Posted on Seasoned Posts

PR definitions – should do or do do?

A starting point for anyone seeking to understand public relations ought to be a definition.  However, the fact that there are several hundred formal definitions and myriad contradictory views to choose from means there is no easy way to know what PR is about.   What does it say to students who see that every text book, professional body, consultancy and individual practitioner – let alone others who comment on PR (such as journalists) – explains public relations in their own way? 

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Public, private, community, individual

I received a friendship request today on a social networking platform for communicators.  I have no idea who this person is, and I suspect that he is a consultant randomly inviting other people to be his friend in order to expand his prospect list. His message basically just says hello and provides no info on why he wants to be my friend (and after looking at his profile, I still have no idea).  In the...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

What-were-they-thinking Moments

All of us have run across examples of communications that are so inept or so risky that we are tempted to quote Tony Blair in the movie The Queen, when he exclaims “Someone save these people from themselves”! This week I ran across two examples so blatant, that I had to share…

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Results of European wide survey: corporate pr to overcome marketing pr; social media relations to catch up with mainstream

I am sure that our visitors will be interested in reading results of the survey ecm2007-pressrelease-20070927.pdfof a ecm2007-resultsfindings-20070927.pdf conducted on more than 1000 well experienced European public relations ecm2007-summary-20070927.pdf by the University of Leipzig in cooperation with Euprera (association of european public relations education and research) on the profession, which has just been released. Good reading.

Posted on Seasoned Posts

The Ugly Side of Eastern European PR. I Wish it Were a Joke

Here is an ad that a Ukrainian firm mails to prospective clients. It’s self-explanatory, really. *** SmartManager company offers: 1. Placing PR-materials in the elite pool of publications that usually decline to publish paid-for materials without marking them as advertising. 2. Placing stories in Ukrainian media (television, Internet, press, radio) on the most attractive terms. 3. Producing high quality PR texts effectively forming the public opinion without being identified as paid-for. We write with a...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Internal communication as part of nationbuilding in government

I was recently summonsed to the Presidency in Pretoria to come and assess their “internal communication”. It struck me – once again – that even in the highest order of government – the concept of internal communication is totally forgotten. Nobody – except for the newly-appointed head of the section – had any idea of the concept of internal communication or why it might be important. The question that came up: If the government of a...