Stakeholder theory in practice

I bought my Peugeot car from a dealer where I was also a consultant.  This means I am on both its customer and supplier databases.  However, I have not traded (buying or selling) with this business for three years now.  Still I receive mailings – from both databases.  This business does not really understand integrated communications or stakeholder theory.

First, unless someone is going to check with me about being on either databases, I may as well be deleted and save some money.  Indeed, the original owner sold the business, so the new people should really clean up the system.  No-one there has a relationship with me, I do not hold a stake in the business and have little residual interest in it.

Secondly, the mailings I receive are not always consistent and tell customers and suppliers different things.  This may not matter, but sometimes it does.

Finally, the dealership has no idea of timing.  Every letter I receive carries a date of at least a week prior to the date it arrives.  Even the British post office is not that bad, so clearly the process of writing, approving and sending the letters needs attention.  The worst thing though is that the letters generally communicate something that has happened by the time the correspondence arrives – so despite being written in the future tense, there is an odd time lag between my world and that of the dealership.

Actually, the correspondence is of little interest to me and I only read them as they make brilliant material for teaching students how not to produce a letter.

In addition to the above, the grammar is dreadful.  Sentences are often of more than 50 words in length.  There are changes in font size and choice.  So many lessons in a single one-sided letter.

British weather

Outside my window, large lumps of icy hail are landing – earlier, it was warm and sunny.  It will probably rain later.  That’s all you need to know about British weather.  No wonder we’re such an odd nation.

Global blogger love shows power of personal relationships

The Institute for Public Relations presented a special award at the Euprera 2008 congress to Dr Tiffany Derville Gallicano of the University of Oregon in respect of her paper:

• Personal Relationship Strategies and the Outcomes of Personal Relationships in a Multi-Tiered Membership Organization

I find it very interesting to look at how the concept of personal relationships is being researched increasingly in the context of public relations – although I wonder if these should be considered “private relations” as they act on the interpersonal level, albeit in respect of achieving organisational objectives?

This work also links into other conversations I had in Milan relating to the influence of the individual practitioner in the institutionalization of PR.  Many of the presentations seemed to indicate that whether or not PR is recognised at the highest level and is genuinely used to help achieve organisational goals is a consequence of the person holding the top PR role.

This makes me wonder why we are not teaching PR practitioners more of the social and interpersonal skills they require to become effective at this strategic level.  Indeed, one could argue that in its desire to be seen as a “profession”, the real outcome of the traditional gin and tonic tactic has been lost.

Having said this, we don’t necessarily need to form personal relationships in that way.  I was delighted at Milan when Tiffany rushed over to meet me as she knew my name from this blog.

Tiffany is the author of The PR Post and consequently, we both move in the same virtual circles.  Despite the fact that as bloggers, we operate on an individual level and are able to “broadcast” our thoughts on a global basis, we are also forming personal relationships, one post and one comment at a time.

And the winner of the Jos Willems award 2008 is…

…Stephen Smith for his masters level dissertation project: “postmodern public relations and the rise of the corporate blog”, completed as part of the CIPR Diploma course.  

As his tutor at CMC, I also received a Jos Willems award certificate from EUPRERA in Milan on Friday – which was just so exciting. 

It was brilliant to hear Stephen present his project and findings at the conference – and the fact that his work was judged superior to dissertations from masters and doctoral students across Europe further underlines the quality of academic knowledge and practical research undertaken by our Diploma guys.

The CIPR Diploma is a professional qualification completed in under 12 months by those who are also working full-time in busy PR roles – Stephen, for example, works at Harvard, a leading tech PR consultancy.

I also enjoyed the presentation by the undergraduate winner, Kayleigh Brennan, who studied her PR degree at Leeds Met and researched informal channels of internal corporate communication (that’s the grapevine).

The topic of the Euprera congress this year was “institutionalization” – and there were a lot of very interesting points covered in the full programme of presentations.  I hope to pick out some of these further here over the coming days – but check out interviews and presentations at YouTube.

Being at the event also meant that I met some of my PR Conversations blogging friends – including Benita Steyn, João Duarte and Toni Muzi Falconi.  Sadly, we weren’t joined by PRC connector Judy Gombita and I was surprised to hear that none of the other PRC contributors had met Judy so far.  She remains a dear virtual friend to us all.

Toni organised a lovely private soiree on Thursday evening, which I enjoyed so much (I truly thank him for including me on the guest list). 

As with chats and discussion at the congress, over breakfast and the last night dinner, the opportunity was there for the type of PR conversation that underpins the concept of two-way symmetric communications.  There is nothing quite like meeting people face to face and sharing a social context to build relationships and learn more.

My feet suffered as much as my brain though, as I never learn to travel with shoes that are suitable for walking.  Recently in Guernsey, I broke a pair of heels and the same happened last week – cue an excuse for buying new ones.  Of course, this was no hardship in Milan, although I stuck to an artisan budget rather than designer-prices.

So thanks to Stephen, Euprera (particularly Sue Wolstenholme), James Petre at CIPR and Charles Nixon at CMC who all made my trip last week possible.

esure release is informative

I often criticise the press releases from the esure stable (particularly Sheila’s Wheels) but found this one: UK set to become a nation of one car households was pretty good.

It seems timely and informative, although there is still the qualification of statistics that could be avoided – why “a massive 71 per cent”?  Is the adjective really necessary?

It would be helpful to have some general background information such as the number of multi-car households generally and within the sample size.  Also, I would like to see PR practitioners getting to grips with statistical significance – particularly with regard to any gender difference since we don’t have any information about representation in the sample population or the general data.  There could be other underlying issues here affecting the results.

In some senses the findings are rather obvious, but they could still be relevant and if followed through enable esure to take a position of expertise in this area.

As well as the survey, the company could also look at its own data to see if this supports the opinion research.  Is there actual evidence from insurance policies of fewer multi-car households?

Nice to see this one played straight though.

Supanet service – the sequel

After last month’s sad Supanet service story, I did receive a cheque back, but this month’s bill still charged me at the old rate, despite indicating I had been given a refund.

A more pleasant young guy has just taken my call, spotted the problem, apologised immediately, has actioned a refund and has noted on his system to check this next month.

Still it’s really annoying that the problem hasn’t been sorted – no doubt it is the computer’s fault again.