When is a press release not a press release?

Is this a press release? Ironically, this piece of puff for a potato puff arrived unsolicited in my email. It is from PWR New Media and as it instructs me to READ FULL RELEASE HERE >>> – I presume this company believes it to be a release.

Perhaps it is one of those SMNR things – the Social Media News Release – that Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications heralded back in 2006, as it contains links to social media and supplementary potato puff information.

The future of the press release (or media release if you prefer) – including its death or metamorphosis – isn’t normally something that I’m too concerned about. I do despair when teaching press release writing (let alone marking press release assignments) that the majority of examples lack any real evidence of news. My personal view is that I would not mind if I never had to write another one, but I realise that there is a need for a document of some sort to use for announcements, and particularly, for legal compliance, such as for financial results.

I’m yet to be convinced that most media, including bloggers and other online influencers, are that thrilled to receive an SMNR version, particularly when the big issue with the majority of releases churned out every day is that they are largely vacuous, poorly written, and badly targeted.

So it doesn’t really matter if it is easy to scan, includes elements that are easy to share and offers access to multimedia material (to paraphrase PR Newswire). That is all peripheral packaging if there is nothing of value inside the wrapping.

This is the main problem with probably 99.999999% of the releases sent out today – the content is increasingly viewed as less important than the drive to promote and seek SEO benefits. Indeed, a post on socialmedia today in March, states that “publishing news releases plays numerous other marketing roles” – most of which have nothing to do with the traditional role of a media release. Today the release is little more than a ruse to chase SEO and online ‘real estate’ – indeed the socialmedia today article claims the release creates “a visual sales page for your company”.

Also back in 2006, Tom Foremski stated: Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! – spitting: “Press releases are nearly useless”, whilst arguing for a deconstructed version. In 2010, Advertising Age ran a piece by Simon Dumenco: RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) – and Long Live the Tweet.

In February 2011, Mark Borkowski marked the rise of churnalism with a belief that “the press release is an endangered species, thanks to misuse”. Also in 2011, the opportunity for companies to break their own news was touted as another reason for killing the press release in an interview by CorpComms magazine with Nissan’s Dan Sloan.

By January 2012, we had Econsultancy discussing: The death of press release distribution services with “smarter ways to engage influencers online, such as social media newsrooms, multimedia content and real-time interaction enabled by social listening” argued as the choice of communicators.

In 2013, all these views seem to have been premature. But still the death knells sound – in February, the Irish Examiner reported a Social Newsmakers conference (no I don’t know what a newsmaker is either) with a quote:

“As a communications tool, the press release has become a garish neon light whose only objective is to interrupt and distract to gain attention”

Rather than a realistic assessment of fact, this was really another plug for social media as “a more direct and targeted avenue by which we can all work together to spread the message of what, where, why and how we are doing what we do.”

So the millions of pointless traditional releases, being sent out by email and news wires these days, are supplemented by millions more variants of interactive releases available through push and pull channels, as well as millions of tweets and other micro-announcements.

It could be viewed that the press release has finally morphed into a form of marketing – but actually, it always was. Despite the legend that Ivy Lee created the release in 1906 with his Declaration of Principles as an open, honourable form of communications, the release was at that time firmly entrenched as a publicity or advertising device – and the majority remained so.

So is this piece of puff a press release? Sadly, yes it is. It may look more like a marketing email – not surprising as it is from a “creative digital design and development shop”, and there is a distinct lack of news in its contents – again not surprising as the “shop” claims to “create digital assets”.

So perhaps it is time to give up on any virtuous claims for a press release – indeed, perhaps the only time when a press release is not a press release is when it genuinely has news or something of value to impart.

Die press release? Not a chance of it.

Give me some credit – how to avoid plagiarism and scraping

Have you read the book I co-authored? Or my journal papers in Public Relations Review? Or the chapters I have written in edited texts? What about my blog posts? If you have and judge my writing worthy of using, reviewing or criticising in your own work, then you’d better give me some credit.

If you’re producing online content, and I find you have reproduced my work without permission, I WILL get you to remove it. I am happy for you to quote me or link within your own work, but expect a reference to be evident with a hat tip. If you’re a bot scraping this post, well you won’t understand it anyway – and I won’t be posting your nonsense link-baiting comments either.

If you’re a student writing academic assignments, and you’re planning to use my work, then I deserve a citation with a full reference so that it is clear to your reader that the points you are making originated with me. Besides, you’ll gain credit for referencing sources – whereas plagiarism can get you kicked off your course.

If I sound frustrated, angry even, well I am. I put a huge amount of time and effort into my published work (largely for little, if any, financial return). I expect others to do the same with their work. Stealing and passing off in my view are crimes that rob the originator of their due credit, and deny the writer the intellectual pleasure of crafting their own informed thoughts.

Scraping content, or plagiarising others’ work is an increasing problem – thanks in large part to the easy access offered by the internet. If you can ‘cut and paste’ then you can simply lift someone else’s work, or stitch together your own piece and who is to know? The surfed answer is all too common among students these days – using search engines, skimming what you find, lifting the interesting parts and hey presto, a few hundred or thousand words ready for grading. However, with online search facilities and anti-plagiarism software, there’s a strong chance you’ll get caught.

Turnitin named last week as Plagiarism week with the theme Originality Matters (ironically a not very original promotional PR idea) – and it published various academic videos and other online resources.  This is a hot topic in academia and professional education – and taken as a very serious offence.

I appreciate that sometimes the etiquette of online linking or academic referencing can be confusing, complex or simply time-consuming. But that’s no excuse. There are some excellent online resources that you can draw on (links in green):

• Plagiarism.or – this is a great site that doesn’t look like boring academic or legal stuff. I love the descriptions for the Types of Plagiarism

• WriteCheck (which sponsors Plagiarim.or) is a paid plagiarism checker run using Turnitin. Many Universities and other academic bodies use Turnitin to check for plagiarism and some offer students the chance to run their work through the system first to avoid silly mistakes.

• Purdue Online Writing Lab – has really detailed advice on using APA, MLA and Chicago style of referencing. Many Universities have open online access to their guides to using the Harvard style – I recommend the Bournemouth University guide.

• Microsoft Word includes a feature enabling you to reference as you write. How-to-Geek has a guide to using it as does the Microsoft site. There are other online referencing systems, such as Endnote, that enable you to build up a personal reference list which you can draw on repeatedly. This is helpful for anyone completing a series of academic assignments.

• Bookmarks – are a great way to record sites that you visit when researching a piece of work, which you can then check when it comes to adding links or including references. Of course, you could use Google Bookmarks – and Mozilla support has a guide to using bookmarks in Firefox. You could use goodreads or a similar online resource (even a Pinterest board) to note the texts you have found for an assignment with a personal – or shared – list.

Or just ask – yes, that old-fashioned concept of seeking clarification from your tutor or the person you are citing how best to reference the source. If you are unsure or don’t know, ignorance isn’t a defence.

You can apply some of these ideas to avoid scraping online content – although that is often done with intent rather than ignorance. There are methods that can be used to prevent scraping – you can find advice e.g. via Sentor or a post written by Amanda DiSilvestro. But if you don’t know if you are web or data scraping (as if) – check out the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping (which also lists some measures to stop the bots).

It may sound old-fashioned in a world where newspapers use Tweets as if they’ve spoken to someone, or lift information directly from a Facebook page as background information. A world where politicians infamously relied on a ‘dodgy dossier’ of poor quality student work. A world where it is easy to check facts and also find lies and damned lies amongst the statistics. But that’s the very reason why referencing, citations and credit is important. If you can’t, don’t or won’t substantiate your points, arguments and opinion with reference to sources and evidence, what veracity does your work have in a world full of lies and half-truths?  And why should anyone give it credit?

[Picture via Microsoft Clipart]

Do the CIPR presidential candidates appeal to women?

Both candidates standing in the CIPR President-Elect 2013 elections (who will become President in 2014) are white, 40+ years old and male. As men comprise a minority of PR practitioners, perhaps it is time to throw into the debate, a question about how appealing Stephen Waddington and Dr Jon White are to women?

It is a relevant consideration given that the UK PR Week-PRCA 2011 PR Census, revealed the occupation is dominated by the young and female.   Also, CIPR “aims to develop an inclusive culture, raise general awareness of diversity within the public relations industry and to increase the number of public relations practitioners from all backgrounds”.

What are some of the issues that face women working in PR that the candidates should address?

1. Salary disparity – women in PR are paid less than men at all levels according to the data from the PR Census study. Nearly 30 years ago, US researchers released the Velvet Ghetto study noting a million dollar income penalty over the course of a woman’s career in PR. It isn’t difficult to argue that things haven’t changed much.

2. Mid-career chasm - there also appears to be a black hole with women leaving PR in mid-career, possibly as a result of a lack of flexible options for combining family and work commitments.

3. Friendliness trap – academics have claimed that women working in PR are expected (particularly at the start of their careers, and specifically in agencies) to adopt overtly feminine behaviour, which serves as a trap to their subsequent credibility and career progression.

4. Female dominated education – the majority of PR undergraduates are women, with men often less than 10 per cent of a class. A gender imbalance is frequently notable among cohorts studying the CIPR’s professional qualifications. The willingness of women to seek qualifications (perhaps buying into the professional agenda of career development) does not seem to be generating them greater career rewards.

5. Marginalisation of women as communicators – women have traditionally occupied technician roles in PR, with claims made that they have softer skills best suited for a communications-dominated position and function. In the past, women were employed to target female-oriented media and organise parties. This continues today, but additionally, they dominate specialist areas such as internal communications and lay claim to relationship building.

Of course, these issues do not affect all women and most apply beyond public relations.  We can also argue that with self-efficacy and personal agency, women are as capable as men of building successful careers. The current CIPR President is female, as was the one before. There have been a total of eleven women Presidents compared to 52 men. The first was Margaret Nally in 1975, followed by Norah Owen in 1981 and then Carol Friend in 1986. In the 1990s, two of the ten Presidents were women; in the last decade they accounted for three out of ten. This decade, so far it is three out of four, with Jane Wilson holding the role of CEO since 2010 as well.

So let’s cut the male candidates some slack – but invite them to comment here whether they believe there are specific considerations relating to women, and other sectors of society, in building careers in public relations. And how their year in office could help address some of the issues that I’ve mentioned above.

Over to you guys… how do you appeal to women in PR?

Who you know counts in public relations – avoiding dog bites online

There is an old proverb that you may know a man by the company he keeps. In public relations, a lot is made of developing contacts and relationships – but less consideration is given to the quality of company that we keep.

Another angle on the proverb applies to organisations regarding the associations that transfer from the company they keep (for example, in supplier relationships as has been seen with the recent horsemeat issue and discussed in Judy Gombita‘s Defining Social PR Byte post).

There are also considerations about how the organisations that PR practitioners work with affect personal reputations – and vice versa. As individuals we can enhance or harm our employers/clients, and similarly, their actions can have a positive or negative impact on our reputation and credibility.

The nature of our contacts is also important, particularly in relation to whether they reflect an equality or imbalance in power. This reminds me of the two ways to train a dog:

• One is to dominate it and use your power as an owner to persuade the dog to obey your will. The dog will respond, often from a position of fear.
• The second is to earn the dog’s loyalty when obedience results from respect.

This analogy extends further into times of crisis where the dog that is motivated by loyalty will take the initiative to help and protect an owner. The dominated dog will more likely respond by adding its bite to that of any attacker.

Power is at the heart of many relationships and we need to think about this in the company we keep, whether building our personal contacts or helping organisations develop strategic partnerships. If you (or your contacts) make connections only on the basis of WIIFM (what’s in it for me?), then the company you are keeping is vulnerable to the occasional bite.

This argues for a form of due diligence to be undertaken that considers strategic relationships from a public relations perspective:

• What are the possible consequences for reputational damage as well as positive associations that can be gained?
• Can co-orientation exist in times of possible conflict or will fractures occur leading to blame and self-preservation?

As people and organisations increasingly form coalitions to achieve their aims (proxy or collective agency), these issues need to be considered within public relations. Models of PR – and wider management – often look at stakeholders largely from the perspective of a single organization. Within organisations, stakeholders need to be mapped more universally and specifically by function, project and even individual relationships. When working in partnerships, stakeholders need to be considered from the shared position – identifying friends, foes, those with power, interest, saliency and so on.

Such relationships can also be considered in terms of the tangible and intangible benefits (and possible consequences) gained. Drawing on the work of Clark and Mills, we can distinguish between exchange and communal relationships.

• Exchange relationships: involve a familiar, economic contractural approach where something of value is directly transferred between parties. This may, or many not, be a commercial or monetary transaction.
• Communal relationships: are non-contingent, without any obligation or responsibilities between the parties.

Interestingly, this communal approach is asymmetric, in contrast to exchange relationships which are by definition, mutually beneficial. This seems to contrast with how Hon and Grunig view the typology, as they reflect a level of cynicism in exchange relationships suggesting people believe organisations only engage with them when they want something in return, and presenting communal relationships as evidencing a concern on the part of the organisation for others. Hence, they present communal relationships as symmetrical claiming both parties gain a benefit, which seems the reverse of Clark and Mills. However, Clark and Mills identify symmetry in communal relationships where the parties assume a mutual level of responsibility for each other, and asymmetry where there is variance in communal responsiveness.

What I find surprising is that there is little attention paid to educating PR practitioners in respect of relationships. The focus of training and qualifications tends to remain on communications, with an implicit belief that being competent in writing somehow equates to building positive relationships. Or the ability to build relationships is seen as personal and intuitive, something that is derived from a certain personality type, rather than a competency to be studied and improved, particularly in respect of organisational relationships.

I believe that the complexity of relationships in a modern, global, dynamic world calls for re-envisioning of the normative ideas that public relations is about dialogical, mutually beneficial communications predicated primarily on a simple, linear interface. Clark and Mills present further models of relationships, such as exploitative and a hybrid communal-exchange approach, and begin to examine various dimensions of the multiple relationships that individuals establish with others. There are many other areas of relationship thinking outside the PR literature that could be considered.

For example, social network theory considers how relationships develop within groups (formal and informal), which means grasping aspects such as culture, status, unwritten rules and inter-group dynamics. This is particularly relevant online where a pack mentality can quickly turn from tail wagging approval to a frenzied teeth-baring assault.

Online, the company we keep is likely to be out of our control. People can choose to associate with us even if we’d prefer they didn’t. When others engage with us or our organisations, we become connected to a wider network that extends the reach of influence, but also potential harm. Such contacts may increasingly assume a level of interest and indeed, power, that can have major impacts. They become publics, who form and act in relation to matters that concern them, and to which we may well need to react.

Taking this back to the personal level, it is seen in how social media have impacted on our relationships. Friends of friends suddenly can connect and take an interest in our affairs. This can be a benign comment or like, or lead to positive consequences. It can also result in harmful consequences. Perhaps this involves invading our privacy in a minor way, or more sinisterly opening us up to possible harm – 20,000 people invading a private party for example. The same ideas apply to organisations online – building a Facebook community may be attractive from a marketing perspective, but it is a ready made activist group if something we do – or are thought to do – incurs a negative reaction.

Something else we don’t always fully consider in public relations is how in the online territory, relationships are often very different from those built in the ‘real’ world. Common approaches to online relationship building are about making as many contacts as possible – with little regard to the quality or possible implications of the company we are keeping. It is all about the numbers or some unproven measure of influence. But the more contacts you have, the greater the potential risk (as well as opportunity) for negative consequences.

In the same way that the horsemeat issue raises the importance of understanding the full six degrees of separation in supplier relationships, so PR practitioners need to assess the nature of online connections – as well as those with other relevant stakeholders, influencers or publics.

We cannot possibly build in-depth personal relationships with everyone in our complex, messy online networks. And even though organisations have always had thousands of connections, and extended connections, these are amplified in potential impact online. Jokes and poor taste, let alone a disregard for convention and legal niceties, prevail online.

Entering this dog-eat-dog world, organisations may be seen as tasty snacks, rather than respected as an alpha dog in the pack. They need PR practitioners who are familiar with contemporary relationship thinking to avoid suffering dog bites online. This means much more than simply collecting connections to really understand the consequences of the company we keep.

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The analogy of dog bites in this post is not meant to belittle the serious impact of canine attacks

Love and heart break – losing my Barley dog

Sometimes  you feel an overwhelming need to write. Today is one of those times. I’ve had a bit of a blogging block so far this year, but just need to express my feelings today – which are ones of love and a broken heart.

Well actually, two (and more) broken hearts as this morning, I had to make the terrible decision to put my little dog to sleep. My Barley was a miracle dog on many levels. It was a miracle that he ever came to live with me 8 years ago as he was a perpetual runaway before we found each other and he learned stability and love.

When a dog joins my life, it’s for keeps – no matter what. In Barley’s case that meant curbing his inclination to go for walks on his own. More importantly, it involved keeping him fit, alive and happy over the past four years since he was diagnosed with a serious heart problem and given weeks to live.

Barley never knew he was ill and just got on with things – a lesson for us all. Although he could no longer chase the sticks he adored discovering on our walks, he kept on going. Worked out ways to climb the stairs, scramble onto the bed and remain master of the pack. He was my little godfather dog – a miracle helped by modern heart medicine.

He would look at me with eyes filled with that wisdom of generations of dogs who know when they’ve found a loving home. He adored me, and this was reciprocated a zillion times over. No matter how many drugs he needed, how many trips to the vet, how many hot roast chickens or increasingly slow walks, nothing was too much for my Barley.

Barley was a miracle dog for my other two. For my old boy, he reversed the depression that set in when his previous companion died. They soon became best of friends. For my mad Rhodesian Ridgeback who was totally untrained when I rehomed her, Barley taught her how to behave. When she stepped out of line, he would stop still, slowly turn to look at her – and she’d immediately know she had to mend her ways.

His body was a minor miracle as it adapted shape to fit his ever expanding heart. He had the biggest heart of any little dog – literally. I knew he couldn’t last forever; that his life would be shorter than without the heart problem. But we took the years, months, weeks, days, hours and seconds we were given and stretched them as far as possible.

He made it to 11 years old (thereabouts) but today – sadly we knew the time had come. Despite our best efforts time caught up with us.

Many people think of love on Valentine’s day – many nurse a broken heart. I do both for a little black and white mongrel dog. He filled my heart with memories and a love of life that we hoped was forever. His heart just broke today and mine is pretty bruised.

If you’ve ever loved and lost a dog, you’ll know how I feel. If you’ve ever been loved by a dog, you know how lucky I was to have my Barley.

Perhaps not a typical Valentine’s day love story – but a celebration of unconditional love all the same.

Is public relations out of touch?

Last December, Judy Gombita wrote about the pressures on PR practitioners and social businesses to remain in touch throughout the traditional Western holiday season – or at least to provide information on their availability.

One year on, and it seems most PR people are out of touch at this time of year. Their email bounce backs indicate in some cases, they are away from the office for up to three weeks. Indeed, the holiday period seems to stretch from Friday 14 December to Monday 14 January.

Of course, email is only one element of PR communications and many people work in teams, so share cover. But there’s a distinct impression that even with the advent of social media, public relations is largely out of touch.

The latest news on PR Week is around one week old now. The most recent posts at PR Moment are even older. Does this indicate an acceptance that there’s no point in talking with PR practitioners once the party season kicks in?

When I began working in PR around 20 years ago, I viewed the period between Christmas and New Year as a key time for reaching people. Back then, it meant preparing ideas in advance which the media could fit into their schedules. When I worked for a vehicle breakdown company, we issued fun seasonal stories, various weather related driving facts and advice, or reviews and forecasts, for example.

When mobile phones became more common, it was possible to have out of office contact (before then, it was usual for home numbers to be included in releases or provided to key media). Email made it possible to issue stories even when away from the desk (rather than relying on unpredictable Christmas post). Laptops and ftp enabled uploading of topical stories onto the internet.

Today we have the immediacy of social media – always on, demanding hyper connectivity from PR practitioners, or so we are led to believe. Perhaps this time of year provides a valuable silence, which I wrote about at PR Conversations in September. We all need to relax, get away from the everyday pressures and allow for calm reflection. Silent night – or a month maybe – without the cacophony of PR communications?

However, Twitter (or Instagram) shots of ‘celebs’ in their Christmas jumpers, onesies or swimwear on Caribbean getaways, shows this shade of PR has not taken a break.

Our marketing colleagues have also tapped into the shopping season. There was a seamless shift from advertising (offline and online) Christmas gifts, to last-minute vouchers, to Christmas day online shopping opportunities to full blown Sales. Promotional PR ran alongside this linear process.

Undoubtedly – or hopefully, crisis plans are in place should PR be called upon to handle some unforeseen issue over this period. The crush of meetings before the wind-down actioned planning and budgeting for 2013. Some PR people will be in the office catching up or looking ahead, making good use of this quiet period.

Others will be working in countries where the year end/start is business as usual. This is increasingly important in a 24:7 interconnected world. We need to be aware of the holiday periods in different parts of the planet. Many of these now extend into holiday weekends, providing opportunities for engagement rather than simply staying out of touch.

There are arguments both for and against a rest over the festive season – although it seems a contradictory modern phenomenon to go slow for up to a month when globalisation, multi-cultural communities and social media challenge us to be ever available.

I’ve always felt that PR blurs practitioners’ personal and professional lives, but I’m not clear whether I am out of touch given the tendency for many to be literally out of touch over the holidays.

Arrogance is the enemy of public relations

The current Instagram furore is being touted as a PR disaster, with the company’s co-founder Kevin Systrom appearing to blame poor communications of the new Terms & Conditions for the resulting crisis.

However, I wonder quite what the involvement of public relations within the organisation was prior to the issue of the revised approach. Was PR involved in the discussion and decision making process? Indeed, does Instagram have an internal PR function – or a retained agency? Its online press centre is as vague as the wording around the controversial T&Cs – with zero information, including on the latest issue. Its Twitter account is one-way rather than engaging.  Instagram’s statement intended to sooth public concerns is carried on its blog and promoted via Twitter (ironic given its recent spat there too).

This approach to communications is common with online and tech companies. Mark Zuckerberg announced the Facebook acquisition of Instagram via a post to his 16+ million subscribers. The direct route offers the benefit of complete control over the exact timing and wording of an announcement.

Missing out the traditional media gatekeeper may seem a great step forward – particularly for those in PR who tout their ability to control communications. But it misses a critical point – that others are going to talk about you, and there will still be interpretation particularly by influential people and a spread of information increasingly by new gatekeepers who react emotionally, instinctively and rapidly.

The ability to announce information direct to millions – or at least thousands – using ‘owned media’ reflects a marketing mindset. In contrast, public relations practitioners should understand that earning a positive response takes more than making a statement. Relationship building with the media and other influencers is an essential element of effective PR.

It isn’t just relationships with these intermediaries that are important. Employees and customers are both strategic stakeholders. There is a clear arrogance in the way that these groups of people are often addressed. Terms and conditions are changed with immediate effect – often within small print or a sense of arrogance that there is little that those affected can do about it.

Redundancies and restructures are routine with employees forced to accept whatever occurs. My brother recently went through a situation where large scale cuts were made with little consideration or care even of the legal requirements.

As customers, we’ve all experienced the hubris of companies. Banks, utility companies, mobile phone providers, train firms and airlines, numerous shops, professional services – and the public sector – are all guilty of such arrogance. They presume they have the power to do as they wish.

Social media combined with traditional media attention may be able to change the response of companies like Starbucks and Instagram. There are small people-powered victories.

But have any valuable public relations lessons been learned? I doubt it. Arrogance is not so easily tempered. Instead, resentment is likely to be the internal response with ways around a situation being sought. That means employing legal and other counsel whose advice seems to count much more than that of expert PR people.

I can only conclude that such arrogance is the enemy of public relations.

Elections are poor public relations

An election may seem to be the essence of democracy – with public participation in a decision making process demonstrating engagement and a method of the majority selecting who they wish to represent them within a particular system.

As such, it ought to be good public relations – a time of relationship building, consideration of well-made arguments, co-orientation around issues of common consent and an opportunity for the views of the masses to be considered by those seeking office.

A story of superhumans – inspiring a PR generation

Today I met the 2012 intake of public relations students at Bournemouth University. To use the vision of the London 2012 games, this is the next generation that we need to inspire to lead our occupation. A quick poll (well asking them to put up their hands) revealed pretty much all use Facebook, but perhaps a quarter have a Twitter presence and a handful can be found in LinkedIn or Pinterest. So are they a digital generation – who live an always-on, hyper connected lifestyle, ruled by apps and online news?

If they are not, then they will soon need to address this gap in their competencies as they look to engage fully with the world of public relations, and indeed, modern University education. Rather than Google and Wikipedia (which undoubtedly have become their primary sources of information at school), we expect them to engage with online learning resources, electronic journals and ebooks, web and mobile based communications, respected blogs (such as PR Conversations) and social media based professional networks.

Their future careers need to be about more than getting to grips with the tools of digital communications however. We need to inspire them to change perceptions and become highly regarded strategic managers. This aim requires the practice of PR also to change its perception of students and not see them only in terms of craft skills destined to follow a career that relies on time-served and step by step promotion up the agency or corporate ladder.

In the new world of work, you need to create your own opportunities – this was the message from the final year students who came along to share experiences of their placement years. If you want to be recognised and have a great personal reputation, this takes superhuman effort rather than floating along waiting for chances to come your way.

As the Summer of superhuman efforts in the Olympics and Paralympics fades into our memories, it is worth reflecting on how perceptions were changed during a few weeks of inspirational sporting endeavours. At least for a while, our opinions of being British changed. We felt a vicarious satisfaction in delivering a world-class games, that reflected our unique culture and showed the rest of the planet that we are more than the impressions often left by our politicians and drunken holidaymakers.

One legacy that it is hoped will have longevity is a new view of those with disabilities – thanks in part to the Meet the Superhumans campaign by Channel 4. This involved more than a short promotional video however, as Channel 4 had invested in getting to know the Paralympic athletes over a two year period. But the phrase, superhuman, was inspired and helped reposition the Paralympic games, and its competitors, as people who demonstrated superhuman abilities rather than disabilities.

But without the achievements – and genuine personalities – of those who participated in the games, no creative communications campaign would have altered perceptions. What challenged our opinions, beliefs and attitudes was the realisation that the athletes were, to an extent, just like us. Well, in reality, they aren’t like us, as most of us never aspire to, let alone achieve, the pinnacle of our potential. Whether that’s being a medal winner, or delivering a personal best, it means striving and sacrificing to realise dreams.

That also means being better than the previous generation – I genuinely want to be inspired by those entering public relations. Yes, as an educator, I can help them on their career paths. I can introduce them to the theory and practice involved in public relations, and encourage them to engage fully with digital communications and future trends. But what inspires me most is when they push this further and show what they can achieve. Only they can change the future perception and opinion of public relations.

Olympic lessons for public relations

As the Paralympic games get underway in London, it is hard not to be inspired by the achievement of athletes who have overcome considerable personal challenges to be the best in their field. This commitment to excellence (something I wrote about recently at PR Conversations), which we also witnessed in the London 2012 Olympics just a few weeks ago, offers a number of lessons for public relations.

Planning – we see the end result of years of planning, along with its limitations, as the games play out. Most of the steps that PR practitioners should apply in their work can be found in sports – setting goals, developing a strategy and detailed tactics, considering available resources and measuring results – on an ongoing basis, but with a clear end achievement in mind.  The limitations of planning (for example of the Team GB mens’ road cycling team) can be seen when flexibility – or a plan B – isn’t present.  As I advocate in The Public Relations Strategic Toolkit, planning needs to allow for changing circumstances, which is often reflected in adaptive athletic performances.

Team work – this is evident not only in sports where players have to work together to achieve the ultimate prize of a medal, but how athletes support each other at a national and a discipline level. The merits of this can raise the performance of the individual to higher levels as they seek to emulate the success that others achieve – and when things don’t go to plan, the team can help provide counsel and motivation to try again. In PR, we often hear people talk about being a team-player, but there seems little focus on how a team spirit is cultivated and how different competencies can work together with the sum of the parts resulting in a better performance.

The appliance of science – the consequences of investing in analysing performance and making improvements on the basis of sound data have been emphasised by a scientific approach to sport. The ‘marginal gains‘ ethos of the Team GB cycling team (also behind the team Sky Tour de France success) emphasises the cumulative effect of making 1% improvements across your entire modus operandi. This links to the Japanese idea of kaizen (continuous improvement) and also demonstrates that there is rarely a single magic solution to improving performance. How many of us working in public relations take a close look at our processes and procedures and eliminate what isn’t efficient? Do we look at where we can make marginal gains? I often ask students who submit planning assignments whether they could achieve the same (or better) results in different ways as it seems in PR we are often guilty of going with a good idea (or sometimes a poor one) without examining in detail alternative approaches, or how a plan could be tweaked to be executed to maximum effect – or improved year on year when an event is repeated for example.

Coaching – most of the athletes who picked up Olympic medals praised their coaches; the people often behind the scenes who focus on supporting and motivating those who physically reach for gold. I’ve rarely met anyone in PR who has a coach in their lives – whether in their organisation or professional network. Why not? We may have mentors or supportive bosses, but what about the role of a coach who is there to challenge and give guidance on training and development in the way we see in sports?

Talent spotting – alongside the coaches – and psychologists, sports scientists and so forth – many sports have invested in talent scouts. This is about identifying those with potential and pro-actively investing in their development. In public relations we have got better at encouraging young people to enter the field – although debates around paying interns and dismissing the value of degree courses continue to reflect barriers to real understanding of talent development in my view. I also think that talent spotting and development is something that should be done at all stages of a career. Let’s champion, mentor and invest in the best talent we can attract and retain to work in public relations – and stop tolerating the mediocre and those who propagate poor practices.

Building a narrative – part of the psychology of sports can be seen in visioning success. This is a mental process of building a story of what winning will be like and recalling the steps that lead to this result from previous experience. It can sound a bit fluffy, but as story-tellers in public relations, we are used to crafting narratives that present a particular position or perspective of information. I’m not advocating self-delusion or minimising the importance of the hard work that is required to reach the end point, but emphasising how there needs to be a strong narrative thread drawing together the dream and the potential outcome.

This last point about the importance of narrative was evident in the Olympic opening ceremony (bonkers and brilliant) crafted by Danny Boyle. He had a vision – which may have been as simple as putting on a performance that his late father would have loved – and carried that through. The narrative was captivating overall (in my view) but of course it took time, money and dedication of a cast of thousands to realise. But the story helped keep all the parts together. In marketing plans this is often viewed as a creative concept, and again, I don’t often see this approach underpinning PR plans, where there is huge potential to go beyond thinking of simple key messages and crafting a compelling narrative.

I am sure these points will be evident as the Paralympics unfold over the next couple of weeks. There will be times when plans go awry, when team support helps athletes cope with success, and failure, when less than 1% will separate the gold from the silver, from the bronze, from the rest, when final words of coaches provide the necessary uplift of confidence and motivation, when talent comes to the fore and when we all discover engaging new stories.

Let the games begin…