Posted on PR Axis

Assessing Ottawa Public Health’s ongoing response to the endoscopies infection scare

Guest post by Josh Greenberg, PhD Establishing the scenario In a hastily organized media conference on Saturday, October 15, 2011, the City of Ottawa’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Isra Levy, announced that a local, privately owned “non-hospital” medical clinic failed to follow proper infection control measures, resulting in the potential exposure of 6,800 patients to Hepatitis and HIV. According to Dr. Levy, there was no evidence that a single patient had been infected...

Posted on PR Motion

Relationship advice for PR practitioners

Relationships are in the DNA of PR – in fact, the name itself indicates the function manages relations with publics.  But the priority in PR practice is largely on writing skills rather than interpersonal ones; whilst although academic definitions and literature highlight two-way communications, they largely omit what is required to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships. Most of the focus on communications skills is still primarily on an ability to write.  Even here, the...

Posted on PR Vision

Mentoring, networking and innovation: a prescription for the 21st century

Mentoring, networking and innovation: a prescription for the 21st century, is a co-authored guest post by Alan Berkson and Fred McClimans History is filled with examples of linkages between networking, mentoring and innovation, but over the centuries the “knowledge acquisition ecosystem” has changed considerably. There was a time when this process was slow and rooted in tacit knowledge, but as the needs and wants of society progressed and evolved, the process became more refined—moving faster—and...

Posted on PR Sense

CSR Reports? Reporting of irresponsible behaviours; new book by Paolo D'Anselmi

Book review by Toni Muzi Falconi Disclosure: Paolo D’Anselmi is an old friend of mine. I am grateful to the current leaders of PR Conversations for allowing me to introduce to its many visitors and readers Paolo’s most recent  book—his first in the English language—which reveals a number of unique arguments adding much “food for thought” for every public relations and/or corporate social responsibility (CSR) professional. The book is called, Values and Stakeholders in an...

Posted on PR Motion

Sex sells – faking it in public relations

Women are successful in public relations – UK data shows a 64:36 female:male gender split  in an industry worth £7.5bn.  In particular, young women are attracted to the occupation – dominating specialist degree courses (by 4:1 in my experience) and reflecting the largest demographic group in practice. The secret of their success is often stated as strong communication and relationship building skills – however Romy Frölich identifies this as a “friendliness trap” which stereotypes women...

Posted on Classic PR Conversations PR Sphere

In praise of publicity – a woman's history

I’ve yet to come across Constance Hope in any public relations textbook – perhaps not surprising as women are largely missing from the history.  Indeed, apart from Doris Fleischman, I am unaware of any female voices writing about early experiences of the practice in the US; and Fleischman’s contribution inevitably is linked to her husband Edward Bernays. So exactly who was Constance Hope and why should we care about her story?  Well she authored a...

Posted on PR Axis

Constructing the Organizational Narrative: PR definition in the making

There’s an insidious, four-letter word that continues to haunt and largely define the public relations industry (at least in the public’s estimation): Spin. We know this. We fight it. But a big part of the problem is that the average person still does not know what it is we do. For that matter, some practitioners appear confused, limiting PR to media relations and/or publicity. Perhaps even more dangerous, the remit of PR is restricted to...

Posted on Classic PR Conversations PR Techster

Using Twitter for PR events

How should you use Twitter for public relations events?  This is a topic we’ve pondered among the PR Conversations team (Judy Gombita, Markus  Pirchner and Heather Yaxley).  Twitter offers potential for conferences, launches, announcements, stunts and many other PR events – and we’ve seen it used well, and badly.  We’ve used Twitter at events, and participated remotely in real world activities and those that only exist online.  So we thought it would be worthwhile sharing...

Posted on PR Axis

Public relations 2011: PR primer for (social) networking

Earlier this year on PR Conversations, The wind is in Craig Pearce’s sails, detailed availability of this Australian’s free e-report initiative, Public relations 2011: issues, insights and ideas, which features a roster of international authors and original articles. The sole Canadian representative, one of my two contributions is now online; following is an excerpt. PR primer for (social) networking When attending networking events as an organization’s PR representative, many of the same norms of behaviour...