The Melbourne Mandate: A professional beacon for PR

By Jean Valin, APR, FCPRS and Daniel Tisch, APR, FCPRS The last few years have witnessed a variety of successful global efforts to build consensus amongst public relations professionals and academics on the profession’s role and value to organizations, as well as to society. The most recent process, the Melbourne Mandate, was co-created by some 1,000 people from 30 countries over the course of a year, and then unanimously adopted in November 2012 by more...

Influence behaviours: create social business guidelines valued as an employee resource

What are the advantages of making something a collaborative effort and promoting the terminology of “resource?” External and internal communication specialists in a communicative organization understand the significance and impact of the name given to a document. Even more important than its title, who holds accountability for its creation and how many areas have input and influence on resulting internal behaviours and external outcomes. Ask any corporate communicator: Collaborative efforts are always more valued by...

Three wise men – homage to a public relations paradigm

In the last PR Conversations post, Toni Muzi Falconi presented a revised conceptual framework that proposed an organization should apply six generic principles of public relations within the operative context of six infrastructural characteristics to determine specific applications. The paradigm was subsequently developed with input from Rob Wakefield from Brigham Young University (the first scholar to theorize the paradigm a couple of decades ago), and Jim Grunig, who originated the Public Relations Excellence study in...

Fifty shades of PR

What shade of PR do you practice? I believe that “PR is what PR does” which offers a broad perspective encompassing many shades. In a recent PR Conversations post, Fraser Likely, said he didn’t “do” PR. Rather he advises on the management of PR functions. This is a shade of PR. Similarly, the Melbourne Mandate indicates a shade: “The mandate of public relations is to build and sustain strong relationships between an organisation and its...

By Jove, PR for PR works!

Public relations for public relations is effective! Why should we be surprised? Guest OpEd by Toni Muzi Falconi “I have nothing against regulation that verifies and controls, in the public interest, the consequences of our actions, because we need to be fully responsible for what we do. As journalists need to be free to write what they wish, we also need to be free to act as we wish. But over certain limits both of...

Refreshing the PR advocacy platform through the Melbourne Mandate 2012

With only a couple of weeks to go before the Global Alliance’s World Public Relations Forum (WPRF) kicks off, I was reminded of Heather Yaxley’s post around this time last year on relationship advice for PR practitioners. More than 700 delegates from every continent will be meeting in Australia and part of the agenda will include a robust discussion on the Melbourne Mandate, designed to build on the Stockholm Accords agreed to at WPRF 2010....

Communication without borders…or marketplace competition

When it comes to sharing information about global public relations, standards and best practices, it’s great that typical marketplace “competition” borders can be put aside. Welcome to an atypical PR Conversations tête-à-tête. One conversant is John Paluszek of Ketchum (USA) and immediate past chair of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management, a featured speaker at this year’s World Public Relations Forum (WPRF). The individual who piloted the interview and formulated the questions...