Truth through Numbers with former White House Economic Policy Advisor Todd Buchholz

2009 PRSA International Conference Keynote Speaker, Former White House economic policy advisor Todd Buchholz talks about whether numbers are inherently more objective than language at communicating facts, communicating through raw data and number crunching truth in the digital age.

 

On the Record…Online returns as the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference.  We’ll be talking to other conference keynoters in the weeks leading up to the event, and interviewing many of the presenters and panelists on site in San Diego as well.  You can register to attend the event here.

 

1:20 – Former White House economic policy advisor Todd Buchholz, who is confirmed to keynote the upcoming Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) International Conference in San Diego, November 7-10, 2009 shares a glimpse of what he’ll talk about in his presentation.

 

4:08 – How James Carville exploited what Buchholz said was a fairly mild recession in 1991 during US President H.W. Bush’s administration on behalf of the Clinton Campaign.

 

4:52 – How and why US Federal Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy resulted in a global economic meltdown.

 

6:32 – How US Banks can regain the American people’s trust.

 

8:28 – The sustainability of outsourcing as a business strategy, and how it will impact the American economy.

 

9:50 – Todd Buchholz shares what worries him most about the health and welfare of the American economy.

 

11:36 – Why critical thinking skills and an understanding of statistics will be essential to the professional success of future generations.

 

12:42 – A recent New York Times cover story on the hot job for college graduates today.

 

13:05  -- How statistics are often used by government to mislead voters.

 

14:47 – Todd Buchholz responds to the following passage from Anand Giridharadas’s recent New York Times opinion piece “Athens on the Net,”

 

“The headlines from Washington today blare of bailouts, stimulus, clunkers, Afpak, health care. But it is possible that future historians, looking back, will fixate on a quieter project of Barack Obama’s White House: its exploration of how government might be opened to greater public participation in the digital age, of how to make self-government more than a metaphor.”

 

15:21 – Whether or not numbers are inherently more objective than language at communicating facts.

 

15:45 – How Washington budget cuts result in the release of inaccurate, financial market driving information, and why we need to upgrade our statistics capabilities.

 

17:11 – Todd Buchholz’s responds to another passage from Anand Giridharadas’s piece:

 

“If the Internet needed a further nudge from its pedestal, the health care debate obliged. From the administration’s point of view, the Web arguably proved better at spreading deceptions about “death panels” than at spreading truth, and at turning town halls into brawls than at nurturing the unfettered deliberation that some imagine to be the hallmark of the Internet.”

 

18:03 – Number crunching truth in the digital age.

 

21:08 -- End

 

 

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Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is a new media and social media communications consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support.  Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.