2007 has been a banner year so far for sports PR debacles.

First, unconfirmed steroid aficionado Barry Bonds, of the San Francisco Giants, became the all-time home run leader after he broke Hank Aaron's record of 755 dingers back in August. Controversy has swirled around Bond's ever since his arms and head have grown to almost twice the size since his early playing days in Pittsburgh. Is it steroid use? Or is Bonds stepping on Tony Little's Gazelle Glider and toning and firming the natural way. Bonds maintains, "This record is not tainted at all. At all. Period."

Despite the negativity surrounding the Bonds record, major league baseball continues to be America's favourite past time. Strangely, major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig was not in attendance for Bonds' record breaking home run, instead he offered Bonds a congratulatory phone call. Perhaps, Selig was advised by MLBs PR wizards to lay low and not be media accessible.

In July, Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick was indicted on charges stemming from his role in owning and operating a dog-fighting ring. Vick, under severe media and fan pressure, owned up to the charges and saw his reputation rightfully ruined. The story became headline news for weeks, however after Vick held a news conference in which he said, "I totally ask for forgiveness and understanding as I move forward to bettering Michael Vick the person, not the football player," the media and the public seemed to have moved on. Was his apology genuine? Or was it the work of a well orchestrated PR campaign to salvage whatever career Vick has left.

On a related front, the note that Vick used at the news conference fetched over $10,000.00 at auction. No word on whether O.J. Simpson was the lucky buyer...  

As my plane touched down in Ottawa on Saturday afternoon, after six glorious days in the sunshine state roasting like a rotisserie chicken at Swiss Chalet, I suddenly realized a harsh reality...my vacation was drawing to a close. I, like most people, love vacationing. To me there are few things that compare to idea of having nothing to do but eat, drink and be merry. It doesn't matter if I'm holed up in my apartment with a tub of Country Crock and 'Who's the Boss?' on DVD or lying on a beach with Jimmy Buffett tunes cranked: vacations rock.

For my week of vacation I went down to Orlando to take in the mass amount of amusement parks, gator farms and sun. If you've ever been to Florida in the summertime you know that it feels like the hottest place on earth. I mean you literally feel like you're hugging the sun. It definitely takes some getting used to, but it's worth it. Most people go to Orlando for two things: 1) Walt Disney World 2) Conventions.  However, in order for the trip to be complete you must do the following five things while in the entertainment Mecca of central Florida:

1. Eat a turkey leg at an amusement park (even if you're a vegetarian or vegan)

2. Visit Gatorland and feed overfed gators hotdogs

3. Make your own flavour of ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery

4. Tally the number of billboards for personal injury lawyers

5. Do not drink any fluids for twelve hours and go for a 2 mile jog

For now it’s back to work…

This Saturday, Live Earth concerts headlined by major music acts such as The Police, The Dave Matthews Band, and Alicia Keys will take place around the globe in a 24-hour period in hopes of increased awareness of environmental issues.

Organized by former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore and Network Live CEO Kevin Wall, Live Earth has seen its share of detractors. Some, like Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, fear that Live Earth will be nothing more than a rock concert that will have no long term effect on the climate change crisis.  

Others fear that the resources needed to put on a large scale event like Live Earth will do more harm to the environment than with no event at all. Endless tour buses and idling cars in the venue parking lots will no doubt affect the environment on the day of the concerts.

The detractors can say what they want about Live Earth, but the reality is the event is already a PR success. Even if Kanye West's microphone was to cut out during "Golddigger" or Al Gore was to sing "Lump" by The Presidents of the United States of America, Live Earth will have done its job. Why? Because people are talking more than ever before about environmental issues. The concert will be just that, a concert. It's what's behind the concert that's most important. Gore is successfully tapping into what will hold people's attention and get people talking, and for many it's music.

Al Gore and his organizing team have signed a seven-point pledge to combat the climate crisis and hope that people watching or attending the concerts do the same. I, for one, will be signing the seven-point pledge and watching Live Earth on television on Saturday, all while changing my light bulbs to compact fluorescent green savers.

Spider Man 3, easily one of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer, arrived in theatres three weeks ago. The movie blew away the competition by grossing $151,116,516 in one weekend. Tobey Maguire, who plays Spider Man, has cemented himself as a Hollywood superstar by playing the role in the previous two installments of the wildly popular series. With a big-budget production like Spider Man 3, it's very important to mount a properly orchestrated public relations campaign or your movie could go the way of Waterworld. This includes the cast making the talk show rounds, doing scores of interviews with reporters at press junkets and generally making sure that the public is well aware and excited about the release of the film. A week before the film was released Tobey Maguire was videotaped knocking a fan's camera out of his hand after getting upset about getting photographed. The video of Tobey losing his Spidy sense of humour was picked up by blogs and celebrity gossip sites around the world. Fans of the Maguire were split as to whether or not this was the 'real' Tobey. In a single moment, had all the goodwill that Tobey Maguire built up gone out the window? Judging by the opening weekend gross, it appears not. So, I'm confident to say that in world of celebrities, where everyone is going to rehab and getting charged with DUI, the public is more forgiving and doesn't care if you are a 'nice' person. The only thing that truly matters is whether the special effects are zany and the film is entertaining. I'm off to pick up my Tobey Maguire figurine.  

Last week's episode of NBC's hit show 'The Office' called 'Product Recall' had a direct link to the world of public relations as Dunder-Mifflin, the fictional paper company where the show takes place, was in full crisis mode. The reason was a disgruntled employee at the paper mill put an obscene watermark on one of their most popular orders of paper. Michael, the boss, called the staff into a meeting and pointed the blame on a fellow employee, who was responsible for quality assurance at the paper mill and blew it off.

As the episode plays out, we learn valuable lessons in what NOT to do in a crisis situation. Michael decides to call a news conference in order to apologize to one of the clients affected by the lewd watermark. He decides to present the client with a novelty size gift certificate for free paper, however the client does not accept the gift or the apology and calls for Michael to resign as manager of Dunder-Mifflin. He then loses his patience and calls the client, "an ungrateful biatch" and then asks the one reporter who bothered to show up to the news conference if they were able to "get all that".

The final public relations tactic Michael employs is direct to stakeholder communications as he records his own low-budget YouTube video in which he apologizes for the mistake and declares that not even a S.W.A.T. team would be able to get him to resign. This type of communication is becoming the latest way to cut the news media out of the mix. We saw this employed after Jet Blue passengers in the U.S. were left sitting on the tarmac for a whopping 12 hours before being able to get off the plane. The company came under fire and the company's president David Neeleman made a video posted on YouTube and the Jet Blue website in which he got his message across without any media interference.

It's safe to say that two things were going to be inevitable in 2007...first, Subway Restaurants were bound to increase the price of their daily $2.99 value sub to $3.29 to reflect inflation and second, blogging would be included in my day-to-day activities. The first inevitability became a reality yesterday as I visited my local Subway, fully expecting to purchase a delicious six-inch club sandwich on fresh honey oat bread for the low every-Monday price of $2.99. However, I soon realized that the days of mowing down on a six-inch sub for $3.17, after taxes, were now just a memory...cue the slow motion montage of me with mayo on face with Boyz II Men's 1991 hit 'End of the Road' playing in the background. Instead, I was left pondering why the good people at Subway increased the price of their daily special sandwich. Was Subway spokesperson extraordinaire Jared no longer accepting expired Sub Club stamps as payment in exchange for appearing in commercials? Did the price of processed cheese triangles just skyrocket? Although, one can never be too sure the answers to these hard-hitting questions, the more appropriate and most-likely right answer is simple inflation.

 The second and more important inevitability of 2007 is that blogging would be included in my day-to-day activities. For the past year I've been a casual observer of some entertainment news blogs, including The Superficial and Perez Hilton. I'm excited to share my thoughts on communications topics and I am happy to have finally 'joined the conversation'