In the current climate of mistrust people are not just tired of cute advertising and glib PR spin; they are openly hostile. People have grown disillusioned and distrustful ––and if people don’t trust you, it is very difficult for them to hear what you are saying. You can’t buy credibility or invent it overnight. You have to earn it. You have to establish your reputation carefully and over time.

In Do the Right Thing, public relations professional Jim Hoggan has boiled the best lessons of an award-winning career into 200 readable and practical tips on how to make yourself understood in a noisy and confusing world, and especially how to gain and maintain public trust––not with press releases and spin, but by doing the right thing. This is “news you can use,” a collection of easy-access advice outlining techniques have proven “right” for Hoggan clients and will work for you in framing your message, courting media coverage, building a good media relationship, communicating in crisis, planning for crisis management, communicating with investors, using social media to move your message from confrontation to conversation, making the most of every presentation, knowing your audience, recruiting friends and influencing critics, and communicating with your employees.

For those who want to dig deeper into the public relations strategies, Do the Right Thing delves into some worrying research and case studies on how – and how badly – the PR industry has lost the public’s trust. It then looks at the emergence, and the importance, of social media and at the best current research on communications strategies including storytelling, framing, dialogue and persuasion.

Do the Right Thing is a book for everyone who cares about his or her reputation, personal or corporate. It’s a guide for every person or company that cares about communicating credibly with a larger audience. The tips, techniques and tactics, developed over three decades, are as useful, as effective, and, especially, as concise as possible. Read it knowing that Jim’s own PR reputation is built on performance. He has shown time and again that if you want employee loyalty, consumer trust, and a degree of public regard, you have to earn it, nurture it and maintain it.

Beginning with his first press conference in 1972, JAMES HOGGAN founded and built Hoggan & Associates into one of the most successful public relations firms in Canada.. A law school graduate with a long-standing interest in social justice, Jim is also a leading authority on public perceptions about the environment, climate change and sustainability. He is Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation (one of Canada’s most influential environmental organizations), a trustee of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education and co-founder of the climate change DeSmogBlog.com.

RICHARD LITTLEMORE spent 20 years as a writer and editor in some of Canada’s most influential newspapers (the Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Sun) before striking off for a freelance career as an award-winning magazine writer, consultant and as speechwriter for some of the West Coast’s most senior business and academic leaders. He has been associated with the Hoggan organization for more than a decade.