PR Conversations

This the title of Euprera’s Spring Symposium in Gent (Belgium) last Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A well organised and intelligently structured experience for those who were there, yours truly included.

Some major takeaways? (more…)

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Over the past years, we’ve seen very smart people make mistakes because they didn’t understand the context in which they were operating
this sentence is extracted from an interesting op-ed column of last Friday’s NYT under the title ‘the power elite’ signed by David Brooks and I would like to refer to this while commenting the process that the Global Alliance is conducting to arrive to the Stockholm Accords (see here). (more…)

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I submit to you that Bjorn Edlund, Executive Vice President Communication of Royal Dutch Shell, is possibly today’s most powerful global public relations professional (I believe he is to retire at end February…).

Read what he said in a very recent interview that opens the Global Alliance’s World Public Relations Forum debate, expected to culminate with the approval of the Stockholm Accords and to be held June 14/15. (more…)

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Open any public relations textbook and the section on crisis management will include examples of how organisations have demonstrated "best" or "worst" practice.  And, it’s not just the textbooks, as recent incidents (eg Tiger Woods or Toyota) have seen plenty of advice from PR "experts" through online and social media.  But, just as with the dead tree versions, these case studies are simplistic fictions.

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It seems that, during his first year in office, President Obama is progressively losing control of his narrative.

It also seems that Italy’s Berlusconi is, instead, holding on to his narrative with success.

Is the ‘cuckoo’ public relations model more effective than the ‘social media’ public relations one?

Last Sunday two very different articles from the New York Times made me think about this issue and attempt to suggest a rational (if at all possible..) explanation. (more…)

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This week, five francophone public radio journalists (one Belgian, one Canadian, one Swiss and two French) are evaluating new media. Isolated in a cabin in a rural region of France, they have vowed to consult only Twitter and Facebook the entire week. The point of the exercise is to evaluate how well these two media reflect what is actually going on in the world.  The journalists are reporting back to the five participating radio stations throughout the week and are keeping a blog.

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Public administrations have a reputation for inertia, so it’s always refreshing to see innovative counterexamples. The French Office national d’information sur les enseignements et les professions (ONISEP) is tasked by the Ministry of Education to help students, parents and educators to learn about existing professions and various opportunities for training or further studies. ONISEP has been making a number of changes to increase their appeal to a generation of students for whom connectivity is a natural state. This is a great example of knowing your publics and adapting to their needs.

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This morning’s edition of the New York Times carries on it’s front page an enligthening article by Alissa Rubin on the Taliban’s public relations campaign in Afhganistan, casting a well informed and brilliantly reported portrait of how the Taliban’s are increasing in their effort to gain the support of the people.
In reading the description of the policy paper (code of conduct) and particularly in the sentence ‘Creating a code of behavior is one thing, enforcing it another’, I was instantly reminded by how many times we public relators involved with professional associations around the world have echoed a similar thought.
Very interesting and excellent food for thought.

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The story concerning the man who joked on Twitter and subsequently found himself under arrest caught my eye yesterday, particularly after the story a couple of months ago involving the US police officer who ordered a showbiz agent to send a tweet.

This latest incident highlighted the consequences of microblogging - not to the masses, but to a modest group of followers. More importantly, it raises many questions regarding free speech. In the case of the Doncaster tweeter, someone on Twitter apparently alerted the ‘authorities’ who turned up on his doorstep, presented him with a print out of his tweet and hauled him in for questioning.

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My good friend Warren Feek, from the Communication Initiative, has sent the following message…very relevant in general, but even more specifically for our professional community. Please read and, where possible, participate. Thank you.

Dear Drum Beat network participant,

On behalf of all connected with The Communication Initiative network, we wish to express our support for and solidarity with the people of Haiti as they struggle to overcome this massive disaster.

We have received some requests, and need your help. We also want to provide some connections for people and organisations hoping to relate to organisations in Haiti - when communications become possible. Plus, we all know from previous times like this that spaces to communicate, debate, and struggle with the meaning and implications of are vitally important. Consequently, we have created these spaces through The CI and include links to these spaces here below. (more…)

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