I snapped this picture (above) of my feet, several years ago, after stepping away from my PR career.
With a business shoe on one foot (notice… no socks!) and a casual shoe on the other foot.
I’ve been thinking about that picture.
Did it portend what I’d be getting up to, after working in the world of PR and marketing?
In the PR and advertising professions, getting people to think about whatever you’d like them to be thinking about — about a business firm’s sparkling reputation, for instance, or its unparalleled products and services — that takes some serious doing.
You may scoff, but publicity, created by PR professionals, or an ad agency team’s advertising, just might be influencing your purchasing decisions, or your feelings about business firms and industries, and about high-profile people.
In these strange, troubling times, with so much preying on minds, we’re probably taking things more seriously, than usual.
I’ve been letting off steam, writing about things… and wondering, as I’ve been gazing lately at that picture of my feet, if that old snapshot might go with some of my written work.
Like with something I wrote, just recently, about the word ‘woke,’ starting with the question… How can some politicians be getting so worked up over ‘woke?’ And continuing with these words about various politicians:
You can almost imagine seeing spittle spraying from their lips, as they’re accusing someone of being ‘woke.’
But that word is in poems about waking up in some magical, idyllic place.
It’s even in the idiom… ‘I woke up on the right side of the grass.’
It’s when ‘woke’ is spoken in politics, that the meaning and tone seem so dark, nasty and agitating. With — what’s another word for ‘spittle? ‘Drivel?’ — going all over the place?
Leave it to some of the politicians to be driveling around, with their own version of ‘woke.’
I posted those words on a business-focused online site that has a number of PR and marketing professionals as members. To get them thinking about things, other than what I’m pretty sure they’re mostly thinking about — unparalleled products and services, reputational issues, and so on.
To stir them up, I suppose… maybe rattle their cages?
And to feature my feet, in an article?
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.