Posts

This post specifically responds to a post by Eric Bryant , Director of Gnosis Arts , “an experience-driven public relations firm focusing on tech, social media & nonprofit PR” in the US. In the post, Eric addresses the PRSA’s Defining PR initiative (see my last two blog posts) and asserts that the definition of anything is simply a function of how the term is used. He writes: “We chose this definition because we think it expresses what is both essential to public relations practice, as well as what distinguishes it from other management functions. Our definition also takes into account what most PRs do, most of the time, in carrying out their job duties.” And his company’s definition is: “Public relations is the practice of producing publicity (excluding promotional materials and paid advertising, which typically fall under the purview of Marketing); managing media relations and communications (typically among members of the Fourth Estate); and managing reputation.” First up, let me thank Eric for tweet-alerting me to his post. I particularly appreciate his diligent explanation of the definition, too often omitted by the more slapdash. His firm’s definition melds two ‘what’s and one ‘why’, reputation, justifying it on the basis of Wittgenstein’s notion of “meaning as use” (ie, definitions are lent simply by the way a word or phrase is commonly used). While Wittgenstein’s approach to language has its advocates, I’m not entirely clear it’s helpful here, for two reasons. ...

[Written for the CIPR Friday Roundup] Following the momentum the PRSA’s #prdefined initiative is achieving, and the CIPR’s statement of support , I thought I’d take a deeper dive into current definitions, and throw one in the mix myself. I reproduced the section of my book that addresses the definitions of marketing and PR in my last post , and since then I’ve been able to have some insightful conversations, on- and off-line, with Jay O’Connor, Jon White, David Phillips and Terry Flynn. Is it worth it? There has been some valid criticism of the PRSA initiative pivoting around the question: shouldn’t we invest time and energy in improving practice to live up to current definitions than review those definitions we already have? The counter to this argument is apparent for those tracking the thousands of comments on line; it appears that more than a few practitioners indirectly criticised by those holding this point of view are actually questioning their own appreciation of public relations, if not actively revising it. CIPR definition PR is the discipline that looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics. My favourite definition, no word of a lie! I obviously love the reference to influence, but also the apparently unique and skilful avoidance (intended or otherwise) of communication, thereby emphasising the objective not the means. But when ‘reality is perception’, as is increasingly the case with the radical transparency lent by social media, reputation is built by everything an organisation does (or indeed does not do), not just what the PR team does; every one must be involved in “looking after” reputation. ...

Here’s how the corresponding blog post by the PRSA describes its “Public Relations Defined” initiative: As part of its mission to advance the public relations profession and professional, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has introduced a new initiative to modernize the definition of public relations and increase its value. As the digital age has caused significant shifts in how organizations communicate internally and externally, a question frequently asked by the public, media and practitioners is, “What is public relations?” The PRSA explains the initiative in these simple terms: Recent discussions, blog posts , tweets and mainstream articles have suggested that (1) public relations professionals (and, thus, the audiences we serve) continue to struggle with the question: “What is PR?”; (2) many industry professionals are unhappy with the current definitions; and (3) no one definition is considered “the” de facto industry definition. What more justification do we need? While my book The Business of Influence sets out to be a rethink of the ‘influence disciplines’, it starts by reviewing current definitions of marketing and PR. “Well, this book wants to map out a journey from A to B, and navigating to B is so much easier if we’re all at A to begin with.” In hoping to contribute to the renewed debate, I’ve reproduced the book’s definitions section here. Now all I need to do is work out if the PRSA will be open to a definition leaning on the Influence Scorecard and the role of Chief Influence Officer. What do you think? ...

[Version 0.1 « work in progress needing your critical feedback. Also available as a PDF if that suits you better.] Précis Categorising media as Paid, Owned and Earned isn’t particularly useful. In fact, it simply appears to reinforce increasingly irrelevant functional silos. The Influence View of Content aims to establish something more useful. It’s a perspective that seeks to help influence professionals think about how influence goes around and comes around in line with the Influence Scorecard framework . Definition: Influence – you have been influenced when you think something you wouldn’t otherwise have thought or do something you wouldn’t otherwise have done. Definition: The Influence Scorecard – serves as both the methodology for defining influence strategy and the tool for executing it. Paid Owned Earned With the proliferation of what used to be known as “new media”, it was natural to attempt some sort of descriptive taxonomy: ...

[Written for the CIPR Friday Roundup] There will be an economic recovery and best practice public relations will play its part. Economists may not agree on the how, but they are agreed on the what – we need economic growth. And economic growth comes from organisations that are more productive, and productivity is partly driven by improving mutual understanding between the organisation and its stakeholders – ie, the excellence model of PR. An organisation that better understands all stakeholders will be more sensitive to its market and more agile and appropriate in its response. Last week, the UK government announced an initiative with twenty six major organisations “working together to deliver a new era of consumer empowerment”. The programme, midata, “will give consumers increasing access to their personal data in a portable, electronic format.” This is a world first as far as I know, although the prospect has been discussed for several years. It’s often referred to as vendor relationship management (VRM), the other side of the CRM coin if you like. Will your organisation join this revolution in customer data? Will you play your part in the economic recovery? Best regards, Philip and The Conversation team. ...

I had the honour and pleasure of hosting the Presidential Debate on CIPR TV yesterday – the annual show giving the Presidential candidates the opportunity to set out their stall, and for members to ask them questions live via Twitter and the CIPR web form. You can watch the video here and you’ll find the candidates’ election statements on the CIPR website . Voting for the President-Elect 2012 / President 2013 closes midday Friday 18th November. ...

A year ago, to the week, I was writing Chapter 8 of The Business of Influence about the future trends each and every influence professional would have to grasp. In particular, I wrote: I consider the data and information I create directly or indirectly through my use of products and services to be private and mine by default. I may choose to make any part of it accessible to specified others and maintain my ownership, or relinquish some ownership rights, or all rights. Should I consider entering a contract with the purchase of a product or service that entails some variation to this default – perhaps simply because delivery of the product or service is meaningless without such variation – the nature of this variation must be made explicitly clear to me in plain language, and it is then my choice whether or not to agree to those terms, which may entail my negotiating different terms or choosing not to buy that specific product or service. To me, a future where so much data is collected about me and owned by others is nothing short of dystopia. Of course, the situation I describe above is far from where we find ourselves today and I make the case that influence professionals should be helping to lead the charge toward empowering the customer – past, present and future. As such, the chapter continues to lay out a potential privacy framework, introducing Streams Banks: It’s the moniker I’ve given the service with the primary purpose of collecting all your digital detritus, all your so-called life streams of data, in one place on your behalf and giving you the power to analyse and visualize it all. A streams bank archives the minutiae of your life, if you so wish. The service may offer suggestions or advice in decision-making, and perhaps it may even be relied upon to make certain decisions for you autonomously. What on Earth could catalyse this transformation?.. Imagine that you’re a mobile telephone network operator. Right now, you own the data describing the customer’s use of your network. What competitive advantage might be had by reversing that situation, by transferring ownership to the customer – on the condition of service of course that you can have access to their data in order to determine billing and associated aspects of your service provision? And what if you gave the customer the tools to learn about her data, to download it and share it with whomever she wished. What might she learn about herself and her family? How might this data be mashed up? How much easier would it be to source the perfect tariff for the next year given the opportunity to share last year’s data? If you think that sounds bad for business you’re effectively saying that opacity is good. History has shown that walled gardens and other protective practices eventually crumble in competitive telephony markets. Well, it seems this day is dawning. ...

Public relations is about influencing and being influenced, right? You know, the two-way symmetric model to affect mutual understanding . Right? Well, from my experience, the vast majority of practitioners are looking to exert influence but invest considerably less time divining insight from stakeholders and feeding that back into the organisation to improve decision-making. For the best part of this week I’ve been in Miami hanging out with the members of ESOMAR who invest their entire time trying to work out what’s going on in the minds of customers and prospects. ESOMAR describes itself as “the essential organisation for encouraging, advancing and elevating market research worldwide”. With more than 4,800 members from over 120 countries, ESOMAR emphasises its members’ contribution to effective decision-making. This particular conference series is focused on how social media has transformed market research. There have been two main thrusts so far… Firstly, consumers have become increasingly reluctant to participate in ’traditional’ marketing research approaches. Seriously, why should they bother? And if we’re all egged on with the promise of some kind of reward or prize, how interested are we in responding accurately, diligently? ...

I’m in Miami today at the ESOMAR 3D Digital Dimensions conference. For those of you unfamiliar with ESOMAR, it’s “the essential organisation for encouraging, advancing and elevating market research worldwide. With more than 4,800 members from over 120 countries, ESOMAR’s aim is to promote the value of market and opinion research in illuminating real issues and bringing about effective decision-making.” The Business of Influence – ESOMAR 3D Digital Dimensions Conference 2011 ...

An interesting start to the day today… over to CIPR HQ in Russell Square to deliver a training course on social measurement in the Freshly Squeezed series. I had just 45 minutes with 15 minutes Q&A, and this time constraint combined with the state of best practice in the profession meant I was aiming simply to leave attendees knowing the right questions if not the right answers per se. After all, as the slidestack below teases out, if your organisation, marketplace, stakeholders, marketing and PR objectives, marketing and PR strategy and execution are unique, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that your metrics will be unique too. ...