Teaching PR

Center for Global Public Relations keynote speech: Tom Murphy

Last week I attended the 3rd annual conference of the Center for Global Public Relations at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, an event I planned to attend even before I found out that Microsoft's Tom Murphy was delivering the keynote address. I've been reading Tom's PR blog since 2007, or at least that's the first time I linked to him, and I've been finding share-worthy posts all along, particularly regarding social responsibility.

Although he just moved to Microsoft Windows, he spoke on YouthSpark, Microsoft's CSR program aimed at world youth. 

Murphy began with an explanation of the importance of corporate social responsibility in general at Microsoft, which has been engaged in various programs since 1983. Employee giving since that time is now past the $1 billion mark, and it's part of the culture of the organization. Murphy turned the question around: “'How could we not invest this money?' It’s part of our license to operate." He said that employees demand it, consumers and media expect it now. In fact, citizenship is one of 5 key drivers that lead people to choose Microsoft products.

Core tenants about how Microsoft decides which activities to participate in: 1. Must align with the business 2. Needs to be measured (must be impactful) 3. Must be transparent and accountable (Murphy said it's important to tell when something is not going well before other people point it out).

Social responsibility areas: integrity, responsible sourcing, human rights, privacy and safety, environmental sustainability, our people (gender, pay, benefits etc.). Example: Microsoft is now the fifth largest bus company in Washington state because employees get door-to-door service -- with wifi (are you listening, UGA?).

Ways of serving communities: empowering nonprofits (the company provides free tech to nonprofits), humanitarian disaster response, employee giving (matching up to $12,000), philanthropy (since 1983, cash, products and service donations total $6.5 billion).

Murphy then went into an explantion of the YouthSpark program specifically. Two years ago the company reframed its philanthropy around youth after it realized that the economic downturn was disproportionately affecting youth. He said it took 18 months to retool, and that Bill Gates revealed the new program at the World Economic Forum, making a public commitment to help 300 million young people in next few years..

Murphy said that 25% of working poor in the world are young, with an unemployment rate double that of rest of population. There is an opportunity divide (varies by country situation), but one solution doesn’t fit all. Therefore in the U.S. the company is focusing on STEM education with a National Talent Strategy. Get kids here started early, get young people from other countries here, or else the company will have to outsource.

From a PR perspective Murphy said they began with a listening tour and met with journalists to start a dialogue about the program, had a New York Times story placement, hosted an online webinar to launch initiative -- 10,000 people watched live online, but they also launched at a Mashable conference, etc., providing multiple moments to reach multiple audiences.

Murphy said the program has 3 pillars: education (ex: Skype in the classroom), employment and entrepreneurship. He explained that 15 divisions of Microsoft are involved, and the program is run by citizenship group.

Next, Murphy shared key learnings: "avoid being needlessly global and hopelessly local"; YouthSpark provides a framework but allows people to develop the program locally. He also said that CSR is not a large driver of public relations; instead, you have to tell each little story -- hyperlocal and hyperspecific. Finally, he said that social media are becoming more important. Traditional media still drives the agenda without question, but social media are increasingly important for companies and people to connect and share.

During the Q&A , Murphy said that consumer research indicated the top drivers for purchase are price, quality, innovation and service; citizenship has now moved into the top 5, but the gap beween it and the top 4 is large. When asked about metrics he said they look at reach, for example, the number of young people reached, surveys of consumers, etc., and they track PR performance – impressions, reach, tone etc. He was also asked about the investment community and said that a small but growing group has an interest in this; "CSR mitigates a lot of risks because we are doing the right thing." He suggested that most publics are expecting it now.

Tom's keynote was the highlight of the conference. Thanks to CGPR for bringing him in!

Crisis, Twitter and the soul of the corporation

I'm not an ethicist. But you don't have to be an ethicist to understand these simple words:

During a crisis, the soul of the organization is revealed. 

(I paraphrased this from Ogrizek and Guillery [1999], who said "corporation" instead of organization.) The longer I observe the profession, the more I believe it to be true: when the pressure is on, it's hard to hide your true colors.

The recent Boston Marathon bombing is a case in point. The crisis brought out the best and worst in people, and public relations/marketing practitioners on Twitter were no exception. The interesting thing about the cases I'm about to describe is that none of the people were directly involved in the crisis.

First, the obvious: during every crisis there are people who try to hijack Twitter for personal or organizational gain. There's the scammer who created a fake account with the message that every retweet would result in a donation to the victims. Moreover, Gigaom.com reports, Twitter relies on all of us to police this kind of behavior. Now there's news that someone is using Boston Marathon video as a Trojan horse to try to install malware on your computer. But just as bad, to me, was Epicurious, a food website that unbelievably recommended that we eat cranberry scones in honor of Boston on the morning of the attack, and helpfully provided a link to this recipe in case someone else's tragedy makes you hungry. These cases are just so wrong that we shouldn't even be discussing them, but since it seems that someone blunders every time there's human tragedy, I guess it has to be said.

There are less obvious ways to mess up during a crisis. I'd noticed during other crisis situations that people and organizations who continue posting scheduled tweets when everyone else is talking about the crisis look unaware at best, perhaps even unfeeling. Almost as soon as I heard the news from Boston I tweeted that people should stop scheduled tweets. More than 20 people retweeted it and others commented or favorited it, pretty much all in agreement. However, marketing guru Guy Kawasaki's account kept tweeting things like "12 fun facts about tulips" (what Kawasaki did after someone pointed out that it was inappropriate is a whole other story).

The one person who disagreed with my tweet pointed out that "if you aren't in a position to help, carry on," but I disagree. This is NOT to say we should all go dark and go home, but scheduled tweets jump out as completely irrelevant to everything else in the Twitterstream and just look insensitive. (I know that it takes a while for people to learn about the tragedy, but in some cases autotweets were still going out 3 hours after the news broke.) Kristina Weis offers good advice on how to Tweet when sad news breaks, beginning with an acknowledgement that something has gone wrong and then offering links to relevant news or information that can help others. Another source points out that, if you aren't involved, you don't have to tweet about it all, and probably shouldn't.

If, as I believe, the soul of an organization is revealed during a crisis, how you behave on Twitter is a reflection of your organization's culture and worldview. For instance, I read in several places that Epicurious is blaming an intern for posting its remarkably inappropriate tweets, but -- if that's true (a lone source said that Epicurious wasn't commenting on who did it, so people might just be assuming it was an intern) -- both the policy of allowing interns to tweet with so little guidance and the effort to make it better by blaming the intern speak volumes about the corporate culture.

People respond in different ways in a crisis. But think about the people involved instead of promoting your organization or yourself. As John R. Bell tweeted about tragedy posts this morning, "If you're thinking, 'how can this tweet make us look good,' you need a course on ethics and #CSR."

Public relations history on Wikipedia

I think we all know that public relations has a rocky relationship with Wikipedia. Although I followed the CREWE (Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement on Facebook) discussions with interest, rather than getting involved in policy, I decided to stick with what I know best: public relations history. All you have to do is look at Wikipedia's brief description of history in the "public relations" entry to know that PR is inadequately described on the site.

I had the good fortune of being assigned to teach an honors section of the introductory public relations course this semester. With just 15 exceptionally bright and mostly hard working students, the class is perfectly set up for entry-level research and writing assignments. So, I had them work in pairs to conduct primary and secondary research on various pioneers in public relations history. They were asked to present this research to the class, and then to create or improve the Wikipedia biographical entry on their individuals.

If I'd imagined writing this blog post at the time I made the assignment, I would've pictured a series of links to the new and improved Wikipedia articles. (In fact, the existing entries on George Creel, Earl Newsom, and Whitaker & Baxter have been improved.) Instead, I present a list of the articles rejected by Wikipedians on the grounds that these individuals do not merit having an individual entry:

• Doris Fleischman -- she is mentioned twice, once for getting married and once for coauthoring a book, in the Bernays entry
• John W. Hill -- founder of the PR agency that was largest in the world for 30+ years. The history section in the PR article shows that his page was deleted before we even started this project. The students couldn't get past the gatekeeper with a finger on the speedy deletion button.
• Jane Stewart -- Wikipedia said that a peer reviewed Public Relations Review article on her was not a credible source... written by yours truly

I'm sure that the students could've done more to sell the importance of Fleischman, Hill and Stewart, but they tried multiple times to submit articles with verifiable references and clear descriptions of each person's contributions to the field, and in the cases of Fleischman and Stewart, to working women. In addition, attempts to edit the Arthur Page entry were apparently rejected, despite the fact that the entry is completely insufficient in my opinion as a historian.

When I ponder the garbage that does appear on Wikipedia, I can't help but think that these entries were rejected more because they're about public relations than because of the merits of the individuals' careers or my students' writing.

On the bright side, 15 undergraduates now clearly understand the limits of Wikipedia as a source of information.

Banks, lawyers and public relations

Or, "The best post I never published."

In June I decided to put our house on the market. I'm going through a divorce and wanted to downsize as well as get a fresh start, and since we all know how hard it is to sell a house in this market, I decided to go ahead and get the process started. Lucky me! The first people who went through the house put in an offer (those who attended Edelman's academic summit may remember me out in the hall, negotiating via cell phone).

Of course that meant I had to find a house for my daughter and me, and to do it quickly. I found The Place right away. It was new construction that had been sitting empty for 4 years, in a subdivision in which 10 out of the projected 150 homes have been built. Obviously there were going to be problems. A number of people had liens on the home, from banks to the lumber yard, but since it was The One I was determined to hang in there throughout the complicated negotiations. The closing date was postponed a couple of times, but I remained undeterred. Finally, everything was in order: my lender, the insurance company, the developer, the closing attorney, the realtors -- everyone agreed on the day and time.

So imagine my surprise when, as I was driving to the closing -- literally in my car driving to the closing -- when my lender called and said it wasn't going to happen. Let's just say it wasn't a good surprise. It seemed that one of the banks with a lien on the property had decided not to live up to its agreement about how much it would cost the developer to clear the lien. And yes, legally they can do that, right up until the minute the deal's actually done. I called the moving truck and told them not to bring my stuff. I drove to a hotel to check in... again, since we'd been out of the old house for 6 weeks at that point. I called to cancel the water and electricity. And then I tried to figure out what to do.

I'm a social media believer, so it didn't take me long to realize that I could use it to my benefit. I wrote a scathing blog post, fully maximized for SEO, called, "[Bank name redacted] doesn't care." But I sat there, in the hotel room, in the dark because my daughter was sleeping, and I couldn't bring myself to push the button. Let's face it, Teaching PR  is no Buzz Machine. Finally, I went to the bank's online newsroom, found a news release with the PR person's name and email address, copied the blog post and emailed it to her at the bank's headquarters in another state. I gave her some data on my followers (no, not including my Klout or Kred scores), and told her that unless I got some help, I was going to publish every bitter word. 

She responded that night, and 3 different people contacted me the next day. I shared their contact information with the closing attorney's office, and the next day, they learned that the bank's attorney didn't want more money, he wanted the developer to agree not to subpoena bank employees in his personal lawsuit against the bank -- nothing at all to do with the house I wanted to buy; I was just a pawn in the lawyer's game. He had purposely waited until the 11th hour to cancel in order to force the developer's hand. But that didn't work; the developer wasn't about to agree with that stipulation no matter what, and the deal was about to die. So the closing attorney's office called me and suggested that I send another email to the contact I'd established at the bank's headquarters. I wanted to go ballistic, but instead I dashed off a message before I rushed to a guest lecture (on Arthur Page if you really want to know) and told the closing attorney that if the bank in question didn't remove the new stipulation by noon that day I was going to back out of the whole deal.

At 11:40 the bank cleared the lien. At 4 p.m. we closed.

I've decided not to call out the bank because a couple of decent people on the staff did help me out. But my realtor believes that had I not stuck my nose in, the deal would've just fallen through and I'd have never known why. And banks and lawyers wonder why people don't like them.

I've spent  some time thinking about that PR person I contacted, wondering how on earth she can do her job when her employer also employs a lawyer who thinks it's cool to play hardball to try to win a case. Thanks to his brilliant strategy, I paid $540 in additional hotel bills, extra charges for turning on-off-on the utilities, and another week of eating out, and I'm sure it cost the moving company (which probably turned down other work but then didn't move me that day) and other people involved as well. I'm not even going to get into the personal cost of explaining to my 7-year-old that, no, actually, we still don't have a home, or the stress of those two days when I wasn't sure where we were going to live. I will say that it gives me new insight on the relationship between PR pros and lawyers.

So, there you have it: the story of the best blog post I ever wrote, and why you'll never read it.

2012 Academic Summit: Richard Edelman Keynote

More from Edelman's 2012 Academic Summit: just a few notes from the keynote by Richard Edelman.

5 ways that technology is changing the production, transmission and consumption of content:

1. New social giants are emerging (Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr) -- all have strong visual components
2. Paid media now amplify social media -- example: Facebook sponsored stories
3. Search is morphing with social -- search engines have tweaked algorithms to include social indicators of authority
4. Amplification now trumps circulation -- not just circulation but getting a story amplified by others through social networks
5. Visual storytelling is in renaissance -- everybody's pushing into visual such as slide shows, videos

PR is growing rapidly, but there's more we can do:

• Show and tell -- PR is good at writing but needs to move into visual as well, including video, photos, infographics
• Be rational and emotional -- craft stories that are sharable because they are emotional, and craft informative/rational stories for individual consumption
• Dig the data -- can no longer be rich with words and poor with math, must be able to master both

In sum, Edelman said, the industry and educators have to equip the next generation to be cross-trained in traditional PR, social engagement, data and storytelling.

Who's up for another curriculum development meeting?!

Edelman Academic Summit: Paul Saffo

"Media shifts have economic consequences, and we're in the middle of one of those today.... What's afoot is a lot larger that most people realize: quite simply we're moving into a new economy." ~ Paul Saffo

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the New Media Academic Summit, hosted by Edelman Public Relations, in Palo Alto. (Disclosure: I paid the plane ticket, they paid for hotel and conference fees.) A session that really fascinated me featured Paul Saffo, futurist and managing director of foresight at Discern. Here are my notes from his remarks.

Saffo argues that the best way to understand it is to look back twice as far as you look forward. Going back to the turn of the 20th century, Saffo explained: It was a producer economy -- the focus was on how to make stuff cheaply by lowering costs and increasing efficiency. The central actor was the individual worker, and the symbol of that era was the time clock. Thus, in 1908 Henry Ford's Model T was a triumph of production but everyone had to have a black Model T... because black lacquer dried fastest!

Jumping ahead to World War II, Saffo points out that the war was won in no small part because of American manufacturing (the arsenal of democracy). The producer economy ended because manufacturing had thoroughly overcome scarcity -- surely and unintended consequence of industry's drive for efficiency. 

Next, he documented a new economy with different players -- a shift to a consumer economy where the problem was inflaming consumer desires. The central actor was the buyer rather than the worker, and the symbol was the charge card. Saffo asserted that the route to the CEO's office was through the VP of Sales and Marketing, not the VP of Manufacturing anymore. He claimed that modern PR started in the '50s to get people to desire things they don't need [note: I disagree, but I guess it depends on how you define "modern"!]. He argues that it all coevolved with the emergence of television.

Eventually, American industry solved the problem of inflaming consumer desire, but reached an extreme where it couldn't continue. The consumer economy is gone now, too -- people are still buying stuff, but it ended in Nov. 2008 with the market crash, when an economy fueled completely by desire came to a crashing halt.

Now, Saffo argues, the new central actor is neither the producer nor the consumer, but someone who consumes and creates: The Creator Economy. The actor is someone who engages in an economic transaction in which they may think they're consuming but they're also producing. Example:  you want the answer to a Google search query, Google wants to understand your search string. You think you're consuming, but you're producing. There is deep engagement in the creator economy, and that is social media. He described this time as being eerily similar to television -- everyone thinking it's great but wondering who pays for it. Video games today are like TV was in the 50s: participation is not an option but an essential part of the experience.

And, he argues, this deep engagement is not taking place just online. People go to Maker Faires, and new models are wrapped around deep participation. He showed a Nokia knock-off phone from China, but argued that it's not pirated, it's innovation. He used Star Trek fan movies as an example -- don't stop them, this isn't piracy, this is love! There's a reversal of field: steal our brand, please -- that's how marketing and PR works in this world. 

The creator economy still just getting started: Saffo argues that the roots of the next economy are already here, but predicts that this one will take another 10 years to maturity and 20-25 years to run.

***

I'm sure I missed a lot here, but I hope this captures the spirit of his remarks.

Edelman 2012 Academic Summit

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the New Media Academic Summit, hosted by Edelman Public Relations, in Palo Alto. (Disclosure: I paid the plane ticket, they paid for hotel and conference fees.) I had a fantastic time networking with peers, hearing from top professionals -- both Edelman executives and their clients, and being challenged by new ideas and approaches to public relations.

I have several posts queued up to share, but in the meantime, take a look at Edelman's video, above, and Jeremy Lipshultz's Huff Post blog post.

Generally Accepted Practices study of PR released

Public relations budgets are mostly up, measurement and evaluation are hot, social media have gone mainstream -- apparently at the expense of traditional product PR, and agency-of-record relationships are pretty much irrelevant, all according to the latest Generally Accepted Practices study by the USC Annenberg Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center.

The report also states that almost 60% of the respondents report to the C-suite, and two-thirds say PR/communications is responsible for social media participation. Internal communication and customer relations are growth areas, each up about 10% from two years ago. These and other comparisons to the results from two years ago can be informative.

To see the whole study, visit the Center's website. Thanks to Jerry Swerling of USC Annenberg for forwarding the executive summary.

IHPRC 2012 abstracts now available

As you probably already know, I just love the International History of Public Relations Conference, held annually in Bournemouth, England. I'm not able to go in 2012, but luckily organizer Tom Watson does an excellent job of helping out those of us who can't attend in person. 

The abstracts for 2012 are already posted on the conference website, and it looks like another fabulous lineup. I'll be following the conference hashtag on Twitter again this summer, so if you're going, you have to promise to tweet it for me!

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of going in person in 2013.

Call for proposals: Public Relations Strategies in Action

Dr. Burton St. John of Old Dominion University asked me to pass along this call for proposals for an undergraduate casebook called Public Relations Strategies in Action.

I'm excited to announce a textbook project, Public Relations Strategies in Action: A Casebook, which I will be co-editing with two other authors over the next year. We’re currently under contract Cengage, one of the leading worldwide providers of textbooks. Directed primarily toward introductory undergraduate students, we intend to feature first-hand accounts from PR professionals who have pursued a campaign to help a client achieve its goals.

We’re looking for case study proposals in the following practice areas:
•    Employee Relations
•    Media Relations
•    Community Relations
•    Investor Relations
•    Consumer Relations
•    Crisis Communications
•    Government Relations
•    Public Figures and Public Relations
•    International Public Relations
•    Integrated Marketing Communications
•    Member Relations (e.g., Associations, Unions, Alumni Organizations, etc.)

Potential contributors are invited to contact Dr. St. John for guidelines on how to submit a brief proposal at bsaintjo at odu dot edu or at 757-214-7071. 

PRDepiction

Just in case you don't have enough to do, allow me to suggest the addictive new blog, PRDepiction, a group blog with citations from research on pop culture representations of public relations, as well as cites and/or links to the primary sources. (Disclosure: I'm one of the bloggers. Further disclosure: I haven't posted on the site yet. But I will.)

It's addictive because, c'mon, you can call it research!

JPRR call for submissions: special issue on nonprofit PR

Exciting news from the Journal of Public Relations Research -- we've got another special issue coming up for publication in 2013. (I skipped 2012 in order to help clear up the Journal's backlog of accepted papers.) Here's the call for submissions from guest editor Denise Bortree.

Call for Submissions: Public Relations and Nonprofit Organizations

The Journal of Public Relations Research seeks scholarly articles for a special issue on nonprofit public relations.

Nonprofit and advocacy organizations make an important contribution to the social, political, and economic landscapes around the world.  However, public relations professionals in nonprofit sectors often face unique challenges related to resources and stakeholder relationships, among other things. Building knowledge about best practices for nonprofit practitioners is critical for the public relations field. This call seeks scholarly articles that explore the role of public relations in nonprofit organizations as well as the contribution of nonprofit communication to society. Of particular interest are articles that explore relationship cultivation with stakeholders, distinctive aspects of social media use among nonprofits, variance in communication strategies among types of nonprofit organizations, and public relations activities of national and international NGOs.

As with all issues of the Journal, contributions should provide scholarship that creates, tests, or expands public relations theory, and the guest editor encourages submissions that use a wide range of empirical methodologies.

The manuscripts for the special issue are due to the JPRR Manuscript Central site by July 15, 2012. Please note at the top of the abstract and in the appropriate space on the online submission form that the submission is a “candidate for the special issue on nonprofit organizations.” Submissions should conform to the instructions for authors on the Journal’s website.

Guest editor: Dr. Denise Bortree, Penn State University, U.S.A.

 

Faculty fellowship opportunity

Karla Gower of the University of Alabama's Plank Center shares the following information about 2012 Faculty Fellowships for Educators, a program that came up in Teaching PR conversation not long ago (and that I thoroughly hope to participate in when my child gets a little older!).

The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama invites faculty to apply for its 2012 Fellowship for Educators, a two-week summer program for professors teaching public relations.  This year, we will be able to place up to fifteen (15) selected educators for two full weeks in the offices of the sponsoring organizations, which have been drawn from public relations agencies, corporations, not-for-profits and the government sector.

The sponsoring organization will pay housing and per diem expenses for the chosen educator; the educator will pay for travel to/from the sponsoring organization, and any out-of-pocket expenses.

Applications with all supporting materials (a personalstatement, CV/resume, and letter of recommendation) must be e-mailed to Dr.Karla Gower, gower at apr dot ua dot edu, by February 10, 2012.

Background

• This two-week fellowship program for public relations educators is designed with the dual purpose of exposing professors to current day-to-day operations of the public relations function and in creating an exchange of information and ideas that will enhance the professional development of both the educators and the practitioner-sponsors.
• Key beneficiaries are public relations students, who can be ensured their professors are knowledgeable in the current practices and issues facing practitioners and that practitioners have a greater appreciation for the value of theory and research of their classrooms in today’s public relations work.
• The Plank Center is the convener of this opportunity, using its own visibility to draw attention to the program; marketing the program to both educators and organization leaders; and coordinating the application process and “match.”
• Sponsoring organizations will be drawn from public relations agencies, corporations, not-for-profits and the government sector. Placement with a particular organization depends on the educator’s area(s) of expertise.
• The number of placements depends on the number of organizations willing to host an educator. Since the program’s inception in 2010, Home Depot, Insidedge—GolinHarris, Ketchum Public Relations Agencies in Chicago and New York, the American Red Cross, and Southern Company have hosted educators.

Expectations

• Educators selected as Fellows will spend two full weeks in the offices of the sponsoring organization with which they have been matched. The period of the Fellowship is expected to occur in June or July, as agreed by both parties.
• Educators will be given a full orientation to the sponsoring organization, the particular department, staff duties and responsibilities, clients and/or projects.
• Sponsoring organizations will designate a key professional as the official host and mentor for the visiting professors during their time in residency.
• In return, educators will use their own expertise to conduct at least one workshop or seminar for the staff of the sponsoring organization.  In addition, the educators may conduct a research project of value to the sponsoring organization; produce a report or white paper highlighting their impressions, key takeaways and recommendations for how the sponsors can develop new proficiencies in a key discipline; develop proprietary knowledge in existing or new areas of strategic focus; or interact with greater effectiveness on the college campus.
• To participate in the Fellowship for Educators, the sponsoring organizations will pay housing and per diem expenses up to a maximum of $3,000 for the chosen educator; the educators will pay for travel to/from the sponsoring organization, and any out-of-pocket expenses. 

Application Process

• To apply, candidates must send an email to Dr. Karla Gower (gower@apr.ua.edu), director of the Plank Center and Behringer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama, that includes the following:
  • Personal statement addressing:
    • Areas of special interest or need that you, as a candidate, will hope to develop;
    • Expectations on what you will accomplish with respect to your teaching and research as a Plank Center Fellow;
    • Thoughts on how you would bring key learnings gained during the Fellowship back to your academic institution for the growth of your department, your students and the larger university; and
    • Possible topics for your workshop or seminar to the host organization.
    • CV/Resume
    • Letter of recommendation from a department chair, director or dean indicating how the Fellowship will enhance your teaching and/or research and how the key learnings gained during the Fellowship will be shared with others at your academic institution.
• A committee of public relations professionals and educators will review the applications and make recommendations to the sponsoring organizations, which will make the final acceptance decision.  Acceptance will be based on the candidate’s personal statement, research and teaching interests, need for exposure to the industry and potential contribution to the growth of the sponsoring organization. 

Please direct specific questions regarding the application process or interest that your organization may have in serving as a sponsor for a Plank Center Fellow to Dr. Karla Gower at gower@apr.ua.edu. 

 

 

 

Community relations: Creating a climate of success

In addition to the lunch discussion on the future of our fields, another ADPR Connection panel that I attended was "Community Relations: Creating a Climate of Success." It featured Bonnie Jones of Jackson EMC, Jen Reid from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Lakeshia Poole from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and Elaine Armstrong of Goodwill Industries.

Jones described five areas where Jackson EMC contributes to the community: youth programs aimed at developing leadership (such as a science and engineering fair, which matches the company's tech profile), community sponsorships (including the Taste of Home cooking school, which uses electric appliances), worthy causes (Relay for Life, March of Dimes), economic development projects that serve the communities where the company operates, and the Jackson EMC Foundation, which gets its funding from people "rounding up" when they pay their bills and which has put $6 million into 10 counties in 10 years.

Reid explained that Children's Healthcare has 3 hospitals but also 17 neighborhood locations, and that she works on a 6-member team which places a big emphasis on external media relations. She explained that they try to show media the face of the hospital, such as showing a cardiac patient in order to illustrate their cardiac services, in order to demonstrate to people that the hospitals are there for everyone -- no one is turned away for financial reasons. They also bring in celebrities and sports teams who can cheer up the kids for a while and at the same time attract media attention for a good cause. Finally, she described their interaction with bloggers, which includes sharing information about the hospitals, providing health tips, discussing children's health issues, etc. She said they establish relations with the social media community in order to get people, locally and regionally, involved.

Poole works at the Boys and Girls Clubs national headquarters in Atlanta, but the organization is community-based with 4,000 locations nationally. Her job is to support local clubs particularly by capturing national corporate partnerships. She said she has to find ways to add value to both the corporation (or celebrity-- Denzel Washington and Jennifer Lopez are their national spokespersons) and the Boys and Girls Clubs. For example, partnerships with Comcast and Microsoft focus on developing technical skills: corporations and communities will need these employees in the future. She said they try to consider how sponsorships will position the sponsors as good corporate citizens in their communities, and that she honestly believes that Boys and Girls Clubs can change the world.

Finally, Armstrong said that Goodwill's mission is simple: put people to work. Her office works with 45 counties in North Georgia, and she is the primary media contact for that area. Essentially, everything Goodwill does is community relations: they work with other nonprofits, referring people who need other services; they work with employers by holding job fairs and interviews at the 7 North Georgia career centers; and they tap into corporate partnerships, because companies want to be good players in the community and their money and visibility are helpful to nonprofits like Goodwill. Armstrong recommended that people should sit on the boards of nonprofits in order to make connections while helping nonprofit organizations.

I enjoyed the fact that the panel included both community organizations and a sponsor of community events, which provided insight on how relationships, and partnerships, are built. Thanks to the organizers and panelists for their time and expertise.

Disclosure: Jen Reid and Lakeshia Poole are former students of mine.

New Grady College-Omnicom fellowship addresses the convergence problem

Last week I posted on a panel discussion that talked about public relations-advertising-marketing convergence. It's an exciting time to be in our fields, but it's also a challenge to educators -- how in the world are we supposed to teach all of this?

Omnicom Group has one solution. Several Atlanta Omnicom agencies, including BBDO Atlanta, Porter Novelli, Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard, are joining with the Grady College to offer a six-month Future Leaders Fellowship program for Grady students and alums. In January, the first group of 3-5 fellows will start their internships (and we hope it'll expand from there), with each person working part of that time at a PR agency and an ad agency, as well as being mentored by someone from a third marketing-related firm. 

In a press release, the president and CEO of BBDO Atlanta, Chris Hall, said, "The dynamics in the field are changing -- rapidly -- and require a broader perspective and facility with advertising, public relations, social media and beyond. The Fellowship with Grady College allows for our organization to participate in the development of top talent through this innovative program."

Hall also said that the fellowship program is an example of Omnicom's commitment to and innovation in talent recruitment and development -- and I agree. They're investing time, money and expertise into our students' education. And although the program will touch a relatively small number of students directly, but I have to think it'll touch many more indirectly. I've seen, for instance, how students who participate in the Coca-Cola internship program come back and influence their peers -- and sometimes their faculty, too.

I hope our strong relationship with Porter Novelli and BBDO Atlanta in particular will continue to benefit both industry and education. And I hope that other PR and advertising programs can use this fellowship as a model for developing programs with industry in their local areas.

ADPR Connection: The Future for Our Fields

This year Grady College's longtime PRofessional Connection event morphed into "ADPR Connection," organized by both PRSSA and the Ad Club and sponsored by Porter Novelli and BBDO. The day kicked off with a luncheon and panel discussion, which focused on figuring out where are fields are headed in the next 10-20 years. The panelists were Jana Thomas of Porter Novelli, Eleanor Dake of BBDO, and Karen Mawhinney of Erwin Penland.

Thomas focused on her specialty, the future of social marketing, which she defines as using the principles of marketing for social good. She commented that social marketing has always kept our fields together through integrated marketing. She said she uses music and counterculture as predictors of the future, and based on music today she says that we're heading toward a time of an "I'm okay, you're okay" mentality, which would suggest that social marketing will focus more on social justice. It will be less about the individual and more about society as a whole -- issues like the environment or sex trafficking.

Dake pointed out that the massive changes of the last 5 years will continue to shape the next 10 years. We will continue to focus on staying connected, we will expect (as a right) to have access to information, skepticism is building and brands will have to face doubt, and advertising and public relations will continue to integrate. She also said she expects to see big changes in how we shop, such as the wireless wallet, and that as always the fields will need passionate and creative people to deal with these changes.

Mawhinney pointed out that there is tremendous angst in the industry now, that people don't know what's going to happen next; yet, she said, that's not anything new -- pointing to the introduction of radio, then TV, then cable, and so forth. She urged the students to remember that we're in the content business. Because agency of record relationships are breaking up, firms are having to learn to collaborate with each other (partnering with other firms, even from the proposal stage) and crowdsourcing (example: Genius Rocket). We have to learn to think holistically, not just PR or digital or advertising, but with a focus on developing content.

During the Q&A section, the speakers suggested that there will be less in-house and more agency work; said that there is skepticism by clients to believe that one agency can do it all; pointed out that some clients are pushing into digital whereas others have to be pushed; and reported that keeping it on strategy is the biggest problem, whether they are pushing or being pushed.

Great panel and great way to start off the day-- kudos to the student organizers. I'll do a post on the community relations session soon.

 

Transmedia storytelling is not just multi-platform public relations

I sat in the audience not long ago listening to a speaker -- a highly-placed professional at a well-known firm -- who talked about "transmedia storytelling" as though it were the same thing as using multiple platforms for public relations.

Transmedia storytelling is NOT just multi-platform public relations.

By multiplatform I mean using a number of communication platforms (both mainstream and digital, collaborative or otherwise) in ways appropriate to the platform. So, on TV you run an ad, on Facebook you have a contest, and on your website you have a game. They all use the same slogan or have similar content, but modified to make it appropriate to the platform. It's pretty much the same thing ad/PR people would've done in days gone by, but with additional platforms available thanks to digital communication.

Transmedia storytelling goes far beyond this. I first read about the concept in Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture. To quote my own post on principles of social media from a couple of years ago,

I like Jenkins's discussion of transmedia storytelling because it suggests telling different parts of the story in different places (movie, game, Web site, etc. -- he uses "The Matrix" as an example) tailored to the medium. ...Applying this concept to PR would mean NOT taking a press release and making a podcast of the press release being read out loud. Instead, a press release might link to a video that has a human interest story related to, or maybe just briefly mentioned in, the press release -- either could stand alone, but together they tell a bigger story.

In other words, the platforms tell different parts of the story but together form one narrative, and the content should not be the same or even very similar across platforms. An example that Jenkins provides from "The Matrix" involves a very minor character who's only seen for a few seconds in the film, but if you play the game you learn that person's whole backstory and thus when you see them for those few seconds, you have an entirely different perspective on what's happening than if you hadn't played the game. (But if you haven't, you'll still enjoy the movie -- in fact, you won't know you missed anything.)

Multi-platform public relations may be hard, but transmedia storytelling takes it to a whole other level. And I can't really think of a PR program that's put it to effective use yet. Anyone else?

Historical research on public relations

Tom Watson's wonderful International History of Public Relations Conference is fast becoming a high point in my academic calendar.

Unfortunately, I can't travel to Bournemouth every year. Fortunately, Tom has released the 2011 IHPRC proceedings, so that those of us who could be there only via social media can now read the papers. It's a great resource for faculty and professionals interested in PR history, and a great starting point for some student term papers!

Journal of Public Relations Research updates

Because the Public Relations division of AEJMC sponsors the Journal of Public Relations Research, I provided updates at the business and editorial board meetings. In the interest of transparency, here are the highlights:

• The introduction of new reviewing guidelines held up the reviewing process earlier this year, so the average time from submission to decision is up to 79 days. However, we're caught up now, so I expect to see that time head back down toward 60 days next year. And, the new reviewing guidelines are excellent!
• The number of submissions is down to a little over 100 in the past 12 months (31 pending), but it appears to me that virtually all of the submissions are now appropriate to the Journal and very few are being rejected without to review. However, this also means that the acceptance rate is creeping up toward 30%, so I will be asking reviewers to be more demanding, with an emphasis on significance to public relations theory development, in order to get it back down to the 20-25% range.
• Routledge's representative, Patrick Fallon, informed the editorial board that the Journal is moving to a new publication schedule. We will now have 5 issues per year under the publish-less-frequently model, meaning that issues 1-2 will come out electronically on schedule and then be bound together, issue 3 will be a standalone, and issues 4-5 will be bound together. Thus, there will be 5 issues published electronically, but they will be distributed in print only three times per year. This, along with a tougher editorial stance, will address the current backlog of accepted but unpublished articles.
• The article "Media Catching and the Journalist-Public Relations Practitioner Relationship: How Social Media Are Changing the Practice of Media Relations," by Richard Waters, Natalie Tindall, and Timothy Morton has been especially popular, and it's now free from Taylor and Francis.
• The Journal received its first impact factor, which is 0.512 with a ranking of 48 among 67 communications journals. This is lower than we'd like, but Fallon informs us that it's not bad for a first-ever rating; moreover, the Journal's Eigenfactor score puts it at 40 out of 67, meaning that it has more influence than the impact factor might suggest. Hopefully, some of the changes we're making will help improve our scores over time.

What to do about pop culture representations of PR

Last week I mentioned an AEJMC panel on pop culture images of public relations; it took place today and it was just as interesting as I'd hoped. I don't have notes from the first half of the session because I was on the panel, but wanted to share what the speakers in the second half discussed. Having established that books, movies and television often portray public relations inaccurately and PR pros badly, the panelists discussed what to do about it.

First, Rosanna Fiske (Florida International and chair of PRSA this year) described efforts by the Public Relations Society of America to overcome these problems. She described the "Business Case" campaign (more information on prsa.org), the purpose of which is to "drive recognition for the strategic value that PR brings to the table for any organization." She said that PRSA focuses especially on measurement as a key component in making PR count. Fiske also said that as a member of the committee creating the strategic plan for 2011-2013, she led focus groups (there were a number of groups held in 5 different cities) and that the results showed that everyone thinks the number one thing PRSA should be doing is advocating for public relations, because the image is poor and/or misunderstood. Therefore the campaign focuses on how PR can help with financial, reputation, employee/internal, and public policy; but PRSA has also taken a more active role in advocacy, emphasizing the value of PR, ethics, and diversity in the profession. Another program, "PR Serving America," showcases positive community service PRSA offers at the local level.

Next, Meg Lamme (University of Alabama) talked about the teaching moments pop culture can offer. She suggests that we need to own pop culture images and use them to our benefit. She provided two examples, an episode of "West Wing," which portrayed a day in the life of the press secretary, C.J. Craig, and "Absolutely Fabulous." Each provides examples that teachers can use to talk about important issues -- for instance, "West Wing" demonstrates the wide range of expertise a press secretary must have and the influence of the 24/7 news cycle on the character's work. Finally, she described how students have brought up pop culture images in class (Maxim's spread on MTV's "Power Girls," or "Kell on Earth) which spurred good discussions on ethics, diversity, and other important issues. She warned us to be ready for "Scandal," a new show on ABC this fall.

Tim Penning (Grand Valley State) provided a number of reasons that pop culture may not matter at all. Pop culture may not influence public opinion on PR; a lot of other professions have worse portrayals than PR; people understand it's just entertainment; maybe we're too sensitive and focused on the normative; there are other factors besides pop culture that influence the image; attitudes aren't static but change frequently and rapidly; personal experience is stronger than media cultivated images; and pop culture images of "PR" are often really about lawyers, marketers, etc. On the other hand, he said, pop culture may be one important contributing variable; the use of the word "spin" is prevalent; a dominant coalition's worldview of PR may influence its decisions about how to use PR; and new students do seem influenced by pop culture images in their decision to study PR. Since it both is and isn't important, then, PRSA, AEJMC, the Page Society and other should continue to take steps to present PR people appropriately, and we should present more examples of positive public relations.

Finally, Andi Stein (Cal State-Fullerton) described some steps we should take as public relations educators. She asks students to list 5 positive and 5 negative terms associated with PR, and then asks where they got those terms -- which is often pop culture but also other journalism professors. She asks why media people have these images and describes historical events that contribute to the antagonism between PR and journalism. She often uses guest speakers to describe what journalists want and expect from PR people, and also invited 2 reporters and 2 PR pros who'd all been involved in some way with a school shooting to show how they can work together to inform the public. She briefly touched on the idea that new media allow PR people to tell the organization's stories without going through the media, and suggested that ethics must be an ongoing part of the conversation, including the conflict between personal and professional ethics. She also suggested guest lecturing in journalism classes to talk about PR; for example, students could look at a few pages of newspaper and try to identify where the information came from in order to begin to understand the importance of public relations in the news-gathering process.

 

Pop culture images of PR

I'm heading to the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, in St. Louis, next week and thought I'd share this fun multiple-disc DVD series on "The Image of the Public Relations Practitioner in Movies and Television, 1901-2011." It's produced and written by Joe Saltzman, the director of the Image of Journalist in Popular Culture at USC, and will be featured in a pre-conference workshop on Tuesday.

I've had a long interest in how PR pros are portrayed in entertainment media, so Joe invited me to join in the session at which he's unveiling the DVDs. 

The workshop is called "The Image of the Public Relations Practitioner in Popular Culture: What Is the Predominant Image and How Do We Repair It?" In the first half we'll see parts of the series and then Emily Kinsky, Carol Ames and I will do short presentations; mine is on "Mysterious Public Relations," based on my analysis of portrayals of PR people in mystery novels (as drawn from the IJPC database) -- a work in progress that I'm having fun with this summer. In the second half a group of distinguished panelists will talk about improving PR's image. 

I really can't wait to see the TV and movie clips. There's more to PR on the big and small screens than Samantha.

Teaching global public relations on a local budget

Another belated post from the Center for Global Public Relations research conference at UNC-Charlotte on April 15: this one from a presentation by Dr. Keith L. Cannon and Dr. Kara Presnell of Wingate University, which has about 1800 undergraduate students, on "Internationalizing a Public Relations Curriculum at a Small University," or as Keith termed it, "Teaching global public relations on a local budget."

Although I don't teach at a small university, I still identified with the obstacles they mentioned: faculty time and money. Keith and Kara said that they were drawing on personal experiences and student interviews to make these suggestions for internationalizing a PR program:

1. start by incorporating faculty experiences into classes (i.e., mentioning in a PR class, "when I was in Italy we did news releases this way")
2. offer to teach PR courses in existing university study abroad programs
3. provide students with international internship opportunities and include international opportunities and experiences in student clubs and programs
4. put international examples in case study classes; apply communication practices to an international situation -- for example, Kara said that females students often want to know how women are treated in other countries
5. try to offer a course in international PR

They concluded by reminding us that firsthand experience in globalization is vital because it's a fact of life that's not going to change.

Jay DeFrank: Results driven communication

I had the great pleasure of attending the first-ever Center for Global Public Relations research conference in Charlotte on April 15 and wanted to share my notes from the keynote speaker, Jay DeFrank, vice president of communications for Pratt & Whitney.

DeFrank started by noting that advertising and PR people who are recognized by their peers are often not the same ones recognized internally -- for example, an ad agency that wins a Clio but gets sacked by their client. What matters most is the impact on the bottom line. He then shared two cases from his own career in which he argues that communication had a significant role on the bottom line.

The first case comes from DeFrank's career in the U.S. Air Force, when he was in charge of communication relating to the Afghan Humanitarian Air Drop. His job was to communicate that the United States was battling the Taliban, not the Afghan people or Muslims, and he argued for and received permission to place journalists on the airplanes doing the drops -- this had been against policy, but he believed it was required in order to convince a skeptical audience that the United States had good intentions in conducting the air drops.

DeFrank also helped with planning for the invasion of Iraq. Leaders were concerned about Iraqi disinformation because of experiences such as the baby milk factory bombing story during the first Gulf War. In addition, they thought it was important to maintain U.S. support for the invasion. With these two main goals in mind, DeFrank's team wrote objectives such as encouraging Iraqi dissent, boosting morale of U.S. troops, and countering Iraqi disinformation. He realized that credibility was key to achieving all of these objectives, and that objective observers were therefore necessary. This was the foundation for the "embed" program, where accredited journalists were embedded with American military units with no prior restraint (although there were rules about the release of information in order to protect the safety of the troops). For comparison purposes, DeFrank described the embed program in Iraq -- from March to May more than 700 journalists were embedded with troops with no prior restraint -- in contrast to the press coverage of the invasion of Normandy -- where there were 42 journalists with complete censorship. He noted that all sorts of press organizations had credentials, even in some instances when the "journalist" was probably a spy for another country; he believed if someone wanted information about the invasion they could have it as long as it didn't endanger the troops.

DeFrank argued that the U.S. military reached its objectives. They were successful in countering Iraqi disinformation, with "Baghdad Bob" being completely discredited; they were successful in gaining the support of U.S. public opinion, and they were successful with international public opinion. He argued that the troops liked having an embedded reporter, even when the story was ugly, because they were able to portray the terrible complexities and to reinforce the credibility of the whole program. Journalists who were not embedded, however, were angry at being left out.

Next DeFrank turned to Pratt and Whitney communications, explaining that the company is #37 on the Fortune 500, producing commercial engines, space power systems, small engines and military engines. He stated that the company's communication goals include building a favorable environment, including the regulatory and policy environment, nurturing talent, and building a positive reputation.

He focused on a specific case, the F135 engine campaign in spring 2009. Their purpose was to convince Congress not to pay for a second (competitive) backup engine for the F135 but to allow P&W to build all of the engines. The company used a broad range of tactics, including a blog and Twitter for media relations and a Facebook fanpage just for the engine; third-party endorsements from organizations that oppose wasteful spending; harnessing employees by having them write letters to their representatives (with a website that helped them identify the right people and their contact information, in addition to generating a rotating letter template so that not all the letters were the same); and an advertising campaign in which Pratt attacked waste, while competitor GE attacked Pratt. The results included 20,000 letters to Congress, a televised endorsement by President Obama, and a House vote in favor of P&W's position, 233-198. (DeFrank was quick to note that the issue could come up again in 2012, though).

Thus, DeFrank concluded, public relations can contribute to the bottom line when strategies and tactics are based on the larger goals and objectives and when PR has a voice internally -- in both of these instances, other people in the organizations were skeptical or even oppositional to the plans, but because he was able to show how the plans would help achieve the larger goals, he had organizational support to move forward.

Congratulations to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte on a successful first Global Public Relations research conference (pictures here).

"Issues, Insights, Ideas" ebook

I'm a bit late getting around to this, but I do want to mention Craig Pearce's thought-provoking e-book, "Public Relations 2011: Issues, Insights, Ideas" as it may be of interest to other PR educators and students.

Pearce recruited an international cast of PR professionals and educators to write brief essays on various aspects of 21st century public relations. I'll highlight a few points that really caught my eye.

• Jim Macnamara, a longtime pro and now educator in Sydney, argues that we need more, not less, theory in PR education, citing anti-intellectualism as one reason that theory is often denigrated or overlooked. "Theories introduce critical thinking," he argues, pointing out that like all fields, PR needs to improve. "A key requirement of universities is enabling productive citizens and leaders for the future, not simply churning out entry-level practitioners to satisfy specific industry needs over the next few years." Hallelujah!
• Paul Seaman takes issue with the notion of transparency, suggesting it's not always a good thing. "Surely, if every statement and action of a diplomat -- as Wikileaks would like -- was made transparent, politicians would avoid ever revealing the truth, or what they think, even in private among themselves in anything like formal settings. That would make them untrustworthy at virtually any level." Whoa.
• Pearce's essay "PR is Second Rate CSR" asserts that "If PR is truly fulfilling its potential, then it will nearly always be a manifestation of CSR," and that  "CSR really needs to have PR as an embedded part of it." Craig, what would you say about the statement I've often made to my students -- that if PR was actually doing its job, we wouldn't need CSR?
• Catherine Sweet, who teaches in the U.K., boldly states that "PR 'war stories' recounted by someone who actually survived them are the best way to reach students..." and that "...I believe you can't teach what you don't do yourself (which is why I think every academic teaching in the discipline should have a minimum of ten years of real experience....)" 

This is just a sample -- there are another dozen insightful essays on strategy, social media, crisis communication, issue management, and so forth. Information on how to get a copy of the ebook here.

And now, lacking my 10 years minimum experience, I'm off to find another job. Heh.

Edelman's 2011 Trust Barometer

The 2011 Trust Barometer study is out today, and here's Edelman's summary statement: 

In a year marred by corporate crises and financial turmoil for European governments, the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer finds trust in business and government markedly resilient and sees a shifting center of gravity. Trust in NGOs, 'the fifth estate' in global governance, stays strong.

In its coverage of the survey, the Financial Times focuses on the decreasing trust in EVERYTHING by Americans. No wonder we're all depressed. Meanwhile, Fast Company highlights the increasing trust in CEOs (academics are still highest, ahem) and decreasing trust in "a person like yourself," which is more than interesting to a person like myself who teaches word-of-mouth communication and social media. It's a good reminder not to ignore traditional PR strategy and tactics as well.

Another interesting tidbit:

Fifty-seven percent will believe negative information about a company they do not trust after hearing it just once or twice. When a company is trusted, however, only 25 percent will believe negative news about it after hearing the news once or twice. 

Edelman thus advises building a trust foundation as protection against bad news. Like I said last year, "good ethics IS good PR." 

Thanks to Edelman for sharing the results and other information with me.