Anyone OK Out There?
There’s so much soul-suffocating stuff happening in the world that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the good. In this piece, I share my initial impressions of my return to the States—and why we have reason for hope.
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Senior Vice President, Special Projects U.S. at Philip Morris International (PMI)There’s so much soul-suffocating stuff happening in the world that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the good. In this piece, I share my initial impressions of my return to the States—and why we have reason for hope.
Being named to Ragan Communications and PR Daily’s Hall of Fame prompted a bit of introspection regarding how I have managed to retain my enthusiasm for communications into what is now my fifth (!) decade in the business. Here, I share my thoughts.
People with disabilities—visible or not—are often overlooked, unseen, or marginalized. It needn’t be that way.
We can’t continue to accept the current state of society as normal. It isn’t. Some research we’ve been working on suggests we have the power to change it.
Debates continue over whether we should return to the office, but something is missing from the conversation. Younger workers are losing out on mentorship opportunities—but there are ways to establish similar relationships in the new environment.
Is it just me, or are we living in the Age of Angst—a time when fear, dread, and uncertainty are coloring our everyday interactions and expectations of the future?
The legacy boomers are leaving younger generations isn’t great. Maybe worst of all: We’ve robbed young people of hope for a brighter future.
The twenty-first century is shaping up to be far different from what previous generations—and our younger selves—had imagined. Futurists looking ahead to the next century in the 1900s weren’t forecasting a global pandemic, political extremism, terrorism, enduring poverty and misery for vast swaths of the world’s people, and the wanton destruction of our planet.
Chaos does not show up unannounced and knock loudly at your door like police at a predawn raid. It sneaks up on you gradually. That bruise on your toe seems unimportant, so you do nothing, and it turns out to be cancer, and then you lose your leg. The apartment complex built yards from the ocean has structural flaws, and the concrete degrades, and the problem is discussed without any meaningful action taken …
A shift worth watching in China that speaks to its new position in the world is the rise of localism. Where all things foreign once carried a certain cachet, there is a growing pride among the Chinese in their unique culture of brands, media outlets, and platforms. And that is having an impact, unsurprisingly, on consumer-facing companies in other countries.