Posted on Classic PR Conversations Seasoned Posts

Two ditsy thoughts and one good answer to the question: what now after Grunig? Online Public Relations by David Phillips and Philip Young

In these recent weeks, and in various encounters with professionals and scholars from around the world, I have stumbled more than once on to the question: ‘what now after Grunig?’… as if the Excellence Project happened to be the most recent development for our body of knowledge. I very much disagree with this interpretation, as much as I disagree with those late adopters who (on the other side?) tend to believe that nothing had happened...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Culture and Public Relations: a letter from Bled, Slovenia

As many of our visitors know, Bled is a small and lovely Slovenian town on the shores of a charming lake where, for 16 consecutive years, a trio of committed and intelligent public relations scholars: Dejan Vercic, Danny Moss and Jon White, successfully convene, every first weekend of July, la ‘crème de la crème’ of global public relations thinking to listen to and discuss papers presented by young, old and middle aged students, scholars and...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Yes we camp. Where does creativity stand in public relations practice?

Yes we camp. Creativity here dramatically overrides any rational argument or concept. I am sure you saw/heard these three simple words during media coverage of the recent G8 in earthquaked Abbruzzo. Another example I vividly remember from Milano’s public walls in the early, highly creative, days of student revolt in the late sixties of the last century: Fascisti porci, domani prosciutti. i.e. ‘fascists pigs, tomorrow hams’. Entire books, millions of bytes would never have been...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Bulgarian blog converses on integration difficulties of social media into public relations practice

Nelly Benova is a forceful and highly proactive figure in Bulgarian Public Relations. She represents the Bulgarian PR Association in the Global Alliance, in Cerp and also manages the CIPR accreditation course in Sofia. This interview she had with me in Vienna a few days ago has just been posted and might stimulate some discussion also amongst our visitors here at PRC.

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Lessons on targetting audiences from Iran

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

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Lies, Damn Lies and Twitter

When used properly, statistics can be very informative. However, some statistics are meaningless, and some are dishonest. Interpreting statistics requires some technical knowledge, and most people do not have the basic training to know how to read statistics and to take them with a grain of salt. Statistics are particularly misleading with regard to the early days of any phenomenon because percentages are distorted by the small base: moving from 1 to 8 readers/users/etc. is an...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Berlusconi has begun to rationalise and theorise his ‘cucku’ model of public relations

I wish to inform our global professional community that, directly from the horse’s mouth, we now also have a formal definition of Berlusconi’s public relations model: la politica del cucù (pronounced cucku)! The term comes, I presume, from a recent televised joke he exposed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel when he suddenly appeared in front of her, stepping out from hiding behind a huge statue with a great smile, his two waving hands next to...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Four Things That Only Took Me Five Years to Learn

As most of you are aware, in barely two weeks I will retire after five great years as President and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations. In several recent speaking engagements, I have taken the opportunity to reflect on the important ideas encountered and adopted. Thus the title, “Four Things That Only Took Me Five Years to Learn.” First, there is no reason to assume public relations is inferior to marketing, advertising (or many...