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This week’s CIPR TV addressed the topic of ethics, and ‘spin’. Joining me in the studio were Eliane Glaser, Guardian columnist and author of Get Real: How to tell it like it is in a world of illusions (Amazon , Waterstones ), and Dr Jon White, PR consultant, strategist, and author of the CIPR’s PR2020 report (PDF) . It appears the world of public relations has a reputation problem. It’s almost schizophrenic, with one camp entrenched in persuasive ‘spin’, or perhaps publicity, and the other in working towards open, transparent, mutual understanding between the organisation and stakeholders. Max Clifford for example, whilst often introduced by the British mass media as a PR consultant, is actually a publicist; a distinction indeed that the Wikipedia community is able to make at the time of writing. ...

The public relations profession and Wikipedia community have not enjoyed a productive relationship to date; antagonistic may be a more accurate adjective. For a quick overview of this situation, do take a look at my January 6th post, Reputation and Wikipedia . For my part, I think I understand both parties’ points of view and see no reason why good public relations practice (the planned and sustained effort to influence opinion and behaviour, and to be influenced similarly, in order to build mutual understanding and goodwill) shouldn’t be employed to build bridges here. CREWE The Facebook group, Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement , has quite rightly stirred the pot, raising the profile of the issues involved. For those who practice public relations according to the definition in brackets above, Wikipedia can appear a frustrating community to work with. One asks: “Why, if I know facts on Wikipedia entries relating to my organisation / client are incorrect, can’t I jump in and correct them?” There are two answers to that, but firstly an update on that process of building bridges. CIPR Guidance PR Week’s Editor in Chief, Danny Rogers, called on the CIPR to clarify its guidance to members, and the profession more widely, on 18th January 2012 ("CIPR must set bar high on Wikipedia code "). Fortunately, the CIPR Social Media panel had already got its heads together to review the situation. ...

Back in 2009, at that year’s Monitoring Social Media conference, I forecast Google’s entry into social analytics in Q1 2010 . Whoops. Only fools do short-term forecasting. Wiser men look further out, by which time people have forgotten the prediction! So here we are in Q2 2012 and the news from Google has dropped into my inbox. Verbatim: ...

I posted “‘Earned media’ is not a synonym for public relations ” late last night. One of the points I made in the post is that a PR campaign may well involve advertising, as odd as the application of the misguided Paid Owned Earned media taxonomy may make people think this might be. And then I stumbled across this beautiful ad by the Friends of the Earth in the Financial Times today, literally identifying elements of a Daily Telegraph article they consider to be flawed or indeed down right incorrect. I would classify this as an attempt by Friends of the Earth to achieve mutual understanding with stakeholders; as public relations. ...

“Categorising media as Paid, Owned and Earned isn’t particularly useful. In fact, it simply appears to reinforce increasingly irrelevant functional silos.” That’s how I opened a blog post back in November, The Influence View of Content , and three incidents over the last couple of weeks have redoubled my determination to cut this crap. Names have been changed… Incident 1 Anne: “So our marketing team looks after the website, the blog and Facebook. And PR is obviously earned media – the traditional media relations, blogger relations and the like. They cover Twitter too, at least most of the time.” Me: “So if we’re looking at things like that, let me ask where the concept of shared media takes us… the owned stuff that has earned a share – a ‘Like’, a RT, a +1 for example.” ...

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed _code/12522700 The Brighton SEO conference is, I believe, the largest of its kind in the UK. We’re expecting over 1,000 delegates today. I’m up immediately after the “Ask the engines” panel featuring representatives from both Google and Bing, and you can peruse my stack above on where I think the third decade of the web’s development might take today’s SEO practitioners. ...

Here’s my slidestack for PRSA Digital Impact Conference (#PRSADiConf) today. I hope it goes without saying that I’m happy to answer any questions this stack or my presentation today may raise, or just have a chat in general. Always my pleasure. My contact details are always easy to find on philipsheldrake.com. Thanks of course to the PRSA team for the opportunity. PRSA Digital Impact Conference April 2012 ...

I’m in New York today at the PRSA’s Digital Impact Conference . In fact, I get the opportunity to present at 2.30pm this afternoon, and I’m really looking forward to it. And the more I think about the conference title, Digital Impact, the more I’ve come to recognise that my presentation has two main thrusts… First, most organisations don’t yet feel the digital impact of 2012 fully. They haven’t yet wholly adapted to today’s social media and digital technologies. ...

Aristotle said that the three most powerful tools of persuasion are: ethos, argument by character; logos, argument by logic; and pathos, appeal to the emotions. Because I have the superior mind of a scientist (that’s sarcasm btw), I have an overwhelming natural inclination toward logos. And when it doesn’t work, I try it again, despite Einstein’s insistence that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity. Trundling my way to the office on the number 94 Wednesday I read “Jay Heinrich’s Powers of Persuasion” in Business Week magazine in which Mr. Heinrich is described as one of the world’s leading students of Aristotelian rhetoric. This means he’s kinda expert at mixing up the ethos, logos and pathos just right. ...

[Written originally for the CIPR Friday Roundup .] “When is a mobile a tablet?” was the high level strategic question (that’s sarcasm) that I was debating with our CIPR TV guests this week the minute before we went live. We decided the answer is subjective. It’s a tablet at the point you think you look stupid holding it to your ear. (Actually that’s not verbatim. We used a more descriptive word than stupid.) Fortunately, the show itself addresses more important matters. For me, the most important morsel emerged during the conversation about apps, in particular the idea that today’s obsession with apps is just a moment in time. ...