As best as I can recall, I have never used this blog to promote either my own consulting practice or that of my employer -- the public relations and public affairs consultancy Hill & Knowlton. Forgive me, then, if I make an exception this one time with the reassurance I'll return to my normal probity immediately afterwards.

Having spent 25 years or so providing counsel to organizations and companies on reputation and issues and crisis management, and seven years as head of the corporate communications practice for Hill & Knowlton Canada, effective this month I'll be focusing almost exclusively on helping build H&K's social media and digital communications business as practice leader. I will be working with a team that includes the inimitable dean (my description, not his) of social media in Canada -- David Jones -- the talented and creative Lynn Crymble, the Quebec digital communications luminary Michelle Sullivan and others in Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver.

Although I am not, shall we say, in the demographic usually touted as the natural home for social networking, I recognized five years ago -- about the time I began blogging -- that social media and social computing are a rupture in the fabric of personal, political and business communications. For five years I have been proselytizing within my firm, on this blog, in classrooms, with clients and in speeches globally that the public relations business' media relations, crisis management, government relations, product marketing and reputation enhancement and defence models of the past will over time have to be vigorously renewed if not replaced.

Rather than this belief remaining a passion, I now have the freedom, and the charge from our CEO, to help people more expert than me at H&K do something about it.

Yes, I can already hear some of the 'snark' about me positioning myself as a 'self-styled social media expert', which of course I am not.  As with any young discipline, there are people within social media consulting and writing in North America who are nasty, gossipy and narrow-minded especially when they feel others who aren't part of the clan are pushing into their territory. I'll ignore them because as Cato the Elder said "We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them."

My juiced up new focus will change the content of this blog only marginally. I will continue to write about the intangibles, but now through the more apparent filter of how social media can make things more tangible and persuasive.

Wish me luck.

In various spots in yesterday's New York Times, and in a variety of forms, the question is raised whether the Web makes democracy safer. I think safer; but taking only the New York Times on one day, albeit a quiet day meant for circumspection, there are troublesome trends . . . and other trends, not so much.

TROUBLESOME

Politicians offended by citizens' scrutiny of their behavior . . . Jean-François Copé, parliamentary chief for France's governing party, the Union for a Popular Movement, said in a recent radio interview, "The Internet is a danger for democracy." (quoted in 'As Web Challenges French Leaders, They Push Back' NYT front section). He's referring to a YouTube comment about a government minister being shown to be "a liar", a comment that drew the legal ire of the minister in question.

Police forces acting surreptitiously and provocatively in monitoring Facebook . . . "In some cases, the government appears to be engaged in deception. The Boston Globe recently quoted a Massachusetts district attorney as saying that some police officers were going undercover on Facebook as part of their investigations." ('Twitter Tapping' NYT editorial). The article may have been referring to this event at which 15 police officers invaded a dorm party in which underage drinking was taking place.

NOT SO MUCH

The U.S. government using software to bypass censorial restrictions on the Web . . . "Long before the protests in Iran started, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees U.S. civilian international broadcasting, had in place software to counter censorship in countries like Iran, so people could better access the blogosphere. And the State Department financially supports agencies that make it easier for Iranians and others to surf the Web." ('Social Networks as Forerign Policy' NYT Magazine)

Just one day's chat about the ethics of Web discourse. But as long as the debate happens we'll be okay.

It's maybe time to close the book on the reality of the decline in newspapers and get on with the argument about the hole it leaves, or doesn't. The latest is summarized in a blog post on Reflections of a Newsosaur aptly called "Carnage continued in Q3 newspaper sales"

"Continuing 14 straight quarters of mostly accelerating declines, total print advertising in the third period fell a bit less than 29% to $5.8 billion. Interactive advertising sales, which the industry once hoped would be its salvation, dropped nearly 17% in the third quarter to $623 million, marking the sixth quarter in a row of declines in this crucial category."

This is stark evidence that in spite of industry claims to the contrary the legacy media infrastructure is, like Marx's hope for the State, simply withering away, and the end point of the decline isn't yet in sight.

It is what it is and there is likely no going back, even if I share the angst the diminution occasions. The important discussion now is what should be saved and how. In spite of the stupidity of much of today's 'entertainews' , we still need columnists like the Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson who keeps the current Canadian governing party in his sights and calls it out for every mendacious and insensitive word and act, which keeps him busy.  Democracy ought to have a vigorous fourth estate. Or, at least, it cant do without wise, critical, often cantankerous, always careful sentinels.

But let's be clear about a few things:

1. The disappearance of print vehicles isn't the same thing as a flight from the consumption of news and information. People today are consuming more information and news than they ever have in the past. A lot of it is junk like TMZ.com and Perez Hilton's blog. (Then again, there have always been gossip, scandal, heartbreak and blood-first news books.) But it can't be denied that the rate of taking in news, facts and opinion is, in fact, going up.
2. People are finding niche and important-to-them information, arguing with it, deep diving into it when it concerns them or affects their lives, and forming into groups when the news or chicanery requires action. There may be, to quote the 'Internationale' (there is a theme here you can tell) "a better world in birth."

I am in the camp which thinks the new substructure already exists for a strong new 'estate' of inventive, articulate (even if their metier is the image), critical guardians of democracy and its breeches. All the cream hasn't yet risen to the top as it has in print and television commentary. But there are beachheads, in Canada anyway, with the likes of David Eaves or some of the writers at the online newspaper The Tyee and, occasionally, The Torontoist.

So, there is no cause for worry because, as a recent article by David Carr concludes:

Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful.

What I realized today after reading a New York Times editorial on Goldman Sachs is that many more CEOs in the financial services sector than we care to think, when they're home at night in the dark, are convinced they did nothing wrong.

In fact, they have every intention of taking similar risks again.

Why? Because they presume a fundamental truth: the manipulation of financial products is a necessary - even essential - element in a dynamic economy.  Because they feel they were justified in receiving government bailouts precisely because their financial strategies make the economy hum. Because the personal rewards of successful risk taking are too great. Because boards of directors still believe in their guts the Milton Friedman dictum that "the busines of business is business" and what's good for shareholders (read 'institutions') is good for all of us.

And in our hearts, even after fulsome apologies, promises of reform, compliant acceptance of a few minimal restrictions on bonuses, we know they will not change.

That's why the apologies seem so hollow, why there is such editorializing about whether an apology is enough. It isn't. Because, I hazard to guess, it's likely a lie.

Companies have an ambivalent relationship with corporate social responsibility. To the extent that CSR involves commitment to compliance, environmental targets, strategic philanthropy, annual reporting and some level of stakeholder engagement, it is comfortable or at least acceptable as a risk mitigation strategy.

However, most CSR programs are starved of what Canadian Business For Social Responsibility (CBSR) calls the truly 'transformational', what I like to think of as the broader promises for accountable behaviour, transparency, community-building and dialogue (the "art of thinking together" - William Issacs). This is not to say this is for every company either easy or even desirable. Some industries and service sectors, whose products simply use up non-renewable resources, will never achieve anything even close to social assent.

Here's one idea though for companies who want to do a little more than the routine CSR hygiene activities: Explore the possibility that people may want to talk with you about what you are doing. The most productive way of doing that today is through social media. Although the risk-benefit ratio is a little higher than, say, hand-picking a stakeholder advisory panel to advise on your CSR report, the upside of creating or, better, joining social media platforms -- in knowledge-gained and friends made -- is worth it.

Some recent writings that throw a little light on what's possible:

• At 'Reimaging CSR', Jessica Stannard-Friel provides a summary of recent discussion about the part that a social media strategy can play in ratcheting up the impact of CSR in organizations. Ms Stannard-Friel herself is an observant commenter on CSR trends.
• An article in Fast Company looks at how an American bank is using crowdsourcing to select the beneficiaries of its strategic philanthropy program.
• Melissa Rowley at Mashable gives three good reasons for using social media as part of a company's CSR program . . . "getting to know your constituents", "influencing customers as citizens", and "getting your good work out there".