Posted on Seasoned Posts

The ethical state, social communication and public relations…

How effective are social communication campaigns, specifically when they are enacted by public institutions and their aim is to con-vince publics to modify their day-to-day behaviours? The amount of literature is overwhelming and highly contradictory. Of course governments and other public agencies or institutions, normally advised by many of our colleagues who thrive on the trade and tickle the ego of these organization’s leaderships, tend to overlook and set aside the contradictory evidence. Yet recent...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Integrating Public Relations and Public Diplomacy: a workshop in Rome for 25 diplomats by FERPI, the Italian professional association

In agreement with the Diplomatic Institute of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FERPI -the Italian Federation of Public Relations- is holding in the English language, on March 3,4,5,and 6 in Rome a four session workshop on Public Diplomacy for 25 mid career Italian diplomats according to this program. Tutors of the course will be Toni Muzi Falconi and Fabio Ventoruzzo, both representing Ferpi. Four guest lecturers have agreed to participate: Dejan Vercic, Mindi Kasiga,...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Growing professionalism in Portugal, still to be accomplished the shift for the social media / relationship management paradigm

I asked a couple of friends to share their thoughts about the year 2008 for Portuguese PR. The sector is growing firmly despite of the economic context. Important steps towards professionalism have been given with new courses being offered at the post graduate level, and the recent publication of the Code of Professional Conduct by the Portuguese Association of Business Communication is a landmark.

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Dear Santa, a four-pronged wish list for public relators in 2009 from a non believer. Be sure to check out the fourth, as it relates directly to YOU, visitor/reader/commenter of this blog!

1. Please discourage my colleagues from offering, arguing, pushing individual as well as organizational visibility as a ‘strategic’ and desirable objective. Peeing in the pot is more strategic and less polluting. If it makes sense to expect a substantial reduction in organizational advertising investments, it also makes sense to anticipate a reduction of editorial pages which, in turn, reduces media relations activities. Subsequently many of my colleagues will find time to think about many other...

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CCO’s from major global corporations discuss the path from sustainability to durability. A blind report from a secret summit…

Last week I participated to an exclusive and ‘secret’ summit of CCO’s from 15 major global corporations during which they discussed some of the major challenges facing their increasingly relevant organizational function assisted by a handful of ‘sparring partners’ from academia, ngo’s and consultants. I will mention no names nor location as per agreement, but will instead relate a few of the primary issues and how they were discussed. No intention here to ‘scoop’ anyone,...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Public relations “On The Edge”; offline in June ‘09, online right now

The Canadian Public Relations Society is holding its next annual conference, On The Edge, in Vancouver, British Columbia, from June 7 to 9, 2009. Its website is already up and running. It’s good to see that CPRS is making use of some interactive (i.e., social media) tools for this conference iteration, including a twitter account and online poll. (The current question is: Which professional development workshop stream is most useful to you?) Promised in January...

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Who’s turn is to hit the coalface? The Swedes show the way in Professional Association Management and the results are impressive. Let’s take, for once, a glass half full approach.

In a recent exchange on this here blog Catherine Arrow wrote: … Somebody, somewhere has to hit the coalface first, and… (this) is the job of associations, so their members can chip away and follow through with the leadership, back up and support of the big guys….. our current situation has been apparent and evident for some time …. and … no preventative action has been taken.…..So, perhaps…… there should be a recognition and admission...

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Twelve hours of videobook on ‘In what sense: what is public relations?’. A narrative which summarizes some 400 years of professional experience. A dream, or a nightmare?

Bear with me and please visit www.lucasossellaeditore.it . Mind you, the sound is in Italian so it might be better to move quickly along the few minutes to get a grasp of what the contents, but more importantly the format, are like. Basically these few minutes are an excerpt of a good twelve hours (!) of videobook (3 dvd’s of four hours each) to which Joao Duarte referred to in his post here a few...