Articles on PR for People

Is Facebook Ready?

To date, Congress has been unable to determine a legislative path for dealing with Facebook and similar companies.


Look for the Light

"If we do not believe that something positive and larger than ourselves can be created from the deaths and destruction of 9/11, then we have only anger, pain, or bitterness to sustain us in our recollections of that day." -- September 12, 2011


A Divided Country

Annie Searle writes about A Divided Country. A significant number of Americans continue to believe that the presidential election was “stolen” from former President Trump and that the current administration is bogus. What does that mean for the rest of us?                                                       

 


Coming Up For Air

As we come up for air and look around, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is not nearly over. Just yesterday the president pledged a half a billion doses to marginalized countries, matched by other members of the G7, as new variants of the virus appear.  


Education is Critical Infrastructure

Twenty-five years after that first definition and attempt to identify and manage critical infrastructure, we are at a critical crossroads. It is clear to me that education should have been a defined national critical infrastructure sector from the outset.


Look for the light.

Things are looking up. I marvel that, exactly one year and three days after I last taught students in a university classroom, I will receive my first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Over 90 million people have now received at least one dose, and the full powers of the government have been deployed to broaden and hasten the logistics around delivery. As I write, there are three different vaccines available which have significantly ramped production capacities in the last month or so.


A More Perfect Union

 

It has been a difficult first week back to teach online. As has been my practice for about a year, I begin each course at the University of Washington with a single slide that encapsulates the latest information I have on the pandemic. To that, I added an introduction to the SolarWinds data breach for my emerging cyber topics course on Monday.  On Thursday, I created several slides on the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January...


“Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.” –Virgil

I've been reading more about the sacrifices that Americans made without much hesitation during World War II. Many of those sacrifices can be traced to President Roosevelt’s powerful fireside chats (1933-1944), for which families gathered around a radio to listen.


And hope and history rhyme.

I am among the millions who got a good night’s sleep last night, a reprieve as it were from an ever-present state of anxiety that’s four years old. That weight is lifted with the election results and, though the country has still a rough road ahead, I am confident that a new administration will gather the very best hearts and minds to address the critical issues that challenge us.


Of Thee I Sing

For nearly four years, I have used my platform here as an operational risk expert to critique the current administration through the four lenses — people, processes, systems, and external events — that can assess how reputational or financial loss occurs in a company or an institution, or even a country. I have spent a significant amount of time talking about the checks and balances of governance established in the U.S. Constitution among the three branches of government.