Companies and brands are more likely these days to take stands on social and political issues outside their core areas of business.

We have now, all of us, looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes and we are troubled by what we see.

I am Bruce Marks, an attorney in Philadelphia, who has represented clients in Ukraine for more than 20-years.

It’s true. I once gave a lecture at my alma mater titled “B2B: The Hidden World of Public Relations.” At that time business-to-business communications was, indeed, hidden away — invisible to the average consumer. Practical and transactional in tone and purpose, these comms were tucked away and separate from the other internal and external communications streams. 

I have always been amazed at the confident abandon with which we use words like “due diligence,” as if we can accurately and fully read and understand every risk — past, present and future. The more information we have, the more surprised we seem to become by endless eventualities.