Posted on PR Axis

Management's Stake in Public Relations

Harry A. Bullis, chairman of the board of General Mills Inc, was a champion of “the importance of public relations as a basic policy-making function’ according to Glenn and Denny Griswold, editors of the 1948 US book, Your Public Relations, which I’m reproducing as a series of monthly blog posts. Bullis is stated as believing “public relations is good business and that it deserves a position in management thinking alongside production, distribution and finance.” The...

Posted on PR Sphere PRoust Questionnaire

PRoust Questionnaire: Catherine Arrow

The PRoust Questionnaire provides a quick insight into a public relations practitioner’s interests and point of view, as well as his or her professional beliefs and values. If you are not familiar with the original 19th-century Proust Questionnaire, please see details at the end of this post. PRoust Questionnaire answers from Catherine Arrow: 1.  What are your most striking characteristics as a PR practitioner? I’m inquisitive and tenacious. 2.  What is your principal fault as...

Posted on PR Mediums

Pondering public relations as project management

Update: Embedding public relations with clarity, candour and no-pants humour has now published in the Journal of Professional Communication, Volume 3, Issue 1 (2013). Later in November 2013, my submission for The Journal of Professional Communication (JPC) publishes, which is an “ideas” review of Scott Berkun’s fifth book, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work. Scott Berkun describes his 21 months of working at Automattic as “participatory journalism.” My JPC take is...

Posted on PR Motion

Nurturing public relations talent

Nurturing the upcoming generation of leaders in public relations is something that should be of concern to all current PR practitioners and educators. Finding and developing bright young talent is one of the biggest challenges according to senior in-house and consultancy managers that I speak with. The industry has a good record of employability for those graduating with PR degrees – and with a couple of years’ experience on top, there are plenty of exciting...

Posted on PR Axis

Your Public Relations – a blog post from 1948

In 1948, Glenn and Denny Griswold, PR consultants and publisher/co-editors of Public Relations News, drew together thirty-four “outstanding experts” in the book Your Public Relations.  These contributors shared their wide variety of experience and authority as “a working manual for management executives, public relations directors and counsel, career aspirants, teachers and students, and all those interested in fitting themselves into the modern pattern of human relationships”. Looking back over 65 years, these contributions continue to...

Posted on PR Vision

Challenges and risk mitigation for PR when the crisis root is social

When reviewing case studies in recent years regarding problems or issues that held the attention of the general public and media caused by or on social media, most can be attributed to internal company errors in human judgment (many associated with social inexperience or marketing miscues). Although I’d opine very few things relate to the type of true corporate crisis as detailed in Part I, this type of “social media based event” can or does...

Posted on PR Vision

Crisis, what social PR and communication crisis? A rationale

Crisis communication and risks “managed” through social public relations and communication Although the number of “gotcha” crises erupting on social, as well as stupidity of unthinking and unbridled employees appear to be lessening (likely as a result of formal social media policies and guidelines being instituted), it can’t be ignored that more and more companies, whether by choice or necessity, are including a “social” component into integrated communication efforts—mainly because social channels are where so...

Posted on PR Sense

Dissent and protest – new directions for public relations

It has never been easier for people to protest or express dissent. But there’s actually a long tradition of public action, supported by organised campaigns. Rather than positioning such activities as dissent or protest public relations within the “field’s fuzzy and continually gerrymandered boundaries” (to cite Cropp and Pincus 2001), they have generally been viewed as threats or challenges to those working within or for organisations, and counter to the dominant viewpoint that public relations...

Posted on Classic PR Conversations PR Mediums

Exploring "A Brand New World" radio doc

It’s a brand new world. Brand being the key word. Coke, Starbucks, Nike—they all want to sell you something. They always have. But today, brands are not just products and branding is not limited to marketing. In this feature [CBC Radio] documentary, Ira Basen takes us inside a burgeoning brand culture where people obsess about their personal brands, form “relationships” with brands on social media, look to them as legitimate vehicles of social and political...

Posted on PR Motion

Action learning – NYU students develop opening address

PR Conversations contributor, the Italian professional and scholar, Toni Muzi Falconi, has just presented his latest thinking and processes in an opening session of a two day workshop in Brazil (August 27/28), under the title:’Towards an effective infrastructure for global stakeholder relationships governance’ (click for the presentation and notes). Toni involved six students in preparing his presentation – and in this post, we share their thoughts on the experience, along with their future expectations from...