Potential crisis: AAA’s confusing “Tipsy Tow service” for New Year’s Eve 2011, as chronicled by Shelly Kramer’s V3 Marketing blog.

Crisis in full spasm: GoDaddy and SOPA (with reminiscences of elephant scandals and sexist ads).

Happy New Year, all!

Download audio file (PRaODS-010.mp3)

• a pitch they received for guest posting here (SPOILER ALERT: we said no)
• a somewhat inappropriate pitch to blogger Liz Scherer of Flash Free about heavy menstrual flow (seriously)
• a great pitch Mark received from former colleague Michael Von Herff that ended up with a guest post on Mark’s blog
• Some pitches to TV folk that have ended successfully for Bob’s Stephen King podcast, The Kingcast.

Download audio file (PRaODS-009.mp3)

24 minutes of caffeinated audio goodness.

Download audio file (PRaODS-008.mp3)

Remember, we love to get your feedback. What’s your dream gift for communicators: prsins@gmail.com.

In any case, this is episode 6 of PR and Other Deadly Sins, with a discussion of the “fail culture” — the tendency of we humans to immediately call “FAIL” on new ideas. Enjoy.

Download audio file (PRaODS-006.mp3)

Enjoy. Preferably with some eggnog and with roasting chestnuts.

Download audio file (PRaODS-005.mp3)

"Spinning plates" by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameson42/

Did you miss us? A long vacation in September and life in general got us off track. But we’re back with episode 4 of PR and Other Deadly Sins. In this episode, we chat about how technology has allowed us to lead multiple lives. What’s that mean? Well, when my dad was a younger man, he went to work, he came home, and … that was pretty much it. Now, people can do all sorts of things — have a job and a side job. Hobbies become side businesses. And technology facilitates this to a great extent. How does this affect us and what we do?

Special thanks to Vincent White — if he hadn’t invited Mark and me for a coffee, this idea never would have come up, I wouldn’t have blogged about it, and it wouldn’t have ended up here.

Take a listen, and let us know what you think.

Download audio file (PRaODS-004.mp3)

Ironically enough, this episode fulfils a prediction made jokingly in the recording process. As Mark and I drove around Ottawa doing media interviews for Podcasters Across Borders, there was a joke that the episode we were recording in the car wouldn’t make it up until August.

Ha.

This chat deals with how worlds collide — how in a world where someone can have a personal profile on social media as well as a “job profile” which can come into conflict.

Enjoy.

Download audio file (PRaODS-003.mp3)

Episode 2 of PR and Other Deadly Sins is live!

This time, Mark and Bob talk about the changing climate of work. Once upon a time you could smoke at your desk, and the boozy lunch was a staple of the working world.

Now, yellow lines demarcate how far smokers must be from building entrances and people not only don’t drink at lunch, they eat at their desks. And even if you’re a non-smoker, you may work in a scent-free workplace that keeps you from dabbing on your favorite cologne or perfume (Mark: Drakkar Noir! Bob: “I’m on a horse!“)

Kidding aside, there are serious questios to be considered here:

• how do employees and employers cope with the changing mores of the workplace?
• when rights collide, who decides the “winners” and “losers?”
• And what’s the next workplace taboo?

We now work in a world where some employers block access to web sites considered “personal” (for example, the Ontario government’s blocking Facebook, and the many examples listed on Shel Holtz‘s Stop Blocking site). But at the same time, Blackberries, iPhones, netbooks, notebooks, and widespread broadband access mean that people are often expected to be available to work 24/7.While flex time is often considered a “benefit” to workers, some research suggests workers on flexible work schedules actually work more hours.

Will “time stealing” be the next workplace taboo? Or is it something else? We’d like to know what you think. So take a listen, then tell us.

Episode 2 of PR and Other Deadly Sins:

Recorded live (because it’s difficult to record it otherwise) at Carleton University after a radio interview with David Yazbeck about Podcasters Across Borders 2010 (which you’re already registered for, RIGHT?!).

Here’s the download link.

Show notes for Episode 2 of PR and Other Deadly Sins

• 0:00 introductions and fluffy happychat
• 1:10 Globe and Mail article that inspired the topic (only available to subscribers now)
• 2:00 Bob admits to missing the end of the boozy lunch and envies Danish truck drivers
• 3:30 Back to sensitivities about scent, and the social contracts that are unwritten in workplaces
• 5:30 A gratuitous slag by Bob against HR and its  “hamfisted” approach to communication followed by a grovelling apology
• 7:30 Mark discusses the “personal PR” issue of managing scent and sensitivity
• 10:00 The changing dynamic of workplaces, from virtual companies to non-high-tech companies that have employees tied to computers. Mark points out that nobody criticizes someone note-taking with pen and paper while noses turn up at Blackberries or laptops in meetings, and offers an unpaid endorsement of hte Livescribe
• 14:15 An entirely unnecessary digression into the use of stone iTablets and chisels in antediluvian business meetings
• 15:00 Mark’s smoky trip to Argentina in the 1990s, and what the next taboo will be.
• 15:30 Bob’s suggestion: distraction.
• 22:30 All attempts at serious discussion dissolve into pop culture references including John Clesese, Troy McClure, and Better off Ted.
• 24:30 The question: What’s the next worklife taboo? Tell us.

Related links:

• CBC News reports on a study by Environmental Defence Canada  that suggests unknown ingreadients in perfumes may be hazardous.

Our music is “Ragtop Cadillac” by George Fletcher’s Bourbon Renewal, found on Music Alley (formerly the Podsafe Music Network.)

So, world, would you like to hep us by designing a logo for us? You can find photos of Mark and I, if those are inspirational; you get the idea with PR and the Seven Deadly Sins… We’d like something that could work for a favicon and a masthead for the blog.

If you happen to be in or near Ottawa and we choose your logo, I’d be happy to have you come to a BobCat house concert as my guest. Beyond that, it’s just fame and glory that you’re working for.

Recorded live (because it’s difficult to record it otherwise) at the Wild Oat in Ottawa’s lovely Glebe neighbourhood.

Here’s the download link.

Show notes for Episode 1 of PR and Other Deadly Sins

0:00 – Introductions

2:10 – Crime coverage and perceptions of emotionality — how the people observing someone interpret non-verbal cues, whether in a situation like a criminal trial or when someone’s speaking for an organization in crisis

5:30 – Mark talks about Barbara Coloroso and how people choose to behave ethically and how this relates to corporate behaviour

7:00 – Bob rants about the pejorative term “just a PR ploy”

8:30 – Mark talks about the case of a spokesperson for the Cornerstone women’s shelter who, when being interviewed by CBC Radio after a tragic fire, nearly lost Mark’s attention because he was so dispassionate. Discussion ensues of how you modulate and deliver messages in a way that matches the organization and the story being delivered.

13:00 – Discussion about Maple Leaf Foods, which Bob has apparently nicknamed McCain Foods, and their response to the listeriosis crisis. Discussion prompted by an IABC Ottawa event with Linda Smith, a communicator at Maple Leaf Foods.

17:00 – The Maple Leaf discussion continues, and morphs into the Ford Pinto case.

22:00 – How new media / social media tools can enrich the coverage or crises or ongoing controversies, and how those same tools can add to the richness of traditional journalistic coverage. Bob inadvertently compares Mark to chopped liver. That’s the wurst.

24:00 – Extros.

UPDATE FROM BOB: The vigilant Judy Gombita tells me that Linda Smith was a consultant to and not an employee of Maple Leaf during the listeriosis crisis. You can learn more about Smith from her video bio. Thanks to Judy for the clarification.