global discussion. local perspectives.
What does the year ahead hold for PR practitioners? Is the emerging global recession an opportunity or threat to our industry? Here are my predictions for 2009, a year when, I believe, proactive PR career planning will prove vital in helping the strongest to survive and indeed flourish.
A recent Security Exchange Commission investigation on an insider trading scam, innocently involving a Brunswick New York manager, spurs calls for the regulation of the public relations profession. Nina Devlin, an experienced pr professional specialised in acquisition and new listing activities on behalf of clients of the highly reputed Brunswick firm, has been temporarily suspended without pay by her employer when an investigation by the SEC accused her husband Mathew (a trader for Lehman Brothers)...
I asked a couple of friends to share their thoughts about the year 2008 for Portuguese PR. The sector is growing firmly despite of the economic context. Important steps towards professionalism have been given with new courses being offered at the post graduate level, and the recent publication of the Code of Professional Conduct by the Portuguese Association of Business Communication is a landmark.
On the doorstep to Christmas, I thought I would mention my favourite game this year. ‘Spore’ lets you evolve from a tiny cell into a creature that you nurture over time. In order to play you must move from cell to creature stage to form a tribal group, then on to determine your own brand of ‘civilisation’, before finally evolving into a sentient intergalactic space being (only one of my sons has managed this so...
1. Please discourage my colleagues from offering, arguing, pushing individual as well as organizational visibility as a ‘strategic’ and desirable objective. Peeing in the pot is more strategic and less polluting. If it makes sense to expect a substantial reduction in organizational advertising investments, it also makes sense to anticipate a reduction of editorial pages which, in turn, reduces media relations activities. Subsequently many of my colleagues will find time to think about many other...
The global automotive industry, and particularly the Big 3 US car companies, have been making the headlines regarding its future survival in the economic downturn. What is interesting is the level of support for PR emerging from journalists who are actually considering the impact of losing players in this huge industry. Automotive News reports how Ford’s CEO, “Mulally has identified the public’s skepticism as a barrier to Ford’s long-term recovery” and goes on to state:...
Back in September, Heather Yaxley launched a fascinating and heated debate on the role of PR under the fairly tame title “A radical view of PR“. One thread of the debate centred on whether the PR professional should be representing external views to management or simply representing the organization’s position. I would like to revisit the topic by introducing research from two other fields: visual perception and evolutionary biology.
Last week I participated to an exclusive and ‘secret’ summit of CCO’s from 15 major global corporations during which they discussed some of the major challenges facing their increasingly relevant organizational function assisted by a handful of ‘sparring partners’ from academia, ngo’s and consultants. I will mention no names nor location as per agreement, but will instead relate a few of the primary issues and how they were discussed. No intention here to ‘scoop’ anyone,...
The Canadian Public Relations Society is holding its next annual conference, On The Edge, in Vancouver, British Columbia, from June 7 to 9, 2009. Its website is already up and running. It’s good to see that CPRS is making use of some interactive (i.e., social media) tools for this conference iteration, including a twitter account and online poll. (The current question is: Which professional development workshop stream is most useful to you?) Promised in January...
“….Notwithstanding these examples there is growing recognition of increasing differences between opinion and behaviour in society today. If we are to be really successful in the use of social marketing in changing individual behaviour, we need to rethink traditional theories about how we use communications and marketing to achieve social objectives. We need to refocus on society. This need is emphasised by an increasingly fluid, mobile, society; an increasingly divergent set of public opinions on...