positive and negative

The annual World PR Report by the International Communication Consultants Organisaion (ICCO) always has lots of interesting data. This year's report is no exception and shows how the PR industry has been impacted by the pandemic. I've done an analysis of some of the most interesting findings.

CommTech tools

🖱️ Microsoft launches free website analytics tool

Microsoft has launched a new free website analytics tool. Microsoft Clarity enables you to see how users actually behave while on your website. Session playbacks let you replay a recording of how a user navigated your site and see where they clicked and where they scrolled to. Heat maps show which parts of a page are getting the most attention. At the moment it's just for clicks, but will soon include scroll behaviour. The tool has been designed to scale and can be used on any size website without compromising speed or performance.

📰 Check how biased a news story might be

Ground News is a new browser extension that helps you check the bias of news stories. Install the extension in Chrome or Edge and it will tell you how many and which other news organisations are covering the story across the political spectrum.

Professional practice

🔥 Philippe Borremans is new IPRA president

The IPRA's new president is Philippe Borremans. I've known Philippe for many years and he's well qualified to fill the role of leading the International Public Relations Association. He is a Belgian national who has also lived and worked in Morocco and Portugal. Most recently he has been working with the World Health Organisation in the Philippines on emergyncy risk and crisis communicaitons.

👓 PRCA and CIPR set-up COVID-19 Observatory Project

The UK's Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and Public Relations Communications Association (PRCA) are working together on the COVID-19 Observatory Project. Led by Rod Cartwright it will evaluate and share the experiences of communication professionals responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The global project is looking for volunteers to participate in panels in each country. Disclaimer: Rod is a friend and I work with him as a co-founder of The Decision Circle.

AI, digital and social

🗳 TikTok makes election analysts its new superstars

If you still think TikTok is just crazy dances and pointless memes then you need to think again. It is full of crazy dances and memes, but it's also where an increasing number of people are seeing information about important issues and news. Fancam videos of election analysts are the latest TikTok craze. Fancam videos are where fans splice together videos of their favourite TikTok celebrities which now include CNN's John King and MSNBC's Steve Kornacki.

That Was The Week That Was

🙏 It's a wrap

Thanks for making it to the end of That Was The Week That Was. All of this week's stock photos were from JumpStory, as it has kindly given me an extended three-month trial of its library. Thanks JumpStory.

If you spot anything that you think should be in next week's edition then please let me know and I'll credit you with the spot.