Monday, August 21, 2006

EACH GROUP IS PUSHING ITS INTEREST BY MEANS OF COMMITTEES AFTER THE WAR

All the media in Israel are talking about establishing a committee of inquiry to look into the management of the war in Lebanon.
The discussion is about the type of committee to be set up. Should it be an independent committee of inquiry? A full-blown state commission of inquiry? A hybrid type of committee, set up by the cabinet, with less power? Remember: one committee is set up already - that of defense minister Amir Peretz.

So, be sure: after each war there will be plenty of committees. Each committee will get a full coverage. PR is everything. Each group will promote its view, its interest & its PR image.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

HOW TO PROMOTE WITHOUT STRAIGHT PROMOTING?

"Doctor Zhivago", a Nobel Prize book from Boris Pasternak.
What is the original problem? You are a poet, you need to promote your poetry. However, you cannot advertise it in a straightforward, direct, outspoken way: this is not a cola drink to pay thousands of bucks for usual, conventional ad campaign. Besides, it is a good style for a poet to be humble.
So you wish to advertise it without advertising it. Then you compose a novel, and the lead character is a poet, his verses are in fact your verses. Then you can even arrange some discussion around the hero's (in fact: yours) poetry inside the novel.
So we learn the PR move: Wish to promote your production? Invent a situation, create circumstances when it is not you who promotes your production, however, it is some other person.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

WHAT IS AN ADEQUATE CONCEPTION OF THE REALITY? (CONTINUATION)

What does it mean "to have an adequate conception of the reality"?
Suppose, I have been robbed, or got a traffic accident, or some other trouble. I am going to the police station to make a complaint. Now I have two options.
First, I can imagine how I will meet a clever policeman. He will puff at his pipe, like Sherlock Holmes, listen to me attentively, take my case with great interest, show his consideration for me and do his best to solve my problem. Unexpectedly I meet a strange lack of interest. They try to explain me that I am just misdirected, I have got to the wrong door. Moreover, sometimes I even hear that I have not delivered enough information and this is my fault: "Imagine, how can we catch your offender if we don't know his name? And even you don't! How can we fill in the file? Without knowing neither his name, nor his address!". At this statement I open wide my mouth and hence present myself as a perfect nerd - thus provoking them to being even more confident.
The second option is to know the reality. In every epoch, every country police never likes to receive complaints. Then I go to the police station being prepared. I explain them quietly and calmly that their legal duty is to accept every complaint. Even one seeming stupid. So I present myself as a confident person knowing the laws and reality.
That is the difference between two conceptions of the reality: not adequate and adequate.

Saturday, August 5, 2006

WHAT IS AN ADEQUATE CONCEPTION OF THE REALITY?

When there is no crisis, no war, you may get impression that the modern Welfare State can solve most of the problems. It can take care of poverty, of health, of education, of dwelling.
However, in the time of crisis, we see the State forgetting the poor.

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. The 2000 U.S. census put New Orleans's population at 484,674, but Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused the city's evacuation. Population estimates as of June 2006 range from 192,000 to 230,000.


Today the people in the North of Israel can move to the South and escape from the rockets. If they have money to dwell in a hotel during several weeks. If they have not, the best advise they get from the government is to sit in the shelter.