Posted on Seasoned Posts

This is a call for help. What do we mean by Global Public Relations? And why is it important?

John Doorley is my academic director at NYU’s Master in Public Relations and Corporate Communication where I teach Global Relations and Intercultural Communication, and Helio Fred Garcia is one of that program’s most respected and cherished instructors teaching two courses: ethics and strategy. These two elightened scholars, but also and mostly, highly experienced professionals, edited and co-authored in 2006 with Routledge a Reputation Management book which has done very well, and is now being entirely...

Posted on PR Axis

Sixteen Edelbytes from Richard

His early goal was to make Edelman’s New York office profitable and even larger than its Chicago headquarters. Over the years he determined to carve out a distinct, professional identity, which included: playing a role in the professional community, further developing the company internationally (particularly in Asian markets), taking many risks (and assuming full accountability for them) while exploring new ideas, concepts and tools.

Posted on Seasoned Posts

‘Enough is Enough’ – an economic model for Net-Work and Net-Worth?

With its roots in 1546, the wisdom underlying the John Heywood proverb ‘enough is enough‘ has been recognised by many. But when is enough truly enough? The churning over the recessionary pressures – real or otherwise – have, more so in recent months, led many to question the economic models we have used for so long. Unsurprising really, as they are models which, as I have mentioned here before, were created for another space and...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

What are best practices in public relations research, really?

There’s a discussion getting underway on the Institute for Public Relations website and among members of our Commission on PR Measurement & Evaluation. I’d invite your contributions as well. Dr. David Michaelson chairs the Institute for Public Relations Research Fellows, a body established by the Board of Trustees to provide overall guidance for our research program. Michaelson, President of Echo Research, also keynoted the 2009 International Public Relations Research Conference with the topic, “Setting Best...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Should you avoid ’sinking the boat’ or ‘missing the boat’? The New Yorker on advertising spent. Does it also apply to public relations?

Some of you, I am sure, have read The Wisdom of Crowds, a 2004 book by James Surowiecki, financial editor of The New Yorker. It is a very inspiring book and, although hardly citing public relations, it is for us what one might call a ‘professional book’, in the sense that it clearly illustrates how by listening carefully to a specific public, an organizational decision whose consequences relate to that public and/or vice versa will...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Why Public Relations should celebrate the G20 meeting

As PR professionals we should celebrate the G20 meeting this week in London as an opportunity to demonstrate what public relations is all about.  Essentially, this “informal forum” seeks to promote “open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability”.   This would seem to reflect an approach to building relationships and two-way symmetric communications. At the core of G20, we have 20 global leaders holding one-to-one meetings,...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

The Crisis. What else? Jean Pierre Beaudoin: social networks rather than storing oil and sugar.

Is public opinion, like the mythic Penelope, undoing in the night of the crisis what it reluctantly had accepted to weave in the light of growth? Has public opinion thus unmasked the cupidity of the princes who were waiting for the woven fabric to become the new masters? Where is Ulysses? And will he return in time to restore order on the public arena? One of the merits of great texts is their ability to...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Opinion Fatigue or Productive Serendipity? Where do you sit in the Babel Web?

If, like me, your head is spinning with the constant conversation, your ears vibrating with the latest buzz and your hands weary from punching keys on the latest digital toys, then perhaps you would do me the kindness of joining me – perhaps under the shade of a virtual tree – for a bit of thinking about where we’ve got to. I’ve been pondering quite a bit these last few weeks, particularly as Twitter has...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Public Diplomacy with Teheran and direct involvement with the American taxpayer.

Are we finally seeing, moment by moment, a public relations approach unfold…or is it only a disastrous and desperate exercise in spin? You will remember that years ago (not as many as we would hope…) the skies of Baghdad poured tons and tons of bombs. Later on, when the fighting went house to house, those same skies poured leaflets encouraging Iraquis to support allied forces. Subsequently, local newspapers were flooded by articles, expensively prepared by...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Are We Losing Our Cathedrals of Knowledge to Web-based Information?

Many thanks to Judy Gombita for recently sharing the blogpost “Librophiliac Love Letter: A  Compendium of Beautiful Libraries“.   As I was perusing the photos, it struck me that these libraries make a profound statement about how we value books, knowledge and learning. These rooms are temples and cathedrals. As information has multiplied in recent decades and access to it opened up, we are losing that sacred aspect to knowledge, and the architecture is disappearing with it. I...