global discussion. local perspectives.
I’m concerned about public relations. In the way that the Texas mother who created the Ignore No More app was concerned by her son ignoring her mobile phone calls. PR – why are you ignoring all the good advice that’s around you? Even more concerning, why are PR practitioners ignorant of the weakness of a discipline that relies on anecdote, criticism and personal opinion, rather than robust evidence, substantiated thinking and considered arguments? We see...
This is post #501 – which seems a useful milestone to reflect on the previous 500 posts at PR Conversations, and invite you to contribute your views on the blog overall. For me, PR Conversations has provided a global platform for debating and considering a wide range of classic and contemporary developments in public relations. I have had the opportunity to present some new thoughts and argue my viewpoint in relation to some traditional concepts....
In public relations, narrative offers a way to enable ideas, opinions, values and meaning to be expressed within a broader framework than the concept of “key messages”, which tend to reflect slogans, headlines and other contrived statements. Key messages can be part of the organizational narrative but too often are simply BS corp-speak lacking any real human connection . Narrative draws on various literary and cultural principles, methods and practices; it is woven into the...
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...
It is interesting that the word ‘consultant’ derives from the Latin, consultare, meaning to debate or discuss. That implies its function is to assist in two-way communications – yet, the role of management consultancy is positioned as assisting organizations to improve performance, through logical analysis and development of plans. The focus is more on management rather than consultancy. The history of management consultancy is tied closely to analytical processes and a rational, scientific approach to...
The PRoust Questionnaire provides a quick insight into a public relations practitioner’s interests and point of view, as well as their 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. 1. What is your most striking characteristic as a PR practitioner? The belief that I set and adhere to a high ethical standard. 2. What is your principal fault as...
A twitterwall is a tool, nothing else. Don’t blame the twitterwall for all the stupid things that might appear on it. Used prudently, twitterwalls can add a lot of value to your event, conference etc. And it’s not exactly rocket science to do it right. Here are a couple of suggestions:
From a PR perspective, there’s a problem with all the discussion regarding the merits or otherwise of paywalls to access online content, the impact of social media or the role of PR versus marketing in this brave new world. It’s all about the media – with little consideration of what we should really be interested in, the public. New business models for media companies will continue to emerge and be challenged. The bottom line is...
Although primarily focused on changes to newspaper readership and engagement models, an underlying quest is answers to the challenges impacting public relations practitioners regarding audiences who are only prepared to read (and opine about) newspaper content found online and at no charge.
"Over the past years, we’ve seen very smart people make mistakes because they didn’t understand the context in which they were operating" - this sentence is extracted from an interesting op-ed column of last Friday’s NYT under the title 'the power elite'