We never walk alone

This is a quick personal narrative about why I love walking in the forest. Memories, imagination, creativity. I walk for many reasons. Obviously, I need to get from place to place. Sometimes I need a workout, so I walk fast or listen to music that will make me walk even faster. Other times, I walk …

Becoming fit, staying fit, while staying happy

This is a short narrative about my up-and-down fitness journey, how it has affected my happiness, and how I have tried to manage it. I was quite the athlete as a kid and as a young man. I swam a lot, played ice hockey until I was 17 and then fenced sabre competitively into my …

7 things I do to stay creative and keep writing

This blog post has seven tips for you on how I try to be a productive writer. I hope you find them useful. I am in the midst of writing a book with Martin Waxman on how public relations, marketing and the other strategic creative professions can take charge in the emerging new world of …

Some thoughts on fear vs belonging in digital life

I’ve been thinking of the power of attention to shape our lives. What we attend to sets the public agenda in terms of what we collectively think is important … in politics, society, culture, the market. However, I think the more insidious power of attention is very personal. Indeed, we attend to what is most …

New Year’s Resolutions 2021

This year was a strange year. COVID-19 kept us at home and made many of us sick - I had extended family members who caught COVID-19 and survived, thankfully. As many of you know, my life revolves around my work as a professor of communication studies and communications management at McMaster University and my work …

Datasci is the third pillar of PR and comms management

The field of professional communications has been evolving for the last 100 years. When it began, with the early work of Eddie Bernays and Ivy Lee, the focus was largely on promotions. This larger communications field split into several over the years. One can argue that public relations, marketing, advertising, investor relations, etc. are all …