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Public Relations and Social Media: impact sofar and what next? Look at this program for the Euprera-Edelman EuroAtlantic summit in Bruxelles from 13 to 15 of March and make sure you don’t miss it!

An EuroAtlantic summit of senior social media and public relations academics and practitioners will take place, as already indicated in this and other blogs (www.euroblog2008.org) , in Bruxelles from March 13 to 15. The still preliminary, but almost definite, (I am a member of the organizing committee) seems to me rather juicy, as it combines the theoretical thinking of academics and scholars with the practice-oriented approach of senior practitioners from both sides of the Atlantic.

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Peer-to-peer roundtable discusses “How effective is corporate governance in Canada?”

On Tuesday, February 5th Direct Engagement Inc. is sponsoring a peer-to-peer roundtable discussion on corporate governance in Canada, “Capital markets in Canada compete globally for issuers and investors. Scandals in the US demonstrated their fragility. Statistics show Canadian regulators devote a smaller percentage of their total budget to enforcement than the US. Is the present corporate governance system working? Why are some organizations better than others in corporate governance?” Although this is a paid-attendance event,...

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Ethics, Culture and Public Relations

I’ve been perplexed for a long time about the interface between public relations and ethics. Most PR associations espouse codes of ethics, although they seem devillishly hard to police, leading some people to ask what the point is. After long reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is almost impossible for an international PR association to adopt a code that goes beyond vague platitudes. Applying ethics within an international context is extremely difficult because...

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Johnny Depp and the History of Social Media

I’ve just spent a very pleasant half an hour messing around with Johnny Depp. To be precise, I’ve been playing with the mash-up on the Sweeney Todd site which allows me to cut my own trailer for the film. If I got bored, I could trawl the blog, throw a Facebook party or – had I been in time – join one of the many Sweeney communities clustered around the ‘mother site’. As an example...

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PR Vs. Marketing: Things might be changing in Portugal

Portugal is a different country in what concerns corporate practices. At least that’s what some studies about the level of salaries earned by top managers say. And now, for the first time to my knowledge, a ranking shows that a PR Director in Portugal can earn slightly more than a Marketing & Commercial Director and significantly more than a pure Marketing Director. But what does this mean?

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On the little black book syndrome, personal influence, organizational influence and knowledge management

A public relators’ personal relationship network has always been considered an essential (when not the most essential) part of her/his professional assets. And this by clients/employers, colleagues/competitors and other relevant stakeholders such as business and other opinion leaders. This ‘untold truth’ has always embarrassed scholars and educators, as well as practitioners, because its most immediate implication is that the ‘people I know’ (and here I refer to the Al Pacino film many of you will...

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What’s my name – and where’s my number?

In case you missed it, 2007 was a big year for the statisticians – and, in many ways, something of a lost opportunity for us when it comes to making public relations count. I’m not normally a big fan of ‘numbering’ people, but I do believe that ‘public relations’ really needs a universal number of its own. Why? Because then the national and global impact of our profession could be quickly and neatly measured and...

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Objectivity in public relations and journalism: essential for the credibility of both professions, and for different reasons

If we take journalism -as David Demers writes in his very recent and most interesting History and Future of Mass Media (Hampton Press)- ‘journalists should keep their personal opinions and the opinions of their newspapers out of their news stories; All sides to a story should be covered and reported; All sides to a story should be given an equal amount of coverage’ But, if we consider public relations, we could say that: ‘a public...

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PR definitions – should do or do do?

A starting point for anyone seeking to understand public relations ought to be a definition.  However, the fact that there are several hundred formal definitions and myriad contradictory views to choose from means there is no easy way to know what PR is about.   What does it say to students who see that every text book, professional body, consultancy and individual practitioner – let alone others who comment on PR (such as journalists) – explains public relations in their own way?