Posted on PR Motion

Sex sells – faking it in public relations

Women are successful in public relations – UK data shows a 64:36 female:male gender split  in an industry worth £7.5bn.  In particular, young women are attracted to the occupation – dominating specialist degree courses (by 4:1 in my experience) and reflecting the largest demographic group in practice. The secret of their success is often stated as strong communication and relationship building skills – however Romy Frölich identifies this as a “friendliness trap” which stereotypes women...

Posted on PR Motion

Arthur Yann: public relations in a fishbowl

An in-depth interview with the gent practising PR for the world’s largest organization of public relations professionals There’s an irony that public relations as a discipline struggles to manage the industry’s reputation. Why do you think this is the case? There’s some truth to the “shoemaker’s children” analogy, but the root causes go well beyond that. For one thing, the profession hasn’t done itself any favors when it comes to managing its own reputation. High-profile...

Posted on PR Motion

PR – it's a woman's world

It is nearly 25 years since the publication of Cline’s ‘Velvet Ghetto’ study of women in public relations which responded to the increasing feminisation of the occupation.  Undeniably today, the field is one dominated by women – indeed, based on my UK experience, 90% of the students on undergraduate PR degree courses and studying for professional qualifications are female. Both professional bodies here have women in senior positions: Sally Costerton (chairman and CEO of Hill...

Posted on PR Motion

Facing up to the PR talent challenge

One of the interesting outcomes of my position on the boundary of PR academia and practice is that I’m often asked for recommendations about finding PR talent. This frequently applies to recruiting placement students (interns) or young graduate practitioners.  However, at the PR career starting point, there are many who advocate a specialist degree is not important.  For example, a study by the PRCA in 2009 found three-quarters of its PR Leaders’ panel were unimpressed...

Posted on PR Motion

Career-building blocks led Andrew Arnold to LEGO

“I saw the job posting for LEGO, which was one of the companies in the world where I most wanted to work.” Andrew Arnold Backgrounder – Early career years: a degree in economics and many journalism hats Andrew Arnold achieved a university degree in economics in 1987. Although most of his cohort graduates were being “pushed” into careers in management or accountancy, neither of those options appealed to him. Andrew instead, “fancied trying journalism, as...

Posted on PR Motion

PR resources, about or by, Canada and Canadians

In a comment to my last post, PRC reader and frequent commenter, Brandon Carlos, indicated his frustration at the apparent dearth of Canadian resources, "Another lagging area in Canadian PR, Judy, is in the educational text arena. As a recent grad, I can attest to the atrocious selection of Canadian-focused PR texts. In a country with a population base spread across such a vast land area, you would think that nowhere other than Canada would PR be such a necessity."