Throughout my all-most 20 years in the communications game, I have been participating in many business networks – national as well as international. These networks have contributed to many learnings and business connections, but also to some important realizations....

On Thursday Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU), striking a blow against the bloc and spreading panic through world markets as sterling collapsed to a 31-year low. Investors scrambled to sell the pound, oil and stocks as Britain took a lurch into the unknown, becoming the first country to quit in the EU’s 60-year history, a culmination of decades of suspicion over European aims of creating an ever-closer political union.

The positive impact a rave review has on your product or service can’t be beat. Whatever the budget, the size of the billboard or the impact of the TV campaign, “nothing,” as the dearly-departed Prince sang, “compares” to a happy customer championing your cause.

Koos Viviers the curmudgeonly editor of the Cape Times, in Cape Town, South Africa, sat in his leather lined chair behind his mahogany desk, and glowered at me, the brand new, extremely nervous night editor of “his” treasured morning newspaper. “Your job is simple”, he said.