Online Public Relations Thoughts

The mayor of Minneapolis was on TV last night calling for action to control the spread of guns in the nation.  He was reacting emotionally to this tragedy.  But dozens of politicians have said the same thing and nothing has been done.  Is it all talk?

What happens when your expensive rebranding runs into a customer buzzsaw?  You either gut it out or you take a write-off and go back to the original imagery.  Cracker Barrel took the write-off. 

This is a court fight already underway and about to get worse if Trump federalizes the National Guard.  He is playing on public perception with troops in Washington DC that he is tougher on crime than Democrats.  Now he wants to expand that perception to cities around the US, notably Chicago.  The governor of Illinois is against Trump's threat, and both men will appeal to judges to make the decision.  We should know in days who gets the nod whether local control remains or authoritarian federal action wins out.  

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois got it right when he said Trump's threat to deploy troops to Chicago is "political theater." Trump is a showman without an ethical center -- a pitiful example of leadership.

The AI bubble is generating a school of skeptics who are asking, "Where is the cash?"  They are looking past the hype and watching companies spend billions with no return so far.  They are wondering when AI will generate returns of any kind to match the money spent on it or whether it will be a write-off in the future.  We've seen tech bubbles time and again, and they aren't pretty when they pop.  It takes time for new technology to be integrated into the economy and AI is no different, especially since it still has hallucination problems yet to be solved.  Communicators need a sense of reality about it and not fall for the rah-rah.

Putin says he must be part of any security guarantees for Ukraine, a definite non-starter for the embattled country.  What did you expect?  Putin believes he has the upper hand and the power on his side.  He is not going to give in until he gets what he wants.  Meanwhile, Trump is trying to appease him, which in Putin's eyes means surrendering.  Trump doesn't understand the situation at all and Ukrainians are suffering for it.