Earlier this week, I shared with you my thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement and its effects on the current economic and financial climate around the world. I would like to take a step further now and discuss how this rapidly growing movement will impact the upcoming United States presidential election. By looking at this, it may forecast what we could begin to see around the world. Where although the Wall Street protesters are making headway, there may be another consideration found in people’s unrest with the government.

President Obama has been criticized by his base for being too soft on Wall Street. Add to that the failure of the administration to achieve overwhelming public support for initiatives such as healthcare reform, environmental regulations and deficit reduction. These two ingredients have contributed to Obama’s steadily declining approval ratings.  Now, with Occupy Wall Street gaining momentum, the President and the Democrats have, by default, stumbled into a ground swell of support for their policies. Trying to capitalize on this new wealth of support, it would not surprise me to see the Obama campaign echo some of the anti Wall Street sentiments.

In fact, at a recent speech at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Dedication, President Obama shared his thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

“If [Martin Luther King, Jr.] were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain.”

So it appears to me that Obama is foreshadowing his stance on what could become a key election issue.

Interestingly enough, it may not be that simple. At this point, pursuing the Occupy Wall Street agenda may not be the only strategy. If you take a look at a recent Gallup poll, we see that Democrats have become more evenly divided on whom to blame for the financial crisis. According to the poll, 46 percent of Democrats blame Wall Street, while 49 percent see the U.S. government as being responsible. Additionally, 28 percent of Independents blame Wall Street, while 65 percent hold the U.S. government accountable. The combination of these two demographic groups and their unrest with the government gives an indication as to why you might see some resistance in politicians around the globe relying solely on a strategy of blaming the financial industry or some equivalent of “Wall Street”

To my point, we are now seeing the President criticizing Congress, coming very close to calling them “do-nothings.” In an October 6th White House press conference he stated,

“If Congress does something, then I can’t run against a do-nothing Congress. If Congress does nothing, then it’s not a matter of me running against them; I think the American people will run them out of town, because they are frustrated, and they know we need to do something big and something bold.”

These criticisms may be in hopes of garnering support from those Democrats and Independents who are, in fact, frustrated with the government.

So then, how does President Obama run against the Republican candidate?  Let’s assume for a second that the nominee is Mitt Romney, which is not a forgone conclusion. Looking more closely at Romney, a very successful businessperson who comes from the much-respected Bain Capital, it is not difficult to suggest that this association be rolled into a description of “Wall Street” in the rhetoric coming out of the Obama campaign.

Once this begins, you could conceivably see in the 2012 election that the Obama team essentially tries to make the election a referendum on Wall Street and the Republican Congress’ intractability on economic issues by attaching Romney to both groups. I would be willing to bet that in the research being conducted now on how to make the best contrast between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, someone is going to come running in to the room with a poll that shows a link between Romney and the perceived “excesses” of the past, with the pitch that, if advocated, would generate support for Obama. Add to that Congress’ current 13 percent approval rating and Romney will likely want to have his campaign headquarters on the North Pole to stay as far away as he can from Washington and his supporters in Congress.

Although rallying against Wall Street may be gaining momentum, things are not that simple. We should watch to see how President Obama incorporates the public’s frustration with Congress into this strategy. In this day and age, when democratization and disintermediation have become increasingly relevant, it is important to gauge the public’s changing perspective in order to stay in the game.

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750

Now in 85 countries and on five continents, we have seen “Occupy Wall Street” emerge from the grassroots level and grow into what can be considered a global “movement.” This raises a number of questions that I’d like to consider with you here. First, what is Occupy Wall Street and, more importantly, what is it not? Second, what are its prospects as a movement? And finally, what is its potential impact on policy in Washington and around the globe?

Does this type of protest sound familiar? It should. The “Tea Party Movement, ” which had its origins in conversations across the country in response to “Obamacare” in early 2009, had a direct impact on the U.S. Congressional elections of 2010, giving Republicans control of the U.S. House. We’re still feeling the effects of that change, most recently with the drawn out and bitter fight over raising the debt ceiling and among Republican presidential contenders vying for favor with the Tea Party.

On a global scale, the Arab Spring comes to mind, with some saying it may have planted the seed of inspiration for these protests. Tens of thousands of frustrated Egyptians flocked to Tahrir Square to express their grievances and organized a campaign that overthrew their government. Though that case may be more extreme than the Occupy Wall Street protest, instances like these make people believe that they can make a difference.

These movements have their roots in two trends you’ve been hearing me talk a lot about lately, the first being the democratization of everything. Oddly enough, the democratization of everything applies to politics as well, where we’ve seen a decline in the power of political parties since the Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling in 1976. Both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements are signs of increasing democratization of even political movements.

Coincidently, the second relevant trend I’ve been talking about – disintermediation – applies as well, with people increasingly rejecting major institutions. America’s lack of trust in institutions is crossing over into the political realm. Instead of turning to various media outlets, the government, or political parties, people are beginning to seek out information for themselves.

At our core, we are a center-right nation. We have a fundamental cultural belief in the free enterprise system. Although Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are on opposite sides of this divide, they are utilizing the same “take to the streets” tactics.

There’s a Venn Diagram, created by blogger James Sinclair, making its way around Facebook which highlights a belief about the intersection of big government and big business. This may indeed be a unifying theme. However I believe we should be careful before jumping to the conclusion that these two movements will be aligned in a major way going forward.

Through its “organization,” Occupy Wall Street could have a real impact on public policy in Washington.

To date, the U.S. Congress has been at somewhat of a stalemate on issues affecting Wall Street. House Republicans are reluctant to engage in the dialogue about taxes on the “super rich”, etc., citing concerns about jobs and the economy in the broadest sense. These lawmakers are resisting the notions put forth by President Obama in the American Jobs Act as it relates to raising revenue.

On the other hand, Democrats and the President have been trying to gain a foothold and save what they can from their recently proposed jobs act, which has been inexplicably rejected by the Democratic-led Senate. Interestingly, in spite of this rejection, the public appears to be in agreement with the basic tenants of the act. According to the latest Gallup poll, 57 percent of Americans want their members of Congress to vote for the jobs bill created by President Obama.

So, will the “Wall Street Rallies” give life to what is otherwise a stranded proposal? If it does, it will be almost by coincidence. Don’t underestimate the threat of a “haves” and “have-nots” society and the trends of democratization and disintermediation.

We should watch closely and see if the situation escalates to include broader proposals that affect Wall Street and the financial industry around the world, i.e., taxes, further restrictions on pay, a discussion of revisiting Glass-Steagall, which would re-impose the separation of commercial and investment banking, and other such measures.

As we are starting to see, Occupy Wall Street is spreading globally. This past weekend protests took place in Rome, Berlin, London, Sydney, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Although the protests represent a variety of messages, they were united in their frustration with the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and with the financial industry. It will be important to observe what comes of these demonstrations and what impact they will have on the global financial system.

In the end, however, the high unemployment rate of 9 percent that many Occupy Wall Street protesters blame on Wall Street may be the reason that the movement has yet to make an impact on public policy in Washington, where politicians are afraid to hamper economic growth with any policy that might further roil the financial markets.

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750

Leadership (noun \lē-dər-ship\) is not a new word, yet I wonder if Washington, and the European Union for that matter, is suffering from people’s belief that we are in dire need of someone, anyone, to begin exercising its meaning – the capacity to lead. Maybe the reasons they feel it doesn’t exist is because they feel present leaders are not leading, or that people have simply stopped listening.

The recent wild swings of the stock market may signal something a lot more serious than a lack of confidence in Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s newest effort to stimulate the economy by driving down long-term interest rates and worries about containing the European debt crisis: they may point to a perceived lack of leadership everywhere, as Americans cope with a 9 percent employment rate and no apparent prospects for improvement.  Clearly, the rhetoric and quick fixes are not working. We are losing faith in our current leaders and have stopped listening, not because of what they are saying, but because of the notion they are not leading.  This at a desperate time when people so desperately need someone to do so.

The Dow dropped 2.5% shortly after the Fed statement that “there are significant downside risks to the economic outlook.”  Both stocks and commodities tumbled, Treasury yields dropped to a record low and, over concern that central banks have run out of tools to prevent another recession, the Dollar Index climbed to a seven-month high.

The steady stream of negativity regarding the European fiscal policy, and lack thereof, has helped drain confidence in the institutions whose task it is to lead the developed world out of recession.

By now, everyone knows that President Obama’s job approval rating, which is in the low 40’s and has been since June, are dangerously poor for someone who faces reelection next year. He is not able to impose his will on a Congress where the GOP minority in the Senate can thwart many of his proposals and where a GOP majority in the House just says “no.” His initial big jobs program speech on was cheered by partisan Democrats weary of his efforts to negotiate with the GOP, but practically everyone agreed from the start that much of it will never be adopted. Presently, the Washington Post-ABC News poll shows the President is leading congressional Republicans 49 to 34 percent when it comes to the public’s trust when it comes to creating new jobs. Although it is an improvement from September’s numbers when it was a 40 percent split, is it enough to get him reelected?

Recently, House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner — who struggled to hold together the GOP caucus during the debt ceiling fight — saw his caucus break ranks openly when the House voted down, 230-195, what was supposed to be a fairly routine spending bill. Democrats voted against it because they thought it didn’t have enough money for disaster relief victims, but a significant number of the most conservative Republicans also voted against it because it didn’t cut government spending enough. Boehner later got the bill through the House, but this back-and-forth suggests that more bitter, drawn-out fights over spending and taxes will erupt again this fall. It’s as if both parties in Congress see more gain from continued fighting than compromise, which is interesting in light of the latest Washington Post-ABC News polling that shows 42 percent of Americans are fed up with Congress’ shenanigans.

So what does the American public, weary of economic gloom and fearful that they will not come out of this recession anytime soon, see when it looks to Washington? Do they see a president who spent too much time trying to win support in Washington for his programs, rather than first securing the support of the American public? A House with a Republican majority that can stop legislation it doesn’t like, but can’t pass much of anything it really wants — when it can actually agree on what its own members want?

The public sees a Federal Reserve doing financial things it doesn’t understand, but deepens their pessimism because what they have been hearing lately from the Fed confirms the economy will get worse before it gets better. This gloomy outlook is a shared by executives participating in the 2011 McKinsey Global Survey, which reveals many believe their home economies,  as well as the global economy, will show no signs of improvement for at least the next six months. Europe appears divided over how much help to provide countries, especially Greece, which are struggling with heavy debt burdens.

It’s a remarkable moment in history. A political stalemate and a perceived lack of decisive leadership in the world’s largest economy is making a bad situation worse, not just for Americans, but the global economy as well. This stagnant moment is a perfect opportunity for a new bold and different type of leadership. The type of bold leadership shown by Warren Buffet’s business insight, Bill Gates’ ground breaking philanthropy, and Steve Jobs’ revolutionary approach to receiving information.

Given the present mindset on leadership, it is not surprising that the people who are in the public’s eye the most seem to have the lowest approval rating. In the 2011 Gallup Poll on Confidence in Institutions, Members of Congress and big business’ approval ratings are under 20%.  Media pundits are barely better with an approval rating under 30%. So who does the world trust? The military leads in trust with a 78% approval rating, followed by small business (64%), the police (56%) and organized religion (48%).

From the information I’ve gathered the description of the bold leader the world is waiting on would look a little like an Army general, who is also a minister, whose spouse is a part-time school teacher and small business owner and who used to be a policeman … any ideas?

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750

Please see a wonderful piece by Mike Berman about our dear friend, Howard Paster:

http://www.mikeswashingtonwatch.com/howard/

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750

Friends & Colleagues,

For years, I have been fascinated by the relationship between the public and legislative bodies, both the U.S. Congress and those at the state level. What has particularly amazed me is how often very intelligent people feel compelled to ask elected officials for permission to advance their agenda as opposed to first making their case to their own constituents — who not coincidentally make up all or part of the constituency of the very elected officials whose permission is sought. In effect, they bypass the public and instead rely on intermediaries.

These past few weeks, culminating with the dramatic events of this weekend, we have seen the President essentially begging House Republicans to do the right thing, from his perspective, and based on what polls tell us, what most Americans also think is the right thing to do.

Similarly, it always amazed me during last year’s health care debate that a President with a then-60 percent approval rating decided to leave it to a Congress with a 28 percent approval rating to sell the plan to the public — the same plan now labeled “Obamacare.”

That approach is actually the origin of what we are seeing now, as the tidal wave that hit House Democrats in 2010 was a direct result of the failure to sell the initiatives of the Democrats during Obama’s first two years in the Oval Office.

Recently, you read my thoughts about disintermediation and my feeling that we are seeing the democratization of everything.

What fascinates me about President Obama’s approach is that he spent weeks negotiating with elected officials on Capitol Hill asking, basically, for permission from the House Republicans to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and taking heat from members of his own party, even as every “okay, NOW this’ll fix ’em” proposal the White House came up with failed.

The American public is increasingly confused and I say: no wonder. As democratization and disintermediation continue, who’s really surprised that no economist, no Treasury Secretary, no Warren Buffet — can sell an economic message in these times? The President has to do it.

As for the intractability of the House Republicans and their newly arrived tea party caucus, my first temptation, like many, is to ask, “Who are these people?”

But that’s too easy, and in all but a few cases, not fair. The House Republicans, and especially the most conservative members serving their first terms, believe they were given this mandate directly from the voters in the last election, and that no intermediary — not the Speaker, not the inside-the-beltway talking heads, and not a busload of economists — will change their minds.

As I write this, we appear to have reached a compromise in the debt extension crisis — a compromise the public has both wanted and expected to happen in advance of Tuesday’s deadline. But I also think that after weeks of dueling press conferences, talk show spin, and numerous attempts to cajole, scare, and almost plead, none of it has worked for the President and his allies as far as the substance of their original proposals.

Going back to my initial point about my surprise at those who approach the legislative process by asking permission, I wonder if we have not just seen that unfold in Washington.

I am an unapologetic Obama supporter. I also have respect for the House Republicans’ right to an opinion. I admire on one level their guts and strength of conviction and believe they think they are right. I also believe they think they are the only ones in the debate who have a true and recent mandate from the public. I don’t agree with that, but I’m afraid our team has done a poor job of making our case in any direct way to the public outside the beltway.

If you believe my theory of disintermediation, then you cannot sell the public on a strategy of talking heads on interview shows or editorials in the New York Times. And I absolutely feel you cannot forge a compromise by calling your adversaries “fanatics” and “extremists.”

So I ask, how does a President who soared to heights few have in history, who captured his party’s nomination by going over the heads of the political ruling class, who built his ascent on a foundation of being a great communicator, move forward?

The President took this debate to the American public — not as aggressively or as early as I would have hoped, but he did nonetheless. I had hoped that he would crisscross the country. Throw away the maps for the 2012 election. Tell the story of how we really got here and the way forward. The only thing that I thought would really forge a compromise was for both the House Republicans and the Democrats to see evidence that the President has a mandate with the real public that transcends the 2010 congressional election.

The only effective way to recover from damage done to the political standing of all involved, especially the President, will be to take his case aggressively to American people. It’s time to get his staff off of television, tell the economists to go back to their day jobs, and for the President to speak directly to the public from sea to shining sea — utilizing disintermediation as a strategy, not unlike what he did in the 2008 election.

As the most recent polling data show, the President started with an advantage over the House Republicans.

In the recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, just 38% of voters approve of the job President Obama is doing in handling the federal budget deficit — but as low as that might sound, that’s an 11-point advantage over the Republicans in Congress, who attract only a 27% approval rating. An even more recent Gallup Poll last week found that President Obama had a 41% approval rating compared to Speaker Boehner’s 31% and Harry Reid’s 23%.

President Obama can take even more encouragement from the associations that voters made in the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, which are better than even his advantage over the Republican Congress on handling the federal budget deficit.

Voters think President Obama is doing more than Republicans in Congress to protect the economic interests of “you and your family” by 47% to 37%. Voters also see President Obama doing more to protect the interests of (publicly revered) small businesses (48%-39%) and of middle class-Americans (53%-35%). A recent Pew poll also found a 51% majority of people think the Democrat Party is “more concerned with the needs of people like me,” compared to 30% who think that of the Republican party.

Meanwhile, voters give a decisive edge to Republicans — although one that might slice more against than for in the current context — when it comes to protecting the economic interests of Wall Street financial institutions (59%-26%) and large business corporations (67%-24%).

Concerns about the federal budget deficit appear also to be damaging consumer attitudes about the economy — at a time when the economy can least afford it. According to Gallup’s ongoing polling (July 22-24, 2011), 51% think the economy is “poor” and 73% think the economy is getting worse. That’s an increase of 11 points since early July. It’s no surprise then that the public itself was almost willing there to be a compromise with 68% in a recent Pew poll saying lawmakers should be willing to compromise and 56% believing that Congress would reach a deal before the August 2 deadline.

All the more reason for the President to start taking his case to the country and spend less time trying to bargain with Republicans who are waving what they see as their mandate.

A lively debate at this point would still be healthy for the country. But it will only work if the public thinks it is hearing a message directly, in its own towns, states, and neighborhoods. It’s called democratization.

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750

Friends & Colleagues,

Over 10 years ago, I started showing friends and clients a chart of the progression of enlightened public awareness from 1960 to what was then the turn of the century:

Of course, this was before 750 million people worldwide joined Facebook and long before I stumbled onto the notion that we are actually seeing the democratization of almost everything.

My chart tracked public awareness from the debates and first primaries in 1960, through the activism during the Vietnam War and Nixon’s impeachment, and then through the Internet boom, the newly easy access to buying stocks and finally, the backlash against corporate excess in the late 1990s.

I used to predict that that activism would extend to sports and almost every institution. I had no idea how small I was actually thinking. Today, that activism has exploded into what I refer to as the disintermediation — a trend towards bypassing those who traditionally filter and provide information to the public — of almost everything.

During World War II, information was delivered days after the fact, in printed form and mostly with still visual images or heavily edited newsreels. The Kennedy years brought us programmed television with the debates and reports of the moon landings using the one-to-many broadcast model. More live TV emerged with the Nixon years, but again in a largely one-to-many broadcast format. The Internet, access to mobile phones, and social media like Facebook and Twitter have upended communication, making the one-to-many intermediaries obsolete and empowering the individual.

We’re seeing sports heroes called into question, governments falling unexpectedly, and almost every institution struggling to stay ahead of public opinion.

I believe that even economic swings, both high and low, are exacerbated by this explosion of public activism and the related loss of confidence in traditional sources of wisdom. Almost every economic leader in Washington — and many around the world — is struggling to say something that appears to show some degree of wisdom about the economy, but the public remains highly skeptical.

From the seemingly sudden, dramatic economic calamity in 2008 that surprised almost everyone to the equally rapid upswing in the early days of the Obama administration, we saw the public reacting to low confidence in our leaders in 2008 by investing unusually high confidence in the new president. What if we are in a new period of economic trends where the democratization of everything, the 24/7 news cycle, the uncertainty of leadership again reaching a high are all actually influencing the economy in more significant ways than economic experts have in their modeling? My friends, who have grown weary of my talking about this, have begun to call this the “Martin Principle.”

Today, we see the Republicans in the U.S. Congress and the president struggling to get a foothold on the government debt issue, each assuming that the tried and true methods of taking their respective messages to the public will secure support for their position. Well, guess what? It’s not working for either side, for this public I love to talk about is not listening to the messengers. They close their eyes and see … Greece.

As you will see in the data I am sharing today, the public is disgusted with both sides and not listening to the intermediaries: what we have is disintermediation.

Certainly our leaders in Washington should be rethinking their approaches to the public. Data from recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal and ABC/Washington Post polls released Tuesday suggest that politicians’ methods of messaging to the public are at least inadequate — if not outdated — for the current debt ceiling debate.

Politicians find themselves in a bind of their own making, one that has grown out of cynical campaign rhetoric that underestimates the public rather than communicates in ways that bypass the media intermediaries to talk directly to the public and take into account the wealth of information that the public has at its fingertips.

The public expects the two parties to come to an agreement. Large majorities of Democrats (62%) and independents (73%) prefer that Democratic congressional leaders make compromises in this budget debate, while almost 70% of independents want Republicans to do the same. Further, 71% believe that the two sides will somehow reach agreement in time to avoid a shutdown, while only 25% think there will be a shutdown. Neither party gets a pass if the parties fail to reach agreement; 57% would blame both parties equally, while the two parties would split the blame equally 21%-21%.

Congress doesn’t start from a position of strength as it sits at the bottom of the reputational barrel, with only 12% of those surveyed saying they have a great deal or some confidence in Congress in a recent Gallup poll, down from its historical average of 26%. The ABC/Washington Post poll finds dissatisfaction with the federal government (80%) at its highest level in 20 years.

Public preferences in terms of spending cuts and revenue solutions leave politicians little room to maneuver. Americans are no different from Europeans, who want the good life to which they have become accustomed but don’t believe they have to sacrifice or compromise to keep it. Inadequate communications have done nothing to convince them otherwise. Cynical campaign rhetoric to win elections without explaining hard choices has left politicians with a public that is unrealistic about what it will take to get the job done.

According to the NBC News/WSJ Poll, the only program cuts acceptable to majorities of Americans include nuclear power plant construction subsidies, federal assistance to state governments, the EPA and transportation and infrastructure subsidies. Further, about half of the public say significant cuts to Medicare, K-12 education and Social Security are “totally unacceptable.” Meanwhile, the targets for deficit reduction include the usual suspects: taxing the wealthy, earmarks for pet projects, defense spending, eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industry and phasing out the Bush tax cut for high-income families.

To come full circle, my chart of 10 years ago suggested that the trend of activism challenging institutions would continue. So here we are today watching with interest the media expose the media in the form of the extensive coverage of the Murdochs and their issues in London.

What are we to make of all of this? First, there is no substitute for honest, constructive communications with our constituents — no matter who they are. I think we are only at the beginning of a very exciting time in our history and the old rulebooks don’t apply. One thing I can say for sure is that if your public can be defined as customers, voters, employees, stockholders, members, readers, or regulators, you’d better figure out real quick how to eliminate every possible barrier between your message and them.

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750

Friends & Colleagues,

First, as I have not written in several months, I’d like to give you an update. As many of you know, I became the global chairman and CEO of Hill & Knowlton in January of this year. The company has over 2,200 employees and 82 offices in 45 countries.

Hill & Knowlton was founded in 1927 by John W. Hill in Cleveland, Ohio and grew rapidly under his and partner Donald Knowlton’s leadership by working to enlighten and inform public opinion through effective public relations. Many of you are already familiar with the history of Public Strategies, which I founded over 20 years ago on a new model that expanded typical concepts of “the public” and how organizations manage their interactions with the public.

After Public Strategies was acquired by WPP, the world’s largest marketing communications company in 2006, I embarked on a five-year commitment to broaden the firm’s client base and achieve new levels of growth. Upon completing that commitment, WPP — a London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ company that also owns Hill & Knowlton — asked me to assume leadership of the company.

Public Strategies, now a subsidiary of Hill and Knowlton, is part of our U.S. operations and joins an impressive list of H&K offices that includes Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Irvine, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Spokane, Tallahassee, Tampa and Washington, D.C.

Since January, my world travels have taken me to our offices and clients in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, as well as throughout North America. This week, I am in Latin America. I continue to be fascinated every day by the challenges of my new role and believe that it has never been a better time than now to be in this position with the ever-changing global events we are experiencing.

In the meantime, I’d like to share some of the observations I’ve developed as I’ve traveled the world in this new capacity — some perspectives on the importance of the public. You’ve heard me talk for years about the importance of the public, but never has the public had as much power as it does today.

Not only have the Digital Age and the Internet led to most information being in the public domain — the public now has technology at its fingertips to analyze and leverage it to its own advantage. The power of that technology was previously the domain of experts and controlled by institutions. This is no longer the case.

The public is becoming an increasingly loose affiliation of independent operators, empowered by technology and outgrowing the constraints of traditional institutions. Through this combination of information and technology, individuals can inform themselves, make decisions, seek out like-minded individuals to associate with and mobilize — whether to join a book club, advocate for a charity, recommend or boycott a company, or launch a revolution.

In short, what I believe we’re witnessing is the democratization of everything. Traditionally, the concept of democracy is discussed in a political context, but today, democratization is occurring across geographic and informational boundaries at almost every level of society. It is transforming the relationship between corporations and the public. The democratization of data offers unprecedented access to information; the democratization of media gives the public access to powerful global platforms to share information and opinions; the democratization of capital and energy encourages non-traditional approaches to challenges and opportunities; and the democratization of travel brings people closer together, highlighting less their differences and more what they share in common.

The most obvious examples of the public’s powerful tool set are Google, Facebook and Twitter, and from Domino’s pizza to the streets of Egypt, we see two wildly different examples of how profound the impact of this tool set is on the way society now works.

Information and these tools have significantly diminished the power of traditionally dominant institutions, and they are likely to continue to chip away at that power in ways that we can’t yet imagine. What it means is that organizations today have to talk with the public and consider the public’s point of view at the most strategic level of decision making – more than ever before.

You’ll hear much more from me about this in the coming year — further elaboration on the thinking that has fueled our business for years and is now driving me in my new global role at H&K. I am proud of our reputation as a world-class firm, capable of helping global corporations face today’s greatest business and public challenges.

While I’ll be based in Hill & Knowlton’s New York headquarters and continuing to travel the world in the coming months, Texas will always be home. Should you need to reach me, please don’t hesitate to do so at the contact information given below.

Jack

Jack Martin
JMartinTexas@gmail.com
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1200
Austin, Texas 78701
512-432-1750