Daily Archives: March 14, 2025

Brand USA issues RFP for global comms and PR firm

WASHINGTON: Brand USA, the nation’s destination marketing organization, has issued an RFP seeking a global communications and PR firm.The RFP document is dated February 2025, with a notice of intent to award the contract and public posting on April 21. The annual budget including retainer and PR activation is $500,000.The selected agency will serve as a cross-organizational resource for strategic media relations and comms. Additionally, the firm will support Brand USA’s global PR by providing expertise in earned media and strategic messaging to protect and enhance the USA’s brand image worldwide, according to a Brand USA statement. While Brand USA does not say the RFPs are a response to political news, tensions have increased between the U.S. and its allies over the Trump administration’s trade and defense policies since January. Brand USA’s in-house PR team and international agency network will work closely with the selected agency, ensuring alignment with strategy while offering additional support in key markets where conditions shift. Separately, Brand USA has issued an RFP seeking a pop-culture and screen-tourism PR agency to leverage celebrity influence, pop-culture moments and set-jetting. The wining firm will plan “culturally resonant PR campaigns that showcase the USA’s diverse travel experiences and global appeal through film, music and entertainment,” according to a Brand USA statement.There were no incumbent agencies on either account, said Chris Heywood, the organization’s SVP of PR and chief communications officer. Heywood joined Brand USA in October.Last month, Brand USA brought on Faulhaber as its PR AOR in Canada amid political and trade tensions between the two countries. The total budget for the year was $400,000, including the retainer and hard costs, said Heywood.On March 17, Leah Chandler is set to join Brand USA as chief marketing officer. Brand USA works with Edelman on social media. 

Musk’s way of streamlining tech startups is wrong for government

Elon Musk has been steadily expanding his political influence since being designated a “special government employee” by United States President Donald Trump in January. Appointed to lead the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has moved to transform government operations by pushing for mass layoffs of government employees and attempting to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Musk’s ruthless drive for efficiency has served him exceptionally well at Space X and Tesla, but can the same approach work in government where the stakes are much higher and services are more closely tied to people’s lives?Unlike in the private sector, where streamlining operations typically affect employees and investors, cuts to government programs can disrupt essential services and impact millions of people globally.Governments aren’t tech startupsMusk’s entrepreneurial results are indisputable — he has founded and taken startups from the very beginning to unimaginable heights, multiple times, often at the same time. To do so, he has been ruthless with respect to efficiency.Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk dedicates numerous chapters to his approach to designing efficient process and systems — an area of study covered by industrial and systems engineering.Musk’s approach is extremely disruptive. When analyzing a set of tasks to accomplish a goal, his default is to eliminate as many of them as possible, striving to overcut by at least 10 per cent. If he doesn’t return 10% of the tasks to the process afterwards, not enough were cut in the first place. In Musk’s “productivity algorithm,” not cutting enough tasks is an error to avoid.

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It’s true that eliminating waste is foundational to industrial and systems engineering. It’s an approach often associated with the Lean production philosophy, which has its roots in post-war Japan. A fundamental tenant of Lean is that waste should be identified by workers and leaders should support them in eliminating wasteful tasks. Unlike Musk’s top-down productivity algorithm, it’s designed to be a bottom-up approach.Musk’s approach was developed for tech startups where failing is expected, common and largely inconsequential to everyone but stockholders. If SpaceX doesn’t get humans to Mars, it’s inconsequential for most people. If Tesla, PayPal or Twitter/X fail, alternatives will fill the void.His default is to eliminate as many [tasks] as possible, striving to overcut by at least 10 per cent. If he doesn’t return 10% of the tasks to the process afterwards, not enough were cut in the first place.However, this model doesn’t easily translate to government, where failure has more direct, far-reaching consequences on people’s lives.People are not tasksMusk’s efficiency-driven approach has had a notable impact on the companies he’s led. Shortly after taking over Twitter/X, Musk went from eliminating tasks to eliminating people. Over the course of roughly a year, Musk laid off approximately 80 per cent of Twitter’s staff.Since identifying “wasteful” employees is more complex than cutting unnecessary tasks, new tools were needed. Software engineers were asked to submit code for evaluation, but when this didn’t result in deep enough cuts, employees were given an ultimatum: those who didn’t opt in to keep their jobs would be fired, placing the onus on workers to declare their willingness to stay.A similar approach was used at the FBI in February. In an email, Musk instructed federal workers to explain what they had done in the past week with a warning that non-responses would be treated as a resignation. In less than 48 hours, this was quashed and responses were made voluntary.This startup mentality of “failing fast” also didn’t translate well at the National Nuclear Security Administration, where a rapid round of firings led to concerns that national security was being jeopardized. Within 48 hours, most of the firings were rescinded and 322 of 350 fired employees were hired back.Similarly, at USAID, DOGE-led firings “accidentally” cut Ebola prevention during an outbreak in Uganda — a mistake that could have had catastrophic consequences.Musk’s flawed productivity algorithmOne of the flaws in Musk’s efficiency algorithm applied to people is the assumption that fired employees can always be rehired if needed. But people are not tasks that can be removed and replaced without consequence.The National Nuclear Security Administration struggled to contact dismissed personnel. At the US Food and Drug Administration, one of the fired scientists asked, “How are you going to be able to hire good people when you’re not offering Silicon Valley stock or pay and you’ve taken away their stability?”
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While this method may have worked in the fast-paced, high-reward world of tech startups, its application in government has been chaotic at best and dangerous at worst. Furthermore, early reports indicate the cuts are hardly making an impact on spending.No luxury of trial and errorLean manufacturing has often been described as transformative and credited with turning ailing companies into fierce streamlined competitors, but Musk’s version of efficiency engineering lacks consideration of long-term consequences.Even apostles of Lean would not call it disruptive or take an overzealous “shoot first and ask questions later” approach. Efficiency is not synonymous with cutting; it should be implemented with foresight, careful attention to value creation and consultation with those involved.Musk in his approach to government so far seems more like the merciless corporate downsizer that George Clooney plays in Up in the Air than any real-life efficiency pioneers such as Henry Ford, Joseph Juran or Apple CEO Tim Cook.Government agencies don’t operate like tech startups, public servants are not tasks and public services don’t have the luxury of trial and error when national security or public health are on the line.Peter Vanberkel is a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Dalhousie University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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