DETROIT ? An AT&T insider will tell all about the fall of what was the world?s largest telecom company at an April 21 luncheon presentation at the Southfield Westin sponsored by Detroit?s Public Relations Society of America.
Dick Martin former Executive Vice President of Public Relations, Employee Communications and Brand Management for AT&T, will speak, answer questions and autograph his book about the collapse of AT&T. The book is called Touch Calls: AT&T and the Hard Lessons Learned from the Telecom Wars.
Martin was in the boardroom and on the front line when AT&T made headline grabbing business decisions such as the “layoff of 40,000 people,” a bungled CEO succession, multi-billion dollar cable acquisitions and the ultimate unraveling of the company’s grand strategy.
?In the end, the biggest lesson is a better understanding of PR’s role in a modern corporation,? Martin said. ?In reflecting on my AT&T experience I came to the conclusion that public relations is an ethical discipline, concerned more with what a
company does than what it says. That’s a far cry from the rah-rah brother and sisterhood of the late ?90s that dumbed PR down to glad-handing, cheerleading and pitching.?
The program is open to the public and tickets, priced at $40, are available by contacting PRSA at [email protected] or (248) 545-6499.
