Posted on Current PR Conversations PR Sense

Who talks to (and about) colleagues like that?

What qualities do you most dislike in a PR practitioner? “Being absorbed with ‘The Message’ and forgetting all about the specific context of the communication that is needed.” Gregor Halff’s response to Q8 of the PRoust Questionnaire I have long been a believer that “language shapes consciousness,” primarily in regards to deliberate words chosen, particularly when reasonable, more-inclusive and dynamic terms exist. For example, mindfully using gender-neutral titles, such as chair rather than chairman or firefighter...

Posted on PR Axis

How to build better relations with employees

The first chapter in Part III of Your Public Relations, the 1948 book we are serialising at PR Conversations, is authored by Kirk Earnshaw, industrial relations editor of Modern Industry Magazine, said to have been “a foremost authority” in the field of labour relations who offered “sound public relations procedures to industrial relations”. Alongside sharing insight from Earnshaw’s chapter, this post offers a review of the newly published book, Internal Communications: A manual for practitioners...

Posted on PR Axis

Stop with the hocus pocus – employee communications is for muggles

A European internal communications veteran explains: In order to help organisations use communications to get results, practitioners should call on simple skills and experience—not a book of runes, silver bullets or magic fairy dust By Liam FitzPatrick, FCIPR The first time I saw a Harry Potter film I had a strange sense of déjà vu. Where else had I seen people listening raptly to unintelligible men and women in strange outfits? Why did the concept...

Posted on Classic PR Conversations PR Nexus

Social sniff test: engaging employees as advocates or treating them as commercial commodities?

Some weighty conversations with subject experts: Debating employee engagement in a healthy corporate culture versus an amplified trend to “suggest” a program of socializing, whereby “employee brands” or “advocates” post marketing messages on their personal accounts (similar to native advertising). The communicative, socialized organization In December 2012, in my Access Byte column, I detailed what constituted a “communicative organization” (i.e., ones with a robust yet fluid structure), both externally and internally. I quoted Dave Gray,...

Posted on PR Axis

Public Relations for Small Business

J.T. Lewis, Jr., president of Lewis Welding & Engineering Corporation was the author of the third chapter in the 1948 US book, edited by Glenn and Denny Griswold, Your Public Relations (being serialised here with monthly posts). It is interesting that the focus on PR for small business has such a prominent place in the book. The argument put forward by Mr Lewis who operated a small plant in Bedford, Ohio, employing 261 workers, was...

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 Seasoned Posts

Til Death Do Us Part? Models of Engagement

Last week I had the pleasure of discovering the Champagne Bar at St Pancras station in London in the company of Michael Klein, an excellent internal comms professional currently based in Brussels. The subject of engagement came up, and Mike got pretty passionate. He thinks that the term “engagement” is bandied about too lightly and that organizations haven’t really thought through what kind of engagement they mean or really want. While he has articulated his...