PR Conversations

Nelly Benova is a forceful and highly proactive figure in Bulgarian Public Relations. She represents the Bulgarian PR Association in the Global Alliance, in Cerp and also manages the CIPR accreditation course in Sofia.

This interview she had with me in Vienna a few days ago has just been posted and might stimulate some discussion also amongst our visitors here at PRC.

Share This

Comments(0)

One of the things that has struck me in the coverage of events in Iran is how well protestors there seem to have grasped a basic point of effective communications that bizarrely seems to elude many organizations: you need to talk to the audience in terms they understand and in terms that will resonate with a wide audience.

(more…)

Share This

Comments(0)

When used properly, statistics can be very informative. However, some statistics are meaningless, and some are dishonest. Interpreting statistics requires some technical knowledge, and most people do not have the basic training to know how to read statistics and to take them with a grain of salt. Statistics are particularly misleading with regard to the early days of any phenomenon because percentages are distorted by the small base: moving from 1 to 8 readers/users/etc. is an 800% increase. Of course, eight out of six billion is a drop in the bucket…unless those are the eight most important people on Earth for your purposes, like the G8 heads of state and government. Maybe the hotline between the White House and the Kremlin will be replaced by direct Twitter conversations. (more…)

Share This

Comments(5)

I wish to inform our global professional community that, directly from the horse’s mouth, we now also have a formal definition of Berlusconi’s public relations model:

la politica del cucù (pronounced cucku)!

The term comes, I presume, from a recent televised joke he exposed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel when he suddenly appeared in front of her, stepping out from hiding behind a huge statue with a great smile, his two waving hands next to his head and yelling ‘cucku, cucku’….

I know… this is not the global definition of public relations proposed by our Canadian friends, but it does gives an interesting insight on how some political leaders around the world interpret their public relations role.

I read his first literal reference to this ‘policy’ in a public statement a couple of weeks ago; a second in a television interview over the previous weekend; and a third in an off-the-cuff chat with journalists five days ago following his return from the Washington visit to Obama.

Three direct references in less than a week imply that he has carefully thought it out, liked it and has decided to thematise. (more…)

Share This

Comments(0)

Updated: both parts (1 and 2) are now available off the dedicated News 2.0 web page as archived audio. (See the right-hand column.) You might notice that Part 2 runs for more than an hour, meaning that this archived version actually contains more information than the live-broadcast hour. Ira Basen told me that when they mixed Part 2, the hour show came out about five minutes too long. They had to delete some sound bites that Ira liked quite a bit. As such, they decided to use the original version for the podcast, which Ira refers to as his “director’s cut” version.

I’m briefly interrupting the wonderful debate on CPRS’s new definition of public relations to let you know that a new, two-part CBC Radio show, produced by Ira Basen (of Spin Cycles fame), begins on Sunday, June 21st: News 2.0: The Future of News in an Age of Social Media.

Both segments are one hour in length. Part one will air at 11 a.m. in four North American time zones. Part two is slated for Sunday, June 28, 2009, but note that this segment is slated to begin one hour earlier, at 10 a.m.. (more…)

Share This

Comments(10)

At the Canadian Public Relations Society’s Annual General Meeting, held on June 7, 2009, in Vancouver, British Columbia, CPRS member in attendance were introduced to new, official definitions (in English and French) of public relations. Both versions were adopted by the CPRS National board in February 2009, in Fredericton, New Brunswick. They are as follows:

Public relations is the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics, through the use of communication, to achieve mutual understanding, realize organizational goals, and serve the public interest. (Flynn, Gregory & Valin, 2008)

Par relations publiques, on entend la gestion stratégique des relations qui existent entre une organisation et ses divers publics, en ayant recours à la communication afin de parvenir à une entente mutuelle, d’atteindre les objectifs organisationnels et de servir l’intérêt du public. (Flynn, Gregory & Valin, 2008)

(more…)

Share This

Comments(36)

As most of you are aware, in barely two weeks I will retire after five great years as President and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations. In several recent speaking engagements, I have taken the opportunity to reflect on the important ideas encountered and adopted. Thus the title, “Four Things That Only Took Me Five Years to Learn.”

First, there is no reason to assume public relations is inferior to marketing, advertising (or many other management functions) in terms of our research. (more…)

Share This

Comments(3)

Leaving aside a fastidious reiteration of usual buzzwords such as twitter and facebook, closely followed by obama and engagement, and the conceptual thinness of some of the cases which were presented, more focussed on numbers in relative context, rather than on the why..s of selected operational tools, this event (may I call it a space, also picking up from Richard’s presentation?) was truly an intensive, delightful, warm and fire cracking learning experience.

Frankly more so -and I honestly mean this as a tribute to the organizers- for issues which were only hinted at, rather than for those which were effectively argued.

I certainly appreciate that a two day summit on social media for educators could not have realistically come to grips with all or even one of these issues (however inspired by that summit), but I would appreciate it if organizers, presenters and participants : all highly influential clusters in our global professional community, would care to share their views, opinions and recommendations.

Only a couple of days before the Summit the Global Alliance elected in Vancouver a new and inspired leadership and opened an ongoing discussion on a new strategic plan.
This is the best possible time to tune in, express yourselves and make a difference. (more…)

Share This

Comments(6)

If you can tell a phenomenon has gone mainstream by the fact that everyone wants to be involved, then social media has arrived. When glancing at the content of the e-newsletter of the American Automobile Association (AAA) this morning, I was surprised to see headlines asking if I have coverage for saying stupid things on Facebook and if my coverage is up to par for blogging activities. (The second link went to the wrong article the last time I checked. Hopefully, they’ll fix that soon.) This was surprising enough for me to click through and see what it is all about.  Basically, it comes to down to libel laws and making sure that your basic insurance (what’s called responsabilité civile in France or the confusingly named homeowner’s insurance in the US) provides coverage if someone sues you.

Boy, have we come along way from the early days of the blogosphere! I remember being extremely frustrated by the propensity of early bloggers to publish incendiary and aggressive articles about anyone who crossed their paths. I wonder how many of them stopped to think about whether they were opening themselves up to be sued for subjecting people to “public hatred, ridicule and disgrace”? Mostly I heard them arguing their rights of free speech as if that excused verbal abuse.

For me, the attention paid to this by a common insurer reflects both the  importance that social media has gained and underscores why social media interactions should never be undertaken in an offhanded manner. Words (and images) matter. A world of citizen journalists opens up new opportunities for communications, but it also means that we all (individuals and organizations) may be subject to rules and regulations that previously applied mainly to formal media.  Food for thought.

Share This

Comments(0)

How effective are social communication campaigns, specifically when they are enacted by public institutions and their aim is to con-vince publics to modify their day-to-day behaviours?

The amount of literature is overwhelming and highly contradictory.

Of course governments and other public agencies or institutions, normally advised by many of our colleagues who thrive on the trade and tickle the ego of these organization’s leaderships, tend to overlook and set aside the contradictory evidence.
Yet recent events have been more than explicit, even for a non expert eye. (more…)

Share This

Comments(0)