My friends,
when you feel ‘cornered’ there are at least two ways to react: step back or accelerate.
I am happy to inform you that I have decided to accelerate, and from the day after tomorrow (Sunday, April 15, Italian time) this blog will have exhausted its function and will move on to a cooperative blog under the new url www.prconversations.com , where I will be joined, initially by five other regular contributors from as many countries (in alphabetical order): Catherine Arrow from New Zealand, Joao Duarte from Portugal, Judy Gombita from Canada, Markus Pirchner from Austria and Jon White from the UK. My good friend and Indian scholar Sriramesh Krishnamurthy has also accepted to join us, but not before the end of April.
By no means and in no way does this list intend to remain ‘closed’, both by nationality nor by specific practice. I can think of many, many other friends and colleagues that I would very much like to invite to contribute along the same lines, as I am sure that my other initial contributors will also want to invite others as well.
Ideally I would wish move one step forward towards the initial goal I expressed (or you may read here the ‘this blog’ text on the right hand column) when this adventure first began seven months ago: The ambition of this blog -I wrote then- is to become a truly global space to debate about public relations in the world today, by facilitating all who are interested in being updated and wish to comment on the developments of our profession, to read news and opinions from concerned professionals and scholars from all continents who, I hope, will be stimulated to proactively cooperate with me in this venture.
When I say I feel ‘cornered’ I mean that:
a- my professional life has become more hectic than ever (the older you get, the more you feel you are losing something…. and in my case this is getting problematic..);
b- at the same time (and in coherence with the parenthesis in the previous point) I am increasingly nervous and confused about the extraordinary potential of this environment and that I am not doing enough to explore it and benefit from it. Is this is already an advanced stage of ISMS (internet social media syndrome)?
Initial participants have kindly agreed to post at least once a month, so this should ensure one or two posts per week. It is difficult to anticipate what they will be about, but I very much hope that -as diverse as the topics will surely and hopefully be- the overall approach and attitude will be coherent in the sense of ensuring a continual quest for concepts which might assist the professional community worldwide in expanding its curiosity, its knowledge, its relationships and –most of all- its attraction towards a better understanding of the changing environment as well as the changing approaches with which public relations may contribute a better quality of life for communities in every part of the world.I am confident that the many visitors and commenters to this blog, which have sofar highy gratified me with their attention, will be much more attracted and satisfied with the new one coming out on Sunday.
Good bye and good luck…..see you from Sunday on www.prconversations.com
toni muzi falconi
Best of luck to all involved. Sharing the load has always made monumental tasks easier to accomplish. I will continue to read and contribute where i can.
Here are some other interesting thoughts received over the weekend:
1.
Great idea accelerate (if you feel it necessary and don’t forget that is just a tool, not a Shangri-La).
Roberto Antonucci
Rome
2.
I think it’s a very courageous move to “accelerate” the thinking and “power up” the talking about the issues pertinent to our profession. One shouldn’t, however, disregard the value of stepping back and contemplating the subject in silence for a while. So, let’s try to lower the amount of noise and increase the depth of thinking …I’ll try to pitch in from my corner.
Best
Igor Reichlin
President
Moscow
3.
Good wishes with the new blog … sorry you feel cornered and / or confused by what you see as a new environment. Me, I see nothing new in the acceleration of communication ….I am sure someone could tell me what is new about the environment in which we live other than speed of transmission .. but society hasn’t changed, the work of the social scientists of the 1930s on communication still holds true we just have more and faster media to use.. it makes the whole issue of asynchronous and synchronous transmission of data, and the manipulation of time zones more of a fine art than it was when Gennasi Gerasimov demonstrated that the Reagan White House was not as smart as Moscow when it came to managing communication.
Blogging is no more than the extension by means of the internet of those small communities of topic based self interested that have always existed to pore over new ideas and internalise common interests. There is some interesting analysis of work done FUJI and others that identify just how small the readership of blogs actually is. Of course when it comes to technical matters they tend to be the places where the early adopters and technical critics live – useful if you want to float a new technology idea or product. Better than most trade magazines but that’s all they are …
If you want to see where public relations practice stands today then monitor the IPRA chat room and be surprised and then realise that for all the brave talk nothing much has changed and wherever you are in the world the fundamentals are the same as they were and have been …
But enjoy the blog co-operative ..I suspect you could have more fun and learn more from a chat room about public relations that was open to the world at large …
Best wishes
Peter L. Walker, London
4.
All good luck
Colin Farrington, London
5.
This is an exciting development and Iam convinced that you will come across numerous wonderful opportunities. I wish you best and look forward to meeting soon. Best Eric Gerritsen, Milano
6.
I look forward to joining you in the blogosphere.
David Donohue, Australia
7.
You’re doing right moving to the next step. The idea of keep sharing ideas (and the workload) with the other contributors sounds great. I’m looking forward to reading the first posts. Good luck! Renato Ravenna, Melbourne
8.
Wish you all the very best for the new initiative which takes off today. It would be my pleasure to contribute, what ever I can.Regards, AJIT PATHAK, New Delhi
9.
Power sharing on a grander scale. It will be a great success.
With warm greetings
Jacqueline Purcell, London
10.
I will try to make occassional posts to the new site. Anne Gregory, Leeds (UK)
11.
Important initiative and would like to participate.
Roger Hayes, London
12.
I will join at the end of May.
Ronel Rensburg, South Africa
…….
Interesting, I’ll follow the conversations. I would appreciate if you could stick to the reality, providing useful guidelines for the everyday work.
Dear all,
congratulations and good luck for this stimulating adventure.
I think this collaborative approach could be a real (and not only virtual!) approach to share global PR konwledge and – first of all – to discuss over the present and future of our profession.
Personally, I’ll support the blog and I’ll try to be constantly involved in it…. I’m sure many other professionals do the same!
A huge hug,
faven
Greetings,
My business partner – Chris Skinner forwarded me your details. We have just started a new project together as you’ll see from our website. http://www.protocolinpractice.co.za We will certainly provide a link to your blog – we will be dealing very much with the PR industry. Chris is the PR heavyweight. I’m the journo-who-can’t-stay-off-the-internet.I have the ISMS – it’s terminal!
good luck
Karen