NEWS TO USE
– Deloitte Consulting CEO on 2020 C-Suite trends: Dan Helfrich sat down with the Wall Street Journal earlier this month to outline the core concerns for C-suite executives heading into 2020.
– The Edelman Trust Barometer was released this month. The 2020 edition focused on competence and ethics in four core areas: government, NGOs, the media and corporations. Spoiler alert: None scored particularly well.
– Ten technology trends that will impact our lives in 2020: 2020 looks like a breakout year for tech (like the previous decade wasn’t enough). Red Fan is happy to report that several of our clients have a hand in at least a few of these trends—artificial intelligence in manufacturing, consumer cybersecurity, aerospace tech evolution, agricultural advancements and IoT deployment.
It’s a new decade, but some things never change.
We’re talking, of course, about the Oscars, Hollywood’s annual celebration of itself. The Academy Awards are always hit or miss, and voters this year couldn’t seem to hit Quentin Tarantino’s inflated ego with an oversized cowboy hat. It’s also a landmark year for cinema not because of its celebration of diverse storytelling, but because it seems 2020 was the first year a film actually directed itself. How else could Greta Gerwig be unceremoniously omitted from awards consideration for the excellent “Little Women”? The only alternative is that the Academy remains what it has always been, and the last few years of categories filled with diverse people, projects and ideas were simply the exception rather than the new rule.
Away Luggage, a suitcase brand masquerading as a lifestyle brand, seems intent on making employees’ lives even more miserable by allowing the same CEO who just resigned for fostering a toxic work culture to reclaim her title alongside recently announced CEO Stuart Haselden. Seriously, this is “Succession”-level lack of succession planning. The reversal is rattling the company’s HR team and leaving key questions unanswered about internal communications, workforce management, workplace conditions and whether this sets another gross precedent for how people can or should be treated at work. Don’t get me wrong, we love a good redemption arc…
But we’re talking about someone with a real affinity for early-morning public humiliation and who shows clear signs of what we’re dubbing “Die Hard syndrome.” Prognosis: poor. Probability of recurrence: high. Primary symptom: Holding PTO hostage until Bruce Willis personally answers every inbound customer call with, “Yippee ki yay, you’ve reached Away!” Business lesson of the week: Public sarcasm and beratement shouldn’t rank highly on a CEO’s list of core competencies. People tend to interpret it the wrong way and leak entire Slack conversations to the press.
WHAT WE’RE READING…
The Storytelling Edge: How to Transform Your Business, Stop Screaming Into the Void, and Make People Love You
Despite all the important digital bells and whistles that have been added to PR strategies and capabilities over the years, storytelling is still at the heart of what we do.
