Update: The election for the  next president of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) has closed and results have not yet been published.  In the meantime, here is the interview we undertook with two candidates in the race:

Stephen Waddington MCIPR (Twitter and LinkedIn)

Dr. Jon White FCIPR (Twitter and LinkedIn)

We invited them to participate in a PR Conversations post, and asked our public relations colleague and good friend, Dan Tisch, chair of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, for some questions with an international dimension—before subjecting the election duo to one supplementary question and then a few quick-fire responses to an abridged version of our PRoust Questionnaire.

Let’s begin with Dan’s questions and the candidates’ responses:

Dan Tisch (DT): CIPR membership is a passport to participation in a global professional community. Under your presidency, how would you enhance the international outlook of CIPR, and what do you think are the keys for CIPR to enhance the value of global connections for its members?

Stephen Waddition (SW): International members are the route ensuring that the CIPR is relevant on the worldwide stage. The CIPR has an opportunity to take its core products, namely training and qualifications to a wider international audience.

The CIPR’s opportunity lies in developing relationships with other public relations organisations such as Global Alliance, IABC and ICCO. As president I’d be keen to act as an ambassador for the CIPR and members whenever I had the opportunity.

This is my day job at Ketchum travelling and advising clients through Europe as well as those assisted globally by the agency from North America, Asia and Latin America.

Jon White (JW): CIPR’s critics have suggested that the Institute has become inward-looking and self-serving. In the first item in my campaign statement, echoing CIPR members’ views, I said that I want to see CIPR reassert its leadership, nationally and internationally. Headquartered in London, which is a global centre of practice, the Institute has much to offer the international community of practice, and much to learn from other professional associations. Despite an active international interest group, the Institute–for reasons having to do with its recent history–is not particularly internationalist in outlook at the moment.

I am internationalist in outlook and experience and will be pushing the Institute to make a greater contribution to international professional development. Keys to this are the Institute recognising its international role and having something to offer in playing this role.
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DT: In what areas would you most like to see CIPR collaborate with professional associations and institutes around the world?

JW: Practice development, through contribution to the development of standards in public relations education and training, and through closer attention to the national and international benefits to be realised from public relations practice (in terms of conflict resolution, social and economic development (some of this has been started already through work on the Stockholm Accords and Melbourne Mandate, but much more needs to be done to translate these initiatives into practical results).

SW: I firmly believe that we have a moment in time. The profession is either on the threshold of becoming incredibly valuable as a management discipline or it faces irrelevance. It really is that stark. We need to listen and learn from others organisations around the world and then apply what we learn as a global community to ensure that it’s the former rather than the latter.

The CIPR and UK public relations industry leads the profession in many areas but we have much to learn from other regions and industries that are more agile and focused on innovation.

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DT: If you could ask one research question to PR professionals and/or academics all over the world, what would you ask them, and why?

SW: How do we ensure that the profession asserts its value as a management discipline and what are you personally doing about it? It has been one of the key themes of the election for CIPR president.

JW: I would like to see a research study carried out to summarise the ideas, theories and models that inform modern public relations practice. This would be done through a content analysis of practitioners’ statements on practice, and would be carried out as a start towards showing how the practice can be enriched by an infusion of ideas, theories and findings from the social sciences, business and management studies.

I suggest this study because of a summary contained in an entry on public relations in the International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences in 1968, written by Robert Carlson. He said then that the practice drew on a paucity of theories and concepts. This, in my view,remains true today and needs to be investigated and addressed. A good current example is of AMEC’s attempt to develop valid metrics for the measurement of public relations practice, where the metrics draw on a model of the communications process developed in the 1940s which no longer has the explanatory power that it had when it was first devised.

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DT: The next World PR Forum will take place in Madrid in September 2014, and it’s expected to attract professionals from 30 countries. At this early stage, what do you believe CIPR can or should contribute to that event?

JW: Much will depend on the theme decided upon, but I would expect CIPR–in its own right and as a significant member of the Global Alliance–to be involved in discussions around possible themes and to support these with ideas and suggestions regarding speakers.

SW: The CIPR is already contributing to the community through the work of the Global Alliance by tackling the issue of the relevance of the profession to the standard for international reporting. The Consultation Draft of the International Reporting Framework is an important piece of work as it promises to provide public relations practitioners with a narrative and vocabulary to engage with management in the area of benchmarking and evaluation. This is our natural ground but we risk it being taken from under us by faster moving disciplines.

Anne Gregory, CIPR past-president, and member of the CIPR Council, is chair-elect of the Global Alliance. We have the opportunity to contribute directly to the World PR Forum by listening and learning from discussions, and in areas where the CIPR leads practice such as diversity, social media, public affairs and internal communication.

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Our supplementary question was:

PRC: If introducing new initiatives, how would you ensure that as many qualified CIPR members as possible would receive an invitation and/or opportunity to play a role?

SW: It’s been suggested numerous times during this election that public relations organisations have a challenging time engaging with members. That hasn’t been my experience at all. Members and non-members have been keen to discuss issues facing the professional directly and via a variety of media. Technology has makes it easy for our members all over the world to engage directly.

As CIPR president I would continue this dialogue engaging with members in any way that they choose and by examining how we can innovate with technology.

JW: If elected president, new initiatives will be developed out of discussions with members, where my ideas, as president, will be tested against their contribution to discussions. I plan to use face-to-face meetings by preference supplementing these with other forms of communication, choosing these as they are appropriate and useful.

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Finally, we put Stephen and Jon under the spotlight to answer some of the questions from our PRoust Questionnaire. As ever, we asked for their spontaneous thoughts….

What is your most striking characteristic as a PR practitioner?

JW: Thoughtful analysis.

SW: I’m a doer. Sleeves rolled up, I lead from the front on client assignments and through blogging, writing and speaking.

What is your principal fault as a PR practitioner?

SW: Not switching off from media. We have a rule at home that my BlackBerry and iPad are put away whenever the family is together. My daughters are as fixated with the media as I am, but my wife and son both insist on a no-device policy when we’re together. Fair enough.

JW: Reticence

Who would you describe as a PR hero or villain?

JW: Alastair Campbell (both hero and villain).

SW: James Grunig is a hero for his relentless energy in engaging with the public relations community on his Excellence Theory over the last 30 years. Whatever your view of the Excellence Model and Four Model of Public Relations, he practices his own theory of public relations excellence.

Has a novel, film, play or other work of fiction ever influenced you as a PR practitioner?

SW: There are so many. The Wire [American television show 2002-08] is a brilliant portrayal of the pressures facing traditional media and the challenges that professional communicators face in dealing with the media.

The Constant Gardener (2005) tells the story of a public relations battle between activists, business, government and drug companies in Kenya. It’s a gripping story with wonderful cinematography. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are also the lead characters. I’m not sure you could ask for much more.

JW: I am constantly influenced by novels, films, works of fiction and plays. Shakespeare saved my life.

Who is your favourite writer?

JW: George Orwell

SW: Ernest Hemmingway for fiction; he’s simply a beautiful writer and was a great traveller–we could all learn from him about media misinformation. Steve Biddulph for non-fiction; every parent and child should read his books about communication between the generations. My copies of Raising Boys and recently published Raising Girls are both well-thumbed.

What skills and abilities do you think tomorrow’s PR leaders need?

SW: Open communication, decisive action and personal presence. Change is the only constant for our profession but the demands on leadership remain a constant.

JW: Humility, breadth of vision, pragmatism and ability to get things done

How would you describe the current state of public relations?

JW: On the brink of opportunity or irrelevance.

SW: The public relations industry lacks confidence. We debate our purpose while other disciplines such advertising, digital and management consultancy are asserting their value. Thanks to media fragmentation we increasingly have the media and the means to help organisations engage in a two-way relationship with their audiences. The profession will either become incredibly valuable as a management discipline in the next decade or irrelevant.

What is your PR motto?

SW: Let’s get on with it. We haven’t got much time.

JW: From W H Auden: “We must love one another or die.”

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In the last PR Conversations post, Toni Muzi Falconi presented a revised conceptual framework that proposed an organization should apply six generic principles of public relations within the operative context of six infrastructural characteristics to determine specific applications.

The paradigm was subsequently developed with input from Rob Wakefield from Brigham Young University (the first scholar to theorize the paradigm a couple of decades ago), and Jim Grunig, who originated the Public Relations Excellence study in the mid-1980s/early 1990s from research into some 300 US, British and Canadian organizations.

Here we reflect the wisdom of these PR magi as they pay homage – and offer critical insight – to the proposed public relations paradigm development.

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Toni Muzi Falconi (TMF): A few weeks ago, the Schumpeter piece in the Economist, discussed the challenges of global leadership, including the importance of understanding local cultural differences. This sparked in me an association of how the practice paradigm of public relations stops at generic principles, and forgets how deeply interrelated these need to be with specific applications. Also, how to be effective, the latter needs to be correlated with those generic principles, even for non-global organizations operating at a purely national level.

Organizations may understand the need to apply generic principles within their public relations operations on a global basis, but it is more complex, challenging and not fully clear, how they should identify the basic public relations infrastructure of a given territory, that relates to the specific applications.

To be effective, organizations are able to analyse, and periodically, ‘dashboard’ a territory’s infrastructure (its legal/institutional, economic, political, socio-cultural, active citizenship and media system specificities). However, my experience of case studies where this is done with satisfaction, suggests:

• There may be other significant variables within a given territory that need to be considered, leading to a situational approach. For example, the religious system of a territory may need to be considered an autonomous and forceful variable rather than solely as part of the socio-cultural system.
• The correlation and interdependence between the generic principles and specific applications need to be explained in terms of operational mechanisms. Again, these may be ‘situational’ in the sense that, to be fully effective, they need to fit into the organization’s specific culture, sub- and counter-cultures.

Robert Wakefield (RW): When working on the generic/specific theory two-plus decades ago, I felt transnational organizations should not EITHER concentrate on the central issues of mission, global strategy, etc, OR, let local entities do whatever they wanted, which was what literature of the time suggested. To ensure effective communications all over the world, some combination of the two was needed.

Furthermore, I felt it has to be wrong to hire ‘local’ expertise to worry only about local issues, while central staff concentrated on global imperatives. What a waste of great talent, it seemed to me. When I worked for a transnational, I tried to create as much horizontal teamwork as possible, to get the best minds and thinking contributing to our global strategy in addition to handling their daily local issues.

In developing a theory that looked at the need to balance generic and specific imperatives, we were simply asking what these were. The generic were wrapped around Jim Grunig’s Excellence variables. The specific, on the other hand, were, in fact, quite amorphous – we did not know what they were and were simply throwing some of those out for consideration by great scholars and practitioners around the world.

TMF: It seems to me that if we are talking about organizations such as Coca Cola or Amnesty International, then the generic principles also need to relate to the organization’s unique molecules. Or if we are practising, for example, public diplomacy, then the generic principles are also different. If you like, the generic relates ‘specifically’ (sic!) to the molecules of that practice or that organization.

RW: In my dissertation, I included language as a variable, related to, but separate from, culture, having experienced major challenges with language when working transnationally. Jim (Grunig), Sriramesh (Krisnamurthy), Dejan (Vercic) and others have since wrapped those together.

The Global Public Relations Handbook (which has gone through two editions now) concentrates mostly on descriptive studies of PR in various countries. But, as Juan-Carlos Molleda says, this really doesn’t help us come much closer to really learning the various implications of the specific, because we have only a series of descriptions out there. No-one, to my knowledge, has taken those and explained similarities and differences, and what they would mean to any given transnational organisation operating across different environments.

And, as you are stating here, those differences can change not only between countries, but also within countries and also spanning countries into global implications of those local differences. They also can change from day to day!

So, yes, I agree that much more needs to be done to examine not only what the variables really are, but also examine what impact they have on both specific operations and global ‘spill-out’ from those variables.

TMF: I am wondering if the first generic principle of public relations should be that the application of the Excellence theory is not effective if not related to the territorial infrastructure… while, the first specific application should be to connect to the general principles. This would close the loop – at least in theory.

RW: Your distinction of ‘generic’ – in the sense that it follows ‘universal’ (if such a thing can exist) principles of the field – as opposed to ‘general principles’ embedded within each organization is an important distinction, which needs to be resolved.

When I started thinking of generic/specific, I was thinking that within each organization, there must be “central” or overall principles and values that continually identify and advance the mission and purpose of that organization; but as the organization spreads throughout the world, it also confronts, always and daily, very dynamic and distinctive environmental factors—and thus there is more or less a continual tug-of-war between those two imperatives.

However, in trying to ‘operationalize’ my study, as you know we must(!), Grunig’s generic principles stood out as among the most ‘reasonable’ I had seen to that point—that to have clout to be able to get organizations to respond to their stakeholders, PR people should be in the dominant coalition, etc., that they should not just be puppets to marketing, as so often has happened with US PR people, etc.

I have to admit that it became such an easy way to look at organizational missions and messaging that I really (and probably wrongfully) did lean to the “universal to the field” generic and did not give much more thought to the reality that organizations still need to carve out their own balance of the global and the specific with questions such as: What is the organization’s mission and how should it play out across the world with the proper balance between the need for global unity and accommodation to local mores, cultures, etc.?

TMF: If we refer, for example, to the Page Society’s Building Belief paper, and to the first of the three parts of the more recent Melbourne Mandate that deal with corporate character, an organization’s unique characteristics go well beyond its mission, and are essential to identify and relate with if you wish to develop any form of even elementary stakeholder advocacy.

Similarly, you can still apply the generic principles and specific applications for a related practice like public diplomacy. I tried to do this with some success for a recent workshop with Italian senior diplomats and, for example, international diplomatic etiquette, global treaties etc need to be generic and therefore declinated and interrelated with specific applications in one specific territory.

This again supports the above suggestion to state the first generic principle is that the application of the theory is not effective if not interrelated to the territorial infrastructure…. while the first specific application is that the application is not effective if not interrelated to the generic principles.

RW: Perhaps this relates to the need to investigate the balance between generic and specific by both ‘global’ and ‘local’ employees. Organizational PR units must ‘think globally AND locally, and act locally AND globally’, all at the same time.

TMF: The global and local are strictly interdependent and one is not more important than the other – obviously so at the local level, but also at the global level.

RW: Absolutely, you’re right. The research I looked at for my 2009 PR Journal article, led me to believe that the term ‘globalization’ stems mostly from the same thinking as ‘think global, act local’. It is proliferated by business people with the idea that transnationals think mostly global, but then simply need to make adaptation (or glocalize) for local markets.

The factors that impact these local and global operations the most, can constantly shift, and may differ depending on the organization in question.

As you imply, this is akin to ‘what comes first, the chicken or the egg?’ – you cannot look at the generic and then have all the specific fall in line while ignoring what happens in each locale, and by the same token you cannot expect that what happens in each locale will stay there with no impact on the generic. They do indeed go hand-in-hand, as you have said.

I also believe social media have changed the equation for both levels, for the simple reason that they can instantaneously surpass any one locale and create global problems for an organization no matter where an issue arises.

By the same token, I think that US companies, at least, often use social media as an excuse for thinking that because everything CAN go global now, we have to handle it all globally and we don’t really need to worry about any specific local impacts or differences. I think the opposite is true—it makes a more compelling case to have response mechanisms for your ‘specific’ factors more in order than ever before.

However, after working with the Grunigs, I felt there must be certain general, or more-or-less universal, basics of public relations that should be seen to at least some extent in the majority of organizations. This goes along with institutionalization discussions, does it not?

If there are not certain basics of the practice that can be recognized anywhere, then how we could we define it as public relations? However, going with what you have stated, I think two things:

1. We still have a ways to go as a field in defining those basics
2. Even if we do agree that there are some universal basics to the practice, then we certainly must combine those ‘generics’ with the ‘generals’ that are unique to the organization before we then analyze those with the specifics that impact both industry practices and individual organizations around the world.

So, at the ‘generic’ level, it is important to expand the universals of the field to accommodate the uniqueness of each organization. For example, wouldn’t an organization that is highly consumer oriented have different ‘general’ characteristics than one that is mostly a scientific organization dealing with a much smaller set of stakeholders, or a business-to-business organization?

As for these principles aligning somewhat with related fields, the reality is that we took the generic/specific constructs out of the development management field (think US Agency for International Development), and also incorporated some principles from what was already being discussed in marketing. So, yes, I believe there are similarities between these related fields.

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Jim Grunig: I think the crucial thread to this discussion is the question of whether the generic principles apply at the level of the profession or at the level of the organization. I agree with Rob that the generic principles were intended to apply to the profession. These generic principles were based on theoretical principles derived from the Excellence study but also on years of research on a number of middle range theories (such as strategic management, roles, models, gender, evaluation, etc.) that we incorporated into the Excellence principles .

I still believe that the Excellence principles are generic to the profession. Of course, it is still possible to add new principles or to subtract some of the old ones. However, I haven’t seen a convincing argument to remove any of the principles or any identification of new ones. In his dissertation, Rob found support for all of the principles except for the treatment of women (which met religious objection). However, I think this principle can be expanded easily into a diversity principle that would include the equal treatment of all forms of diversity, not just gender diversity; and that this expansion of the concept would make it generic.

Your conversation also raises the intriguing idea, however, that there might be principles that are “general” to each organization that it should incorporate into the organization of its communication function and its strategic communication planning.

However, you did not propose what these principles might be. I begin with the premise that such principles must be based on theory. If they’re not based on theory, they wouldn’t be ‘principles’.

I think such general principles should be derived from the more generic professional principles–specifically from our strategic management model (below) that describes two of the most important generic principles–that public relations should be part of the strategic management of the organization and that communication programs should be managed strategically (ie, developed for specific publics, have specific objectives, and that these objectives should be measured to evaluate the success of the programs.).

For general principles, then, I think organizations need to decide the publics (stakeholders if you prefer) with which they need relationships, the problems (ie, consequences) experienced by the publics that make such relationships necessary, and the issues that might result in the relationship.

Thus, the general principles for an organization would be problems (consequences), publics (stakeholders), issues, and relationships. In applying these general principles, a global organization must decide if problems, publics, issues, and relationships are the same in every location or if they are different in each location. This is where the specific applications come in.

One could also attempt such middle-range thinking for each of the other generic principles. For example, the organization of the public relations function probably will be different for consumer product companies (where marketing dominates), financial companies (where the stock market or government dominate), non-profit organizations (where donors dominate), government (where ideologically derived publics develop), public diplomacy (where diplomatic relationships must be mixed with relationships with local publics). (By the way, I think the generic principles apply also to public diplomacy: See Sung-hun Yun’s article in the Journal of Public Relations Research based on his dissertation.)

The symmetrical principle would differ in organizations with authoritarian rather than participative cultures and where the public relations function has been institutionalized as a symbolic-interpretive function rather than a strategic management function. Recently, though I have begun to think about the symmetrical principles in terms of ‘relationship cultivation strategies’ (see the central oval in the above diagram). Different types of organizations will find different symmetrical cultivation strategies to be ‘generally’ useful in their public relations efforts.

I did a quick search of the meaning of the terms ‘generic’ and ‘general’ in the Microsoft Word Thesaurus. The first synonym for generic is general, which doesn’t help a lot. However, when I search the list of synonyms I find that the meanings that come closest to what I had in mind when we talked years ago are that generic = ‘basic’ and general = ‘overall’. Generic and general are very similar terms, but I think that ‘basic’ and ‘overall’ are somewhat different and that they capture the difference between professional and organization principles. Thus, I think you are onto something when you and Rob think of professional principles as ‘generic’ and organizational ‘principles’ are overall.

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Coda by Toni Muzi Falconi:

My! This process so far has been quite an experience for me and I am truly grateful to Rob, to Jim and of course to Heather for their precious contribution.

I would now like to invite every PR Conversations reader (and of course also the above contributors) to add their input, critical views and suggestions to carry the process forward.

One caveat: based on the conversation, I have come to the following (temporary, of course) concluding premise:

Effective global stakeholder relationship governance of any social, private or public organization today requires a situational and therefore dynamic conceptual managerial approach which defines an overall and global professional relationship infrastructure that includes generic guidelines related to:

a) the public relations practice per se,
b) the unique characteristics of the sector in which the organization operates,
c) the unique characteristics of that very organization,

that are effective if and when the practice is implemented considering the six or more (for example, language, religion…) systems related to the specific territories where the organization operates.

Your take?

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NOTE: This is the final part of  series of 3 posts.  Part 1: Developing a worldview of public relations appeared on Thursday 11 April with Part 2: Generic principles and specific applications in public relations - published on Monday 15

In this post, Toni Muzi Falconi presents his development of a paradigm of public relations that seeks to establish common understanding of its strategic role in the contemporary, increasingly globalised environment.

Toni subsequently discussed the concept in an email conversation with Rob Wakefield from Brigham Young University (the first scholar to theorize the paradigm a couple of decades ago), which was followed by a review of their elucubrations by Jim Grunig. That conversational development is the subject of the next PR Conversations post.

In the meantime, we welcome your thoughts on the conceptual framework outlined below.

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It is impossible for an organization to apply its generic principles if not in the operative context of specific applications; while, conversely, the latter are not effective unless embedded into the former.

• Generic principles are ‘the characteristics which define excellent public relations’ as Jim Grunig identified in respect of the Excellence study of the mid-1980s/early-1990s (which described the practices of some 300 US, British and Canadian organizations).

• Specific applications relate to the implementation of public relations activities within particular contexts.

This proposition of an essential linkage between generic principles and specific applications argues that an organization cannot effectively apply generic principles of public relations (as approved by its dominant coalition) throughout the entire network of relationship systems without considering infrastructure characteristics within specific territories, nor can it effectively consider those infrastructure characteristics in absence of the generic principles.

Based on the increasingly interrelated dynamics of public relations and the ever-changing environment in which it operates, we propose six generic principles, and six infrastructural characteristics that need to be considered in understanding the operative implications of day-to-day practice.

Public relationship infrastructure in a given territory: an overview

Embracing this conceptual framework of generic principles and specific applications delivers a number of (strategic) organizational benefits:

• It accelerates the institutionalization process for the public relations function within an organization

• It supports the development of a distributed (central, but also peripheral) managerial monitoring dashboard in each territory It upholds stakeholder relationship governance as the overall responsibility of 21st century public relations

Whilst this development of the original paradigm is helpful, a number of issues remain. Four key questions are:

1. Does the paradigm apply only to public relations?

Potentially, the concept could similarly apply to any other management function or profession with the caveat that relevant generic principles and specific applications be specifically researched. In other words, is the paradigm situational – and if so, is this an oxymoron?

2. Do the generic principles need to reflect the unique characteristics of the organisation as well as the industry in which it operates?

In ensuring effective public relations practices around the world, organizations need to reflect three sets of analysis related to generic principles: the specific practice (PR) and its global principles, the organization’s specific and unique characteristics that are globally valid, and, the industry’s specific and unique characteristics that are globally valid.

3. Should other territorial systems be analysed to determine specific applications?

Are there other territorial systems in addition to the six identified, which need to be analysed? And, can we identify, as I have been now doing for some time, as the ‘public relations infrastructure’ of a given territory? And wouldn’t any of these given territories, by the sheer nature of their being specific, always need to be adaptable to the identification of additional territorial possibilities? In other words, don’t ‘universal specifics’, to at least some degree, create certain rigidity against the notion behind specific application in a given territory?

4. Should the framework directly evidence the interconnectedness between the generic principles and specific applications?

As the constant interconnectedness of the modern world implies that generic principles are valid only if specific applications are acted and vice versa, perhaps this should be indicated by one of the generic principles and one of the specific applications to ensure an effective and equal balance between the two elements of the paradigm.

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NOTE: This is Part 2 of a series of 3 posts.  Part 1: Developing a worldview of public relations appeared on Thursday 11 April with Part 3: Three wise men – homage to a public relations paradigm – published on Friday 19 April.

All conversations about public relations reflect specific worldviews – and this is something we should examine when developing theory, considering practice or undertaking research in the field. Our opinions, prejudices and arguments are the outcome of personal and professional experience, our educational background, our values and perspectives on how things are – or should be – and how we assimilate the views of others into our existing mental frameworks. Likewise when reading the work of others, we need to consider their particular worldview.

There are plenty of academic terms derived from philosophical traditions to summarise the nuances of various worldviews. You may be a pragmatist, or consider yourself to be a critical theorist. Perhaps you demonstrate a modernist or post-modernist perspective in your thinking. Or you may lean more towards a scientific, artistic, social sciences or humanities approach to understanding public relations. Some people are pluralistic and open-minded in their worldview – others reflect single minded thinking that is resistant to change.

You might think this is all mumbo-jumbo – but that same dismissal of academic concepts is indeed a worldview. The University of Life, learning by doing, experience over qualifications – however you wish to sum up your thinking, it reflects a way of looking at the world.

Differing worldviews underpin much of the debate on this blog, as well as in academic and practitioner oriented forums. Look at a PR LinkedIn group and you’ll see similar variety of perspectives to that found in academic journals or at any real world gathering of PR folk.

This rumination is a prelude to a short series of three posts which will present an outcome of a recent offline discussion between three respected and insightful thinkers in public relations: Toni Muzi Falconi, Robert Wakefield and Jim Grunig.

What this introductory post aims to do is to examine that conversation process and how it sought to establish a shared – or at least co-oriented – worldview between the three writers regarding conceptualising a public relations paradigm at the present time.

In editing the conversation for publication, I had a choice in whether to read the discussion from beginning to end or from the last comment back to the original suggestion. Whichever direction I read, I found an interesting dimension of the conversation, which is how responses combined three aspects:

• immediate reaction to the last comment,
• considered reflection against previous work, and
• suggestions of development (often in a new direction) for the discussion.

Each participant brought his own worldview into the discussion and enriched it, redirected it and re-presented it back to the others. There was a politeness in the discussion rather than great opposition or argument – but still I could see how ideas were being challenged and developed.

I wanted to share some thoughts on this creative cognitive process as often readers (particularly those studying PR) view blog posts, academic papers or other publications as complete, final works. In truth, most writing is the result of discussion, reflection, ongoing research and previous forays into print – that is, it represents a progressive worldview and as such is open to further development.

In reading the conversational thread, I found my own worldview being invoked. I didn’t necessarily agree with what I was reading – but my role wasn’t to participate in the discussion. But as I craft the series of posts, my worldview will be implicit within how I narrate the perspectives of our learned colleagues. Such is the nature of secondary reporting.

The idea being discussed relates to establishing some generics of the profession of public relations (my worldview would question the use of the term profession, but as this isn’t my conversation, I will not interject further – for now).

The goal is to develop some common understandings that could be applied by PR practitioners in any organisation, much as accountants and lawyers have a toolkit of informed practice that they apply – and indeed, are required to demonstrate within their role.

However, the conversation recognises that as well as common understandings of possible industry standards, the nature of public relations requires consideration of how the field operates in respect of specific organisations and other varying cultural dimensions.

The conversation pondered the difference between proposed generic and general principles, which would allow for commonality and difference respectively.

This paradigm was thought by the participants in the conversation to warrant revisiting existing literature (particularly that which related to a so-called generic/specific theory of public relations). It was recognised that other issues may arise in considering the suggested distinction between generic and general standards away from the initial conversation.

There was also concern to review and reflect on what would be published, to give it a polish or at least to check the validity of initial raw expressions. This was matched to an excitement to see what others would do with the concepts when they were published.

As well as reaching sideways and forwards, the conversation stretched backwards into earlier studies that had been articulated and developed by other contributors over time.

It then reached a point between Toni and Rob when it had been sufficiently explored to present possible ground breaking to involve Jim’s input. As Toni wrote: Jim provided some agreement, but also more substance to the reflection. This process brought consensus on a need to initiate public review of the concept – with the hope that other viewpoints would focus, challenge, debate, adopt and otherwise develop the issue.

Agreeing there is value in shining such a light on the initial idea and its development, I took on the challenge of turning it into a series of posts. My aim is to convey clarity from the conversation, which reflected linearity within the initial Muzi Falconi-Wakefield main conversational course, with a side order of Grunigian input as relish.

Whether or not the proposed paradigm will be viewed as a reconstruction of a classic dish – a la Heston Blumenthal (innovative British chef) – or will be considered as fare that is lacking in flavour or gastronomic value, is to be decided. It will undoubtedly reflect an attempt to develop a worldview for public relations – which in itself is a challenge when each reader and anyone prepared to join the conversation will have their own worldview from which they will applaud or critique the concept.

I trust I have now whet your appetite for the following bon mots. But also would like to ask for you to share your own experiences of the creative process involved in developing concepts for publication. From crowd-sourcing, to co-authorship and group work (as per the Stockholm Accords and the Melbourne Mandate), the idea of working with others to formulate and refine ideas is increasingly common. Alternatively, individual authors involve editors or peer review in enhancing the veracity of their writing. Or perhaps you feel there is more merit in the approach of a single voice presenting premises that are unsullied by the input of others – does that result in more or less originality? How do you suggest we should develop a worldview of public relations?

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NOTE: This is the first part of a series of 3 posts.  Part 2: Generic principles and specific applications in public relations - appeared on Monday 15 April with Part 3: Three wise men – homage to a public relations paradigm – published on Friday 19 April.

Here’s a short intro to Paull Young:

He’s the guy who, while working in a quiet office with you, on some tedious but essential deliverable, late at night, will start humming out loud the majestic Jurassic Park theme song because, he says, it “makes everything more meaningful” (it does—try it).

He’s that person who is so naturally great at dealing with people—clients and peers—that you can’t understand how does it seems so effortless. And he’s that colleague who’s way more mature than his years, and who can come up and execute great ideas because he understands what makes people tick. This interview will help you get to know him a little better. Take the time to read it— you’ll be richer for it. —Constantin Basturea, Manager at Accenture

Katie Sheppet interview Paull Young, director of digital at charity: water

Katie Sheppet (KS): Paull, in 2007 you became “Internet famous” when you left Australia and travelled/blogged your way through several countries and two continents. Along the way you met PR practitioners and academics and eventually ended up in New York City, where you were hired by a social media-oriented agency. How did you get from your birthplace (in regional Australia) to developing this “global mindset?”

Paull Young (PY): I think it started with a family vacation to Europe when I was nine. That trip, coupled with extensive backpacking after high school, meant that travelling across the world wasn’t scary, but extremely exciting.

It’s a distinctly Australian characteristic that our young people are so well travelled. I’ve found our approach to travel is one of the bigger differences with American society.

Personally, I place a really high value in life on connections and experience—and travel is one of the best ways to do both. I thrive on learning, and travelling to new cultures translates to a constant learning experience.

What made me up and move my life, though, was work. I’ve long been passionate about the opportunities the Internet provides for relationship building and communication, and for the last six years I’ve had the good luck to be living and working at the forefront of digital innovation.

My current travel goal is to visit 30 countries and 30 American states by the time I turn 30 in September, and I’m well on track!

KS: The NGO you currently work for, charity: water, is a global charity based in the USA. Does heritage play a role in working there?

PY: There are actually three Australians amongst our full-time staff—we’re taking over the office (through bribes of Tim Tams and Bundaberg Rum)! There are 50 staff members of which 46 are American and based in NYC with us Australians, and there’s one Kenyan staff members who works as a water programs officer in Kenya.

We’re a global organisation, and while our main donor base to date has been American, we think globally and know we’ll need to expand around the world to hit our aggressive goals as we scale. I’ve been very happy to see Australia be one of our larger international audiences already, and I’m excited to see our Aussie audience continue to grow.

KS: As director of digital, how would you characterise your primary role: is it strategic or more focused on tactical deployment through social platforms and digital storytelling?

PY: The nature of a startup is that you wear multiple hats and need to be able to plan for the future while also rolling up your sleeves and getting stuff done.

Strategic thinking is a strength of mine though and an important part of my role as a member of the executive leadership team of the organisation.

Typically for our web campaigns, my role is to define the strategy to achieve our goals. Scott Harrison, founder of charity: water, acts as our visionary on product, creative and marketing ideas, and then our talented creative team (led by Scott’s wife, Viktoria) makes amazing content that we share with the world.

I try to be the balance point between our freewheeling creative strength and the need for a strategic approach to communication. And not to forget, advocating the benefits of rigorous measurement.

One of the ideas I had at charity: water I was most proud to see executed was our thank-you videos to mark our fifth anniversary. We made 250 personal thank-you videos for donors of all stripes and engaged our entire staff. In producing the videos we had no direct-fundraising objectives—it was all about relationship building and showing how much our brand cares about our donors.

I still regularly see that mini-creative campaign referenced, and every time I do I smile.

KS: Speaking of relationship building, are the village elders/politicians and citizens, primarily the beneficiaries of this largesse of providing cleaner, safe drinking water or are they playing a role in the decisions being made? How do you balance the voice of the organisation itself and that of its recipients?

PY: Our model involves deep integration with local cultures and people. This is a big part of the reason we partner with, and fund, local implementing groups who lead the work on the ground. In the 21 countries we work in, there’s a network of local partners who understand the culture they operate in and work with the communities to bring clean water.

An example of this is a partner I will visit for the first time in April 2013, the Relief Society of Tigray in northern Ethiopia. I’ve heard remarkable things about the organisation, in particular the leadership of Teklewoini, who played a leadership role in protecting people in his region during the Ethiopian civil war. Since time he has devoted his life to 100 per cent water coverage for the region.

At the village level, collaboration is even more important. The typical model we see with partners involves the formation of a water committee where villagers are appointed and trained to collect funds from the community, lead training and assist with maintenance. It’s incredibly important that the community takes on ownership of the water project as their own—not as a handout from an aid agency.

As far as storytelling goes, we’re very mindful of respect for the people we serve. We are conscious of the stories we present as a brand and will typically pour dozens, if not hundreds, of hours into creating one of our stories. As such, it’s important that our creative team in NYC lead the story creation—but we only get a great story by becoming deeply embedded with local communities and citizens.

KS: It is clear that charity: water is a game changer in many ways and lauded for its values, goals and successes, as well as ingenuity about using social media rather than conventional fundraising techniques. That having been said, I’m curious whether there have been any PR reputation or issues management hiccups along the way to overcome?

PY: The nature of international development work is that it is immensely challenging. Our partners work in some of the most isolated and difficult regions on the planet, and because of these challenges it’s rare things go precisely as planned.

Charity: water’s approach is to embrace this uncertainty. We place strong value on transparency, so much so that we’ll present the truth to supporters even if it’s not the glowing story for which we’d hoped. The best example I’ve seen of this was the 2010 live drill from Moale, Central African Republic.

Every year on our September 7^th “founding” birthday we post a video from the field of the work being done. It’s an eagerly awaited moment for our supporters, and typically sees us posting a joyous video, filmed that day of a new water project being created and people celebrating their lives being changed.

But in 2010, it didn’t play out that way. The village we drilled in (which we knew was a risky location) sat atop what we later learned was 30-40 stories of sand. So instead of posting a celebratory video to our supporters, we shared a more authentic story of failure. We even titled the video, “Failure on our birthday.”

I was in our New York office executing the launch of this video, and must admit I was very nervous how our audience would respond. We were overjoyed (and relieved) to see an overwhelmingly positive response to this video, with our supporters using words like “authentic” and “transparent” to describe it.

KS: In the excellent October 2012 profile in Australia’s Marketing Magazine (prior to your appearance at the Global Alliance’s World PR Forum, proudly hosted by the Public Relations Institute of Australia), you said working for a “startup” NGO isn’t done for financial compensation. What motivated you to leave the more-flush agency world and move into non-profit work?

PY: I’ve always been a cause-driven person—my mum loves to tell a story about me as a seven year old, when I very seriously told her I wanted to be Australia’s Prime Minister one day to help solve the world’s problems.

When I started my program at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, I was asked what I’d like to do with my career in public relations. My answer was sports or cause marketing; seven years into my career and I’ve done both.

I loved the charity: water brand before I started working here. I first heard about it in 2008 when I “gave up” my September birthday to help fund water projects in Ethiopia. Over the years I got more connected to the organisation, and when a job came up I had to explore it. I feel honoured to work with a brand that does world-changing work, while also reinventing how people give, including pushing the edges of digital innovation.

If I didn’t work at charity: water, I don’t think I’d be at another non-profit, but I do know that whatever position, I’d be trying to make a positive impact on the world.

KS: It’s clear you’re driven to help others. I noticed your collaboration with friends on the #EatDownTipUp campaign, where you helped your local community by encouraging New Yorkers to eat at downtown restaurants and tip double after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Could you tell me a little more about how this came about?

PY: #EatDownTipUp was a rewarding experience; yet another proof point that people are good and want to make a positive impact on others.

My neighbourhood in NYC had a blackout throughout Hurricane Sandy, and many of the local businesses I frequent lost a lot of business and had severe water damage. Immediately—once the power was back—it felt like the right thing to try to support those businesses. While having my first meal back in the neighbourhood, I saw an Anthony Bourdain tweet about supporting local businesses by eating downtown and tipping heavily.

I immediately felt this could be a way to easily allow people to do good, while at the same time most volunteering options in the city were over subscribed. So that night (over dinner) three friends and I came up with the hashtag; the next morning we hosted a brunch for 20 people who wanted to help out, and suddenly people were jumping on it all over the city.

The next day I was in Boston for business meetings and when I came out of them learned Anthony Bourdain covered the campaign for CNN and the idea was going viral.

Salesforce Radian6 later did an analysis and found more than 3,500 #EatDownTipUp tweets in the week after the storm. All in all, while we knew this wasn’t as impactful as a lot of the other work being done to help people affected, we do think we provided a simple way to have New Yorkers help New Yorkers. At a minimum, we provided some positivity for hundreds of small business owners and workers hit by the storm.

KS: I was very pleased to meet you at the World PR Forum in Melbourne last November. Your presentation on charity: water and video story was incredibly emotional, in fact it moved other audience members and myself to tears. You have very powerful stories to tell.

What does it take to bring these stories to life?

PY: The powerful content that charity: water produces shows the value of working with a great team. Small and with miniscule budgets, we’re able to do remarkable work because of in-house talent that focuses on brand excellence. From our end, we put in blood, sweat and tears to make that happen. In my opinion our creative team is one of the best in the world.

My favourite story: I was a part of was a live drill we did in Moale, Central African Republic. We made this video with one videographer/editor, Scott and Viktoria’s storytelling prowess, and some input from donors on the trip and me. We shot and edited it in two days while travelling in Africa, and then the same day we finished the piece I uploaded it from very slow hotel Internet in Paris, so these donors could see the impact in real time. In 2011 it was a finalist in the DoGooder Awards for best cause content.

Fun fact: you might spot me dancing in the last shot of the film!

KS: What lies ahead for you, Paull? Can we expect a return Down Under at some point or have you forever become a citizen of the world?

PY: Right now I’m very focused on helping to lead charity: water to our goal of raising $100 million in 2015. As we travel towards that goal I know I’ll be blessed to be able to travel and meet amazing people who want to help change the world. Because I continue to value connections and experience, this is important to me.

I love Australia deeply and will definitely return home at some point. My ideal life would be split time between Sydney and New York, though I’m not sure I can make that happen. For as far as I plan forward, life revolves around New York and charity: water, and I have a very clear picture of owning a bookshop near a beach in Australia when I’m an old man….

Otherwise, I’ve got no idea what’s in store for me between those earlier and closing chapters of the rest of my working life!

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Katie Sheppet is an account executive at Edelman Melbourne where she has experience across marketing, digital and organisational communications. Katie is also contributing articles to the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management (GA) monthly e-newsletter on a volunteer basis.

On behalf of Edelman, long recognized for its sponsorship of PR education, Katie volunteered digital support to the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), the GA member/national PR association host of the 2012 World Public Relations Forum (WPRF), which took place in Melbourne from 18-20 November 2012. Her efforts include initiating this earlier interview with John Paluszek from Ketchum PR, and formulating the questions for first-publication on PR Conversations. She also contributed an article about putting theory into practice for PR Conversations. Contact Katie by email, follow her on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

Paull Young is director of digital at charity: water, a non-profit devoted to bringing clean and safe drinking water to the 800 million people without. Recognised as a leading digital non-profit, charity: water was the first to have one million Twitter followers, with 75 per cent of its fundraising through digital channels. In the NGO’s six years of existence, it has brought clean and safe drinking water to more than three million people (and raised more than $90 million). Paull’s leadership in digital strategy for charity: water was lauded by the Australian Trade Commission as one of the “Global 50″ influential Australian expatriates and by the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation as an industry “Rising Star.”

Prior to this position Paull was senior account director with social media agency Converseon, leading award-winning campaigns for Fortune 500 clients such as Graco, Kohler, Telstra, the New York Times and Cisco.

Paull moved to New York from Sydney in 2007 as a well-known PR and marketing blogger and commentator. His has been featured on FOX News and CNN, in the Wall St Journal, Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review. Read his blog or follow Paull on Twitter.

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See earlier NGO communicator profiles on PR Conversations:

- Visibility, aid and advocacy: balancing effective yet sensitive communication at MSF

- War Child Canada’s creative fight for attention

In 2011, I asked Do you know where you’re going to? in relation to careers in public relations. Beyond the individual career context, this question continues to have relevance for organizations and the wider occupation.

Within the wider occupation, debate is often over whether PR is a profession or a craft.  However, each has specific career implications, which are rarely considered.  Ironically both concepts date to the Middle Ages – a profession being an occupation for gentlemen, whilst crafts focused on apprenticeship training, for example, in Guilds. Both sought to control entry into their fields, and presented a formal, restricted career path involving serving time and learning from those with more experience (although in a profession, a body of knowledge had to be mastered as well).

In organisations, public relations careers seem to be something of a challenge as they do not generally fit within the 20th century hierarchical or bureaucratic model. There is confusion over whether PR is a specialist function (as it seems anyone can work in the field) and/or if it develops generalist skills (where is would be more common for PR managers’ careers to move beyond a head of function position).  For consultancies, the career model conceptually reflects a hierarchical model, rather than the professional approach more common in other practice based occupations, such as law or accountancy.

Regardless of the traditional conceptualisation of the form of work in public relations, a ladder metaphor remains whereby those entering the occupation (with or without a degree in PR), are expected to work their way in and up. Others leapfrog (encroach) into more senior roles or continue to ‘fall into PR’ – often from a journalist background.

This leads me to question whether we have career agency or apathy in public relations. Discussions of careers in public relations reflect a very narrow focus – and lack connection with modern career thinking. Chance and opportunism seem to be the primary drivers of PR careers. Which suggests a general apathy at the individual, organisational and occupational levels.

Bandura’s distinction of personal, proxy, and collective agency offers a way of considering influences on career behaviour. Within public relations, personal agency can be seen when individuals act independently in developing their skills and making career moves. Bandura argues proxy agency involves “the competence, power, and favors of others” – this could reflect role models, mentoring or management support for career moves. The importance of collective agency is proposed by Larissa Grunig in respect of women working in PR, positioning them as operating in a communal rather than an individualistic manner.

Although ideas relating to hierarchical careers (found in bureaucratic, professional and craft models), have been presented as reflecting a traditional male sequential path, it may not be helpful to be looking at gendered models of career success and work.  Often this simply results in arguments for women being suited for PR because of an affinity with communications – which seems a career limiting proposition to me.

The dynamic nature of social media may indicate increased agentic self-efficacy in keeping up with new skills and knowledge. It also opens up an argument for entrepreneurial careers – which doesn’t simply mean setting up a business. Rather, it considers how the individual needs to be innovative, adaptable and flexible in creating value in their career (for themselves and their employers).

Such ideas also feed into consideration of how the world of work is changing and that individuals cannot rely on organisations for a life-long career. This is extended further to occupations with concepts such as the portfolio, protean or boundaryless career, where people may not work exclusively in one field and need to be pro-active in creating their own career tapestry.

The emphasis is increasingly on the personal agency dimension. This may seem particularly applicable to work in PR which requires a certain level of independence, creativity and adaption to changing circumstances.

But what does this mean for organisations and the wider PR occupation? People do not create or manage careers in isolation from those who employ their talents.  Neither can we ignore a variety of societal pressures. Indeed, few people can be free agents in career terms. At the same time, organisations (particularly PR consultancies), and the wider public relations occupation, should not be excused – or allowed to be apathetic – in relation to careers in the field.

Both proxy and communal agency dimensions need to be better understood in relation to careers in public relations. We need to look at the role of career gatekeepers, supporters and influencers, and ideas such as communities of practice, alongside traditional professional bodies and informal networks. The social fabric on which modern careers are sewn also needs to be considered

Modern careers are more complex, messy and chaotic than implied by the current industry suggestion of a neat linear ladder route from technician to manager in PR. Public relations is an interesting field of work, where the interplay of individuals, organisations, society and the wider occupation influence career agency. It deserves more attention than the limitations of the pre-occupation on profession vs. craft, barriers affecting women or efforts to create a more diverse demographic make-up of practitioners.

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 Stuart Bruce:

1. What is your most striking characteristic as a PR practitioner?

Flexibility and breadth, which doesn’t mean I’m a fat gymnast. A PR professional has to have the flexibility to respond quickly and intelligently to an infinite number of scenarios and have a broad range of skills and knowledge.

2. What is your principal fault as a PR practitioner?

Flexibility and breadth. That wide base of knowledge and skills that is essential to a good PR professional mean I risk being a jack of all trades as I could never master a specialist area such as engineering, law or medicine enough to actually practice it.

3. What is your favourite occupation in PR?

Counselling senior management, politicians and civil servants to understand how PR is about what you do, not what you say… And to cheat with two favourites – training and mentoring PR professionals to adapt their practice to the digital and social age.

4. Why do you work in PR?

Variety. I constantly need new stimulation, to learn new things and face new challenges. PR is one of the most varied professions on earth.

5. What is your idea of PR nirvana?

Heading up comms for something that really matters – a national election campaign (anywhere in the world will do as long as it is for a centre or centre left candidate/party), ending the global sale of tobacco, detoxifying the nuclear power industry. Just little things, really.

6. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery in PR?

Clients who mislead you or don’t tell you the whole story when they want you to help with an issue.

7. What qualities do you most admire in a PR practitioner?

Ethics, morality, honesty and professionalism.

8. What qualities do you most dislike in a PR practitioner?

Lying and spin, but above all a willingness to work for anyone no matter how dubious the cause or client.

9. Who would you describe as a PR hero or villain?

Alastair Campbell is much maligned and misunderstood. He is not the ogre that many make him out to be. He has ‘sinned’, but not nearly as often as he has been accused. But most importantly Alistair played a monumental role in making the UK and the world a better place to live. He made a difference.

The value of that is incalculable. Listen to Alistair now and he truly understands how the old ‘command and control’ that he was a master of has no place in the world as it is now. Alistair is one of my PR heroes.

There are far too many PR villains to mention as there is a surfeit of amateurs masquerading as professionals and publicists claiming to be PRs.

10. What do you most value in your professional contacts?

There are so many excellent practitioners I know it’s almost unfair to single one out. However, Edelman’s David Brain is one that I believe truly understands the ethics, practice and changing nature of PR and harnesses this knowledge to grow a successful business – first in EMEA and now in APAC. Most importantly he walks the talk.

11. Have you ever been influenced by a PR campaign?

Real PR is never a campaign so I can safely say no. However, I have undoubtedly been influenced by publicity campaigns. Currently I’m desperate to own a Microsoft Surface tablet and read the reviews and watch the TV ads in envy.

12. Where would you most like to practise PR?

In recent years I’ve done more and more work outside in the UK in the rest of Europe and the Middle East. I want to do even more and would love to do some training and consultancy in the Asia Pacific region as well as increasing the amount of work I do in the USA. I also love the idea of moving with my family and working overseas for an extended period.

13. Has a novel, film, play or other work of fiction ever influenced you as a PR practitioner?

Foreign Correspondent. A much under-rated early Hitchcock from 1940 made to help convince people in the USA to enter WWII to support Great Britain.

The final lines showed me the power of words and emotion and made me want to pursue communications as a career:

“Johnny Jones: Hello, America. I’ve been watching a part of the world being blown to pieces. A part of the world as nice as Vermont, and Ohio
[siren sounds]
Johnny Jones: , and Virginia, and California, and Illinois lies ripped up and bleeding like a steer in a slaughterhouse, and I’ve seen things that make the history of the savages read like Pollyanna legends. I’ve seen women…
[bombs begin exploding]
English Announcer: It’s a raid; we shall have to postpone the broadcast.
Johnny Jones: Oh, postpone, nothing! Let’s go on as long as we can.
English Announcer: Madam, we have a shelter downstairs.
Johnny Jones: How about it, Carol?
Carol Fisher: They’re listening in America, Johnny.
Johnny Jones: Okay, we’ll tell ‘em, then. I can’t read the rest of the speech I had, because the lights have gone out, so I’ll just have to talk off the cuff.

All that noise you hear isn’t static – it’s death, coming to London. Yes, they’re coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don’t tune me out, hang on a while – this is a big story, and you’re part of it. It’s too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come… as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they’re the only lights left in the world!”

From IMDB Click for YouTube clip

14. Who do you think has great public relations?

Few will ever match what Tony Blair achieved with New Labour. He understood that reputation is a result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

15. Which real, historical or fictional person or brand would you like to give a reputation makeover?

Robert the Bruce who has been unfairly outshone by Mel Gibson’s William Wallace, when in fact it was Bruce who did most to achieve Scottish independence. Although it’s a shame his name is now being misappropriated by Scottish nationalists who seek to break up the United Kingdom. Bruce won independence from an English invader, today’s union was chosen and created by its nations in the understanding that together we can achieve more than we can alone.

16. Who is your favourite writer?

JRR Tolkien. His mastery of detail, vivid imagination and colourful use of words brought an entire world to life before my eyes as I turned the pages. A joy as a young teenager when I first read Lord of the Rings and it’s just as wonderful today on yet another reading.

17. What one thing is essential to your PR life?

The Internet.

18. Groucho Marx is quoted as saying he’d never join a club that would have him as a member. Which PR club, association or tribes do you belong to—and why?

I’ve been an active member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) for almost 25 years since I was a student.

For much of this time I was unhappy with the CIPR’s performance, but in recent years it has really upped its game. I’m a big believer in you should be in the tent and fighting your corner, not standing outside p*****g in! I’m a founder member of its Social Media Panel and have just been elected to serve a three year term on its national Council.

Recently I’ve also been impressed by the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD) which is why I’m joining it and about to become more active.

19. Where do you most like to do your professional networking?

It’s 2013 there isn’t a single place. Networking is constant and there is no longer a clear distinction between the personal and the professional. Perhaps the two most useful are meeting new people when I speak at conferences and then strengthening those real world relationships via Twitter.

20. What’s the best career decision you ever made?

I’ve made lots of great decisions and lots of not so great ones, but I believe things can always get better so never look back.

21. What skills and abilities do you think tomorrow’s PR leaders need?

The same as they’ve always needed: Curiosity, flexibility and ‘smartness’ which is better than pure intelligence.

22. Which talent would you most like to have?

Foreign languages. It is my eternal regret that when I was younger I didn’t master a foreign tongue as once you’ve learned one it becomes easier to learn new ones.

23. How would you like to end your PR career?

Having made a difference to help improve my country and the world. Pretentious I know, but I can’t help caring.

24. How would you describe the current state of public relations?

Full of potential, but with not enough professionals to help realise it.

25. What is your PR motto?

The science of public relations down to a fine art.

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Stuart Bruce, MCIPR, is an international trainer and consultant specialising in digital corporate communications, online PR, digital public affairs and social media for private sector and government clients in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. He is a part-time lecturer to post-graduate and under-graduate students at Leeds Metropolitan University and is a co-author of Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals.

Stuart  has just been elected to the national council of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and is a founder member of its social media panel. He is regularly listed in PRWeek’s Power Book of the UK’s top 1% of most influential PR people and is also a regular speaker at international PR and communications conferences.

Stuart  was one of the world’s first PR bloggers and has been writing stuartbruce.biz for 10 years. Stuart can be contacted via LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ or his A PR Guy’s Musings blog.

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The PRoust Questionnaire was originally designed to reveal one’s personality. Its name and popularity as a form of interview has roots in the responses given by the French writer, Marcel Proust. His first set of responses came at the end of the nineteenth century, when he was still in his teens (from an English-language “confession album”).

For PR Conversations we have adapted this original idea with questions that offer a public relations’ perspective. It is fun to compare and contrast responses as the series grows. (See below.)

If you would like to be invited to complete our PRoust Questionnaire for posting on PR Conversations, please visit our Crowdsourcing suggestion form.

Earlier PRoust Questionnaire respondents:

- Fraser Likely

- Jane Tchan

- Sean Williams

- Al Clarke

- Léa Werthman

- Estelle de Beer

- Don Radoli

- Toni Muzi Falconi

- Richard Bailey

- Jane Jordan-Meier

- Nelly Benova

- Peter Stanton

- Mat Wilcox

- Anne Gregory

- Markus Pirchner

- Heather Yaxley

- Judy Gombita

As an employee relations (or internal communication) professional, how do you specifically identify your stakeholders?

What approach and methods do you adopt and how do you implement them appropriately in order to communicate clearly?

A guest interview and conversation between

Toni Muzi Falconi and Rachel Miller

Recently Toni Muzi Falconi approached PR Conversations about some of his current examinations regarding alternative approaches to communicating with stakeholders. It was determined the most effective method to understand and communicate his research would be an interview format and conversation, conceived by internal communication specialist (and recent guest poster), Rachel Miller.

Rachel Miller (RM): Toni, I’m interested to learn more about what you are currently working on.

Toni Muzi Falconi (TMF): Rachel, I am evaluating possible alternative approaches for employee relations professionals to better understand and communicate more effectively with their primary stakeholders.

In this quest I am also hoping to identify a “generic” professional worldview that is adoptable/adaptable to an effective governance of relationships with other stakeholders, such as suppliers, investors, distributors, media, public policy decision makers, et al.

RM: This sounds quite interesting; I’m intrigued about what approaches you are exploring?

TMF: I’m examining how to separate stakeholders into as many groups as possible, using sense-making indicators (to find out more, I point to Karl Weick as a real asset).

The idea is to be able to ensure that content may be adapted to satisfy and attract expectations of (and dialogue from) specific groups.

The other areas I’ve been thinking about is how we could improve results? This means identifying and examining an ever-growing list of flexible tools and channels. And these must be selectively applied on the basis of different variables—which inevitably will change in time.

RM: What separations/groups would you expect to see?

TMF: Traditional separations, such as blue-collar and white-collar employees, managers, etc., are of course necessary.

But these separations don’t tend to be particularly useful if you are attempting to involve them on general culture-related issues, such as their motivation, participation and satisfaction in the workplace.

RM: Do you have a way to segment those individual groups?

TMF: Adopting a consolidated market segmentation approach and adapting it to that public is useful. However, too many adaptations are necessary not to justify at least looking for a different approach.

RM: What is your recommendation for a different approach?

TMF: The growing body of knowledge concerning the digital influencing issue is helpful. This is also because it confirms, for the most part, that long-existing public relations approaches to stakeholder identification can shed much light on internal, as well as external, publics.

Specific studies (and many applications) related to concepts such as “niches,” “tribes” or “clusters” are also there to help.

RM: So what is at the heart of your current and original research on stakeholder communication?

TMF: This has been my thought process—if you think about employees, they own the following profiles:

• personal
• professional
• *territorial

*territorial includes the history, culture, values and norms that relate to living in a specific territory rather than another

In parallel, organizations also own at least two profiles:

• corporate
• sector

Once one recognizes ownership of several profiles, the natural thought progression is that likely it’s a lost cause to develop a “generic” approach to communication; instead, it’s more useful to spend more time focusing on “specific” (situational) ones.

RM: Does this mean because employees have more than one profile, they could therefore be in multiple segments?

TMF: Yes, in an abstract and theoretical operating “space,” a given employee populace of a given organization could be “divided” into at least the five “profiles” as listed above.

Each of which, obviously, intersects with each other , too. Then, according to the specific objective that the employee relations professional wishes to achieve, the related contents and available tools and channels may be differently mixed and deployed in each situation.

RM: That’s an interesting idea, so segmenting your communication based on which profile they come under?

TMF: Yes. This is not—as some might think—an “easy way out,” as it would imply the use of professional skills and competencies that are not normally in the communication practitioner’s domain. Areas (clusters) that would need to be mapped and listened to include:

• dominant organizational culture (with its subcultures and anti-cultures); and
• sectorial or industry cultures

And of course the:

• legal
• political
• economic
• socio-cultural
• active citizenship; and
• media characteristics

of a given territory.

It would also mean the mapping and understanding of personal and professional profiles and creating content related to the specific objective one is trying to achieve.

That would then need to be adapted to each one of those clusters, plus selecting the more appropriate tools and channels to do this—it’s one hell of a task!

Unless, of course, this “generic situational approach” (an oxymoron?) becomes the basic method adopted for each program.

RM: How do you see this working in practice for employee relations professionals?

TMF: I am not at all sure of where I am going with this as it remains in the exploratory stage. That’s why I would really welcome comments, suggestions, advice from you, Rachel, as well as from other readers of PR Conversations.

Having said this, I imagine that—faced with one clear and specific change management project (to take a common example)—the employee communicator is well versed with the organization’s sector and corporate cultures and focuses on these mission and values. That is, inasmuch as they impact on the specific objective being pursued.

The communicator then identifies the employee populace involved in the specific objective (the universe, in this case) and listens to their objective-related opinions and expectations, integrating these findings into the personal, professional and territorial profiles.

This knowledge, in turn, creates an overall communicative infrastructure that allows a flexible adaptation of multiple contents releasable through an ever-growing list of tools and channels selected on the basis of priority indicators. For example, interactivity, flexibility, time impact, credibility, reach and so on.

RM: Thank you for the invitation for my input, Toni.

It’s certainly true that communicators are well versed in segmenting communication in order to achieve organizational objectives.

My take on your suggested approach is that there would be many benefits to sub-dividing employees and tailoring communication with them, based on the variables you’ve previously mentioned.

However, my concern would be how to accurately categorize employees. And maybe even more importantly, “keep track” of any changes in sector, geography, etc.

If it added a huge amount of consideration and analytical challenges for communication professionals, I wonder how many would have the inclination or time? Inclination, I think, would certainly be there as any good communication practitioner worth her or his salt wants the very best for employees when it comes to creating effective conversations and business communication, but perhaps resource-wise (time or money) less so.

It’s certainly food for thought.

And as someone who has studied Weick’s sense-making ideas, it appeals to me. Weick’s notion of sense-making—literally making sense of what we see and hear—has a role to play here. For example, frame of reference communications. In this example, employees are presented with information in a manner that they recognize (framework) that makes sense based on their understanding (e.g., cues), and leads to effective communication (e.g., a connection).

Weick’s idea is that once people begin to act they generate outcomes in some context, and this helps them discover what is occurring, what needs to be explained and what should be done next. In short, a good story. Sense-making is about plausibility, coherence and reasonableness. It’s well known that employees will only “take things in” if they have a cue/receptor.

Taking this thinking a step further, I think the profiles you’ve mentioned have a role to play here and I can see this segmentation working.

TMF: Clearly my suggested approach implies for the employee communicator to invest more thought and time in preparing a program before implementing it. It is natural that a professional be inclined to apply methods that have always been used rather than opt for a different path.

However, rationality would suggest that a more “reflective” approach is needed today—because employee communication has become so relevant.

Besides, the recent (2010) collective global effort by the Global Alliance to define the need for an essential alignment of internal and external communication of an organization (I am referring to the Stockholm Accords) also indicates:

For the communicative organization, internal communication is vital in the development and sustenance of the organization, fostering trust, commitment, purpose and shared goals among all internal stakeholders including all employee tiers, contractors, consultants, suppliers, volunteers and others required to fulfill the organization’s purpose.

And this certainly mandates a more sophisticated and aware approach.

RM: But how do you know when the groups are satisfied?

What measurement would need to be put in place?

TMF: The ultimate objective, in my view, is not to satisfy the (however) identified groups, but to achieve the organization’s objectives.

From this premise, the employee communicator assumes that reducing frustrations and resistance in the workforce and stimulating ideas, motivation and participation, improves the chances of achieving the specified objective. The evaluation methodology I suggest is that, once the universe and the specific groups are identified (see former question), the quality of existing relationships and contents be pre-tested, with samples from each group. The quality testing would be on the basis of:

• trust
• satisfaction
• commitment
• power balance or control mutuality

for the relationship.

As well as:

• credibility of source
• credibility of content; and
• familiarity of content

for the communication quality.

Such a pre-test allows one to set and share with top management specific relationship and communication objectives to be achieved in a given timeframe with given resources.

A post-test, following the implementation of the program, will give you a good idea of where you went wrong in the process.

Also, this method allows the communicator to negotiate in advance of the actual implementation; for example, a well-deserved bonus if and when the results exceed the negotiated objectives.

I have been adopting this (constantly updated and flexible) methodology for many PR projects over the last 20 years and have always been gratified.

RM: Toni, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I quite like the idea of a pre- and post-test measurement. From reading back on our conversation about your new area of study, what stands out to me is that people working within employee communication need to be flexible, and adapt and evolve the way they work in order to meet the ever-changing needs of both their employees and employers’ objectives. I wonder what other readers think?

Do let Toni know your views in the comments section.

* * *

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Rachel Miller is an internal communication and social media strategist based in London. She began her career as a journalist and has worked in internal communication (IC), both in-house and agency side, for global companies across the financial, automotive, healthcare and railway sectors.

She regularly speaks, writes and teaches internal communication and social media. Rachel (under her maiden name, Allen) was named in PR Week UK’s Top 29 under 29 professional communicators. She contributed a chapter to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ best-selling book Share This: The social media handbook for PR Professionals (Wiley). The follow-up Share This Too (Wiley, due out summer 2013), also features a chapter by Rachel. She writes a monthly column on using social media for internal communication on Windmill Networking and in 2012 launched The IC Crowd. Read her blog and find Rachel on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Storify and Google+.

* * *

Toni Muzi Falconi is senior counsel of Methodos in Milano, an Italian management consultancy specializing in performance, change and integrated management practices. His primary residence is in Rome, where he teaches public relations at the Vatican’s LUMSA University. Twice a year he also resides in New York City, where he teaches Global Relations and Intercultural Communication as well as Public Affairs courses in NYU’s Master’s in Public Relations and Corporate Communication.

A past president of Ferpi (the Italian PR association), founding chair of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management (GA), he developed Toni’s Blog in 2005, which was then transformed into PR Conversations in 2007. Check out the GA’s Stockholm Accords HUB blog (where Toni was the principal contributor), follow him on Twitter or contact him by email.

____________________________________________________________________________________

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This is post #501 - which seems a useful milestone to reflect on the previous 500 posts at PR Conversations, and invite you to contribute your views on the blog overall.

For me, PR Conversations has provided a global platform for debating and considering a wide range of classic and contemporary developments in public relations. I have had the opportunity to present some new thoughts and argue my viewpoint in relation to some traditional concepts. The wide range of posts also offers a chance to engage with others whose positions may oppose, or at least run at an angle to my own thinking. Sometimes this conversation has been enlightening and at other times, it has been frustrating. But that’s the delight of providing a platform for the expression of varying viewpoints.

I often come back to PR Conversation posts in my teaching, other writing (citing blog posts from the site in book chapters I have written) and discussion with practitioners and academics. PR Conversations has expanded my own profile and undoubtedly led to opportunities – such as online teaching with US universities – that I would not have had otherwise.

Before getting involved with PR Conversations, I wrote exclusively on my own Greenbanana blog – and similarly, this site existed before my involvement. It was started originally by Toni Muzi Falconi, with Judy Gombita, Markus Pirchner and myself, taking on responsibility for its development with the Redux version launched in June 2010.

Some of the 500 preceding posts pre-date this ‘change of ownership’ and were those we felt were worthy of an ongoing online presence. They can be found under our Seasoned Posts category.

There are a number of these Seasoned stories that continue to get a lot of attention – not least the posts discussing the King reports on governance from South Africa, and the collection of posts on What is PR? collated by Catherine Arrow in May 2008.

Our most popular post ever – which is still a big draw – is not typical of PR Conversations. Written as a team post, Using Twitter for PR Events provides thoughts and advice that continue to get hits, and other social media referrals.

This post raises an interesting aspect of PR Conversations that has developed over the past couple of years. Despite getting thousands of hits every month, this attractive Twitter post has only 12 comments, about half the average number for a post, and only a tenth of the debate on our most heated offerings. In contrast, those that generate a lot of conversation, don’t always light up social media channels.

Another strength of PR Conversations, I believe is the community of contributors and commentators – our conversationalists. Judy in particular is great at spotting and nurturing new people to participate here (as well as promoting the site through Twitter and Google+). We set out to encourage a variety of voices and I believe we succeed in that aim.

We also tackle a good range of topics – revisiting some (such as definitions and the role of women), whilst introducing new ones (including Toni’s posts relating to Muslim PR practice and my own reflections on protest PR). I like to think we’ve often been ahead of conversations elsewhere or at least, that we’ve extended conversations in ways that other blogs don’t.

So thank you to everyone who has read PR Conversations, double thanks if you’ve ever left a comment or Tweeted about us, and triple thanks if you’ve contributed a post.

Whether you are one of these people – or if you are a lurker or newcomer to the site, it would be great to hear your views about PR Conversations. In particular, please let us know if we’ve influenced your thinking or practice – or if you’ve suggestions for future posts and people who’d you’d like us to invite to join in our PR Conversations.

Shortly before the holiday break began in December, I received an email from Stephanie Cegielski, associate director, public relations, of the Public Relations Society of America, inviting me to submit a 2013 trends post for the PRSay blog.

Besides nailing down whether I could comply with the submission deadline, I was curious to find out more about the #PRin2013 initiative. I remembered reading trends from various PRSA members in 2012, but I was interested in learning more about the PRSay blog’s trends history and framework.

Stephanie responded:

“This is the third year that PRSA has put together its ‘Top Trends of the coming year’ series. We look to industry thought leaders and ask for their opinion on what the top trends will be during the upcoming year.

Each contributor provides a unique perspective on what he or she feel lies ahead in the coming year. A side benefit for PRSA members and other readers of the PRSay blog is that any ‘look forward’ gives each of us the opportunity to reflect on the past year and make our own predictions on the year ahead, based on our work environment and other circumstances.”

As PRSA reached out to this Canadian to contribute, I’ve decided to help promote the 2013 trends series to (perhaps) a more “global” audience of public relations practitioners, academics and students. (This is particularly appropriate, as “PR going global” is my top trend, and I reference some of the international public relations people I’ve either met or become better acquainted with as a result of this blog. Rumour also has it there is a Brit submitting a trends post, too.)

The way I’m going to do this is by posting a link to each day’s contribution (anticipated to be over much of the month of January 2013), here on PR Conversations, including the name of the contributor.

The newest contribution will be the top post, meaning that if you return to PR Conversations fresh content will be easy to find, even if this is no longer the Featured post on our blog.

I’ve stated with the #PRin2013 introductory post, which provides a brief outline about the series, as well as excerpts from submissions received from (publishing first) Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA; Elise S. Mitchell, APR, Fellow PRSA; Ron Culp; Nathan Burgess…and me!

PRSA’s #PRin2013 Trends Series

13. #PRin2013: A Look Back at the Predictions (PRSA staff)

12. Measurement, Management and the Media Consultant: PR Predictions for 2013 (Shonali Burke)

11. The Changing Role of Mentorship (Sean Kelly, MA, APR, Fellow CPRS, Canada)

10. Connecting the Dots with Content (Philip Tater, APR, Fellow PRSA)

9.  Reality Check: Mobile (Janet Tyler, APR)

8.  The Value of Internal Communications Lies in Flexible, Informed Practitioners (Sean Williams, past guest contributor to PR Conversations)

7.  #PRin2013: PR to give organizations a new legitimacy (Daniel Tisch, APR, Fellow CPRS, Canada)

6. Not Losing your Social Media Shirt in 2013 (Nathan Burgess)

5. ‘Pageview Journalism’ Creates Immediate Opportunities and Challenges for PR Professionals (Ron Culp)

4.  PR’s Mandate in 2013 (Peter Himler)

3.  Global PR and internal communication trends for 2013, paywalls and pragmatism…and more (Judy Gombita, Canada)

2.  What’s Next: Predictions for Public Relations In 2013 (Elise S. Mitchell, APR, Fellow PRSA)

1. Challenges Facing Public Relations in 2013…Demand for Accountability Will Rise (Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA)

Introduction: #PRin2013: 13 Trends to Look for in Public Relations During 2013 ( #PRin2013 Trends series introductory post by PRSA’s Stephanie Cegielski)

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