I feel a headache coming on whenever there’s a disruption to public services. DBS, PUB, SMRT… I hope they don’t call for comments because then I would feel obliged to say something. My worst experience occurred two weeks ago when I had to trudge up the slippery slope to MediaCorp because I couldn’t get a taxi. All for 30 seconds’ worth of comments on national TV. It’s easy for me to recommend what people should do in a crisis, but until we are confronted with a genuine crisis, we wouldn’t know if our strategies work. We try to avoid other people’s mistakes and use our accrued knowledge as a strategy. In 2011, Singapore offered rich pickings. In reducing the margin of error, we are also reducing public relations to a hard science. Whatever happened to the wicked delight we used to take in spinning? How can you call us the dark side where there’s no darkness but sterile SOPs (Twitter/Facebook/SMS notifications) published in black-and-white for all to see, and a fastidious attention to “covering all grounds”. PR is really all about common sense; that is, if we had any to know how to use it in the first place. Go figure.
A year in review (or some such grandiose nonsense)
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