Revisiting PR vs Public Affairs

Plus, when you fail, it's on you. And geopolitics? It's your business

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Public Relations and Public Affairs are no longer separate fields

I kicked off the week with a confession that received a lot of traction on LinkedIn: my view that public relations and public affairs are no longer separate fields. You can't do one without the other:

Public affairs isn't just about lobbying and influencing policy.

• Like PR, it's about setting the frame, shaping narratives, managing reputations, and building relationships across all channels.

The lines have blurred, and they've blurred for a reason.

Think about it:

• Can you effectively influence policy without a media strategy?
• Can you build relationships with policymakers without managing your public image?

Of course, you can't. In my video, I explore nine core components that modern public affairs campaigns need.

If you're in business, you're in geopolitics

I've been geeking out about recent geopolitical events recently, and you should be equally obsessed with global political events. Here's why:

Case in point:

The US Department of Commerce announced this week that it wants the US to ban Chinese software and hardware for vehicles with a built-in internet connection, which would effectively ban Chinese vehicles in the US market.

Why does any of this matter, especially if you’re not in the automotive sector? Because it serves as a live example of how geopolitical developments can completely derail an entire industry.

Sometimes, politics is practical

I was reminded that sometimes we overthink politics:

Last week, Tonje Brenna, the deputy leader of the Norwegian Labour Party told a room of progressives who were gathered in Montreal for an action summit that:

"People … don't wake up in the morning and think, 'I'm a liberal on migration,' or 'I'm a conservative on migration.' People wake up in the morning and think, 'I'm going to go through with my day. What are my main issues today? Is it a problem that my son goes to a class where nobody speaks Norwegian? Of course it is,'"

She added:

"Migration is a practical issue to people, but we tend to make it a moral issue. We need to stop making practical problems moral issues, and solve people's practical problems.

ChatGPT o1 is kind of a big deal

I treated it as a non-event when OpenAI released ChatGPT4o earlier this year. It was faster than ChatGPT-4, but the leap didn’t feel nearly as significant as when we went from 3 to 4. And because the difference between 4 and 4o felt minor, it had little impact on how I used it.

This new release? o1? (I know, I know, it is a very lame name…) It feels like a big jump—one that could benefit knowledge workers like us in a big way. Here's why.