And it is clear that government officials need to learn PR skills, or hire PR persons, to help them building positive image on behalf of Indonesia. As Advisor of Association of Public Relation Practitioners (Perhumas), Irawan Abidin wrote, “Ideally, they (PR professionals) should work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as their target public is…
Category: Public Relations
Becoming a teenager
And then we are a teenager. We are the communications consultancy Maverick that turns 13 this month. Fortunately, as an organisation we’ll not be subjected to the mood swings, moods and hormonal surges of human teenagers. I suppose, however, that 13 still represents a landmark of sorts as we grow out of the first flush…
Najib’s March of Folly
In 1985 Pulitzer prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman wrote the book The March of Folly which was a fascinating study of why leaders from Troy to Vietnam acted against their own self-interest. If she were updating the book today, Unspun thinks she would certainly consider not only adding Malaysian Premier Najib Razak but perhaps promote him…
Jokowi to connect better with new Communications Team?
It appears that after months of having no one to tell the story on behalf of the Government and giving rise to uncertainty and confusion about government policies and decisions, President Jokowi may finally be taking a step in the right direction. According to the Jawa Pos News Network (below), he has appointed Teten Masduki and Sukardi…
What Rara experienced as an intern at my workplace
Rara and Ken were winners of the PRVaganza 2014, a multi-university competition for communications students. Their team from Univerisiti Gadjah Mada won the competition and the prize for that was an offer of a month’s internship at Maverick. Ken’s chosen to write about his experience here (see also my pervious posting) but Rara chose to express…
What to do when a head hunter comes into town
This is a post I wrote for our office blog and it tells of our reaction to a headhunter of an international PR network that has been trying to hunt some MavHeads. What do you do if you’re running a Public Relations Consultancy in talent-starved Indonesia — and you learn that the chief regional headhunter…
The JIS case: It never rains but it pours
One of the characteristics of a crisis-like situation is that when you think that things can’t get worse, they do. It now turns out that a “prolific” child predator, who taught at the Jakarta International School (JIS) about 2 decades ago, took his life because the FBI was investigating his alleged trangressions (see CNN story below)….
Does Malaysia Airlines instil confidence in its handling of MH370 incident?
When tragedy strikes, like it has with the disappearance of flight MH370, the company at the centre of it all comes under intense scrutiny. It must demonstrate that it knows what it is doing and has a difficult situation under control – or lose the confidence of the public and all other stakeholders. If it…
Cutting through the clutter about the Cut the Crab incident
One of the ever-present threats of companies in the Food and Beverage business is food poisoning. This is especially so when you deal in seafood that spoils easily. Cut the Crab, a hip new restaurant chain with a great gimmick – eat the crabs served on the table without plates, forks or spoons – recently…
Walking the walk with a home-away-from-home for journalists
We Public Relations professionals often preach to our clients that they should take care of their key stakeholders. We talk the talk but how many of use walk the walk? Even in this digital age that has seen the rise of social media and the decline of traditional media, the latter is still important, establishing…
A cautionary tale for expats in Asia
Don’t shit where you live and work sounds like common sense. We all now, however, that common sense is not common. But when this surfeit is combined with the sensitivity of a prat, the mixture is disastrous. Take the case of Anton Casey, a well-heeled expat banker in Singapore, who has been raising heckles in…
Answer me a question for Indonesia’s 2014 polls
This is an article on the Indonesian media and the run-up to the 2014 Presidential elections that I co-wrote with my colleague and media strategist Iwan Kurniawan for latest edition of Tempo English. Agree, disagree?
