What Porter Novelli offers can be summed up in two words: Intelligent Influence. The basis for Intelligent Influence is Intelligent Dialogue. As yesterday’s mass media morph into today’s interactive media, people expect to talk back at journalists and opinion leaders. Yesterday’s way was set-piece monologues broadcast to passive audiences by powerful brands and media owners. Today’s way is fluid, evolving dialogues conducted across multiple, linked channels. Ongoing dialogue is now possible and is truly the best basis of dynamic long-term relationships. Easy sound-bite answers are seductive; they give a comforting but illusory sense of resolution. Instead, we need to cultivate open, questioning minds that ask smart, creative questions. Smart questions spark Intelligent Dialogue, open up thinking and tap into the power of many minds.

Our first Intelligent Dialogue, titled “Prime Angst,” explores the ricochet effects that the subprime mortgage meltdown is having on the global economy. Porter Novelli looked not just as the financial data but at the ramifications of the crisis on everything from living arrangements (three generations under one roof) to travel plans (no lavish vacations this year)—and on the marketers who are trying to sell goods and services in this challenging climate. With all the anxiety it’s provoking, the prime crisis is an opportunity to sharpen the skills needed for dialogues that build reputations and relationships. This paper is a jumping-off point for those dialogues.


Our second paper, “Millennials,” looks at the generation of workers born in the 1980s. Some 75 million strong in the U.S. alone, Millennials have just arrived in the workplace, and they’re already having a profound effect on business culture. They value work-life balance, use digital devices natively (and intensively) and have little interest in privacy. To help employers navigate the sometimes treacherous intergenerational waters, Porter Novelli undertook a comprehensive research initiative, drawing on the expertise of thousands of PR professionals. The report answers five key questions: How different are Millennials? What happens to confidentiality in an age of radical transparency? If being entertained is the norm, what happens to work? What does the world of work and business mean to Millennials? What stories are Millennials telling to make sense of themselves and their generation?