Grupp Global Partners. Communications | Management | Solutions

On Sunday evening, my wife Jan and I attended Vesper’s at the Bay View Association, a 137-year-old Chautauqua founded by Michigan Methodists on Lake Michigan near Petoskey. A Bay View staple since the 1800s when families gathered at the end of the day to sing hymns, this ongoing tradition has evolved into a magnificently eclectic concert series.

I was reminded at this gathering that it’s a privilege to live and work “Up North” in Michigan during much of the summer. Although it’s easy to become distracted in such a beautiful natural environment, I remain solidly connected online, on my mobile phone and via FedEx with colleagues and clients throughout the world. Technology enables me.

My life and especially my work in strategic communications has become, to a great extent, a virtual enterprise.

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It has been said that “strategic communications” is used with such ubiquity that the term becomes almost meaningless.

Granted, the term has a wide range of definitions, influenced by personal and professional preferences, but the precise definition is less important than the concept, and calling it “meaningless” is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (more…)

InfiniteLatitude™ Offers Strategic Thinking, Global Reach,
Without the Cost of Traditional Agency Groups

Grupp Global Partners LLC is a Founding Member

NEW YORK, March 5, 2012 – A new global network of senior, independent public relations consultants, InfiniteLatitude^® www.infinitelatitude.com, is offering clients access to strategic communications internationally, without the cost often associated with retaining traditional agencies.

Launching this week, InfiniteLatitude connects 24 corporate communications professionals in the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Portugal, India, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, China and Ecuador, with the aim to expand further over time. Each InfiniteLatitude professional has a minimum of 15, some up to 30 years of experience. Several members previously have held top in-house management positions. All members operate from boutique shops and often collaborate virtually. (more…)

[Delivered at the TÜBİTAK Symposium in Turkey on February 17, 2009]

A Practical Exploration of Communications in our Wired World

Good Morning. Thank you very much for the invitation to attend this conference and speak with you. I am delighted to be in Turkey again, and with you at this symposium.

Over the past 36 months, as president of IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, I had the privilege of traveling extensively on four continents meeting with men and women in business, with government leaders, public relations consultants, NGOs, academics and now scientists. (more…)

Honored Guests … Ambassador Li … Mr. Zheng … Members of CIPRA … delegates … friends.

It is a great honor for me to be in China again.

I was in Beijing about 20 months ago when I was President of the International Public Relations Association – when we had the pleasure of co-hosting – with CIPRA – the 18th Public Relations World Congress. (more…)

China International Public Relations Association (CIPRA)

Friday, July 2, 2010

Beijing International Convention Center

Robert W. Grupp

President and CEO

The Institute for Public Relations

www.instituteforpr.org

CEOs look to us – look to you – to be, if not the smartest person in the room, certainly able to make some very serious judgments often under crisis circumstances when there is a great deal on the line. We have to approach that responsibility with a great deal of humility and understanding, and research helps.

That’s what Don Baer said to Institute for Public Relations Trustees when our Board met last week in its first full session of 2010. Don is Chairman of Penn, Schoen Berland (PSB) and Worldwide Vice Chairman of Burson-Marsteller. He engaged Trustees in their opening session. (more…)

On the heels of the Tiger Woods scandal last April and only days before the BP rig explosion and oil spill, the Economist ran a story  calling attention to the fact that brand-threatening scandals are becoming a regular feature of the corporate landscape.

This, the Economist said, is because of “a toxic (sic) mixture of globalization, which scatters corporate activities hither and yon, and the internet, which allows bad news to spread like wildfire.” It cited estimates that executives have an 82% chance of facing a corporate disaster within any five-year period, up from 20% two decades ago.

Taking a page from Crisis Management 101, the Economist suggested that the key to a successful brand re-launch lies in making a cool-headed assessment of how much a crisis damages a company. (more…)

As a public relations profession, I admire people who sometimes have radical goals but who adopt moderate tactics. It seems to me that the pursuit of peaceful and constructive change, on almost any level, always has to leave open the possibility you might be wrong or that better ideas exist. Going a little bit more slowly than your ardent followers might want is one method for accommodating that possibility.

Meanwhile in the last ten years or so, the internet has provided the ability to link millions of people across the globe in essentially peaceful dialogue. This global conversation has obvious and enormous benefits, but it also presents new challenges, not only for the companies and clients we represent, but also for governments. (more…)

One of the characteristics of the world that motivates me is our “interconnectedness;” or our “interdependence.”  If you accept that people across the world – people like you and me – have many more similarities than differences, then inevitably you will find more opportunities than problems.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in China – driven home for me again in August during another visit to Beijing. The needs and opportunities there are huge – on many levels – and underscored by a new willingness among politicians to admit that the world’s interconnectedness with China is, in fact, a competitive advantage. (more…)