PR Studies

Challenging 'greed is good'

I often feel the debate on the professional status of PR misses the point when law or medicine are chosen for comparison. Public relations is a management discipline - and there's no formal profession guiding and governing general business managers either. (The argument has never been better crystallised than in a chapter heading in Morris and Goldsworthy's latest book on PR: 'Professional, but never a profession'.)

But what's this? Harvard MBA graduating students introducing a 'values agenda' and proposing they should work not only to maximise profit but 'serve the greater good'.

Youthful idealism or a timely new look at the purpose of business in the post-boom years? Or simply a tribute to the growing PR skills of tomorrow's managers?

Link via PROPenMic.

The question of public relations and the public good

It had been an obstacle on the rocky road to the royal charter - the question of how PR contributes to the public good.

I'm a guest at a police public relations conference and no one here would have any difficulty in answering this question. Their everyday work on crime reduction and their handling of major incidents exemplifies this. They don't need to go chasing headlines; they're in the local news each day and frequently gain national attention.

I'm humbled by the quality of the work on display. One former broadcast journalist told how he used his visual storytelling skills to relate the experience of a young victim of fireworks burns. The video only had a few hundred viewings, so he used his persuasive skills to have it featured on YouTube in the run up to November 5. It was then watched hundreds of thousands of times. Cheap, creative, effective; and clearly for the public good.

The attendees are typical of other public relations gatherings: there's something like a 60-40 ratio of women to men. At last night's black tie dinner this seemed to me as glamorous a group of people as you would meet at an equivalent awards dinner attended by consultancy staff. But they're a few years older, on average. The typical route in to police communications remains print of broadcast media experience, though there's widespread respect for education - I had many conversations about the CIPR professional qualifications and our MSc in Corporate Communications.

There was an award for a talented young communicator and Amy Grimshaw, a final year undergraduate, gained plaudits for confidently delivering the better part of 'my' talk on communications and social media.

Students: here's how to join the CIPR

As Carys Samuel (one of our CIPR student reps) said at last night's guest lecture, you should consider joining the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. The student application form is here (in pdf format) and the annual membership fee is £35. This runs to the end of September 2009 so don't delay if you're to gain a full year's benefits.

Here's why I think you should join (most important reasons first, though you may disagree with my priorities):

1. Public relations, like any other management discipline, is currently at best only semi-professional in its status. This will only change as professional standards and professional membership becomes expected. Education, qualifications, continuous professional development are all drivers of professionalisation. You can take charge of the wheel!
2. A member database of close to 10,000 members - complete with contact details - is a vital resource as you seek placement experience and contacts in order to develop your experience. You'll be listed in this, too.
3. You can add membership status to your CV. You're already paying much more to be a full-time student, so why not take this extra step and gain much more credibility?
4. You will receive the much-improved PR Week for free as well as the CIPR member magazine, Profile.

I've been a member for ten years and will gladly answer your questions and sign your application forms.

Autumn public lecture series - you're welcome

Here's our autumn 2008 public lecture series. We use this to encourage student membership of the CIPR, but the lectures are free and open to anyone who is interested in attending.

We meet from 6pm for a 6.30pm talk in Lecture Theatre C at the Leeds Metropolitan University Headingley campus. Parking is free at the university in the evening.

Monday 13 October
Karl Milner, Director of Communications, Strategic Health Authority Yorkshire and the Humber
Death and miracles, five stories of NHS communications

Monday 3 November
Michelle McGlocklin, MD, Weber Shandwick Technology
PR in the technology sector

Monday 10 November
Sharon Jandu, MD, Global PR and Marketing
A perspective on global PR and global clients

Tuesday 18 November
Justin McKeown, Trimedia and chair of regional CIPR committee
50 PR ideas in 50 minutes

Monday 24 November
Karen Hellas-Kelly, Absolute Leeds columnist and former PR consultant
From catwalks to fields: consumer PR

CIPR: my tenth anniversary

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year (making it the second oldest public relations professional body in the world, after the Public Relations Society of America.)

I've been a member for the last 10 of these 60 years. Here are some personal highlights and disappointments:

Highlights

• Giving an oversubscribed talk in Oxford on Online Public Relations at the height of the dot com bubble in early 2000.
• Past academic conferences in Bouremouth (2003) and Lincoln (2005).
• Best president: Jon Aarons, for his provocative stance on the PRCA and for the lunch at Gordon Ramsay's Petrus.
• The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire regional group, which holds a full calendar of events. The next is on 'PR and the digital frontier' on 1 May.
• Taking the CIPR-supported student magazine Behind the Spin online in March 2008.

Disappointments

• There was a time when ten years' continuous membership would have gained me an automatic Fellowship (FCIPR). No longer. In our professionalising age, I'm now required to sign up for CPD.
• The Education and Skills sectoral group may work for its core constituency of HE and FE communications managers, but there's nothing in it for me (or for other public relations educators, trainers and academics).
• I registed as an Approved Professional Trainer in 2002, but have only been able to lead one training session because I soon after took a full-time job as a university lecturer.

Harry the PR hero: the backlash

It's not about a brave young man; nor is it about the restraint shown by the British media for ten weeks. Nor is it about the reappearance of the Drudge Report. It's about Max Clifford, who entered the fray to say this was all a publicity stunt. Of course!

Peter Wilby writing in Media Guardian follows the Max Clifford line. 'He [Harry] is a pawn in a PR game.'

Let's see who's involved in the 'PR game'. Certainly the army, and who can blame them, given the problems, unpopularity and bad press they've encountered. Certainly the Royal Family, given the problems, unpopularity etc. Certainly the media (in particular the press), given the problems etc. Certainly the Drudge Report which shot to fame when citizen journalist Matt Drudge bypassed the caution of the US media and broke the Monica Lewinsky story. That was ten years ago, so the site was in need of some new notoriety on the global stage.

Some journalists will continue to lament the growing influence of PR (one of the themes of the Nick Davies book); but most of us can accept that everyone's 'on the game'. This is also a challenge to university courses teaching the subject, which may struggle to distinguish professional and ethical PR from Max Clifford-style publicity stunts or do-it-yourself 'citizen PR'.

Questions of ethics

A distance learning student from Robert Gordon University has alerted me to her research into public relations ethics. I've enjoyed filling out her online questionnaire, and you may do too: particularly if you're a current PR practitioner.

There's one particularly tantalising question (not directly related to ethics) which asks you to rank a series of attributes for success in PR. I found it hard: is intelligence more or less important than organisational skills? Or is having good organisational skills a sign of intelligence? Anyway, it enabled me to bury that myth that you have to be a 'people person' to succeed in PR.

The link to ethics comes with the option to rank integrity. I'll draw the researcher's attention to the interview with PR practitioner (and PR graduate of this university) Justin McKeown in the current issue of Profile magazine from the CIPR. He places integrity as his top attribute for success in PR...

G force

The next Forward podcast is a live international discussion on the impact of globalisation on careers in public relations. (It's an example of the technology that's shrinking distance in our global village - at the same time as gaps in wealth and understanding appear to be increasing).

The questions are big (will the US remain top nation? will English retain its status as the world's second language?) but small things can make a difference. What are we doing to prepare for change in the twenty-first century? Please join us if you can.

Guest lecture programme - you're welcome

Our new guest lecture series opens next week. These are open events to which students and practitioners are welcome.

Let me pick out one event (because it was cancelled last year) - we have Google's head of corporate communications for UK, Ireland and Benelux talking on How the Internet Changes Everything ... and that includes PR. D-J Collins is speaking on Monday 15 October at 6.30pm. Parking is free at our Headingley Campus after 4.30pm.

Let me know if you can make any of these events. Or perhaps you'd like to speak...

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Each year, we ask our students to reflect and we assess the results. Our VC reflects on a daily basis. Our professional body seeks to encourage reflective practice and continuous professional development through its Developing Excellence initiative.

I prepared my Developing Excellence submission at the start of the academic year but didn't jump through the CIPR's hoops. Instead, here's my reflection on how I did in meeting my objectives for the 2006-7 academic year.

Objective One: to improve dialogue between PR students, practitioners and educators.

Commentary on achievements: I've continued blogging about PR from an educational perspective (as I have each year since 2001) - but perhaps with waning enthusiasm. Yet the links and comments show that my blog is a reasonable meeting place for PR students, practitioners and educators.

PR Books wiki was an attempt to provide some online reading lists for students and enquiring practitioners. It serves a limited purpose, but has not achieved broader take up (I remain the only regular editor of this wiki). Its most active page is nothing to do with books, it's a bulletin board for PR jobs and placement opportunities. Perhaps this is the direction I should take: student and graduate careers advice?

I have edited another issue of Behind the Spin, a magazine that has broadened out to become the young PR practitoner's publication. Students particularly welcome the challenge of getting their words in print and it's valuable to realise that print is still appreciated.

Objective Two: to gain fresh experience of professional training delivery.

Commentary on achievements: Working with a colleague, I delivered two days' training in London for a government agency in December. This was a challenge as the group ranged from experienced press officers to senior managers with no PR experience. They were respectful but sceptical of the value of academic input, so we had to overcome this. The feedback from the two days was positive.

Objective Three: to improve my professional networking skills.

Commentary on achievements: This is where I'm happy to admit to being 'teacher turned learner'. I've much to learn from experienced hands such as Andy Green, and am regularly playing catch-up with the social media in-crowd (Paull, Simon, Stephen, Alex et al). I've finally admitted defeat and signed up to Facebook, which now seems to have reached critical mass as a social space.

But connecting with people also involves occasionally meeting people. I've been impressed by the energy and professionalism of Andrew and Nicky Wake, have enjoyed a couple of social media gatherings at this university, and a crisis management conference in Manchester. Lucy Laville has managed a successful series of guest lectures which have brought together students from several local universities, practioners and alumni. I'm looking forward to another series next year. You should join us.

It was also a pleasure to host Paull Young on his blogging world tour, and his presence enlivened a few classes. I still intend to keep involved in Forward.

Reflection

This doesn't amount to much to brag about for a year's work, but I've excluded the routine day job from my report (while never knowingly ignoring my responsibilities). Each year, students grow older and wiser and change their perspective on the world; last year one well-known young PR blogger changed jobs three times.

Our destiny as teachers and lecturers is to repeat the process over again. Plus ca change...

This autumn I will be approaching five years in the same job, the longest I have ever worked for one employer. This either makes me complacent and settled into the routine, or restless for change. I should reflect on that...

To follow, my objectives for 2007-8.