It’s been awfully quiet on the Orangefiery blog. Too quiet. Fifteen months since our last post? That’s outrageous!
All we can offer is a typical excuse: We’ve been really busy.
It’s true. Business is good and growing. We’ve got a dozen clients and eight team members. The work we’ve taken on has been challenging and rewarding.
Photo by Chris Potter, courtesy of http://www.stockmonkeys.com/. Used under Creative Commons license. By Mike Kuczkowski It was, according to Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, “a great business decision that also benefits all of our stakeholders.” Not so fast, buddy. Shkreli was referring to his company’s decision to raise the price of Daraprim, a treatment for toxoplasmosis […]
The pontiff, who visits the US this week, has effectively used symbols in his communications to change the dialogue about the Roman Catholic Church. Photo by Andrea Zangrilli. By Mike Kuczkowski Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical scenario for the 2016 presidential election. After a tough series of primary battles, former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire[i], is […]
It was January 2004, and I was meeting with my boss when a colleague knocked on the door and popped in. “Hey, did you see ‘The Apprentice’ last night?”
My boss and I looked at each other and smirked. “No.”
The smirk was telling. The program, which was being billed as “The Ultimate Job Interview,” featured real estate magnate Donald Trump and a cast of 16 contestants who vied for a one-year, $250,000 job in Trump’s organization. As a concept, the show sounded like a loser.
In which we recount the story of our relationship with James Joyce’s Ulysses, and its impact on the world.
A chart from LaCour and Green’s study of voter attitudes before and after they spoke with either a gay or straight canvasser about their views on same-sex marriage. These data are now disputed. (Source: Flowing Data website, accessed July 25, 2024.) By Michael Kuczkowski “… just because the data don’t exist to demonstrate the effectiveness […]
Tom Brady, who is implicated in an NFL investigation into whether his team intentionally deflated footballs used in the AFC Championship Game in January. Photo by Keith Allison. Used under Creative Commons license. By Mike Kuczkowski In Week 7 of what was a tough 2014 NFL season, Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady was ticked off. It […]
Years ago, I was part of a team that was hired to help a pharmaceutical company explain to America why its industry was a good thing.
This was not an easy task, obviously. The pharmaceutical industry has a weak reputation overall, despite delivering many innovations that improve the health of people around the world. A big chunk of the problem is rooted in costs: People believe health care is a right, yet prescription medications cost money, sometimes a lot of money. With ever-changing insurance co-pays, drug classes and deductibles, individuals increasingly bear the brunt of those costs. Which is tough.
Last month, Silicon Valley was abuzz with the unfolding saga of Ellen Pao’s gender bias case against venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.
A former junior partner at KPCB, Pao, 45, alleged that male partners there engaged in a pattern of discriminatory behavior against female junior partners. Pao, who worked at KPCB for seven and a half years, also said she had been sexually harassed by a former partner and that the firm retaliated against her by firing her after she filed her lawsuit.
By Mike Kuczkowski The first move for anyone facing a lawsuit is to get a good lawyer. The second move: get a good communications counselor. In Pao v. Kleiner Perkins, (see The Reputational Costs of Litigation), both sides put significant resources into communications. Pao lunched with reporters from Reuters and re/code. (Note: registration required for access.) The […]
By Mike Kuczkowski Last week, the coffee giant Starbucks launched a campaign encouraging its baristas to engage customers in a dialogue about race. Baristas around the country were encouraged to chat about race with their customers and write “Race Together” on each coffee cup. It was a bold move, not without risk, and it has […]
Dr. Schreiber of San Augustine giving a typhoid innoculation at a rural school, San Augustine County, Texas. April, 1943. Photo by John Vachon. By Mike Kuczkowski I live in Marin County, Calif., just north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. It is one of the most strikingly beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and I’ve […]
