Posted by Heather Yaxley on February 9, 2012 · Leave a Comment
In public relations, narrative offers a way to enable ideas, opinions, values and meaning to be expressed within a broader framework than the concept of “key messages”, which tend to reflect slogans, headlines and other contrived statements. Key messages can be part of the organizational narrative but too often are simply BS corp-speak lacking any [...]
Posted by Heather Yaxley on January 18, 2012 · 7 Comments
‘Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge’ – Wikipedia’s blackout protest statement is a reminder of the value and reliance placed on repositories of online information. How many of us turn to Google, Wikipedia, digital dictionaries, social media or online news sources routinely when we want to know something?
The English-speaking student population is apparently distraught that [...]
Filed under PR Techster · Tagged with Bordieu, capital value, Change, knowledge, knowledge base, knowledge capital, Measurement, personalised search, Public Relations, Reputation, Research, Social capital, Social media, Web 2.0
Posted by Heather Yaxley on December 14, 2011 · 8 Comments
One discussion theme emerging at PR Conversations during 2011 has been the role of women in public relations. Although PR has become a feminised occupation since the 1990s, many issues remain such as salary differentials, dominance of men in senior positions and 90% female intake on undergraduate degree courses, which we’ve debated in one post [...]
Filed under PR Nexus, Seasoned Posts · Tagged with Career, experiences, Feminization, Friendliness trap, Influence, Public Relations, Role model, Social capital, The Profession, women, Women in PR
Posted by Heather Yaxley on November 21, 2011 · 3 Comments
The PRoust Questionnaire provides a quick insight into a public relations practitioner’s interests and point of view, as well as his or her professional beliefs and values.
If you are not familiar with the original 19th-century Proust Questionnaire, please see details at the end of this post.
PRoust Questionnaire answers from Don Radoli, Senior Communications Adviser [...]
Posted by Heather Yaxley on November 3, 2011 · 5 Comments
What was your route into public relations? In 1943, Averill Broughton (a public relations and advertising executive with his own firm) interviewed leading PR executives for his book, Careers in Public Relations: The new profession. He observed that these successful practitioners had:
“backed into the field, as it were, by accident, and sat down. Afterwards it [...]
Posted by Heather Yaxley on October 12, 2011 · 14 Comments
Relationships are in the DNA of PR – in fact, the name itself indicates the function manages relations with publics. But the priority in PR practice is largely on writing skills rather than interpersonal ones; whilst although academic definitions and literature highlight two-way communications, they largely omit what is required to build and maintain mutually [...]
Posted by Heather Yaxley on September 18, 2011 · 17 Comments
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 [...]
Posted by Heather Yaxley on September 8, 2011 · 8 Comments
I’ve yet to come across Constance Hope in any public relations textbook – perhaps not surprising as women are largely missing from the history. Indeed, apart from Doris Fleischman, I am unaware of any female voices writing about early experiences of the practice in the US; and Fleischman’s contribution inevitably is linked to her husband [...]
Posted by Heather Yaxley on July 25, 2011 · 7 Comments
Not surprisingly there’s been a great deal of discussion of ethics in relation to the News Corp phone-hacking scandal. Although journalism and corporate governance are facing the real ethical questions, public relations has been brought into the mix by many commentators. Indeed, the Vancouver Sun attributes any ethical lapses in journalism to the practice of [...]
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Using Twitter for PR events
Posted by Heather Yaxley on August 9, 2011 · 8 Comments
How should you use Twitter for public relations events? This is a topic we’ve pondered among the PR Conversations team (Judy Gombita, Markus Pirchner and Heather Yaxley). Twitter offers potential for conferences, launches, announcements, stunts and many other PR events – and we’ve seen it used well, and badly. We’ve used Twitter at events, and [...]
Filed under PR Techster · Tagged with Audience, Blogs, Comment, events, Journalists, Public Relations, Social media, twitter, Web 2.0