How to organise and operate a public relations department

This topic remains as relevant today as when the following insight into the public relations department of 1948 was written by Conger Reynolds, public relations director at the Standard Oil Company (Indiana), in the book, Your Public Relations. This is chapter five – to read other chapters in our series of posts, use this link to the book’s contents list. In 1948, according to the University of Iowa, Conger Reynolds received the Award of the...

Director Roundtable: Stakeholder Expectations and the 21st Century Board

PR Conversations founder, Toni Muzi Falconi is taking part in a fascinating ‘Director Roundtable‘ event being held in collaboration with the NYU school of continuing and professional studies on 28 February. The other speakers are: Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman James Grunig, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland Emilio Galli Zugaro, Head of Group Communications, Allianz This event looking at Stakeholder Expectations and the 21st Century Board builds on the book: Global Stakeholder Relationships Governance:...

Action learning – NYU students develop opening address

PR Conversations contributor, the Italian professional and scholar, Toni Muzi Falconi, has just presented his latest thinking and processes in an opening session of a two day workshop in Brazil (August 27/28), under the title:’Towards an effective infrastructure for global stakeholder relationships governance’ (click for the presentation and notes). Toni involved six students in preparing his presentation – and in this post, we share their thoughts on the experience, along with their future expectations from...

Integrated reporting and strategic public relations

Guest post by Benita Steyn In November 2011, Benita Steyn and Estelle de Beer from South Africa delivered a paper, The Strategic Role of Public Relations in the Process of Integrated Reporting at the Corporate Governance and Strategic Communication Congress in Milan, Italy. We welcome back contributor alumna, Benita Steyn, who kindly agreed to provide an abridged version of this paper for PR Conversations. Backgrounder: Integrated reporting and strategic public relations The collapse of the...

Public relations and the public interest: a matter of opinion

Recently the phrase “public interest” started an offline debate between two PR Conversations stalwarts, Toni Muzi Falconi and Heather Yaxley. This blog exists to encourage discourse about public relations and its role from a variety of perspectives, although normally, conversations are stimulated by a post, and then move into the comments section or onto Twitter. This time, we start with a private conversation, and invite you to expand the discussion further with your own comments....

The serious business of public relations

It is interesting that the word ‘consultant’ derives from the Latin, consultare, meaning to debate or discuss.  That implies its function is to assist in two-way communications – yet, the role of management consultancy is positioned as assisting organizations to improve performance, through logical analysis and development of plans.  The focus is more on management rather than consultancy. The history of management consultancy is tied closely to analytical processes and a rational, scientific approach to...

World's leaders in PR congregate in Stockholm

Marc Whitaker’s breathtaking chorus opening -fully embedded in the Forum’s context and contents; Sven Hamrefor’s intellectually challenging description of value networks; Mervin King’s key note on organizational governance and stakeholder relationships; FERPI’s six faced presentation of the Accords implementation process taking off in Italy in September; Anne Gregory and Ronel Rensburg’s engaging and courageous session on public relations’ value to organizational governance and management, and Karl Schwab’s lucid description of the coming phases of societal discontinuity and of the World Economic Forum’s vision of togetherness through a global multistakeholder platform, will remain in my mind as the more striking achievements of the Stockholm Forum.

Stockholm Accords: an update. If you are not in Stockholm my friends, tough luck…

Before this blog changes format, look and prime authors (I will now continue to post occasionally, but only as a contributor and no longer as coordinator), I would like to report on the very intense and (so far) highly rewarding experience of the Stockholm Accords process that has involved me directly in these last few months, and which will presumably occupy more of my time when the Accords will begin to be implemented, following their...

Stockholm Accords first draft up for comments. Please contribute, suggest, criticise and help shape the future of our profession

Have you ever heard of any profession uniting more than 70 national professional associations to implement a global yet highly flexible and local advocacy program to enhance its own perception in society by arguing issues where it believes to contribute more value to social, private and public sector organizations? This blog has already discussed the Stockholm Accords process here and now the first draft of the Accords accompanied by references, glossary and other explanations is...