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Twelve hours of videobook on ‘In what sense: what is public relations?’. A narrative which summarizes some 400 years of professional experience. A dream, or a nightmare?

Bear with me and please visit www.lucasossellaeditore.it . Mind you, the sound is in Italian so it might be better to move quickly along the few minutes to get a grasp of what the contents, but more importantly the format, are like. Basically these few minutes are an excerpt of a good twelve hours (!) of videobook (3 dvd’s of four hours each) to which Joao Duarte referred to in his post here a few...

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My major takeaways from the Milano Euprera Congress. How our professional community can help bridge the gap between what is really happening in the global market place and what we think is happening.

While there were few remaining doubts in Milano for me that the institutionalization process of the public relations function is ‘a fact of organizational life’, especially after the presentation of the three research reports in the final plenary session, and the rooted impression that in other parts of the world besides Italy, Europe and the United States the process is even more pronounced, even if no figures were presented at the Euprera Congress…the substantial impression...

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Kristin Johnson gets input from industry leaders: how Knowledge Management could support transition from personal to organizational influence

Sample quote from Kristin Johnson’s grad study of authoritative senior professionals from (worldwide) major international organizations and institutions: “I think that PR has always been about relationships, but it has changed fundamentally in that relationships have almost become the primary responsibility of a PR practitioner—and it’s not just with the Wall Street Journal or New York Times—it’s relationships with everyone who has a significant influence on the reputation of your company. I think it’s great...

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Reconsidering our terms of engagement following the institutionalization debate: a draft statement…

From the very beginning, and well before the debate on institutionalization began on this blog, I recall that David Rossi -director of public relations at MPS (Monte dei Paschi di Siena), a leading Italian banking institution- while deciding if his organization would sponsor the Euprera Congress in partnership with his peers Gianluca Comin from Enel, Europe’s second electricity company and Carlo Fornaro from Telecom Italia– said to me

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The Strategist’s “Where PR Belongs” crosses borders and triggers some international discussion

On August 15th my quarterly copy of The Public Relations Strategist (published by the Public Relations Society of America) arrived. The Summer 2008 edition’s cover highlighted the feature article, “Where PR Belongs: A Move at Chrysler Spurs Debate.” The provocative title drew me in, so I literally dropped everything (but the magazine) to have a read. Although Chris Cobb’s article focuses on changes to the reporting structure at the US-based auto giant (a company that...

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Institutionalisation of the PR ‘Educationist’ role – a South African case

As suggested by Prof Emanuele Invernizzi, co-organizer of the Euprera Congress taking place in Milan 16-18 October, I listened to his interviews with a number of academics and practitioners on the Congress website on the topic of the ‘Institutionalisation of Public Relations’. Both Prof Betteke van Ruler from the Netherlands and Prof Anne Gregory from the UK emphasised the importance of the educational role of PR. This was one of the four PR roles/dimensions identified...

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Authentic Enterprise and Institutionalization: from Arthur Page and the IPR to Euprera’s Congress in October in Milano

In not many weeks some of us (scholars and professionals) will be in Milano participating at the Euprera annual Congress, which this year (October 16/17) is dedicated to the institutionalization of public relations. Although there will be a relevant but small segment of participants from other areas of the world, it is reasonable to expect that most will be European, and therefore are likely to transfer European perspectives. This is one good reason to review...

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it’s time to take a look at geo-fear:this new plague-in-town impacting on public relations

In Torino, early July, at the World Architects Conference -in the context of a workshop organised by Ferpi, Assorel (the Italian agency association) and the Global Alliance on how public relators and architects might better work together to reduce the more negative effects on society of the nimby (not in my back yard) and banana (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone) syndromes-