For Budding Public Relations Professionals

Characteristics of a Good Communications Leader

2011-08-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

Our vice president of communications here at GM recently shared some info on the characteristics of a good communications leaders. These are based on recently updated results from a survey of 300 top communications leaders conducted by Heidrick & Struggles.

Understandsall functions within the communications mix (and those aligned to it),including internal/external communications, marketing communications,financial communications, new media, public affairs, investorrelations, philanthropy and community relations.

Can integratethese functions, even if not directly responsible for them all, into acomprehensive communications strategy.

Knows theorganization’s key stakeholders and how to engage with them.

Appreciatesthe power of the growing base of “unofficial stakeholders” who use newmedia to reach mass audiences with their own content and interpretations.

Serves as atrusted advisor and counselor to the leadership team.

Places a highpriority on Reputation Management.

Works toensure that the organization’s actions and decisions flow from authentic valuesand are guided by ethical standards.

Is capable ofhelping to shape and lead organizational transformation.

Has theinstincts and experience to create, redefine and/or leverage a brand.

Mobilizesemployees to embrace and embody the brand.

Has thecourage to face up to difficult situations and to present bad news.

Has strongfundamental skills as a thinker, writer and speaker.

Inspireshis/her team by creating a sense of purpose and expanding their skills.

Balancesdiscipline (planning/measuring) with agility (handling the unexpected).

Can navigatein complex, global environments.

Forges strongrelationships and builds a network of good allies.

Knows thebusiness.

Listens.

Strategic and Research Knowledge in PR

2009-09-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've decided to recommit myself to blogging if for no other reason than to keep up my knowledge of the public relations profession. My goal is to read from one of my past PR textbooks once a week and blog about what I learned.

This week I've been reading from Manager's Guide to Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management by David M. Dozier with Larissa A. Grunig and James E. Grunig. If you're so inclined, you can actually read this book online. The link above will take you right to it.

Though much of the information in this book is more technical than I'm accustomed to reading, I found the material beneficial and applicable to my work in public relations. I was most intrigued in one chapter's discussion of strategic knowledge and research knowledge in public relations.
The book states that strategic knowledge includes the ability of a practitioner to:

Manage the organization's response to issues
Develop goals and objectives for your department

The first of these, managing an organization's response to issues is straightforward, but I was interested in how we should seek to strategically set goals and objectives. As the book points out, too often we tend to measure success in terms of the quality of the communications products we produce (press release, events, etc.), but we should strategically measure how these products helped us build mutually beneficial relationships with our publics. Our strategic goals and objectives help us measure this. We must remember "communication products are not an end in themselves -- they are tools used in the pursuit of desired relationships with key publics" (Dozier, Grunig and Grunig, 29).

Research knowledge involes the expertise necessary to:

Use research to segment publics
Conduct evaluation research

Dozier, Grunig and Grunig group publics into four categories:

Nonpublics ("not affected in any way by an organization's behavior")
Latent publics ("affected by a organizational behavior, but are not aware of this")
Aware publics (realize they have a common problem)
Active publics (aware publics that "organize to do something about their common problem")

Often our sole focus is on active publics because they are the ones mostly to have an immediate impact on our organizations, but we must not ignore the latent and aware publics. While active publics will "seek out information on the organization and the issue," they will also tend to "evaluate messages from the organization with a critical eye (Dozier, Grunig and Grunig, 31). Active publics also may be entrenched in their stance on the issue. Dozier, Grunig and Grunig advocate seeking to "communciate with latent and aware publics while there's still room for negotiation" (32). Only through thorough research can we identify our publics, hence the necessity for research knowledge.

More to come next week on the importance of research in public relations. Until then, if you get a chance to read Chapter 2 of this book I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My last day with PRSA

2009-02-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll do something I never thought I would do: I will let my membership in the Public Relations Society of America lapse.

When I realized that the time for renewing my membership was coming up, I started debating whether or not to even ask my boss if I General Motors would be paying for it this year. I started to think really hard about what my membership in PRSA gave back to GM, and I was having a hard time coming up with much. In the end, our Communications leadership told our entire function that the company would not be picking up the costs for any professional memberships in 2009, and so, today is my last day as a member of PRSA.

PRSA, and most especially, the Public Relations Student Society of America have really helped me in my career path. In fact, had I not been involved in planning the PRSSA 2006 National Conference, I would not have been recruited by GM for their internship program, and would not be in my current job at the company. My time in PRSSA was extremely valuable, and I encourage every PR student join their school’s chapter if there is one. Because of PRSSA, I was able to meet a variety of professionals – many of whom I still keep in contact with – and learned about what it’s like to work in the profession. I’ll always be grateful to what PRSSA helped me accomplish.

When I moved to Detroit for the internship with GM, I joined PRSA, and our local chapter, PRSA-Detroit. I was blown away with the quality of the Detroit chapter and all the activities they have for members. Furthermore, I was fortunate enough to be here in time to assist with the planning of the PRSA 2008 International Conference in Detroit. The PRSA-Detroit chapter is extremely well run and has many, many amazing people in its ranks.

With this in mind, however, I’m not sure how valuable my national membership was to me. With the exception of Tactics and The Strategist (two publications I really enjoyed reading) as well as the daily “PRSA Issues & Trends” e-mail, there wasn’t much value to be had with my national membership unless I was willing to pay for all the conferences and teleseminars they put on. Someone on Twitter remarked to me that joining PRSA for them only meant paying membership dues up front, and then having to pay more money to get the most out of your membership. I think that is an excellent point, and frankly, I feel the same way.

In that same Twitter conversation, the aforementioned individual said she had a better experience in her local chapter than she did with National. I, too, noticed that. She thinks PRSA ought to offer members the chance to join only their national chapter. I think that’s a stellar idea, but recognize there are inherent problems with it. But for me, aside from the Conferences which still costs a great deal of money, all the value I gained in PRSA and PRSSA was from my involvement in my campus and local chapters. That’s where I was able to network with people I’m more likely to come in contact with, and where I got to learn about topics most applicable to my geographical area.

With PRSA offering members the chance to pay their membership dues in installments this year, I think they recognize the impact the economy is going have on their members. This is a smart move, but I think other big changes need to happen to make sure members are getting their money’s worth with their membership. Paying $300 a year, and then having to spend around $150 to participate in a teleseminar seems like a hard sell. Could they not offer a few more things that would be included in the membership?

This should not be seen as an attack on PRSA or PRSSA. I believe in PRSA’s mission of advancing the profession and the professional, but I think radical changes need to be implemented so that this mission can actually be achieved. Hey, if everyone reading this blog goes out and buys a new GM car or truck this year (preferably a Chevy), and tells their friends to do the same, maybe next year I’ll be able to renew my membership. For now, I’ll have to content myself with reading my old textbooks and PR articles online to enhance my skills and learn new ones.

Pretend the microphone is always on

2009-01-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read about a VP at Ketchum who recently got in trouble with one of his big clients, Fed Ex, because of a remark he made on Twitter. Upon his arrival for a presentation at Fed Ex's headquarters in Memphis, this gentleman "tweeted" something to the effect of finding the place so undesirable that he'd kill himself if he had to live there. Some folks at Twitter saw the tweet and were none too pleased. Needless to say, he didn't get the business he was hoping to get. You can read Fed Ex's complete response to him here.

My point in writing this post is not to lambaste this individual for his lapse of judgment because, let's face it, we all do dumb things once in a while. However, this incident reminded me of something one of my college professors, Susan Walton, once told our PRSSA chapter: "Always pretend the microphone is on."

We've all heard high profile people make disparaging remarks thinking the microphone is off, and then watched as the unfortunate incident was covered in the media and on YouTube. It's unfortunate, but it happens. If they had simply assumed the mic was on, there would have been no problems.

But what if all PR practitioners adopted this philosophy in our interactions with peers, media, colleagues or clients? Or to take it further, what if all individuals adopted this philosophy in life. I imagine a great deal of heartache and sorrow would go away if we did so.

With the ever-increasing speed of information via the Internet, it's vitally important that we always pretend the microphone is on. Hey, maybe we should just remember our mothers' advice: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Let's brainstorm!

2008-12-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to lead a brainstorming session for an upcoming vehicle launch that I'm working on. In preparation for this meeting, I consulted one of my old college textbooks, Strategic Communications Planning for Effective Public Relations and Marketing (Wilson & Ogden, 2004), for some ideas on how to conduct the most effective brainstorming sessions. I thought I'd share a few ideas with you here, and in the true spirit of brainstorming, ask for your ideas as well. Here are some of the author's (my paraphrasing) tips:

1. Brainstorming should last no less than five minutes and no longer than 20.

2. Brainstorming is not the time to evaluate ideas. If you think it, say it. By thinking of something and not saying it you're silently evaluating your own ideas. Wilson and Ogden go so far as saying that even laughter is a form of evaluation.

3. Record the session for review later.

4. Skip the details. State your idea and then move on to another one. Specific details should be reserved for evaluation later on.

These are only a few of the brainstorming tips from the textbook, but I've found they work very well. I wasn't able to steer the brainstorming yesterday in exactly this direction, but we came close enough and generated some awesome ideas. What else have you found effective in brainstorming sessions?

The Case for PR Theories

2008-12-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

It's been an uphill battle for me lately as I've worked vigorously to defend General Motors and make the case as to why we should receive some government loans. Unfortunately, due to some grossly inaccurate perceptions of our company, and the media's near unrelenting coverage of the "corporate jets" issue, it's been difficult to convince many of our critics and even more difficult to get our message out there.

As I have pondered these difficulties in our communications efforts, I've started to wonder whether there might be some kind of public relations theory or theories that might help us do better. Many people, including fellow PR colleagues, have criticized GM for not doing enough to get our message out there, but I have to respectfully disagree. I think we're all working as hard as we can and are staying focused on a few key messages, but it just doesn't seem to be making it through.

I remember studying a few theories in college, but I failed to see the real world application of them. Perhaps it's time for me to rethink this. What PR theories do you feel would help most in the PR situation GM currently finds itself in? Now, I'm not asking for your input as to what GM should do or should have done (trust me, I hear enough of that), but I am asking for some good theories I can study. So what do you have for me?

Asking for your help

2008-11-12T17:49:00.000-08:00

So this isn't exactly a post about public relations, but it does show the impact that social media can have for motivating people for action. I've e-mailed this and posted it as a note on Facebook. I hope you'll give some consideration to what I'm asking below.

As many of you know, I work for General Motors (specifically Chevrolet) here in Detroit, and if you've watched or read the news at all lately you know that GM, and the auto industry as a whole is having an extremely challenging time right now. We announced significant losses last week, and made it clear that we are burning through cash at an alarming rate. Last week, the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler met with Congressional leaders regarding the automakers getting $25 billion in loans that would come out of the $700 billion Congress has already approved for the financial sector. While it's true that the government already approved a previous $25 billion in loans for the auto industry recently, that money can only be used for the research and development of more fuel efficient cars and trucks, and nothing more (plus all automakers, including the foreign companies have access to this cash). For GM a portion of that money will go to the development of the Chevy Volt (an electric car), more hybrids and increasing the fuel economy in current internal combustion engines. What we're asking for in this additional $25 billion in loans (not a bailout, we'll pay these back with interest) is a bridge to getting things turned around for the industry.

2010 is going to be a big year for us because that's when we'll be able to defer a huge portion of our healthcare costs over to the United Autoworkers Union. That's also the year the Chevy Volt and other important cars debut for us. So I'm simply asking for your help in contacting your senators and representatives to show your support.

Having traveled all over the country with this job, I know there are some serious hard feelings people have towards GM and the American auto industry in general. I know many people believe the government should just let the market work this out, and if GM and other automakers go under, so be it. I can tell you, however, that if this happened, the entire economy would experience catastrophic changes. You see, it's not just the people who work for these companies that are affected, but all those connected to them in some way: dealers, advertising agencies, public relations agencies, parts suppliers, rental car companies, etc. If peoople in these sectors lose their jobs, then they have less money to spend in the stores in addition to being unable to pay many of their bills (potentially leading to more home foreclosures). Here are a few facts on what would happen if the domestic auto industry collapsed:

Nearly 3 million jobs would be lost in the first year alone – with another 2.5 million to follow over the next two years
Personal income in the United States would drop by more than $150.7 billion in the first year
The cost to local, state, and federal governments could reach $156.4 billion over three years in lost taxes, and unemployment and health care assistance
Domestic automobile production would more than likely fall to zero – even by international producers, due to supplier bankruptcies

This is not me trying to use some cheap scare tactic to convince you of the need for these loans, these are facts. Furthermore, these numbers come from third-party sources, not from one of the Big 3 automakers.

In summary, I'm asking that you contact your senators and representatives to voice your support of these government loans to the automakers. My team at GM set up a Web site, www.gmfactsandfiction.com that addresses many of the rumors surrounding GM right now, as well as a link on how to get in contact with your political leaders.

Maybe you don't drive an American vehicle, and maybe you never will, but we are all impacted by the U.S. auto industry in some way. I hope you'll receive this e-mail in the spirit it's intended, and not as a political issue. Don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns you have about this.

What impact has the media had on the economy?

2008-11-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

The other day as I stood in a long line at Costco to buy my two small items (they really need an express lane there), I was struck by how many people were there despite the current state of the U.S. economy. On a previous trip to Costco just a few days earlier my wife and I were surprised to see how many people were walking out with huge, flat-screen TVs. All of this, plus some discussions I’ve had recently, led me to ponder on what kind of impact the media has had on our economic difficulties of late.

Phrases like “economic turmoil,” “cash burn” and “downturn” seem to make their way into nearly every media story I read, watch or listen to. How many times have you seen a picture of a stock broker with his palm against his forehead and a look of dismay on his face? I’ve now become an international finance expert because I can tell you everyday how well or bad the Asian markets performed overnight. Yet, despite the economic crisis, I still find myself waiting in a long line at Costco.

I’m not naive enough to believe that all is wonderful with our economy, but part of me has to believe that the media has contributed to some of the panic and despair some people have experienced in these hard times. Things are tough for sure, but I have to wonder how much the negative media coverage of the economy has had upon Americans’ psyche. Does this contribute to the panicked sell-offs on Wall Street? If I made my financial decisions based solely on media reports, I’d be hiding my money in my mattress (which I don’t do, so don’t come looking).

Perhaps in the media’s haste to get readers, viewers or listeners, they make their financial reporting as sensational as possible. What if they tempered their coverage of the bad news by reporting on some bright spots in the economy (aside from the booming profits of the oil companies)? I have to believe that this would contribute to increased consumer confidence.

Perhaps I’m way off in my thinking on this one, but if not, what relevance does this hold for us as public relations practitioners? I’ve often questioned how much impact media relations has on our efforts to build relationships with our publics, but I’m beginning to think that broad and repeated coverage of our organizations is influential; for good or for bad.

I’m interested, however, in your thoughts. Has the media contributed to panic and uncertainty in the economy? How much impact does media coverage really have on our publics?

UPDATE: Corey Mull of TMG Strategies just alerted me to a similar post he wrote for their blog a few months ago. It echoes much of what I wrote here, with some additional insight.

Turning the tables

2008-10-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

I recently received a new assignment at GM in Chevrolet Communications. I'm responsible for PR activities associated with Corvette , Chevy Impala , Chevy HHR and my personal favorite, the all new 2010 Chevy Camaro . As part of my new assignment, I had an interesting opportunity with the staff of Car and Driver yesterday.

Every year Car and Driver invites PR representatives from all of the automakers to come out to their headquarters and bring one of their hottest new vehicles (I brought a 2009 Chevy Cobalt SS Turbocharged). It's basically a chance for Car and Driver to get to know more PR people as well as a great networking opportunity for all of us. The highlight of it all is getting to drive a variety of vehicles from competitors.

It was really interesting to be hosted by the media on a program. It's often the other way around for me. I think this is a smart move from Car and Driver, and goes to show that some media realize the importance of the public relations profession. Granted, the major automotive publications come to us more often that we go to them, but this event reiterated for me how important it is for us to work to build relationships with our media contacts. Plus, I got to drive alot of cool cars!

So, have any of you ever experienced the media reaching out to PR people in a similar way?

Happy Ethics Month!

2008-09-12T16:17:00.001-07:00

It's time to bust out the cake, ice cream and crazy hats because September is officially Ethics Month. Well, at least for PRSA it is.

In this month's issue of Tactics there are a number of articles dedicated to ethics in the public relations industry. Ethics has always been a topic of interest to me, and I even took not one, but two media and communications ethics classes in college.

It seems that now, more than ever, PR practitioners are faced with a litany of ethical decisions, and it's time for those of us "budding public relations professionals" to be examples of ethical behavior in all we do, both professionally and personally.

In taking the aforementioned classes, I was exposed to many different books and articles regarding ethical issues. Much of the information I read, particularly in my Advanced Ethics class (yes, it really was called that), was based on the writings of philosophers, but I had a really hard time wrapping my mind around that. It seemed that some of these individuals took a simple topic like ethics and twisted it into a convoluted, abstract concept. I believe our personal ethics should come from within. Ethics, in my opinion, is a reflection of who we are. I'm not saying that someone can't gain some valuable insight from the writings of highly intelligent ethics experts such as Immanuel Kant or Sissela Bok, but for me ethics seems to be a simple matter.

I am not naïve enough to believe that making ethical decisions is an easy process, nor is it always black and white, but I do believe this process can be simplified by abiding by the moral compass within all of us. I also believe that everyone has an innate sense of right and wrong, but this sense can be refined and improved. Conversely, this sense can also be dulled through lapses in ethical judgment. One way I personally strive to improve my sense of right and wrong is through study of scripture and other religious texts. Outside of these texts, however, are three excellent books that have made a significant impact on my ethical behavior. They are as follows:

Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, Gordon B. Hinckley

An excellent book by one of my heroes. This book inspires everyone to take a stand for what's right and to live a life of only the highest moral character. I simply cannot recommend it enough. I read this book for the first time in high school, and it was the first nonfiction book I'd ever read. I continue to consult it today.

Winners Never Cheat, Jon M. Huntsman

Jon Huntsman does a superb job of providing some insight on what it means to be an ethical person, and supports this through numerous business examples gained during his time in the corporate world.

There's No Such Thing as Business Ethics, John. C. Maxwell

Kudos to Maxwell (or perhaps more accurately, his publishing company) for a really great title. The basic premise of this book is that there is no such thing as business ethics, because ethics, as I've stated, is simply a matter of who you are. Ethics at work should be not be any different than ethics in one's personal life. This book is a really short read and can easily be finished in a day.

I love these books because of their down-to-earth, very practical information and application. These are my favorites. Are there any I should add to this list? I'm always looking for great books to add to my reading list, so recommend away.

Please talk about us: Making our external publics our ambassadors

2008-08-11T17:23:00.001-07:00

I've always believed in the importance of making sure employees are provided with the information and tools necessary to be the best kind of ambassadors for a company. I still believe this is important, but in this post I'd like to take it a step further and discuss the importance of inviting those outside of our company or organization to be effective ambassadors.

The topic for this blog post was prompted by the following video from Elder M. Russell Ballard, an Apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I am a member. More below the video.

As you see in this video, Elder Ballard is calling upon members of the LDS faith to embrace various social media tools in to clarify misconceptions and to talk about the Church. On a side note, it's fascinating to me to see the Church's public affairs staff employing such cutting edge technology to reach a variety of publics; but that's content for another post.

One thing Elder Ballard says in this short clip was particularly insightful. He mentions that the LDS Public Affairs staff is not able to join in all the conversations happening online, so he asks the Church's 13 million members to get involved. This isn't the first time Elder Ballard has addressed this; in a recent session of the worldwide General Conference of the Church he called upon members, in essence, to create a list of key messages and talking points they can use in talking to friends and acquaintances about what we believe in.

Think of the power that can come from giving your publics free reign to go online and elsewhere to talk up your company or organization. I know in PR we often talk about reaching the influentials, but do many companies ask these opinion leaders to actually go out and talk up the company? With the rise of social media, we simply don't have time to get out there and join every conversation happening about our company, but if we can get our fans to do it for us, why give them all they need and then actually asking them to do it. While I think this is a stellar idea J, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it. Do you think it's a good idea to get out there and ask your supporters to help you communicate your company's messages? As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

For those of you interested in learning more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, please feel free to contact me. My contact info is listed in my Blogger profile. You can also visit Mormon.org for more information.

Don't pitch me, bro!

2008-07-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit I stole the title of this post from a flier I saw recently, but I just thought it was hilarious given the context of where it was placed (if you don't get the reference, click here). I recently spoke on behalf of General Motors at the Social Networking Conference in San Francisco, and during a break in sessions I noticed some fliers on a table with the phrase "Don't pitch me bro!" in large bold print. The flier was basically an advertisement for a company's services, but was making light of all the in-person sales pitches that happen at conferences like this.

After my presentation, I had a line of about 12 people waiting to talk to me. Generally when I speak at conferences people will come up and tell me how cool it is to see what GM is doing in social media and to say "thank you" for presenting. At this conference, however, it was one salesperson after the other with some service that would inevitably be a "good fit" for GM. Needless to say, I spent the days following the conference gently telling people we weren't looking to hire any additional services.

I've noticed that when someone tries to sell me something I shut off mentally and don't listen to a word they say. I'm not sure why this is; all I know is that I loathe being sold to.

I have to think that more and more people are getting frustrated by constant sales pitches. Take the advent of TiVo and other DVR services. Sure, there is some draw to being able to record your favorite shows, but I think there is also a number of people who like being able to skip commercials using DVRs. Satellite radio also offers commercial free radio (at least they used to, not sure if that's still the case). What about the iPod? Now you can download all your favorite music and never have to listen to a single commercial. Or look at it this way, when was the last time you bought anything from a telemarketer?

So how does this apply to PR people? I believe there is value in advertising and that it will not be going away anytime soon. Advertisers will have to adapt to people's changing attitudes regarding being sold to, but I'll leave solving this problem to the advertisers. I believe that it is our job as PR people to build solid relationships with all of our publics, and then the marketing guys and gals can do their work. With the lines between PR and marketing often being a little fuzzy, I think it's easy for some PR practitioners to start pitching product and miss the relationship-building component so key to all public relations work.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming salespeople or their techniques. I know many good people in sales who are very good at their jobs; I'm just saying that I find being sold to extremely annoying.

But what about you? Are you as annoyed by sales pitches as I am? How do you prefer to find out about products?

Are newspapers going away?

2008-06-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

I wanted to stand up and applaud when I read a post by Steven Hodson at Mashable who refuted Robert Scoble's opinion on the death of newspapers. Scoble, probably one of the most well read bloggers out there, recently remarked that his son would be probably be witness to the end of the newspaper industry.

I won't rehash, Hodson's post, but I highly recommend taking a look at it. Check out the following quote from his post:

The fact is that newspapers aren’t going anywhere and chances are they will
still be around by the time your grandkid’s children are having kids. Sure they
are facing some hard economic times much of which is of their doing, but you
don’t kill over a $45 billion industry within a generation especially if that
industry contrary to popular belief is still growing.

This is something I've discussed with a number of individuals before. Newspapers and other forms of traditional media outlets are not going away. They will have to adapt, but they are not going away. Take for example the advent of radio. When radio came out people were certain that newspapers would go away. The rapidity of radio news seemed to negate the need for newspapers who were reporting the news a day after it happened. Yet, newspapers survived. Then along came TV, and with it speculation that it would replace radio and newspapers. Still, radio and newspapers escaped demise. Finally, the Internet was born. Now users can read the news, listen to podcasts and online radio and even watch videos and TV shows. Surely, this is the end-all for other forms of media, right? Let's see...I listen to the radio every day, read a hard copy newspaper every day, watch the news nightly and am on the Internet throughout the day. True, maybe I'm an anomaly, but I use these diferent forms of media because I get different content from each one.

Like I said, traditional media will have to adapt to the changing nature of information sharing, and they are already doing so. Most major newspapers already have all their content online for free (The Wall Street Journal is an exception). You can listen to radio online now. Many journalists also blog. I've even started to see some publications on Twitter and Facebook. Reuters also recently reported that newspapers may even be free in the future.

Hey, and don't forget about the oldest medium out there...books.

Back to school!

2008-06-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve barely been out of college for a year, yet the thought of going back for grad school fills me with unspeakable dread. I know, however, it’s something I must do and soon because my family, work and personal obligations will only continue to increase.

I briefly considered going to get an advanced degree in PR or communications, but from what I’ve heard from others it sounds like many of these programs are very focused on theory. While I understand that there is some value to learning theory, I don’t think it would be something I would really be able to enjoy (yes, I do believe I need to enjoy what I’m learning!).

I’ve heard a number of people recommend an MBA as a great advanced degree for PR practitioners. It exposes you to more aspects of business, and helps you better understand how companies work. I’m pretty sure that I want to stay in PR my whole career, but am not sure if getting an MBA will really put me on the fast track to an executive PR position (which is my ultimate goal). I know that an MBA will enhance my business acumen and make it so that I can better speak the language of business.

I’m about 99 percent certain that I will pursue an MBA, but am unsure of whether to go back full-time or part-time in an evening or weekend program. I’ve heard that full-time is better from a recruiting standpoint, but I’m comfortable in my job at GM and don’t foresee leaving the company anytime soon. I’m interested in hearing whether or not anyone has heard anything about the quality of education from an evening or weekend MBA program compared to going back full-time. Is there a difference? Is one preferable to the other? An executive MBA program is out of the question for me because I don’t want to get the average seven years of experience before going back to school.

What do you think? I welcome any input! GMAT preparation tips are welcome too!

Keeping it real

2008-06-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

The idea of “keeping it real,” in PR has been on my mind for sometime, and in light of recent events with Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary, and his tell-all book it seems appropriate to write about it on my blog.

Lying is wrong. Period. There is no other way to describe it. Despite the comments by CBS Sunday Morning legal analyst Andrew Cohen, about the only truthful PR people being those who are unemployed, I have to believe – some may say naively – that the majority of my fellow PR practitioners do not outright lie. (See PRSA's response here) However, I think an all too common practice has infiltrated our PR work, and that is the practice of never saying anything negative about your organization or client. This practice has led PR practitioners to be labeled as “spin doctors,” and, dare I say, rightly so. Maybe this worked in the past. Maybe people just believed all that was being said by a spokesperson or executive, but \ this is no longer the case. Our publics have caught on to this game, and will readily dismiss anything we say. They will seek alternative sources of information. Hence the popularity of social media. (Consequently, I believe the traditional media can be just as guilty of spin as PR people.)

Take for example, America’s current presidential race. I watch with frustration as TV anchors ask the candidates tough questions and the candidates lightly touch on the question (without answering it) and then jump into one of their key messages. Guess what: Once they fail to answer the question, I immediately tune out. Call it sensationalism, but I like it when the media ask controversial questions of politicians and company executives. I just wish the interviewees would answer like real people.

If we only ever have good things to say about our organizations or clients then we are doing a disservice to our publics. I mean, come on, do we really expect people to believe that everything is perfect? Keeping it real means not shying away from all of the truth. Maybe that means we have to share some information we’re uncomfortable sharing, but I believe that this will only engender trust and goodwill among our publics.

I had this experience once in my short PR career. During an event with some media I made a comment about something I personally disliked about a certain thing and immediately got a look of displeasure from a well meaning colleague. Some may argue that it’s not my job to share personal opinions, but I would counter that by so doing I make myself more of a real person and in turn, more credible.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that we all go out there and find negative things to say about our organizations and clients; I’m simply saying that we can’t be afraid to tell it like it is. If we do so we build a relationship of trust with our publics and they will come to see us as reliable sources of information. Conversely, doing otherwise makes our public less willing to listen to what we have to say and again, they will go elsewhere.

I, for one, will do all I can to keep it real during my career in PR. How about you?

PRSA vs. IABC

2008-05-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

The other day someone at work remarked that they believe the Public Relations Society of America is all about media relations, whereas the International Association of Business Communicators is more focused on helping people become better communicators in general. This comment about PRSA being solely focused on media relations really got me thinking about my membership in the Society.

I have been involved with PRSA since 2006 when I joined the student arm of the Society, the Public Relations Student Society of America. Perhaps I latched on to PRSSA rather than IABC simply because my school had a chapter, but I have to think that despite this fact I still would have pursued PRSA. Call it a simple case of semantics, but for me two words in the names of the organizations say a great deal about what I believe my role is as a PR practitioner: relations and communicator. I believe strongly that my job is to help build relatioships with my organization's publics, not simply to communicate to them. True, part of building relationships with publics involves communicating with them, but communication is simply an aspect of what I must do to make this happen.

But now back to my co-worker's comment. Is PRSA only about media relations?

I think the answer lies in the people who make up of the membership of PRSA. If the members of PRSA perceive PR to be only about media relations than that's what's going to be discussed. For example, I counted 16 articles on media relations in May issue of Tactics. I, for one, think that many PR practitioners engage in nothing more than simple press agentry. Don't get me wrong, I believe good media relations skills are a must for all PR practitioners, but we must not limit ourselves to this. "Good PR" goes beyond a hit in The New York Times

A quick scan of IABC's vision and mission showed me that they are not too different from PRSA in what they are trying to help their members accomplish. I did, however, find it interesting that they listed public relations in a long list of other forms of communication (i.e. financial communications, employee communications, etc.). It seems there is a difference in how the two organizations define PR.

So maybe PRSA is currently focused heavily on media relations, but that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. One way to change that is for us as younger PR pros to help PRSA in "advancing the profession

PR's Role in Scandals

2008-04-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

I love the great city of Detroit. Sure she's got some rough patches, but she's a great city and really gets a bad rap. The city seems to be on the rebound, but unfortunately, her image has not been helped at all by the scandal the "hip hop" mayor of Detroit has been involved in lately.

Basically, the mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, had two police officers fired for their investigation of Kilpatrick and Beatty having an affair. Both Kilpatrick and Beatty denied, under oath, that they had anything to do with firing the two officers and also denied the affair. However, the Detroit Free Press obtained copies of text messages between the two that proved that they were, in fact, having an affair, and were very much involved in the firing of the officers. What's worse is that Kilpatrick spent $8.4 in tax-payer money to mount his defense and eventual settlement. Beatty resigned just a few days after the text message news broke, but Kilpatrick still refuses to do so. Both face multiple felony charges. Full details of the scandal can be found here.

Kilpatrick has now hired a PR person to help him improve his image with all this mess. The PR person is none other than Judy Smith, the same person who tried to help the image of Monica Lewinsky and Republican Senator, Larry Craig. Man, she really knows how to pick clients (or not).

The inspiration for this post is a recent op-ed in the Detroit Free Press by Berl Falbaum, a specialist in crisis communications and part-time professor at Wayne State University. The title of his op-ed sums up exactly what I feel about this whole mess with the mayor: PR Experts Can't Fix a Scandal. How true this is.

I once spoke about this idea with Chris Thomas. Chris is the owner of Salt Lake City-based The Intrepid Group and former spokesman for the family of Elizabeth Smart during her abduction a few years ago. Chris remarked to me that if he ever has a potential client come to him who has "messed up" and they want him to help fix things, he'll only take them on if he sees they are penitent and are willing to admit their mistakes. If not, then there's no deal.

I think this is something often lost on people who don't really know what PR is all about, or even practitioners. To quote Berl Falbaum again, "PR experts can't fix a scandal." Falbaum points out that PR professionals can really only do two things in a scandal: "With their communications and strategic skills, they can enhance good performance or, in case of crises, they can mitigate bad performance." This is sound advice for any PR practitioner. We must counsel our organizations and clients that if they're involved in scandal they need to step up and apologize for what they've done and take action to remedy it (i.e. Detroit's mayor should resign). This strategy is not new (ever heard of the Tylenol and cyanide incident?), yet we still see people and companies being obstinate even when it's widely known they're in the wrong. And stubbornness never works.

A scandal is something I'm sure no PR practitioner wants to be involved in, but we must be prepared regardless. Remember, though, PR experts can't fix a scandal.

Power to the People

2008-03-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the unique, and might I say, unprecedented, opportunity to attend a gathering of enthusisasts for a car that is not even built yet. The car, the Chevrolet Volt, is an electric vehicle designed to go 40 miles on electricity alone, and then using a small motor to recharge the batteries for another 600+ miles.

So what's the big deal about this event? The event was hosted by Lyle Dennis, founder of a Volt enthusiast blog, http://www.gm-volt.com/. The short story is that Lyle, a NY-based neurologist, found out about the Volt at its debut last year and created the blog shortly thereafter. He quickly gained a large following of individuals anxious for the Volt to arrive. Last year he approached some people at GM about the possibility of doing an informal town hall meeting with GM and some members of the GM-Volt.com community. And so, Volt Nation was born.

It was amazing to see a few hundred enthusiasts (sorry for the low quality pics; I took them on my camera phone) come from as far as California to have the opportunity to get an insiders view of what's going on with the development and production of the Volt. The event was hosted by Lyle, and GM was simply a guest. We allowed Lyle to use they Chevy display at the NY Auto Show for the meeting, and made sure he had executives and subject matter experts on hand to answer questions. Our vice chairman, Bob Lutz was there to speak to the crowd and answer questions. He even brought a few pictures of the Volt's battery pack to share with Volt fans in attendance.

I say that this event is unprecedented because of the people in attendance. Normally at events like this all you have there are media. This time it was just everyday people with a passion for the vehicle. Not only did they get to see the car up close and personal, but they even had the chance to mingle with and ask questions of the executives and subject matter experts. Furthermore, this was not an event hosted by GM, but by a blogger. We simply gave him the resources he needed to make it happen.

Volt Nation, in my opinion, is an excellent example of good public relations practices. Volt Nation allowed GM to have two-way communication between the company and the people who will actually buy the Volt when it comes out. It was candid, open conversation. Doesn't get much better than that.

Links to stories about Volt Nation:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4485292&page=2

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleAID=/20080320/BUSINESS01/803200434/1014

http://www.gm-volt.com/2008/03/22/volt-nation-video-public-q-and-a-part-i/

Working for Free: Pro Bono PR

2008-03-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

A while back I read an article in PR Tactics, PRSA's monthly newspaper, about the power of pro bono public relations, and I was absolutely intrigued by the concept of volunteering to do free PR work. I had the opportunity as an assignment in one of my college classes to spend the semester volunteering for a local nonprofit. I chose to volunteer for a small, start-up aquarium in Utah, and learned first-hand how much value PR people can add to small nonprofits. They were overjoyed to have me help (only person with PR experience there), and I can honestly say that that internship was the most personally rewarding of any of the four internships I completed.

So what's the point of volunteering one's PR skills to your community or a nonprofit? I'm sure that many would answer that it's another opportunity to build your resume and enhance your PR skills, but for me it goes far beyond that. On one of the entrances to the campus of my alma mater, BYU, there is a sign that reads, "Enter to learn, go forth to serve." I've often pondered that statement, and I truly believe it is incumbent upon us all to apply our knowledge and understanding not only to our jobs, but to give back to the community and those around us.

Maybe I'm too altruistic in my thinking, but this is truly what I believe. Since I read that article I have been thinking about where to best volunteer my PR skills, and it looks like I've found the perfect opportunity with Friends of the Belle Isle Aquarium, a group of volunteers working to reopen the aquarium that the city of Detroit shut down a few years ago due to budget restraints. I look forward to taking what I learned in school and from past jobs and interships and applying it to a cause I believe in.

Do you do nonprofit work? If so, where and why?

A great explanation of Twitter

2008-03-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

If you've never seen the "Plain English" videos on Common Craft, I highly recommend you check them out. While the folks at Common Craft have done a number of these videos on varying subjects, I suggest checking out the Plain English videos on blogs, social networks, RSS, social bookmarking, wikis and online photo sharing. We've used these videos here at GM in social media training sessions with our PR colleagues. Common Craft does an amazing job of taking something that appears very complex and simplifying it to the point where anyone can understand it. I used these videos to understand RSS and social bookmarking, two concepts that I could never quite figure out before.

The most recent video is a great explanation of what Twitter is, and how it can be used. Check it out below:

Traditional PR

2008-03-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

I have to be really careful in my role in social media here at GM not to lose track of other valuable PR skills that may not employ social media. I am adamant that social media is not the silver bullet for everything we want to accomplish in PR, though it is quickly becoming a huge part of what we do. As I've stated before, social media helps us get back to the very basics of what public relations is all about: buidling relationships between an organization and the publics upon whom the organization's long-term success depends.

That said, then, are there some PR practices that are timeless? Are there some things PR people have done for years that are just as effective today? I say yes. Here are some aspects of PR that I don't think will/should ever go away:

Press releases -- Though I would advocate we shorten them and use them more strategically.
Traditional media relations -- I'm not one of those people who believes getting a story in The New York Times is the greatest achievement a PR practitioner could hope for, but there is a big place for tradtional media relations. Furthermore, I don't think the Internet marks the end of print media. Many believed the advent of radio would kill newspapers too, but they're still around.
Soliciting feedback from publics -- Two-way communications is and will always be a "must- have" in our PR work
Research -- whoever can figure out the best way to measure ROI of specific PR activities will make a great deal of money!

So these are my ideas, but I'm sure there are others. What are some of the solid PR practices you think will never go away?

There may be a place for Twitter after all

2008-02-19T10:02:00.000-08:00

As noted in my previous post I am a bit skeptical with regards to Twitter being an effective tool in public relations. However, benrmatthews just wrote an excellent post titled, "How can PR practitioners use Twitter?" In his post he not only cites a few examples of Twitter being used in other PR efforts, but also links to a few tools that make Twitter more relevant. Of these tools, the one that most impressed me was TweetVolume. TweetVolume allows you to enter up to five terms and then the tool will actually search Twitter to find out how many "tweets" mention those terms. It's very interesting. I wish there was some way that you could see the actual tweets, but for now this is pretty good. Who knows, maybe Twitter will become more mainstream, but if not, it seems there is a significant audience using Twitter so it might be worth my while to try to engage the community more.

The Next Big Thing

2008-02-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

In my work in social media here at General Motors we're constantly asking the question, "What's the next big thing?" Sure, MySpace and Facebook are the big dogs in social networks right now, but what's next? Is it the concept of creating your own social network like Ning is proposing? Blogs, in my opinion, still dominate the social media realm, but will this last? I think blogs are one channel of social media that will be around for a while, will the new concept of microblogging (Twitter or Jaiku) take off next?

It seems to me that once a new social media tool comes out that a number of PR professionals hop on it and start lauding it as the "next big thing," but I find that once I too get involved with this new tool that the only people using it are other PR people. I think Twitter is a perfect example of this. Granted, the likes of Dell, GM and CNN are using it, but I would venture to say that the large majority of people have no idea what Twitter is, much less how to use it. Is it really the next big thing if only the PR people know about/use it?

So my big questions for anybody reading this blog are 1) Is it the job of PR professionals to alert our publics to the next big thing, or do we let them find out about on their own; and 2) What is the next big thing?

I welcome your input!

Visiting with PR students at BYU

2008-01-31T14:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday and today I have had the wonderful opportunity of visiting some PR classes and participating in a panel discussion on social media at Brigham Young University. It has been interesting to see how much these students are interested in social media, and want to know how it best fits into what we do in public relations.

I was impressed with the caliber of students that I met during these classroom visits. Before I launched into my full presentation I always began by asking the students to rattle off as many GM brands as they could, and they never disappointed me. Without fail, Chevrolet and GMC are the first ones to be mentioned, they even remember that Saab and Saturn are also GM brands. I was expecting to surprise them by letting them know about all the different brands of GM, but they beat me to the punch.

Then I would ask them to candidly tell me what their opinions of GM and the other American automakers are, and without fail they always mentioned that the quality of our cars and trucks pales in comparison to the Japanese automakers. One thing, surprisingly, that doesn't come up when I ask them about what they think of us is the environmental factor. They may view us as only building "gas guzzlers," but for these BYU students at least, we're not seen as the environment killer that others perceive us to be. Perhaps as college students, they're more concerned with how much driving they can eek out in a single tank of gas, than they are about CO2 emissions and global warming. I'm speaking at Louisiana State University and Southeastern Louisiana University later this month, so it will be interesting to hear their students' responses to these questions.

It was also surprising to me to get little or no response at all when I asked students to give me a rough definition of social media. All I usually got were blank stares. But when I asked how many of them are on Facebook, almost all the hands shot up. I was frequently asked what they can do to better understand social media and how to use it, but I have to conclude that these BYU students don't really participate in social media beyond Facebook or MySpace. I think that many times people just assume that social media is something all the high schoolers and college students get, but in reality this may not be the case. Only a few students I talked to actually have a blog, and not many of them indicated they listen to podcasts. Maybe social media is not always the best way to reach students in our PR efforts.

Also, I had the opportunity last night to participate in a panel discussion on social media. Joining me on the panel were Quint Randle, a print journalism professor at BYU and the School of Communications' resident social media guru; Erin Enke, a Digital Strategist at Fleishman-Hillard in New York; and Jessica Mallard and Sara Brueck Nichols of Cobalt Communications Group in Salt Lake City. Here are a couple things (paraphrased) I took away from the discussion:

- Learn the strategy of PR; if you don't talk about it, they're going to talk about it without you (Enke on the use of social media in PR)
- PR hasn't really changed with social media, we're just listening better than we used to (Enke)
- Social media communications is really dimensional communications; a sphere (Nichols)
- Be a jack of all trades, but a master of two (Randle)

It was fascinating also to hear what Fleishman-Hillard does to identify which social media is most influential for work they do with different clients. Some of the tools they use to identify this (all new to me) are Icerocket, Snapshot, Quantcast and Alexa. I've only had the chance to look at Icerocket, but I like what I see so far. I think it's a better tool than Technorati or Google Blog Search. When they do this kind of research they call it "online mapping," and it takes them two to four weeks to do this.

Everyone seemed to agree that the best thing all of us can do in PR is to learn, learn and learn. Nichols recommended students peruse the Harvard Business Review to find books to read.

It was a great two days for me, and I learned a good deal from my discussions with students and fellow PR practitioners.

Mourning the passing of a great PR professional

2008-01-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I got word that Gordon B. Hinckley, 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints passed away. I am deeply saddened by this news as President Hinckley is the LDS Church president (also a prophet) I am most familiar with. Beyond my love and respect for him as the leader of my church, the LDS Church, I also wish to express my respect and admiration for him as a great example of a highly effective public relations practitioner.

President Hinckley spent nearly his entire professional career working for the Church. In the mid-1930s he was assigned to organize what is now the Church's Public Affairs Department. An article on the Church's Newsroom also notes that "for 20 years he directed all Church public communications."

His experience in PR prepared him for the various interactions he would have with the mainstream media during his time as President of the Church. Two days after he was named President, he called a press conference in Salt Lake City and fielded questions from journalists. Bloomberg.com remarked that this was the first time a Church president had done something like that in 20 years.

His interaction with the media did not stop with this press conference. In 1995 he sat down for two interviews with the intimidating, Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes. These two interviews showed just how adept President Hinckley was at dealing with the media. NPR did a story on President Hinckley's passing today, and quoted Mike Wallace:

It was Hinckley's "candor," Wallace told NPR, "his willingness to entertain any question, no matter how difficult or, perhaps embarrassing," that charmed Wallace.

"He was just absolutely open with me," Wallace said. "It became quite clear that there was a great deal in the Mormon religion that I genuinely admired."

President Hinckley was also featured numerous times on Larry King Live, and demonstrated his public relations skills while fielding some tough questions from a hardened reporter.

Farewell, President Hinckely. Thanks for everything you taught me, both in word and by example. You will be missed. I hope to be half the PR professional you were.

Mainstream media reporting on President Hinckley's death:

Why PR needs a seat at management's table

2007-12-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

I was appalled last week to find out that Chrysler LLC, one of the Big 3 automakers, has shifted its public relations department from reporting to the CEO to now reporting to human resources. This amounts to nothing less than a slap in the face to Chrysler's PR people, and, dare I say, to the profession in general.

As noted in "Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies and Problem," "although everyone in the organization affects the organizations relationships with varioius publics, establishing public relations policies, goals, and activities is a managerial function. Public relations staffers are part of managment" (emphasis added).

While I'm sure the argument could be made that a PR department reporting to HR doesn't really change the work they do, I have to say that unless we are close to the C-Suite we really can't make much of a difference in the way the organization builds realtionships with publics.

Mark Phelan, a writer for the The Detroit Free Press, wrote a great article on the value of communications in an organization. I love the following quote from the article:

Communications must have a seat a the grownups' table, with direct access to Chrysler's bosses...Somebody in communications must be able to walk into the CEO's office and say, "There's a crisis. Here's what we have to do," and the boss must trust that person enough to listen.

He also went on to say:

An effective communications team can steer management away from bad decisions and build long-term plans to help the company succeed.

I couldn't have said it better myself, and I love the fact that this defense of PR as a management function is coming from a journalist, not a PR person.

Edward Lapham of Automotive News also wrote about the importance of PR and it's relationship to managment in an article published on Dec. 11.

It's all about trust, which is important to the those of us in the news business who gather, process and distribute information. And it ought to be important to our readers and viewers.

Lapham also expressed his disappointment that Chrsyler's PR arm is now reporting to HR and pointed out that GM (my employer I'm proud to say!) is the last of the Big 3 to still have a "direct PR-to-CEO line on the org chart." He goes on to laud the praises of Tony DeLorenzo of GM "who half a century ago built and perfected the communication system at GM that became the blue-chip standard for corporate America."

Now I could go on about how much praise Lapham and Phelan give GM for our PR efforts -- which is really awesome and I recommend everyone read the two articles -- but that's not what this post is about. I simply want to stress the importance of keeping PR as a managerial function. In closing, let me illustrate this point by sharing a story that Phelan related in his article:

John Mueller, a retired GM communications executive, worked closely with chairman Rick Wagoner when Wagoner ran GM's North American operations. One day, he suggested Wagoner do an interview with a journalist from a leading newspaper. Wagoner said that his schedule was full.

Mueller picked up the phone and called Wagoner's assistant. "Tell him I'll be right up," he said. As Mueller stepped into Wagoner's office, the future leader of the world's largest automaker smiled.

"If you think it's important, I'll do it," he said. "Don't you ever quit challenging me when you believe you're right."

Update from the 2nd Annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium: Part 1

2007-12-05T21:09:00.000-08:00

My team, GM social media communications, is attending the second annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Boston this week. We were recipients of an Award of Excellence for our initiatives in social media. Other recipients included representatives from Edelman, Coca-Cola, Dow and Microsoft.

Prior to the awards gala tonight we were able to hear from Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, UMASS Dartmouth Chancellor professor of marketing and director for the Center for Marketing Research. She recently completed a study on the use of social media by higher education. Here are some stats/thoughts from her talk tonight (note: I was writing frantically so I take responsibility for any errors):

* 53 percent of colleges are familiar with social networking

* 51 percent of colleges are blogging

* College admissions offices use the following forms of social media:

33 percent are blogging
29 percent are using social networks
14 percent are not using social media at all

* 92 percent believe videoblogging to be the most successful social media tool

* For those not currently using social media plan to use the following methods in the future

Blogging: 42 percent
Podcasting: 25 percent
Videoblogging: 22 percent
Social networks: 20 percent
Message boards: 16 percent
Wikis: 4 percent

* Only 61 percent of colleges enable comments on their blogs

* 26 percent of colleges use search engines to research prospective students; 21 percent use social networks to research them

* Hits and comments are the primary measurement tools of colleges' efforts in social media

* #1 users of college blogs are the parents of students

Further proof of PR's damaged reputation

2007-11-28T11:02:00.001-08:00

This Mac commercial is an embarassment to PR professionals everywhere. While the ad is done in good humor, the fact remains that it is perpetuating the stereotype of PR people being spin doctors. While it would be nice to fault Mac for misrepresenting the public relations profession, we have no one to blame but ourselves for creating this stereotype. The responsibilit lies with each one of us as PR professionals to change this stereotype through good public relations practices.

A breach of ethics?

2007-11-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

While listening to a recent episode "For Immediate Release" this morning, I was disappointed to hear about a recent catfight between two PR agencies, BlinnPR and 5WPR.

Shel Holtz goes into greater depth about this spat in a recent post on his blog, so I will only give the highlights here. I welcome your comments on this matter.

The debacle began with a blog post by Chris Anderson, the executive editor of Wired magazine. Anderson was upset with the barrage of e-mail pitches he receives from PR people and, as a result, blocked more than 300 people from sending him anymore e-mail. Furthermore, he actually posted each one of these blocked e-mail addresses on his blog. A quick scan of some of the e-mail addresses show that many of these are from notable companies and PR firms (Wal-Mart, Edelman, etc.). What's worse is that The New York Times actually wrote about this in an article this past Monday.

I wish I could say the mess ends here, but it gets worse. Upon seeing that his firm was not on the list of blocked e-mails Steve Blinn, president of BlinnPR, began bragging about this fact in e-mails to employees and clients of another PR firm, 5WPR. Instead of being big boys and just letting the matter die, the CEO and executive vice president of 5WPR decided they would go on the offensive against BlinnPR, and they were not nice about it. A post at Silicon Valley Insider lists a number of e-mails from 5WPR in which they made threats of stealing employees and clients from BlinnPR. Adam Handelsman, 5WPR executive VP, actually even stooped to the level of name-calling by calling Steve Blinn a moron. Here's just a taste of some of the wording in these petulant e-mails:

Handelsman to Blinn

I am going to hire someone to stand outside your office... 5k commission on new business to your staff, plus a 20% raise just to leave with your clients.You made my night. And yes, I am forwarding to all of your clients your note that you don't work late or hard... thanks... I do.

This is disheartening to see this kind of behavior from so-called PR professionals. What makes it worse is that the perpertrators were leaders of their respective companies.

Shel Holtz is advocating that the Public Relations Society of America, International Assoication of Business Communicators and/or Council of Public Relations Firms come out and publicly censure these two firms for the way they have acted. While I doubt any of these organizations will actually censure them, I do believe that something should be done because these two firms are demeaning the practice of public relations. Holtz cites violations of each organizations' code of ethics by BlinnPR and 5WPR. The argument could be made, however, that these two firms have no affliation with IABC, PRSA or CPRF. That would be unfortunate.

As a member of PRSA I have agreed to abide by the organization's Code of Ethics. Part of my responsibility as a member of PRSA is to enhance public relations by working "constantly to strengthen the public's trust in the profession." Furthermore, I have acknowledged that "there is an obligation [on my part] to protect and enhance the profession."

With this in mind and recognizing the fact that my job is not to be a PR ethics policeman, what can I do when stuff like the above happens? Do I just sit idly by and let this kind of stuff keep happening or can I take action? I'm not sure what I can do, but I do know that people notice when PR messes up and are quick to call us on it. For further proof of this, look at what one individual had to say about the embarassing fight between the two aforementioned firms (note: language has been cleaned up):

Ah, this is nice to see. I always thought that PR was a bull[***] industry run by idiots who generally do more harm than good for your company.... and now I see that this is the case.

Thanks for the insightful emails… always good to see the shards exposed for the jack[***] they are.

Like Lawywers and Venture Capitalsits, these are parasites on the creative and productive.... and their desperation makes it clear that they know it! (source: Silicon Valley Insider)

Some thoughts on podcasting

2007-11-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

While I'm a big fan of all things social media, I was reticent to accept podcasting as a viable medium in this realm. With the rise of online video I found it hard to believe that there is much of a market for straight audio podcasts. I have, however, changed my opinion on podcasting. Here's why.

During my summer internship at GM, our team hosted a media panel featuring some experts in social media. One of the panelists, Neville Hobson, co-host of the popular podcast, "For Immediate Release," gave my boss a copy of his and Shel Holtz's (the other co-host of "For Immediate Release") new book, How to Do Everything with Podcasting. I quickly borrowed the book from her and read through it over the course of a week. That book thoroughly changed my opinion of podcasting. I now see podcasts as a great way for PR practitioners to communicate and engage with publics.

One of the greatest benefits of podcasts is that they're portable. With blogs, newspapers, television or radio, you are pretty much confined to one spot if you want to use these forms of media. Podcasting, however, allows you to download and subscribe to what interests you most and then you can listen to it when and where you want. I often listen to podcasts while at the gym. Some people have iPod hook-ups in their car so they can listen to podcasts as they commute. It's like talk radio on demand.

Another great benefit of podcasts is the interactive nature of them. A good podcast should always be tied to a blog with comments enabled so you can get liisterner feedback. You can then address those comments on your podcasts. Very nice.

Despite the obvious advantages in audio podcasts, they have yet to really take off. Why is this? A while back Shel Holtz wrote a post on his blog titled, Why hasn’t audio podcasting gone mainstream?, Holtz refutes the notion that online video has killed audio podcasting. He is of the opinion that a lack of good infrastructure has contributed to the relatively slow rise of podcasts. In other words, if there were easier ways to download podcasts to portable MP3 players, podcasting would be more prevalent.

Well now that I'm converted to podcasting the next logical step is to start doing it. Today marked the launch of a new podcast series that my team and I created for OnStar. The series, "OnStar on Your Side," is not about marketing OnStar, but rather is a way for us to build an affinity with publics who have an interest in safety and vehicle-related issues, regardless of whether or not they are OnStar subscribers. Each episode will be focused around a separate vehicle or safety issue and we will have third party experts come on the show to give advice regarding the day's topic of discussion. The first episode is on protecting yourself against auto theft and feature Chet Huber, president of OnStar and an inspector with the Michigan State Police.

So go ahead and listen to the show. Let me know what you think. The more feedback we get the better it will be!

Writing about ethics again

2007-10-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

I was saddened (literally) to hear about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's fake news conference last Tuesday. For anyone unfamiliar with the situation, here's a little background.

In the midst of last week's devastating fires in Southern California FEMA decided to call a press conference/media briefing. The problem with this was that they called the briefing 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start, and thus, most reporters were unable to attend. One could easily dismiss this as oversight or lack of planning ahead on FEMA's part, but it gets worse.

According to the Washington Post's story on the incident, reporters unable to attend the briefing were provided an 800 number which, surprisingly, was "listen only." In other words, reporters could listen in, but couldn't ask any questions. Seem bad? It gets worse.

After some brief remarks by Harvey E. Johnson, FEMA Vice Adm., the "reporters" in the room were able to ask questions. The news conference proceeded as normal, but the Washington Post notes that none of the reporters were asking really tough questions. The reason? The so-called reporters in the room were merely FEMA employees! Ridiculous.

How in the world could this have happened? How could any of the FEMA PR staff have let this slide by. Was no one courageous enough to stand up and say a fake news conference is a bad idea?

PRSA responded to the FEMA debacle in a release on its Web site yesterday, but from a quick scan of the reader comments, it's easy to see that people think PRSA should have been a little more harsh on FEMA for its actions.

We as PR people struggle enough to maintain credibility, and actions like this do nothing more than to destroy all the good things we do. This action by FEMA further demonstrates that there are PR people out there that either don't know what they're doing or are just completely lacking in ethics.

Part of PRSA's mission is to to help advance the profession of public relations, but I think this is a responsibility that lies with every public relations practitioner out there. It is imperative that we have the courage to speak up when something goes against what we know to be right. I could be altruistic and say that good will always prevail in these situations, but the sad fact of the matter is that it may not. Jobs may be lost, promotions may be denied, but unless someone stands up and takes the bullet, stuff like FEMA's fake news conference will continue to happen.

I'm not saying we should sacrifice jobs and careers to make PR look good, we should make these sacrifices simply because it is the right thing to do.

1 a.m. Ethics

2007-10-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I read an excellent article in PRSA Tactics, titled "1 a.m. ethics." The article, written by Susan Walton, a professor in the best public relations program in the world (slightly biased here!), makes some really interesting points about "wrestling with those small, everyday choices that we face."

She begins her article by talking about a job interview she had in which she was asked to describe an experience she'd had when an employer asked her to do something unethical. She replied that she had never been asked to do anything she considered to be unethical. She then adds:

"However...I have often made personal, individual choices to behave ethically. Most often these choices have revolved around my day-to-day work rather than around highly visible or significant events. And, in most cases, the outcome of my choices was not known by anyone other than me."

She calls these choices "1 a.m. ethics."

I think I've often been guily of thinking of ethics only in terms of cases like Enron, Tyco or WorldCom, the very poster children of ethical breaches. When it really comes down to it, however, ethics is a personal matter and rarely involves anyone but yourself. Ethical decisions we make may never be known to anyone but ourselves. "Sometimes we make our our most important ethical decisions at night when the only voice of persuasion is the whisper of our own conscience," Walton writes.

In an advanced media ethics class I took at BYU, we talked about a number of ethical theories, but the one that stood out to me was the principle of virtue ethics. Louis Pojman defined virtue ethics this way:

"Rather than seeing the heart of ethics in actions or duties, virtue ethics centers in the heart of the agent--in his or her character. Virtue ethics emphasizes being a certain type of person" (Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, p. 161, emphasis added).

I could not agree more with Pojman's statement. Ethical decision making comes from within. We have to decide now how we will act when faced with any ethical decision. We must live by ethical principles, and by so doing, we will be prepared for any challenge to ethics that may come along.

If we are truly ethical, making that tough decision at 1 a.m. won't be so hard.

Online News Conference

2007-10-03T08:36:00.001-07:00

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (disclosure: I'm a member of this church) hosted an online news conference yesterday as a test to see whether or not such a news conference is a good way to communicate with journalists around the country. The news conference opened with some comments from two individuals from the Church's public affairs department and the rest of the time was devoted to answering journalists' questions (both from call-ins and e-mails).

In addition to answering questions, there were also a few video clips from M. Russell Ballard, an apostle in the Church. It was really cool to see the Church getting involved more in online public relations efforts. The Church's online newsroom is another great online tool for members of the media and others interested in news from the Church.

Is it possible to be too transparent?

2007-09-28T14:58:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the two-week lag in putting up new posts. I'm in the Boston airport right now waiting for a flight back to Detroit, so I figured now is as good a time as any to catching up the blog. I spent the day today hosting some bloggers at a GM-sponsored luncheon. We had a GM executive on hand to answer questions and then to take them over to the Chevy booth at the AltWheels Festival in Boston this weekend. It's always fun hosting bloggers, especially those who don't normally get invited to be a company's guest at events like this.

Anyway, hosting bloggers is another post for another time. What I want to write about today was inspired by part of the For Immediate Release podcast hosted by Shel Hotlz and Neville Hobson. Shel spent a few minutes discussing how we at GM (more particularly my boss, Christopher Barger) handled a sticky situation through the use of corporate blogs.

GM has recently been in some pretty tight-lipped negotiations with the United Auto Workers Union, and endured a two-day strike while details of the negotiations were hammered out. Due to the confidential and sensitive nature of the negotiations we are limited in what we can say about them, and rightly so.

Shel compliments (click here to hear the clip) Christopher on how he used GM's Fastlane blog to address readers' comments about the GM/UAW negotiations and strike. Simply put, all Christopher did was put up a little post (commenting was disabled) that told people we know they want more info on the matter, but that we are simply not allowed to comment (mainly because we really don't know much more beyond what's in the papers and on the blogs). You can access the post here.

This is one of those times when being completely transparent is actually the wrong thing to do. I'm an advocate of corporate transparency, but I am not naive enough to think that companies should put everything out there for the public to see. To do so is neither practical nor smart.

It's been an interesting week in corporate social media communications. I'm sure learning a ton!

"Pitching" Bloggers

2007-09-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

I have written more than once on this blog about the inherent problems I see with pitching stories to the media. While I agree that we need to inform the media when we have newsworthy information, I have a hard time buying into the notion of pitching stories that are nothing more than free ink for our ourganizations or clients. If it's newsworthy do I really have to pitch it?

In light of this, blogs give PR practitioners yet another medium to pitch company and product information. Neville Hobson, a blogger and co-host of For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report podcast, recently wrote an entry on his blog about what it takes to "pitch" bloggers. Hobson and his co-host on For Immediate Release often talk about how many pitches they get, so Hobson is well-qualified to speak on what works and what doesn't.

I found this post to be extremely educational for me and my efforts in working with bloggers. Here are some of my key take-aways from Hobson's post:

"Most [pitches] illustrate only that the sender has not actually read my blog . . . and so has no sense at all about the type of thing that interests me and which I write about."

Leave relevant and well thought comments on the blog you are thinking of pitching

Reply to comments from the author; basically, engage in a conversation

Only after you've done the above can you send a "pitch" over

While I am not involved in pitching bloggers on GM and our cars and trucks, I do, however, frequently invite bloggers to attend various GM media events. I now realize that I need to establish some sort of relationship with potential blogger invitees before I actually invite them to the event. This will take a little longer than usual, but will, in the long run, yield greater results.

What? PR Degrees Are Unnecessary?

2007-09-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

A recent forum discussion on MyRagan.com, brought my attention to a disturbing item from the Princeton Review. According to the public relations career profile on the Princeton's Review's Web site, "though some colleges offer a degree in public relations, most industry professionals agree it's unnecessary."

Wait, say that again? Well, I guess I better throw away that diploma I just received a few weeks ago. Yeah, whatever.

I completely disagree with Princeton Review on this one (is it a coincidence that the initials for Princeton Review are PR?). This "summary" of public relations shows that maybe they don't have all their facts straight. Another line further validates this point:

"Any major that teaches you how to read and write intelligently will lay a good foundation for a career in public relations."

It gets worse:

"Or, as one PR person put it 'if you can write a thesis on Dante, you should be able to write a press release.'"

Who is this "PR person" they're quoting anyway?

Anyway, this goes back to something I harp on constantly: PR is the art of building relationships. Yes, writing is an important part of this field, but it's not all that PR people do. It doesn't matter how well you can write if you can't articulate a good phone pitch, presentation or speech. There's so much more to PR than writing!

My PR degree taught me things I would never have learned in any other course of study, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I feel sorry for the students who read this "summary" and pursue a different major only to find find that all the PR jobs they apply for after graduation require a PR degree.

Perceptions

2007-08-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

I have had many discussions regarding perception and reality, but when it comes down to it, perception is reality. Regardless of what the facts are, if you can't overcome or change people's perception, then their perception is the reality you have to deal with.

A teacher once taught me that everyone's beliefs are tied to an experience that that individual has had along the way. How true that is! Think about it for a second. Why do you have certain opinions? I bet you can tie it back to some kind of experience you had that shaped that opinion or belief.

That's the issue that GM is facing right now. We are building safe, quality vehicles, but people don't believe that. Many people (including some members of my family) have had bad experiences with the quality of past GM vehicles and believe that the quality of GM vehicles is inferior to that of the foreign automakers. The fact is that GM has made leaps and bounds to improve quality to the point of meeting and surpassing many of the foreign cars. Despite this, however, people still perceive GM as having less than reliable vehicles and thus, this is the "reality" we now face. We need to work to create experiences for these consumers that will show (not just tell) them that we do have great quality cars and trucks.

As I constantly deal with helping to overcome people's incorrect perceptions, I have become aware that I sometimes may have incorrect perceptions as well. I have learned to not make blanket statements, but try to evaluate every issue, company and individual from an objective point of view. I can't change others' perceptions if I am guilty of holding on to unfounded perceptions myself.

Advertising and PR in Social Media

2007-08-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

There is a time and a place for everything.

This age-old adage has taken on new meaning for me as I continue to work in social media from a PR standpoint.

I have long been a proponent of keeping advertising and marketing out of social media. In fact, my feelings on this actually resulted in a blog post on PR Communications. John Cass, owner of PR Communications, developed an Aug. 2 post based off a previous comment I made in which I stated my belief that social media should only be a PR tool. After reading his response I started to rethink how marketing and advertising can use social media to further their business purposes. Again, however, there is a time and a place for everything.

I read an article in today's Wall Street Journal that helped me change my paradigm on advertising and marketing in social media. The focus of the article is how Facebook is preparing to implement an ad targeting campaign. As long as advertisers are open about advertising their products then I say more power to them, but when they get on Facebook or other social media avenues and pretend to engage in conversation to sell a product, I draw the line.

I should now restate my views on marketing and advertising in social media. They should be welcome to participate as long as they are open about what they are doing, but when it comes to communicating and building relationships, let us PR people take care of that.

My 5 Minutes and 10 Seconds of Fame

2007-08-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

Call me cynical, but I've never been a fan of graduations. I think it goes back to my high school graduation when some "important" person gave a speech in which he turned the word "graduation" into a 10-letter acronym. That's right, he had something to say about each letter in "graduation." It was very long, and I was very bored.

Anyway, I was adamant about not wanting to walk in my college graduation; much to the dismay of my wife and parents. The way I see it is you pay $40 bucks to rent a ~~dress~~ robe that you wear for two hours and sit through a painful reading of every graduates' name.

Ok, I know I sound extremely pessimistic, but rest assured that my attitude has changed. I decided to walk in graduation after receiving an invitation to speak on behalf of the PR department at convocation.

So, Friday morning at 8 a.m. I graduated with a B.A. in Public Relations from Brigham Young University. My speech went well and it was an honor to be asked to speak. I titled the speech "Relationships to Last a Lifetime: Embracing Your Inner PR." Lame title, I know, but I had submit the title of my speech before I'd even written it. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

All in all, graduation was a great experience for me and I'm glad I did it. I gave my five minute speech and had my five seconds of fame as I walked across the stage to get my diploma. I still, however, may need to be convinced to walk again in graduation when I get my MBA.

Here's some excerpts from the speech:

Public relations, or PR, has started to take on a negative connotation in today’s world. We often hear phrases like, “That’s some bad PR,” or “That company has a real PR problem.” Phrases like these and many others lead me to believe that public relations itself has, well, a PR problem.

In an attempt to understand public relations and how we can embrace that inner PR in all of us, we must first understand what public relations really is. To do so it may be helpful to outline what public relations is not. Public relations is not spin, free publicity, making your organization (or client) look good, nor is it lying. On a side note, just because these four items identify what public relations is not, this does not mean that there are not individuals out there doing these sorts of things. One would be hard-pressed to find a profession without its unethical practitioners.

Now that we understand what public relations is not, let us now identify what public relations really is, or at least should be. Laurie Wilson, seated on the stand today, defined public relations as “an organization’s efforts to establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships in order to communicate and cooperate with the publics upon whom long-term success depends” (Strategic Communications Planning for Effective Public Reations and Marketing, 3).

Notice the words “mutually beneficial relationships,” “communicate and cooperate,” and “long-term success.” There is no room for spin, lying or free publicity in this definition.

Given this definition of PR as being the art of relationship building, it’s not hard to imagine then, that there is a little in PR in all of us. Art, music and, yes, even molecular biology students, all have a little PR within themselves. Let’s delve a little deeper into the various relationships many of us have established.

Prior to graduation today, I have gained a great deal of experience in public relations. In fact, my most recent internship with General Motors has now turned into a full-time job. I highlight this not to be boastful, but to show how my professors have helped me gain the experience I need.

During my time at BYU I have been blessed to have some absolutely wonderful teachers to guide and inspire me to be the very best PR professional (and individual) I can be. The enthusiasm and passion of my first public relations teacher, Mark Carpenter, inspired me to forgo the legal field and to pursue a career in public relations. Or there is Brad Rawlins, who taught me that humility is what makes a good employee, not a sense of arrogant entitlement. I attribute all the PR experience I have to the influence and guidance of these great professors. Because of the relationship I have cultivated with these professors, I feel comfortable asking for professional advice even after I graduate.

PRSA to Explore Certification of Public Relations Professionals

2007-08-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

A recent story on the PRSA Web site revealed that PRSA is organizing a task force to explore the feasibility of certifying public relations professionals. The organization offers an accrediation program (APR) that PR professionals can strive for, but nothing like certification currently exists for the PR professional.

I am in support of certifying PR professionals. PR is becoming a field that many think doesn't take much knowledge to work in. I recently went through the job application process and found a number of administrative assistant jobs whose duties included PR. Public relations should not be part of a list of job duties, it's a job in and of itself.

PR certification will help to ensure that PR regains and maintains credibility as a profession.

Read the whole article here.

Immersion

2007-08-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

im·merse [i-murs]–verb (used with object), -mersed, -mers·ing.

to involve deeply; absorb

to embed; bury

Two of my fellow interns and I spent this past Tuesday and Wednesday completely immersed in car design at GM's Design Center in Warren, Mich. It was an exhausting, but enlightening two days.

Our assignment was to spend time with this year's GM Design Interns. GM has enlisted 18 young designers from 14 design schools to design a future Chevrolet car for the Gen-Y driver in 2012. We spent a few hours in their design studio talking with the student designers, sculptors (they all have to sculpt a clay model of their car), mechanical engineers and graphic designers, as well as getting familiar with each of their projects.

One of the more difficult parts of the assignment was writing the bios on each intern. We had to interview each of the interns to get a feel for their experiences at GM so far and what their future plans are. The interviewing was the easy part, the hard part was taking each interns' wealth of knowledge and experience and condensing it down into three or four paragraphs. This helped me learn how to communicate a powerful message in as few words as possible.

We also had to write a press release on each of the six cars being designed. This was difficult because not only did we have to describe each project in detail, but also try to highlight what each team was trying to convey with their car. I also learned how to coach some of the interns along as they tried to come up with a good quote for the release.

Creating three to four key messages for each project was interesting because we really had to take everything we learned about the projects and boil it down into just a few words. We learned that when creating messages it's important to use everyday language and not corporate speak.

Finally, we created a comprehensive communications plan surrounding the unveiling of these vehicles if they are to appear as concept cars at an auto show. Since the cars are targeted to Gen-Y we focused heavily on social media as one of our primary channels of communication. Some ideas we came up with were hosting a virtual auto show on Second Life, creating a Facebook application that would allow consumers to vote on their favorite car and creating a series of podcasts to highlight the design process from start to finish. We also came up with ideas to use traditional media and face-to-face communication on college campuses.

Having spent the last four months completely focused on social media, it was nice to enhance some of my other PR skills. Being immersed in a project like this was a tough, but very rewarding experience.

Bob Lutz Responds to Bloggers' Questions

2007-08-06T10:06:00.001-07:00

Making the transition from speaking "to" audiences to speaking "with" them

2007-08-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

This post was inspired by a post I just read over at Force for Good.

I realize that the focus of this blog has shifted from general public relations thoughts to more about the use of social media in public relations. I can't stress enough the value I see in the traditional public relations practices. I'm not going to sit here and tell the world that we need to stop the traditional PR methods and focus all our efforts on social media. In terms of media relations, social media serves to enhance our efforts with traditional media, not replace print or broadcast media.

Social media, however, goes beyond simply getting our messages out there, it actually engages the publics we are trying to build relationships with. As Jon Harmon writes:

"The role of the corporate communications professional is rapidly changing, responding to the sea changes all around us: the rise of consumer-generated social media, globalization, the incredible personalization of information technology, greater expectations on corporations for transparency and social responsibility, and increasingly inter-connected stakeholder groups including often-adversarial activists."

Harmon goes on to say:

"Corporations need their PR professionals to move beyond helping them communicate to stakeholders (the traditional role of corporate mouthpiece); they need guidance on how to engage in fluid conversations (that means listening as well as talking, respectfully understanding the new rules of engagement)."

I could not agree more. This is why public relations is so important. We need to show management how to communicate with their audiences, rather than to them. Our audiences have a voice and our anxious for us to hear it.

This is something my team at GM has really been focused on. For example, one of top executives, Bob Lutz, took some time last month to sit down in front of a camera and answer some of the questions bloggers have posted in the comments of GM's Fastlane Blog. This is a great example of using social media to speak with our publics. The video is posted in the post above.

Jon Harmon's post is excellent and I highly recommend reading it in its entierety here.

Video: RSS in Plain English

2007-08-02T07:51:00.001-07:00

I'll admit, RSS (really simple syndication) never was "really simple" for me to understand. I've started to understand more as I've used it, but this video does a great job explaining it. Take a look.

How to use social networks

2007-08-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

Man, I've been a blogging fool this week! I normally don't get this many posts in during one week.

Anyway, it's always nice to have someone validate thoughts you thought were just your own. I had this experience after reading a post on PR Communications. The author made a number of interesting points about how to best utilize social networks in building an effective social media community. While I agree with all his points, the following stood out most to me:

"No more marketing promotion - the biggest turn off in this type of community is a marketing shill. Trust comes from credibility and authenticity. Let your own people, and your developers criticize your efforts, if the criticism is correct, agree with them and move on, if wrong argue your case reasonably, remember everyone's goal is to produce the best software, if not all you are trying to do is sell something."

I recently had a similar experience creating some dialogue for GM on Facebook. Most of those who participated in the discussion were passionate, but respectful. When they criticized the company I would readily admit where we were wrong or correct anything erroneous. It turned out to be a very positive experience and a great conversation.

It's for this reason that I believe that social media should be a PR function only. Marketing, in my opinion, has no place in social networks. We build the relationships, then marketing can take it from there.

Update to yesterday's Facebook/Media Relations Post

2007-07-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Check out an interesting follow-up to the post on Facebook and media relations that I linked to yesterday.

Here's the the follow-up.

Facebook and Media Relations

2007-07-30T08:03:00.001-07:00

Whoa, two posts in one day! Crazy.

I just saw a great post on Strategic Public Relations on using Facebook in your media relations efforts. I echo the following from the post:

Don't sign in and start pitching. You can't anyway. But as you learn Facebook, you'll learn more about your editorial contacts (and their work) than the basic information provided by media databases.

Check out what the author has to say. It's quite interesting. Here's a video from the post.

Your own social network?

2007-07-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

The interesting thing about the rise of social media is the ever-changing nature of this beast. I'm constantly amazed at all the new channels that are popping up in social media. Granted, not all social media will become the next YouTube or MySpace, but organizations truly wanting to get into social media need to be aware of all that's out there and objectively evaluate whether the various forms of social media will enhance the organization's PR efforts.

The newest thing to come in social media now is creating your own social networks. One of my supervisors here at GM, recently pointed me to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about a site created by Netscape founder, Marc Andreessen. The site, Ning, allows users to actually create their own social networks around a variety of topics. It's an easy-to-use site, with numerous cool features that allow anyone to create a social network surrounding their personal interest. In less than 15 minutes I created my own social network for young PR professionals (similar to this blog) at http://youngprprofessionals.ning.com/.

Your own social network, what's next for social media?

From the WSJ article:

It's unclear whether [Andreesen's] third effort, social-networking site Ning, will succeed. But while entering an established business is a new approach for Mr. Andreessen, there's a chance he'll once again radically change the game.

Think about it this way. Hardly anyone heard of the World Wide Web when Mr. Andreessen developed his browser. And many wondered what he was doing when he co-founded Opsware's predecessor, Loudcloud, in 1999. Automating tasks for servers in data centers seemed a tech backwater. But again, he was ahead of his time. Advances in server technologies have created a lot of work for Opsware, which explains H-P's interest.

...social networking may be particularly prone to revolutions. After all, the first commonly used service was probably sixdegrees.com, started in 1996. Friendster, which led the fray after its 2002 launch, was rapidly eclipsed. Mr. Andreessen's record suggests it would be foolhardy to dismiss his view that the next big social networking trend will be decentralization. If he's right, it would mean hot sites such as MySpace and Facebook may suffer the same fate as their now-forgotten forebears.

Move Over MySpace, Here Comes Facebook!

2007-07-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

There's been a great deal of discussion at work lately concerning the viability of MySpace now. I have long said that MySpace is losing (or has already lost) credibility among the younger crowd. We like Facebook. MySpace has unfortunately been infiltrated with spam and other unsavory marketing practices.

While it's inevitable that social networks will be used as another channel to communicate, they should not be used as channels to sell stuff. What I've learned is that you cannot market to social media users. I truly believe (and perhaps I'm biased) that, aside from banner advertising, the only corporate work going on in social networks should be communications/public relations work. Anything else just doesn't work and only serves to alienate those you most want to reach.

Ok, those are my personal feelings, but to help back up what I'm saying, take a look at a recent study that highlights the immense growth of Facebook in terms of membership numbers. According to the study (conducted by comScore), Facebook experienced a growth rate of 89 percent from May 2006 to May 2007!

I have long maintained that my age group (18-30) really doesn't use MySpace as much as Facebook, if at all. I remember walking into my college computer labs and seeing numerous people on Facebook, but MySpace was MUCH less prevalent. MySpace has simply become too commercial. Hopefully Facebook won't allow itself to fall into the same trap.

Blink

2007-07-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

Due to a combination of GM's annual summer shutdown period, being sick and a severe case of writer's block, the blog has been relegated to that infamous back burner. Without further ado, here's the latest post.

I recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's (author of , The Tipping Point) book, Blink. This was quite an interesting read with a number of important points for all PR practitioners.

According to http://www.gladwell.com/, Blink is "a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye." Gladwell seeks to examine what happens in the first two seconds we encounter someone or something.

In my college PR classes at BYU, we were constantly reminded of the importance of doing extensive research before embarking on any kind of PR campaign. We were counseled to not simply go with our gut instincts, but to really weigh all the facts before moving forward. Blink refutes this notion.

To illustrate, let me relate one of the stories in the book. In the early 1980s the Coca-Cola Company began to see its market share slipping away as Pepsi started gaining ground. To further boost its sales, Pepsi began the Pepsi Challenge: a taste test in which cola drinkers were asked to pick their favorite cola after sampling two unmarked cups of Coke and Pepsi. Much to the dismay of Coca-Cola, the majority of people taking the challenge preferred Pepsi over Coke. A number of research projects led Coke researchers to conclude that Coca-Cola's taste was much harsher than the smooth taste of Pepsi. Long story short: Coca-Cola replaced its classic formula with the now infamous New Coke. The rest is history (sorry for the cliche').

Despite all the research that said Coca-Cola needed to revamp its taste (New Coke repeatedly beat Pepsi in numerous taste tests), consumers still wanted the old Coke. To this day, Pepsi still beats out Coke in taste tests, yet Coke remains the dominant soft drink throughout the world.

Sometimes research can lead us in the wrong direction. Am I saying that we should never do research and always "go with our gut"? Of course not. Research is beneficial, but despite what die-hard researchers may say, I have to believe that we sometimes "just know" whether or not something will work. We may not be able to explain the why, but that feeling is there all the same. Blink helps us recognize the importance of rapid cognition.

I highly recommend this book to all PR practitioners.

Who are the media?

2007-06-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

I just looked up the definition of media from Dictionary.com, and found the following:

"me·di·a: (usually used with a plural verb) the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely"

This definition, however, is a bit shortsighted considering the world we live in today. Media are no longer just radio, TV, newspapers and magazines (though they are still all very strong media). We need to expand the definition of "media" to include bloggers, podcasters and, to a certain extent, users of social networks (i.e. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). These are what constitute social media.

Last week at work we held a pilot session for what we hope will become on ongoing series of classes on the basics of social media for GM employees. Christopher Barger, director of global communications and technology at GM, was quick to point out that our team (the social media team) is not out to try to tell people that social media is good or bad; people just need to understand that social media is here and we can choose to embrace or reject it.

Professional PR and communications practitioners need to avoid a common mindset that social media people are not really the media. If we only ever think of print, TV and radio as the only media out there then we are doing our organization and our publics a big disservice. When we invite traditional media out to cover events, we should be inviting bloggers and podcasters as well.

Social media is here. We as PR practitioners can either accept it or not, but it's here to stay.

A Tour of The Detroit News

2007-06-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

As part of an internship activity yesterday I had the opportunity to take a tour of The Detroit News newsroom. Our host, Mark Truby, business editor at the paper, was more than accomodating when it came to answering our questions and showing us around. Upon entering the actual newsroom we were greeted by piles of different newspapers, stacks of various books, a large collection of Pez dispensers and an even larger collection of bobble head dolls.

One of the interns in our group asked Mark what he thought the future of the newspaper business looked like. Mark replied that while the paper's circulation had decreased (as I'm sure is the case with the majority of the papers around the country), readership had actually increased due to more people reading online. Mark also made a point of saying that news still has value today, and that mass media makes money from the masses. They want to print the news that will sell papers and capture those "impulse buyers" who may buy a paper simply from what they see "above the fold." This has some serious implications to PR practitioners who often engage in "pitching" news to the newspapers. It's important that we not only pitch news, but pitch news that will sell papers. This is a self-interest of journalists that I have never thought of before.

We also had the opportunity to speak with another editor and to get her opinion on what are the best and worst ways for PR people to work with print media. She told us that the most helpful PR people are those who understand what journalists do and allow themselves or their client to be accessible to the media as much as possible. She recommended that we do all we can to help the journalist get the story he/she wants.

One thing she told us to beware of is something I've heard before: stop blanketing journalists with news releases. I've always been taught that doing this is a bad PR practice, but she put a new spin on it for me. By inundating journalists with news releases some of the really important, newsworthy information may be lost in the mix. She also recommended shortening releases and maybe even just bulleting the information out so they can read through it quickly. It seems the news release is becoming an increasingly irrelevant part of the PR industry.

It was a great experience to visit The Detroit News and see more of the behind-the-scenes work that goes on in a newsroom. Now I want to visit a broadcast news studio! I recommend that all budding public relations professionals take some time to tour their local newsroom and visit with the journalists.

Interacting With Bloggers

2007-06-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

This blog seems to be morphing into more of a commentary on social media, but, hey, that's what I'm immersed in now, and it is a vital part of public relations.

This past Thursday I had the opportunity to participate in a news conference for Challenge X, an event co-sponsored by GM. Given that Challenge X is a contest for college teams to create more fuel-efficient and decreased emissions engines for the Chevy Equinox, the Social Media Team here at GM decided to invite a group of "green" bloggers to attend the event and news conference. Our guest bloggers included Sam Abuelsamid from AutoBlogGreen, Phillip Proefrock from GreenOptions/EcoGeek, Matt Mayer from Groovy Green . Lyle Dennis from Chevy-Volt Forum, Matt Kelly from NextGear and Todd Kaho from Green Car Journal.

It was interesting to note the differences between interaction with social media and the traditional media. GM brought the bloggers out to Michigan to participate in the events at Challenge X and to attend the news conference where this year's winners were announced. Following the news conference and driving activity the bloggers had the opportunity to sit down with Micky Bly, director of GM Hybrid Intergration, and ask him questions about GM's efforts in alternative propulsion. Later that evening the bloggers joined us for dinner with an engineer and scientist from GM, and were able to ask more questions about energy diversity, the Chevy Volt concept and other topics.

One thing I noticed about the bloggers was how passionate they were about the subjects they write on. The entire conversation at dinner was focused on cars and cars only. There was no small talk! The bloggers all seemed to be very down-to-earth and grateful to be included in this event. More than one of the bloggers told me how honored he was to be there and how exciting it was to see what GM is doing.

Bloggers quite often have day jobs and blogging is just something they do on the side. I was impressed to learn that one of the bloggers, Lyle Dennis, is a neurologist in New York and does his blogging in-between patient visits.

The reason I want to include this in the blog is to show how companies should interact with bloggers. Bloggers are a critical "public," if you will, for all PR practitioners. We can't afford to ignore bloggers and their immense influence on our other publics. This experience showed me how to host bloggers at a media event as well as how important of a voice they have.

Social Media Blunders

2007-06-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

My boss sent me an interesting article today that highlights a few companies who have made some big errors in trying to engage in social media. The article, titled "What Kills a Social Media Campaign," goes through a number of blunders various companies have had in working with social media.

Being an intern in New Media Communications at General Motors, I have learned so much about how to correctly engage in social media activities. An interesting thing I've learned here is the importance of being completely transparent about who you represent in the social media sphere. For example, any time I start or participate in dialogue on social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, I have to identify myself as a GM employee.

Another thing I've learned is the importance of being sincere. Anything less than complete sincerity sounds like a cheap marketing or public relations stunt. Social media users do not want to be marketed to and willl not put up with it. Each time I engage in dialogue on social networking sites I try to solicit input and advice from the users, while still identifying myself as a GM employee.

While the use of social media can greatly benefit an organization, misuse of it can greatly harm it as well.

Blogs = Dialogue

2007-05-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

In my work in New Media Communications at GM I frequently read and comment on various blog posts. I've learned a great deal about blogging and how it can best be used. One of the biggest lessons I've learned in regards to blogging is that blogging is a unique type of media in that it allows for organizations to create meaningful dialogue. I suppose I always thought of blogging as another way for an organization to "get it's message out there," but this assumption runs counter to what public relations should be all about: generating two-way communication between an audience and its publics.

Blogging differs from traditional media, such as newspapers and broadcast news, in that it provides a forum for an organization to not only tell it's news, but to get feedback from its publics as well. Blogs allow organizations to understand what their publics (including customers) are thinking and what they want; a luxury not easily available with traditional media. By way of measurement, perhaps organizations can assess their relationship with publics by measuring not just the number of blog posts about the organization, but what comments people are making in response to these posts.

Blogs are, and will continue to be, an extremely imporant media that public relations practitioners cannot afford to ignore, but if abused they can greatly hinder an organization's PR efforts.

Trust

2007-05-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

I have recently been reading Trust or Consequences by Al Golin (2004). The basic thrust of the book so far has been the need for organizations to build trust with their stakeholders or face negative consequences for not doing so. One concept Golin introduces in this book is a "trust bank." Golin developed this term (trust bank) to "describe how deposits of goodwill can serve a company well when it faces a crisis or other negative news" (Golin, 2). The book then outlines various reasons why organizations need to establish a trust bank and how to do it.

It is important to note that "trust directly impacts an organization's success and profits" (Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies and Practices. Center, Allen & Jackson, Patrick. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2003).

While I agree completely with the above statements, I have to wonder if actively working to establish a trust bank for the purpose of increased profits and success is ethical. Perhaps I'm too altruistic or naive, but I believe an organization should want to build trust simply for the sake of building trust. Having ulterior motives in building trust is, in my opinion, not trustworthy (for lack of a better term). Imagine how a group of stakeholders might react if they found out their organization has embarked on an active trust-building campaign (as Golin suggests doing in this book) simply to increase revenue. I don't imagine it would go over too well.

I believe organizations should work to maintain and increase the trust of its stakeholders, but only for altruistic purposes. Organizations should be a good corporate citizen simply because that is the right thing to do. That, in my opinion, is the best way to build trust.

The World of Corporate Communications

2007-05-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

This past Monday I embarked upon the biggest career move of my life so far: an internship at General Motors Corp. I have been assigned to work on the Social Media team for GM at the headquarters here in Detroit. It has been an absolutely overwhelming, yet amazing experience so far. I'm definitely a very small fish in a very large pond.

I have been most impressed with the kindness that has been exhibited to me by everyone here. They truly know how to make a brand new intern feel welcome and comfortable. I feel like they are giving me the red carpet treatment. I have no problem asking some of the higher-ranking leaders here for advice and counsel. They have all been very supportive.

I have also been impressed with the immensity of GM's communications department. We had a meeting yesterday for all the North American communications people. There were more than 200 people there! GM has segmented its communications approaches to a number of different areas: labor relations, parts and supply chain communications, plant communications, corporate communications, social media, media relations, etc. GM is truly a company that knows how to communicate with its numerous and varied publics.

On a side note, I just have to write about what we did yesterday. After the meeting we all drove up to the Milford Proving Grounds, an enormous site where GM does all of its vehicle testing. The purpose of our visit? To drive alot of the new 2007 vehicles. I drove so many cars yesterday. I drove the new GMC Sierra truck, a Hummer H3 and H2, a Saab 9.5, a Cadillac Escalade, GMC Acadia (very nice), Saturn Aura Hybrid (which won the North American Car of the Year Award for 2007) and the Pontiac G6 convertible. The highlight, however, was driving a 2007 Chevy Corvette Z06 and an '07 Cadillac XLR. The pickup on those cars is exhilarating. I got both of them up to 90 mph in just a matter of seconds. I also had the chance to drive a Hummer on a course designed to highlight all that a Hummer is capable of. It was amazing.

I think I'm going to enjoy my time here at GM. :)

What is public relations?

2007-04-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend my wife and I went to dinner with some friends. During the course of our conversation one of my friends remarked to me that she doesn't really know what PR is. Her idea of PR is, in her opinion, simply "getting your nameout there." I was quick to jump on that and explain to her that that is not what PR is. I'm slowly begin to learn that PR has, er, a PR problem. Most people either have no idea what PR is or have some serious misconceptions about it. Here's my personal list of what PR is not, or at least should not, be.

Public relations is not:

- Strictly media relations (although media relations is an important part of PR)
- Spin (although, unfortunately, some practitioners continue to do this)
- Simply making your client or organization look good
- Getting your name out there

Public relations should be concerned with building and managing reputations with a client's or organization's various publics (audiences or stakeholders). To do this, PR practitioners may need to use the media. PR practitioners only hurt themselves with they use "spin" to make their client/organization look good or to achieve more name recognition. An important part of public relations is helping your client/organization practice transparency.

I truly believe that part of my role as a "budding public relations professional" is to help spread the knowledge of what PR does and clear up the litany of misconceptions surrounding the practice. We all need to help PR clean up it's PR problem.

Wikipedia as a news source?

2007-04-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

It seems Wikipedia has started to become more than just an online encyclopedia. According to an article in The New York Times today, Wikipedia "served as an essential news source for hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet trying to understand the shootings at Virginia Tech University."

Check out the entire article here.

Social Media and Crisis Communications

2007-04-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

It is so interesting to see the rise of social media. It is no longer simply a means of entertainment for teens and college students, it is now a vital communications tool. I check my Facebook account as often as I check my e-mail (multiple times each day). In a post on the "Force for Good" blog, Jon Harmon highlights the use of Facebook in regards to Monday's terrible massacre at Virginia Tech. Check out what he has to say.

Ethics

2007-04-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

I just read "Can PR Salvage the Imus Brand? Should It?" by Jim Sinkinson at the Bulldog Reporter.

Sinkinson states three PR questions that need to be addressed in regards to defending a client's reputation when he/she messes up:

1. "What happens to your clients' reputation when they say stupid things in public?"
2. "Can you salvage their reputation even after they say stupid things?"
3. "Should PR help criminals, racists, sexists and other miscreants salvage their reputations?"

I would like to focus on the last of these three questions.

In a recent assignment for an ethics class we were asked to interview a professional in our field. We were asked to find out what types of ethical issues they face and how they deal with them. I interviewed Chris Thomas, owner and officer at The Intrepid Group (a Salt Lake City-based PR agency). On a side note, Chris was also the spokesperson for the Elizabeth Smart family during her abduction in 2002-2003.

He talked to me about potential clients sometimes coming to him asking him for help cleaning up a mess they'd gotten themselves into. Chris said he only takes on these types of clients if they were willing to admit their wrongs and are willing to make restitution for them. If they want him to be deceitful and make them look better than they really are, he will refuse their business.

No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. One thing we can do as PR professionals is help to right wrongs as much as possible. We can facilitate the healing of those who have been injured. I believe we do have a moral responsibility to help those "repentant" individuals who have messed up. This said, however, surely there are some situations that would warrant not helping out on a PR front. Check out the Sinkinson's article for a more articulate discussion on this topic.

Entitlement and Internships

2007-04-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

My class recently had an interesting discussion on the feeling of entitlement some students/new grads may have as they embark on internships and entry-level jobs. This really got me thinking about my attitudes in the internships I've done. I realize that I have truly had this attitude of entitlement. It has been a struggle learning that I am really just an intern. I have so much more to learn. I think I've been really well-trained in the management side of things, but I need to learn to crawl before I learn to walk.

That said, however, sometimes interns are often relegated to the position of office gopher; doing whatever is asked of them:making copies, making coffee, doing projects no one else wants to, etc. A recent article in the April 2007 PRSSA Tactics highlights some of the challenges facing current PR interns. The article was written by Kathleen S. Kelly, Ph.D., APR, Fellow PRSA. Try as I might, I was unable to find an online version. Here are some highlights.

Dr. Kelly quotes a recent study (conducted by the Commission of Public Relations Education) which found that "many educators believe that the tasks performed by students during their internships do not provide adequate learning opportunities." While I completely understand that interns should not be doing high-level PR work, I think they should at least be exposed to it. My idea of an great internship is where the intern gets to do some of every aspect of PR in that organization (under close supervision, of course).

Dr. Kelly also discusses the issue of whether or not PR interns should be paid. Here's a couple of quotes from her article:

- "...only 36 percent of internships provide salary or stipends for student work."
- "Failure to compensate students for work is particularly troubling in the case of for-credit internships since students must pay tuition for all credit-hour work in colleges and universities"
- "'Unpaid internships are not jobs, only simulations. And fake jobs are not the best preparation for real jobs'" (quoting a New York Times op-ed piece by columnist Anya Kamenetz).

AntiAstroturfing

2007-04-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

I learned about Astroturfing through the NewPR Wiki and was appalled at what I learned about this practice. Dictionary.com defines Astroturf as "a trademark used for an artificial grasslike ground covering." Note the use of the word artificial here.

So what does Astroturf have to do with PR? The practice of "Astroturfing" is another example of unethical (or irresponsible) individuals giving public relations a bad name. Basically, Astroturfing is creating fake grassroots political organizations in order to generate support for candidates or issues. Grassroots organizations are to hard to organize, but can be extremely effective. Astroturfing "professionals" recognize this and thus, have started creating fake grassroots organizations. For an extended explanation see this post at Blog Campaigning.

Many believe PR is behind all of this, and for good reason. As reported on Blog Campaigning, the DCI Group, a Washington-based PR firm created a video slamming Al Gore's recent environmental documentary. The firm, however, wanted people to believe that a college student had created the video and put it on YouTube. The kicker? One of the firm's clients is Exxon, a company that does not want more environmental regulation. Hasn't Exxon had enough problems with PR?

The squeaky wheel gets the grease...

2007-03-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

Want to see what bad PR people are doing to the PR industry? Check this out:

The Bad Pitch Blog: The Center for Media & Democracy Puts the Spin on Spin

Insights

2007-03-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

I'm really trying to get more into the world of Web 2.0. I am slowly beginning to understand how this whole blogging thing really works. A former colleague of mine recommended I check out "nerd-in-residence," a blog on public relations and the impact of social media. The author, Dave Donohue has some really good insights on how public relations can work with social media. You can check out his blog here.

Expert advice

2007-03-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

During last year's PRSSA National Conference I had the opportunity to join several of my fellow PRSSA members in going to dinner with Richard Edelman, president and CEO at Edelman, the world's only independent global PR firm.

I was impressed with his breadth of knowledge and insight into PR, but more especially his understanding of the new communications tools (i.e. blogs, social media, etc.). He asked us alot of questions and gave us some great advice. Because of my interaction with him I started reading his blog. It is really informative and I highly recommend it to any PR professional. I realize, of course, that Edelman has had some recent ethical problems, but I do not believe, however, that these few incidents automatically indicate Edelman is an unethical company.

Anyway, check out Richard Edelman's blog. The blog is titled 6 a.m.

How I really feel about public relations

2007-03-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading through some of my past postings and I realized that I sound like I have a negative view of public relations. Let me clearly state that I absolutely love public relations! It's a field I kind of stumbled on to, but I'm glad I did. I really am passionate about PR and hope to spend the rest of my professional career in this exciting field.

That said, there are some current trends in PR that are frightening to me. I really hope the entire profession does not morph into media relations alone. If an organization fails to build relationships with all of its publics and concentrates solely on media relations, public relations, I fear will slowly fade into the background. There is so much more to PR than just media relations: employee communications, crisis communications, advising management, etc. Let's learn to think outside of the press release and work to become strategic communicators for our clients or organizations.

PR Measurement

2007-03-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Check out this great white paper on aligning communications efforts with business objectives:

http://www.factiva.com/campaigns/marketing/segment/F-2965scottwpRev2.pdf

Let's talk about evaluation

2007-03-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

“How to Measure PR’s Contribution to Corporate Objectives,” Presented by Donna Coletti, Texas Instruments

How do you determine the best measurement techniques for your specific campaign or objectives?

Coletti gives a few tips for how to determine which measurement technique is best. The first of these is matching the proposed measurement technique to the available resources (i.e., how much money you have to spend, how many people you can devote, etc.). This step, I believe, needs to be done before implementation of strategies and tactics. Evaluation should be figured into the budget, or else you might find yourself without the needed money to adequately conduct evaluation.

Second, measurement and evaluation does not necessarily have to be expensive. For example, small surveys or quantitative tracking of messages can be done for little or no money and with limited staff.

Finally, when trying to determine the best measurement techniques, you need to find something that will be important to management. You can have amazing success in evaluation, but if your evaluation doesn’t highlight something important to management, then your efforts are lost. The quote Coletti gives in this presentation sums this all up: “Providing Value Add to management will help build a case for a measurement and evaluation budget.”

“Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE),” Jeffries-Fox, Bruce. Institute for Public Relations, 2003

Is Advertising Value Equivalency really a viable way to measure media relations efforts?

Simply stated, Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) is a measurement effort to compare the effect of media relations efforts to the dollars spent on traditional advertising. This is done by “measuring the column inches (in the case of print), or seconds (in the case of broadcast media) and multiplying these figures by the respective medium’s advertising rates (per inch or per second). The resulting number is what it would have cost to place an advertisement of that size in the medium” (2).

I tend to view AVEs as being an unreliable way to measure media relations efforts. It just seems too quantifiable for me liking. My personal views aside, the author of this paper does cite some substantial problems in regards to AVEs.

First, there is no factual basis for assuming that a particular news story has the same (or greater) effect on an audience than an advertisement would. Like advertising, we cannot guarantee that people will see a media placement, much less act the way we desire them to simply because of the placement.

A second problem is that AVEs “only value what actually appears in the media” (3). As the author points out, there are many times when an organization would not want publicity. In cases such as these, AVEs do not provide an accurate measurement.

Third, an advertiser can run the same ad a number of times to persuade its audiences. News doesn’t work this way. The same story is not repeated verbatim. It may be told again with a slightly different take, but it is still different. Therefore, AVEs cannot be used here to effectively measure the effect of media hits.

There are other problems with AVEs, but these I’ve listed are enough for me to do some serious thinking before I employ AVEs in my measurement techniques.

Is creativity an intrinsic characteristic?

2007-03-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

Something intrinsic is something "belonging to a thing by its very nature" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intrinsic). With this in mind, I have never considered myself a creative person. One only need look at my grade school art projects to appreciate the validity of this statement! However, after reading the text's small blurb on creativity I have come to believe that creativity is not an intrinsic characteristic, rather, it something everyone can gain and enhance.

The text defines creativity as "the process of looking outside ourselves and our routine to discover new ideas and innovative solutions" (W&O, 139). The commonly used cliché, "think outside the box" may need to be reworked for public relations practitioners. Perhaps we need to learn to "think outside the press release." This is not to say that we should never think within the box (press release), but creativity pushes us to go beyond the bounds of our self-imposed comfort zone. As the text states, "creativity often means borrowing and adapting ideas" (W&O, 141). Being creative does not mean we have to come up with brand new ideas all the time. We would live in a very primitive world if no one ever built on the ideas of others.

Finally, "fear is probably the single greatest barrier to creative behavior" (W&O, 144). I often hesitate to voice my ideas and opinions for fear of rejection or ridicule. Doing so greatly stifles my creative capabilities. We are not born with or without creativity, but our fears can certainly limit it.

What I've learned about media relations

2007-03-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

I hate media relations. I think it is used too much in current public relations practices. That being said, however, I do agree that media relations is an important part of public relations. What follows are some tips on working with the media that I've picked up along the way. Whether they are valid or not is open to interpretation!

1. Be a blessing, not a burden, to your media contacts. Understand and respect their needs and deadlines.

2. Pitch news, not free advertising. I once had the opportunity to talk with a reporter from The New York Times about her views on working with PR people. She told me that The New York Times gets thousands of press releases each day (about three e-mails per minute), but most are just trying to get publicity for their client. Reporters’ jobs are to report the news, not your client.

3. "Provide quality media contacts" (W&O, 159). Make sure you use the writing style of the particular media outlet and that there are no errors in what you submit to them. Make sure the people they interview from your organization are knowledgeable, personable and well prepared.

4. "If it can be handled in a news release, use a news release" (W&O, 159).

5. Proofread all e-mails sent from you to media contacts. I learned this the hard way when I failed to proofread an e-mail I sent to Walt Mossberg, a prominent Wall Street Journal reporter. Because of this, he misinterpreted my meaning and sent me a scathing e-mail. Needless to say, he wasn't interested in the pitch after that.

Of publics, messages and objectives...

2007-02-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

Is it better to set objectives before choosing publics or to choose publics before setting objectives?

This is a difficult question to answer. I can see how both ways could be beneficial, but I agree with the authors of the text; they feel it is best to set our objectives first and then chose our key publics.

If we are using the 10-Step Strategic Communications Planning Matrix, during the Background portion of our Research section we will identify and profile all potential publics that may be affected by the current problem or opportunity. First, we must sit down and identify all of the potential publics. Notice that right now we are referring to them as "potential" publics. Later on we will identify our "key" publics. This should be done in a brainstorming session "to ensure that no potential publics are left behind and everyone has a chance to participate" (Wilson & Ogden, 68). Even though this list is comprehensive, we still have work to do. Once we have our list of potential publics we then must create in-depth profiles for each public. These profiles should contain demographic and psychographic information. We must also state the organization's current relationship with the public, the public’s influentials and the public's self-interests. Remember, these are only our potential publics. We have not yet decided if these are the publics we are going to focus our public relations strategies and tactics on.

Now we are ready to set our objectives. If we try to choose key publics before we set objectives we run the risk of having public-specific objectives. Some may argue that this is exactly what we want. However, we must "recognize that any given communications effort may need to encompass publics other than those identified as organizationally key" (W&O, 112). Our objectives need to be flexible enough to be able to apply to more than one public. Furthermore, by choosing key publics before setting objectives we are focused on who we want to reach rather than what we want to accomplish.

What's the point of meticulously of taking time to research and segment our publics if we only use mass media to reach them?

This idea has become somewhat of a hot button with me. Research is not easy. It takes time; it takes work; it takes money. Furthermore, it takes considerable time and effort to select and segment our key publics and respective messages. When we do all this, yet choose to simply "shotgun" the message through the mass media, all of our previous efforts have been in vain. It doesn't matter how good your research is, how well defined the core problem is or how amazing your publics are if they never hear the message. Wilson and Ogden have stated, “We would do well to remember that just because a medium is designated mass does not mean that the publics consuming the information are mass (W&O, 114).

I believe there is a perception both within PR and without that if your organization is mentioned on the local news station or featured in the paper that everyone will see it want to change their behavior. How false this idea is! We must remember that people "choose to perceive a message only when we design it specifically to appeal to them" (W&O, 114). I am not saying that we never use mass media to reach our publics, we just need to make sure we use mass media outlets to appeal to the self-interests of our publics.

It's this kind of stuff that give PR a bad name!

2007-02-28T07:20:00.000-08:00

Want to see an example of how NOT to pitch the media? Check this out:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/worst-pr-pitch-ever

Stakeholders and Planning

2007-02-26T09:21:00.000-08:00

This entry is a combination of discussion questions from Strategic Communications Planning and "Priortizing Stakeholders for Public Relations," Brad L. Rawlins, March 2006.

Can the terms stakeholder and public be used interchangeably?

According to Rawlins (2004), the answer to this question is simply no. Rawlins states that often the terms are used interchangeably, "but they shouldn't be." I originally had a hard time understanding the difference between the two. It seems that I have always been taught, or at least been under the assumption, that stakeholders are publics and publics are stakeholders.

Rawlins points out that stakeholders are identified by "their relationships to organizations," but publics are identified based on "their relationship to messages." But aren't stakeholders always recipients of an organization’s messages? Don't all publics have some sort of relationship with the organization? If they don't have a relationship why are they publics?

We must remember what Freeman's (1984) definition of a stakeholder is. In the broadest sense of the term, Freeman defines a stakeholder as "any group or individual who is affected by or can affect the achievement of an organization's objectives." In the narrower definition, however, Freeman states that a stakeholder is "any identifiable group on which the organization is dependent for its continued survival (see Free, R.E. 1984. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Pitman Publishing).

On the other hand, Wilson and Ogden (2004) define publics as "segmented groups of people whose support and cooperation are essential to the long-term survival of an organization or the short-term accomplishment of its objectives" (Wilson, L.J. & Ogden, J.D. 2004. Strategic Communications Planning for Effective Public Relations and Marketing. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing)

From what I have read it seems that sometimes the two terms can be used interchangeably, but it's not always this way. I believe a public is always a stakeholder, but a stakeholder is not always a public.

Why are employees "critical to the effectiveness and efficiency of [an] organization?"

Employees will generally be grouped into the functional linkage of Grunig and Hunt's model. Functional linkages "are those that are essential to the function of the organization" (Rawlins, 4). Without employees it is impossible to operate a business. Center and Jackson (2003) wrote, "The first public of any organization is its employees -- the people who make it what it is" (Center, A.H. & Jackson, P. Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies and Problems. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall).

I truly believe that an organization can only be as successful as its employees are happy/satisfied with their jobs. Take Google for example. In January 2007, Fortune Magazine named Google as the No. 1 company to work for in America. I don't think it is a coincidence that Google is doing so well and its employees are so happy. I remember an internship I did last summer. Many of the employees were not happy working for this company and the company suffered as a result. Consequently, the company's second-in-charge left the company and two of us followed thereafter. If a company's employees are not happy, the business suffers.

Employees are also the ambassadors of an organization. If they have a good relationship with their employer they are more apt to promote the organization to their friends and associates. Conversely, if they are unhappy at work it seems that they will tell everyone possible about how bad the company is.

What are the benefits of planning before implementing?

The beginning of this chapter gives an interesting quote from an anonymous source: "If you fail to plan, plan to fail." How true this statement is! Planning is so critical to implementing an effective campaign. Some may say we can't afford to spend time planning, we must start implementing. I say we can't afford not to plan. Planning ensures that we will only employ the most effective of techniques to achieve our goals and objectives. Like Wilson and Ogden have stated, "unless we know where we are going and have some idea of an appropriate course to get there, our arrival at the destination will be left to chance" (96).

Our planning is must be based on intense, good research. If it is will we greatly increase the chances of achieving success in our goals and objectives. I'm sure that no executive ever plans to fail, but we he/she may not realize is that by failing to plan effectively they are doing just that.

Looking to create a blog? Check this out!

2007-02-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

This guy really gives some great advice how to create a blog and make it worthwhile. Check out his block at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_120_day_won.html

Good Resource

2007-02-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

I was just informed about a really interesting site for public relations people. The site, Public Relations Chat,provides a great forum to ask and get answers to a variety of public relations questions. Check it out!

An Opening Discussion on the Practice of Public Relations

2007-02-20T21:25:00.000-08:00

Why are we just now realizing that trust among publics “is the single most important factor in organizational survival”?

The authors point out that it has taken crises such as 9/11 and the Enron scandal to teach us that trust is so important. They define trust as being “an emotional judgment of a person’s credibility and performance on issues of importance” (2). Don’t we always talk about being able to trust each other? How did this get lost in the relationship between the corporate world and its publics?

It seems that we put a lot of trust in various organizations. We trust that the organizations that employ us will pay us for the work we do. We trust that when we deposit our paycheck in the bank we will be able to have access to that money. We trust that when we purchase a product we will truly get what we paid for. My argument is that we no longer view these various transactions as matters of trust, but rather, take them for granted. We just assume that everything is going to work out the way it is supposed to work out.

Maybe this is more of a good thing than a bad thing. If we don’t have to constantly worry about trust, then, hypothetically, everything is working as it should. In an ideal world we would not have to worry about the trustworthiness of others. This, unfortunately, is an unrealistic scenario. No matter where we go there is going to be someone or some organization that is less than trustworthy. Our job as communicators is to facilitate trust between the organization and the publics. As discussed in class, we may want to turn to the strategy of giving our publics the tools they need to have in order to trust and build a relationship with our organization.

How is the text’s definition of public relations different from that of what the majority of people believe public relations to be?

The textbook defines public relations as “an organization’s efforts to establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships in order to communicate and cooperate with the publics upon whom long-term success depends” (3). This definition, however, seems to differ greatly from what many, including current public relations “professionals” view public relations to be.

When I first started studying public relations I thought it was the practice of making your organization look good. Sadly, it seems that many others also view public relations in this way, hence the reason that many public relations practitioners have been termed “spin doctors.” Celebrity publicists have hurt the industry with their defense of celebrities’ careless, rambunctious and immoral activities.

Within our own industry people have forgotten that the term is public relations, not media relations. In the different internships I have done it seems public relations in has reverted back to the days of press agentry. Two of my internships have been with public relations firms. Both of these firms focused solely on getting their clients placed in the media. I hope we have not forgotten that we are to be building relationships with our publics. An organization’s communications leaders need to learn that the organization has many more publics than just the media. In failing to recognize these publics, they fail to help their organization “thrive over the long run” (3).

How do you identify those “escalating social problems” that affect the workforce?
This portion of the chapter was particularly interesting to me. I never made the connection between social problems and workforce productivity. The text states that “the productivity of the workforce of corporate America is seriously jeopardized by problems affecting families such as drug abuse, physical abuse, gangs, teen pregnancy and the declining quality of education” (8). The text goes on to say that when these problems affect the workforce “they threaten the profit potential of the organization and must be addressed” (8).

The text does a great job of pointing out these problems, but does not tell us how we can know if these are problems facing our organization. It seems like many of these things are very personal and people may be reluctant to voice their problems. For example, how do you know if teen pregnancy among the offspring of your workers is a problem? You can’t put out a company-wide memo asking all of these people to identify themselves so you can address the problem.

A few ideas come to mind, but I don’t how viable they would be in the real world.

First, frequently set up interviews with employees not only for performance review, but as an opportunity for these employees to communicate with their supervisors. To be effective, however, supervisors must have a very good relationship with the employees whom they supervise.

Second, set up some sort of online message board where people can post problems they are facing and solicit help from others in the organization. The message board would be completely anonymous, thus allowing more openness among employees. The problem here is getting people to actually use the message board.

Third, stay up on current social problems and periodically hold on-the-clock training meetings to discuss and deal with these issues. All would be required to come and participate in these meetings. These meetings would have to be uplifting and informative to truly be worthwhile. It takes a very good meeting to be better than no meeting at all.

What is the difference between being research-based and research-oriented?
The text defines someone as being research-based “when [their] decision making in the planning and implementing process is based on the acquisition, interpretation and application of relevant facts” (11). What, then, is the difference in being research-oriented? According to the text, “we have struggled…to become research-based… [but] we have succeeded somewhat in becoming research-oriented” (11).

The difference seems to be that one who is research-oriented understands the value of research and readily does a great deal of research. Research-oriented people, however, may not actually apply the research they’ve done to currently solve the problem. I can see myself as being research-oriented, but not research-based. Perhaps I do research in order to satisfy the necessity of doing research, but fail to use the research I’ve done to help me in my campaign. It all goes back to getting out of being tactic-driven. I need to be flexible (and humble) enough to change my plans when the research tells me I should. I must learn to “interpret [the attitudes, values and beliefs of publics] in terms of the issue or problem at hand and predict behavior” (11, emphasis added).

Why do people still feel that blasting the mass media is the best way to reach a target public?
I had an interesting experience last week at Bradley PR (BYU's student-run firm). We had a guest speaker come in to talk to us about a book she’s written on how to get a million dollars worth of free publicity. This individual wrote a wonderful book and has been very effective at publicizing it through the media. She’s been on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and on other major media programs. However, this individual has no professional public relations training. This individual doesn’t even have a journalism background. Somehow this individual is qualified to come to a meeting of public relations students and teach them how to get publicity (please note the sarcasm). At one point this individual told the audience that getting publicity is like throwing mud against a wall. Eventually something is going to stick. At this point in the presentation I almost fell out of my chair. This runs counter to everything I have ever been taught by professors and public relations professionals. What made it worse was when I looked around the room and saw all these pre-public relations students in rapt attention and taking furious notes as this individual “taught” us how to get free publicity.

I obviously have some very passionate feelings about this matter. As I discussed earlier in this summary, public relations is not just media relations. I wholeheartedly agree with the book with it says, “Identifying certain targeted media and the best channels to deliver the messages to a segmented public does us no good if we then shotgun the message through the mass media anyway” (14). We have got to start thinking outside of the news release and really target our key publics through the appropriate channels.

Why are people still doing this? Because they don’t understand the value of research. Research before and after tactics must be done to verify the effectiveness of the tactics. There’s a lot of wasted time when we don’t do research.

Welcome

2007-02-16T07:58:00.000-08:00

This is my first foray into the world of blogging. I hope to make some sort of valuable contribution to fellow public relations students/young professionals out there. I am in my last semester of school at Brigham Young University, and will be moving to Detroit,to work as an intern at General Motorsin May .

In one of my PR classes right now we are required to read and summarize a chapter each week from Strategic Communications Planning for Effective Public Relations and Marketing (Wilson & Ogden, 2004). Our summaries are comprised of five key questions we come up with from our reading of the text. Strangely enough, I have found this assignment to not only be very valuable to me, but also enjoyable. For that reason I plan to include my summaries on this blog and hope to get feedback from others on the questions I set forth. Enjoy!