Simon Goldie

Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing

2008-09-06T16:30:00.003+01:00

Jeff Howe had an article in The Independent this week promoting his new book Crowdsourcing.

If you are interested in how technology is changing how we work and how we cooperate with each other then the article is certainly worth a read.

Howe quotes Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave (1980) and its prediction of how we will be working and living in the not so distant future. I read Future Shock and The Third Wave when they were published in Britain and was immediately convinced. Toffler shaped my political thinking while I was studying A level politics led me to the conclusion that Britain needed political institutions that would allow this third wave to flourish. At university I bored my fellow liberals with talk of the 'post-industrial society' and then nothing happened. And then it did. The web arrived and changed everything.

Iain Dale, Sarah Palin and Tom Harris

2008-09-06T16:03:00.004+01:00

Tom Harris has written a very interesting post asking why do the Tories support the Republicans?

I know that Iain Dale supported David Davis for the Conservative party leadership and that Davis was seen as socially conservative compared to Cameron but Harris's point is well made.

Perhaps, Drew Westen is right and it does come down to language and emotion.

If Sarah Palin was described as a moral dictator instead of a social conservative would there still be sympathy for her views on creationism, sexual abstinence before marriage, denial of condoms in countries ravished by AIDS and denial of abortion to women raped, in some cases by relatives? And if those aren't her views I apologise now but as far as I can tell they are.

Iain Dale's "Can this really be happening to me?"

2008-09-06T15:42:00.004+01:00

Prolific blogger, Iain Dale recently posted a meme: can this really be happening to me?

Iain explained that at times in his political career he has thought can this really be happening to me? He challenged several bloggers, including Tom Harris MP, to write about their own 'can this' moments. Hence the meme.

Tom Harris responded with post that includes an anecdote about meeting Neil Kinnock.

I have now had my own, can this really be happening to me experience. This Saturday morning I was out doing my weekly shop when who do I spy walking towards me but Glynis and Neil Kinnock. Living in Islington you see many famous people doing ordinary things but I have never seen an ex leader of a political party doing his grocery shopping.

In an odd way, it was very reassuring.

Sarah Palin to step down?

2008-09-03T09:39:00.001+01:00

Steven Johnson, author of Emergence and Mind Wide Open, explains why he think Sarah Palin may step down in his post Will she stay or will she go?

Drew Westen on the Democrats

2008-09-01T21:41:00.003+01:00

Yesterday, I wrote a post arguing that Obama's speech to the Democratic convention was a casebook illustration of how it should be done according to Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain.

Today a friend sent me a post by Westen - Brand First, Equivocate Later.

Westen says that both Obama speeches and other speeches at the convention were exactly what he has been calling for.

The clinical psychologist doesn't just praise the party he is a member of, he also delivers a warning: brand Palin now before she has time to establish her narrative.

The Political Brain

2008-08-31T16:48:00.004+01:00

Before my two-week break I finished The Political Brain by Drew Westen. Westen is a clinical psychologists and American Democrat. He looks at how the brain works and the part our emotions play in how we vote.

Anyone interested in how politics is communicated, in fact in how any message is communicated, should pick up a copy of this very readable work.

Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention is a casebook example of how to put Westen's recommendations into action.

It is probably best to look at the speech once you have finished the book.

Nudged to disappointment

2008-08-31T15:51:00.003+01:00

I have just had a two week holiday. Some of that time was spent at the Edinburgh Festival. For the train journey up and back I chose to read Thaler and Sunstein's Nudge.

The book has generated a lot of interest. I have read that Barack Obama is taken with it and it has caused quite a stir among the British Conservative party.

Much of the book looks at current nudging, mostly by the private sector. It is only near the end that the authors suggest some practical nudging for government that would, they claim, improve our lives while still allowing us freedom of choice.

If you don't work in marketing or public relations, you know nothing about psychology or economics, haven't read any of the books listed below, haven't worked out that organisations give you a default option in order to encourage you to choose the default, then this book is a must read.

If you can answer yes to any of the above then you can probably live without this particular nudge.

When I was in my teens, late seventies in case you were wondering, I was told that McDonalds had the seats in their restaurants designed so that you sat at a slight angle towards the floor. The idea was to encourage you to leave as quickly as possible. I have no idea if this is true or not. But the seats were designed that way and people didn't tend to stay very long. A few years ago the purveyors of fast food had a rethink and altered their seating.

Companies have been employing psychologists to help them market their products and services for a long time. This is not new and has been discussed in the media for as long as it has been going on.

The really interesting thing about Nudge is that it has reached a tipping point. But that is for another author to explore.

As promised, here are the books that you might have read already and cover many of the ideas in Nudge.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Emergence by Steve Johnson

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

Mind Wide Open by Steve Johnson

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

The Nanny State is dead. Long live the Nudging State!

2008-08-10T19:51:00.004+01:00

Sunstein and Thaler's Nudge has rather captured the imagination of British politicians. Well Conservative ones mostly but also at least one Labour MP. Mick Fealty explains all in his post Left, right or Nanny? And I am not simply linking to that post because it links to one of mine.

The book "offers a unique new take-from neither the left nor the right-on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike."

Apparently, Barack Obama is very keen on it.

The question Mick asks is, will politicians from either party actually begin to nudge and stop nannying?

Nudge is not the only book to look at how we organise ourselves. Here is a sample list -

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
Emergence by Steve Johnson
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Wikinomics by Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Of course, Nudge is about how governments can encourage people to do things. The question for politicians, especially liberal politicians, is whether it is better to nudge or stand back and see what emerges?

A turning point for Brown?

2008-08-10T19:45:00.002+01:00

According to the People, Gordon Brown has got caught up in a sex scandal. Well sort of.

His personal trainer rather enjoys the personal with more than one person at a time.

Will all this sexy stuff rub off on Brown? Perhaps I should rephrase that? But you get the point... no that doesn't quite work either. Too much Carry On when I was a child I am afraid. And who says watching films as a child doesn't affect you?

Batman and the ethics of violence

2008-08-10T18:09:00.003+01:00

Christopher Nolan's latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, has caused quite a stir. Last week's Sunday Times carried a piece about the level of complaints because of its violent content, then came Iain Duncan Smith and now Camila Batmanghelidjh in The Independent on Sunday.

All the criticisms centre around the contention that film violence leads to real violence. This argument isn't new. When Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was released the newspapers ran a story about a homeless man being beaten to death. Ergo, the film was the cause.

There have been a log of studies about the impact of screen violence on children but none, or at least none that I am aware, on the impact of other things that happen in films.

At this point I should declare several interests. When I was a child I read the Batman comics. I also watched a lot of war films, crime films and Westerns. I have never owned a gun or committed a violent act. I have always wondered if people truly believe that removing violence from films and TV shows would mean less violence in society. If this is the case, how do people explain the activities of the Vikings? And finally, I think The Dark Knight is an exceptionally good film.

A Hollywood film that uses a comic-book hero, or anti-hero in Batman's case, to deal with the 'war on terror', the misuse of power by the State and the utter pointlessness of violence is something to at least be taken notice of. Film critics have talked about Heath Ledger's performance and the cinematic merits of the movie, so I won't repeat those here.

What particularly grabbed my attention was the battle between two very distinct ideas. One is a value system that says yes to humanity. Interestingly, this isn't represented by Batman but ordinary people. They are the ones who are forced to confront the other idea. That idea is represented by the Joker. He makes them face death and offerss them survival. Survivial, that is, at a cost.

The catch being that they must kill others to live. If they refuse to act, they will all die anyway. The Joker thinks the decision is obvious. But the people don't. They hold on to an ethical code that says we must say no to destruction and cruelty, we must die for the sake of our values because that is the only way to defeat the pointlessness and chaos that the Joker is offering Gotham City.

The character of Batman is very close to John Wayne's Ethan Edwards in The Searchers. Edwards can never be part of civilisation but for civilisation to exist it needs him. Batman is an outcast and the end sequence has an echo of the ending to Ford's masterpiece. Which is why Batman is to some extent an anti-hero and why the battle isn't strictly between him and Joker.

In The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim argued that fairy stories were brutal and violent for a reason. Children needed to work out their anxiety, feelings of rage and confusion through these cruel stories of wicked stepmothers, evil witches and predatory wolves. He was saddened that, over time, the stories had been tamed and lost their graphic violence. If one accepts Bettelheim's argument, then The Dark Knight is a film that children should see and not one that should be hidden from them.

WALL-E

2008-07-27T14:27:00.005+01:00

WALL-E is a remarkable film in many ways. Every time Pixar commits something to celluloid the technology seems to leap forward. But it is the influences behind their latest masterpiece that make it stand out.

Here are the ones I spotted: Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Darwinism, Stanley Kubrick, the American myth, the American Constitution, romantic comedy, musical comedy, Jean Renoir, dystopian science fiction, Samuel Beckett and E.F Schumacher.

Quite something for a film that lasts 98 minutes and is aimed at children.

WALL-E is a robot whose job it is to clean up the waste that human beings have left on the planet. He has been doing this for quite sometime when we meet him. His only friend is a cockroach. In fact, it seems that he and the cockroach are the only ones left.

We are given to understand that WALL-E has evolved during his time on the planet. He has discovered things that he likes and developed a personality. Each night he watches clips from Hello Dolly. There is something very suitable about this Harold Lloyd type robot watching Michael Crawford singing and dancing. Crawford went on to star in the British sitcom Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em as Frank Spencer, a hapless Chaplinesque clown.

But WALL-E isn't Chaplin. There is no sentimentality here. The brilliance of Lloyd was that he took the silent comedy and placed character at the centre of his storytelling. Lloyd dispensed with the pratfalls and the sugary self-regard. Not to say that the film doesn't have an emotional punch.

At its heart is a love story. WALL-E's romantic interest is EVE. Compared to him, she is smarter, stronger and has a much clearer sense of what she should be doing with her life. Not so remarkable there you might say. But together, their combined strengths and weaknesses make something better. And during the film, just as in Toy Story, Antz and A Bug's Life we see the benefits of individuals working with each other to create something greater. This is a recurring theme in the American myth which is why it appears so often in Hollywood films. And if you don't believe me watch My Darling Clementine and Witness.

You might even say that WALL-E is the perfect film to accompany a certain Presidential candidates proclamation: yes we can.

It's a gentle film. It doesn't have any of the sharp Marx Brothers type dialogue of Monsters Inc. and that befits its silent movie origins. In some ways it is more thoughtful and serious than any of the other Pixar produced stories.

It gently mocks the super-size culture. When we meet the humans they are floating around on electric airbeds, communicating with each other via screens, eating constantly and being looked after by robots. The film-makers avoid a Michael Moore-type attack on big corporates or a scathing satire on technology but opt instead for a Jean Renoir understanding of human nature as they show us why laziness became such an attractive option.

And so two robots teach human beings how to be human again.

The film's faith in human ingenuity, in our ability to work out how to live and love is handled lightly and quickly. That makes it even more touching. And its focus on evolution is very brave and essential given the rise of 'intelligent design' arguments in the USA.

The film could fall into the trap of reactionary eco-ism. After all, we are presented with an earth that is a wasteland. The humans have to start again and learn how to farm. But the end credits dispel any idea that the film is trying to dismiss human progress or criticise it. All it asks is that we aren't neglectful of our humanity.

I can't think of the last time I saw a film that said so much so eloquently.

The Kit Kat moment - Cameron and Obama

2008-07-26T15:21:00.003+01:00

If I worked for Kit Kat's marketing department I would be preparing the campaign right now.

According to an ABC News blog, a private conversation between David Cameron and Barack Obama was picked up by a microphone. The two politicians were heard discussing the need to take a break. Here's an extract -

"Do you have a break at all?" asked Cameron.

"I have not," said Obama. "I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you that somebody, somebody who had worked in the White House who -- not Clinton himself, but somebody who had been close to the process -- said that, should we be successful, that actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you're doing is thinking. And the biggest mistake that a lot of these folks make is just feeling as if you have to be -- "

"These guys just chalk your diary up," said Cameron, referring to a packed schedule.

"Right," Obama said. "In 15 minute increments …"

"We call it the dentist's waiting room," Cameron said. "You have to scrap that because you've got to have time..."

Aside from the potential for a chocolate ad, it is also good advice to anyone responsible for strategy. Take time to think about what you are doing.

The Wire: Season Five

2008-07-26T14:17:00.003+01:00

Season five of The Wire began last week on FX. For those that don't know, this is the last season of the police-based drama. It can be seen every Monday at 9pm.

I have posted about the show before. Each season has looked at a different institution: the police, the unions, government, schools and in the last season the media.

Its creator, David Simon, says the show is about the death of America. I am not so sure but who am I to argue?

For me, it is about the problems we all face and our valiant, if doomed, attempts to sort them out. It shines a light on the ingenuity of humanity in the face of adversity. The Wire is about ordinary people in ordinary situations. Which is what makes it such an extraordinary show.

She's no longer an actress, she's just a very naughty Mayor

2008-07-20T11:32:00.005+01:00

Unless the people of Aberystwyth have seen The Life of Brian on television or in a cinema outside their home town, they won't get the reference.

There is a story about the film in The Independent on Sunday that caught my eye.

The paper explains that the film was been banned in the town since 1979. Fast forward to 2008 and the actress who played Judith, Brian's girlfriend, Sue Jones-Davies is now Mayor of said town. She would like to get the ban lifted. Perhaps all of the Pythons should have adopted this course and stood for office across the UK?

Knowing your Fannie from your Freddie

2008-07-13T18:25:00.003+01:00

There has been quite a lot in the news recently about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Until a few days ago I had never heard of them. I imagine most people in the UK were in the same boat.

The International Herald Tribune has an excellent piece, Protected by Washington, Fannie and Freddie Grew that explains the background to the story.

McCain, the new Roosevelt

2008-07-13T18:06:00.005+01:00

In a report by The International Herald Tribune, John McCain says he sees himself as Roosevelt.

That is Theodore not Franklin. For non-students of American politics, Franklin gave American the New Deal and Keysnian economics while Theodore spoke softly and carried a big stick.

The latter phrase summed up his foreign policy. Domestically, he regulated big business by busting trusts and his conservationism led him to establish national parks.

McCain's choice of political inspiration is very shrewd. Roosevelt was a maverick who broke away from the Republican party. Thus, McCain appeals to party members and the independents and floating Democrats he needs to beat Obama.

Only time will tell if McCain can balance the softly speaking with the big stick. Right now though the battle lines appear to be drawn between a Republican offering a 'square deal' and a Democrat appealing to America's sense of optimism that was once articulated by both JFK and Reagan.

Checking your sources:blogs and newspapers

2008-07-10T21:27:00.006+01:00

On 9 July the Lib Dem Voice ran a piece by Stephen Tall. The heading was David Davis: a bounder and a braggart.

Stephen was commenting on a piece in the Guardian that quoted Davis as saying: "I’m sorry that Labour and the Liberal Democrats funked it, but we’re still having a good argument and getting the issue raised."

Now this appeared rather odd as Davis had spoken to Nick Clegg about resigning and Clegg had said the Liberal Democrats would not field a candidate against the then Conservative Shadow Home Secretary. Davis never expected the Lib Dems to contest the seat. So why was he now claiming the party had flunked it?

On 10 July Stephen ran a correction and apology. He reported that the Guardian was apologising for the quote. It had got it wrong and Davis had never said it.

Stephen is an excellent blogger. He quickly corrected the mistake once the journalist who wrote the original piece emailed him.

But this episode raises an interesting question. Newspapers are expected to always check their sources before running stories. Of course, they sometimes make mistakes. That is only human. But is there an ethical duty for bloggers to also check what they are reporting on?

Presumably, Stephen trusted the source because it came from a national newspaper. But this incident goes to the heart of what blogs are.

If you see them as personal riffs where bloggers respond to what interests them, whether it is politics, celebrity or their own lives then it is natural for someone to respond quickly and, at times, in anger.

It was clear from the first post that Stephen was annoyed by what David Davis was alleged to have said about the party that Stephen is a member of.

But if you see blogs are part of citizen journalism, as commentary on political news, does the blogger then have to abide by a code of conduct? Should Stephen have merely reported the quote and perhaps called David Davis to check? Are bloggers journalists, diarists or something else? Is this even an issue? Something was written in haste and then corrected when new information became available. How do ethics apply in all this?

I don't ask any of these questions as criticicms of Stephen. I merely use the example to illustrate the issues. And I don't claim to have the answers.

What I do think is that the more popular and influential blogs become, the more important these questions will be and the more necessary it will be to have answers.

Another political news website

2008-07-10T21:21:00.002+01:00

Just launched by June Sarpong, Politics and the City, looks at the Westminster village from a different angle to Total Politics and Politics Home.

Clearly, this is some kind of trend and if they all propser it will prove that people still are interested in politics.

Ian Austin MP

2008-07-06T15:08:00.003+01:00

I was at Essex University with Ian Austin. We both studied Government. Ian is now MP for Dudley North and PPS to the Prime Minister.

The students at Essex rioted in 1968. One of my lecturers, who was a student at the time, told this story. During the heat of the rebellion, one student leader announced that this was their moment. It was time to march into Colchester, go to the Army barracks, take a tank and drive to Westminster.

To say the place had a reputation for being left-wing is perhaps an understatement. When I arrived the Sun had an editorial suggesting that the University would be better off in the North Sea.

There were some Conservatives there who argued for Thatcherism and a brand of libertarianism. They were led by John Bercow.

The political arguments were robust and passionate with people rarely holding back.

According to yesterday's Independent, Ian is reported to have made a remark to George Osborne during the debate on MPs' expenses. I haven't seen Ian for a number of years so have no idea how true this is but the alleged comment was "f-off, you toff".

If true, I suppose one can only conclude that you can take the boy out of Essex University but you can't take Essex University out of the boy.

The end of print?

2008-07-05T17:17:00.003+01:00

Steve Rubel has just posted a fascinating piece on digital media and the economic downturn.

If he is right, sites like Politics Home will play their part in changing our habits. After all, why buy a newspaper when you can read what all the papers are saying in one place? And you will probably be able to read it when you are on the move on your 3G phone.

Except that if newspapers do decline they will no longer be providing the content for aggregator sites. And there's the rub.

Is Boris a libertarian?

2008-07-05T16:33:00.006+01:00

Mick Fealty, an excellent writer who blogs on various sites, has asked on Brassneck, 'The real Boris Johnson: is there any such thing as a Libertarian politician?'

For anyone who doesn't know, within days of being elected Mayor, Johnson banned alchohol on the underground. He also appointed Ray Lewis as Deputy Mayor. Lewis has being having a few problems of late related to his past and his cv.

The reason he was appointed to Johnson's administration was that he ran a school that emphasised discipline. In his post, Mick cites the alcholol ban as evidence that once elected it is impossible to be a libertarian. He doesn't mention Lewis's disciplinary system nor make the argument that this is in some way a contradiction with the values of libertarianism.

Many self-proclaimed libertarians appear to be quite comfortable with values that are socially conservative. I have heard Ron Paul argue for these values but he does stress that he wouldn't use the state to achieve his aims. Libertarians in Britain who join the Conservative party and ones in America who join the Republican party are lining up with nationalists and authoritarians. Of course, they would argue that the parties are closest to where they stand and that political organisations are broad coalitions. The latter point is absolutely true and probably for the best.

John Stuart Mill was clear that one has to treat children differently from adults, that children need rules in order to enjoy freedom as adults. So anyone who says they are a liberal shouldn't have a problem with that. But Mill didn't want the state to run schools. That way, schools could experiment and the best would be shining examples to the rest. A classically liberal view of diversity. And that means that some would impose a strict disciplinary code and others wouldn't.

As far as I understand it the current Conservative position on education is to encourage independently run schools but to tell them how to teach English and what clothes the children should be wearing. Regardless of whether that is right or wrong, will work or fail, surely it cannot be very liberal or libertarian to have the state imposing a system on all schools?

So perhaps the question should rather be, was Boris ever a libertarian? And why do people who regard themselves as having a liberal bent join a party called the Conservatives?

Useful websites

2008-07-05T16:13:00.002+01:00

I have recently come across three useful political websites. Others might know about them and been using them for a while but for anyone who doesn't here they are:

The First Post - it describes itself as an online daily free news magazine. For those interested in UK political gossip it has the Mole.

Electoral calculus - this site tracks the opinion polls and predicts who will win elections and by what margin. It is currently predicting a Conservative majority of 162 steas. I checked out where I live, Islington South, and it predicts a Lib Dem win by 2.86%.

Politics Home - everything you want to know about British politics on one site. News from all the papers, videos and international politics too. For those who need to know what everyone is saying, this is the site for you.

I am Spartacus, I am Obama

2008-06-29T17:49:00.007+01:00

I was going to write something about Henley and the rut that the Brown narrative is stuck in. I might have thrown in something on the new NHS constitution that is going to be announced tomorrow in the House of Commons by Alan Johnson and how that might begin a new page in the Brown story. At least that must be the plan and hope for the Prime Minister. But then I saw this story in the International Herald Tribune.

When the rebels are defeated and caught, the Roman soldiers ask, which one of you is Spartacus. Tony Curtis stands and claims it is he. Then another voice shouts 'I am Spartacus', then another and another until they all claim to be Spartacus. If you have never seen the film you will have no idea what I am talking about but stay with me.

The point of the scene is two-fold. It shows the desire to protect Kirk Douglas, I mean Spartacus, and it says to the Romans that Spartacus is not merely a man but an ideal. That life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are... no wait a minute that's the wrong rebellion. Except it isn't because Spartacus as told by Anthony Mann and then then Stanley Kubrick is as much about America and its history as it is about ancient Rome.

And now supporters of Barack Obama are taking his middle name and making it theirs. Why the middle name? Because it is Hussein. Hussein sounds Muslim and Americans are a little ambivalent about Muslims at the moment. If Obama's opponents can make the Muslim tag stick they might help John McCain win the Presidential election. By saying I am Hussein, we are all Hussein, Obama's supporters defuse that line of attack.

But what if they are also tapping into something else. Obama's 'yes we can' is part of the American myth. His supporters tactic is a de facto 'I am Obama'. That proclamation could become very powerful because it feels as though it is no longer about the man but about what the man stands for. If like Spartacus, Obama represents the American ideal and the hopes of the Founding Fathers his arrival at the White House is surely guaranteed.

Are affairs different to relations?

2008-06-25T20:31:00.003+01:00

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) would like all the members of the CIPR Government Affairs Group (GAG) to join the CIPR.

A martian might look at the above statement and think: eh? Surely, if it is the CIPR GAG then they are members. But no, that is not the case. One can join CIPR GAG, attend meetings, stand for the executive and generally participate without being a member of the CIPR. However, the CIPR GAG is a sectoral group of the CIPR. Confused? Well perhaps one should start at the beginning.

First though, some declaratons of interest. I am a member of both the above, was on the exec of CIPR GAG for two years and work in communications. Now let us continue the story of everyday public relatins folk.

The CIPR represents public relations professionals. CIPR GAG has as its members people who are mostly involved in public or government affairs. What's the difference you ask? Are affairs different to relations you ask? At least, I hope you ask this. If you don't do that this post is pointless.

There are many definitions of public relations. And people who work in PR have various job titles: head of communications, head of external affairs, media relations manager, PR manager... I could go on.

The new look PR Week says it is the magazine for communication experts and reputation managers. Not a bad definition of what PR people do. But does this also cover public affairs?

The people who work in this area vary as well. Some focus heavily on policy. Others are lobbyists. In fact, this is where the public affairs industry was born: in the lobby. But in order to be effective it soon became obvious that one had to be able to use other communucation channels and manage reputations. That means that the public affairs expert has to work alongside the media relations, stakeholder, reputation manager person or be the person who does all that. And let's not forget that those engaged in public relations person may well need to change perception and behaviour of the inhabitants of the Westminster village.

The CIPR believes that it is very important for the PR practitioner to live by its ethical code and to ensure that its members are part of a profession. It achieves that through education, training and continuous professional development.

If the CIPR wants to persuade CIPR GAG to say yes to its proposal there are various things it could do to help that happen and at the same time strengthen the industry.

1) The CIPR diploma should cover public affairs
2) The CIPR should offer more public affairs training
3) The CIPR should be the voice of the public affairs industry

The latter is easy to achieve. With a sectoral group already established in CIPR GAG there is a ready-made spokesperson in the shape of the Chairperson. All the CIPR need to do is make sure s/he is media trained, direct the media to her or him and quote them in news releases.

For some there will always be a divide. The public affairs professional who is a policy wonk will never have much in common with the PR Officer who organises consumer awareness campaigns but in between there is a lot of common ground.