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January 9th, 2012 by Wadds

Wikipedia: Not all PRs are rogue

In a corner of the web last week a group of PRs debated Wikipedia’s attitude to the PR industry. The discussion came after errant PR firms were caught out breaching Wikipedia’s guidelines. Stuart Bruce has the details.

A dull but worthy topic you might think. Not one bit. Wikipedia is a top ranking site for search. It frequently takes the number one slot in Bing and Google search results, Alexa ranks it as one of the top ten sites on the Internet, and its credibility makes it a starting point for internet research.

Wikipedia is a community. As Julio Romo highlights PRs can register as contributors but must follow Wikipedia’s guidelines:

  • Contributions or edits must have a neutral point of view and no conflict of interest
  • Content must be verifiable
  • Articles must not contain new analysis or synthesis

It’s the first issue: neutrality and conflict where the PR industry falls down.

Wikipedia has published guidelines for the PR industry. In its Social Media Guidelines published last year the CIPR advises that PR practitioners seeking to update a Wikipedia entry on behalf of a client should work with an editor to update the relevant page per the CIPR’s Social Media Guidelines.

This is social media at its most social. The ultimate arbiter is the community. If anyone makes a contribution that the Wikipedia community deems to breach the guidelines it will be removed. To misquote James Grunig or more recently Philip Sheldrake, it’s a platform for symmetrical communication.

But Phil Gomes and Stuart Bruce don’t think the existing Wikipedia guidelines are sufficient. Gomes cites company data and information that is out-of-date and Bruce reckons that the very community nature of Wikipedia is the natural playing field of activists.

In a response on Gomes’ blog Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says that he has yet to hear a cogent argument for PR practitioners to directly edit entries. He says paid advocates don’t make good editors because they insert spin.

“The simple and obvious answer is to do what works, without risking the reputation of the client: talk to the community, respect their autonomy, and never ever directly edit an article,” he said.

Wikipedia agreed last Thursday to meet with representatives of the CIPR to develop clearer guidance on this issue. Ahead of that meeting Philip Sheldrake has, appropriately enough, developed a wiki page on the CIPR Social Media wiki to kick off the discussion.

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December 7th, 2011 by Wadds

PR2020: Ten recommendations for the future of a strong PR industry

Dr Jon White, head of the CIPR’s R&D Unit presented the results of PR2020: The Future of Public Relations (PDF) at the CIPR, Russell Square, London this afternoon.

“There is a concern that the industry could lose its position easily. Some of the people [involved in the research] said that by 2020 [the public relations industry] could be irrelevant. Success would be a larger industry that is well understood, respected and established as a management discipline,” said Dr White.

Dr White undertook interviews with 15 groups each with an average of seven practitioners around the country. He used scenario planning to explore what the industry might look like in 2020.

In every case White said that the outcome of the scenario planning was unacceptable. He said that leadership was essential to develop the practise as a serious management discipline.

Here are the top ten findings cited by the report that the industry needs to address to ensure a healthy future:

  1. Leadership: Encouragement to the Institute to provide leadership and meet expectations for its leadership
  2. Professional development: Education and training for PR practice need to be taken to higher levels, which will involve greater collaboration with education and PR
  3. Confidence: Practitioners need greater confidence in what they do, and should lead practice development by example
  4. Measurement: There is a need for clearer thinking and guidance on measurement and evaluation
  5. Ethics: Codes of conduct should be strengthened
  6. New skills: Practitioners need to move faster to develop their knowledge of digital communication
  7. Definition: There is a need for better definitions of PR and what it is to achieve
  8. Change: Change should be embraced
  9. R&D: Industry bodies should commit to R&D
  10. Young talent: There is a need to synchronise experience and fresh talent, and to celebrate young people in practice

Dr White is an international consultant in management and organisation development with links to academic institutions including Henley Business School, Cardiff University and University of Central Lancashire.

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December 7th, 2011 by Wadds

CIPR 2011 State of the PR Profession

I was in the audience at the CIPR at Russell Square, London this afternoon to hear the headlines of the 2011 State of the PR Profession undertaken by ComRes. More than 1,500 members contributed to the survey online. It identified four challenges facing the industry:

  • addressing gender profile – getting more men into the professional and retaining senior women
  • training for the future – making training affordable and developing new skills
  • managing the jobs market – ensuring efficient transfer of talent into growth sectors
  • demonstrating value and standards – communication value, practices and ethics

It’s a depressing snapshot. These are issues that have challenged the industry for more than a decade.

The survey results were presented back-to-back with Dr Jon White’s report ‘PR2020: The Future of Public Relations”. His work provided recommendations for the future of the industry.

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November 18th, 2011 by Wadds

CIPR moves to modernise

The CIPR is on the move.

Changes were announced to the membership status yesterday. They could have gone further but crucially for the first time they align membership with professional development and break the relationship between membership status and time-served.

I was one of the voices on the CIPR Council that argued that anyone should be able to eligible for membership status providing that they committed to follow the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) scheme.

Membership of the CIPR should be recognised as a commitment to the profession.

The CIPR CPD system isn’t perfect (see comments particularly from Heather Yaxley) but combined with professional qualifications it’s a good start in shifting the industry from a craft to a profession.

The CIPR currently consists of 9,500 individuals across different membership grades. The changes mean that 80 per cent will now be eligible for membership or fellow status. Anyone signing-up will automatically be entered into the CPD scheme but it isn’t mandatory.

My relationship with the CIPR started three years ago. After writing a series of snarky blog posts then President Elect Jay O’Connor told me to put up or shut up.

I also argued that the route to fellowship should be transparent rather than on the basis of “recognition of distinction in the PR profession as defined by Council from time to time.” That remains a work in progress.

The changes make the CIPR a more democratic organisation and open up elections and decision making to a wider base in the industry. That can only be a good thing.

Associate has replaced affiliate as the most common entry level of membership and the route from associate to member is two-years employment in the industry rather than the six-to-ten years previously required.

It also makes the CIPR more inclusive and more relevant to how the PR industry is changing. Colleagues from advertising, digital and media industries are welcome as members.

Not perfect yet, but a good start.

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November 8th, 2011 by Wadds

Rob Brown on Max Clifford: Mellor Chelsea shirt story “a total fabrication”

The role of publicist Max Clifford as a mouthpiece for the PR industry is often debated in relation to the reputation of the industry.

During the CIPR TV presidential debate yesterday Rob Brown said that he’d tried hard during his career to bait a legal suit from Clifford. He said that he was surprised that Clifford didn’t come after him when he revealed a professional indiscretion in his book that Clifford had shared privately with him over lunch.

I headed to the bookshelf and picked off my copy of Brown’s book Public Relations and the Social Web to dig out the story.

“Many years ago I found myself sitting next to the celebrated British publicist Max Clifford at an industry lunch in Manchester at which he was the guest speaker. He had been responsible for bringing about the public disgrace of the British government minister David Mellor.

“Max Clifford revealed that David Mellor was having an affair with a little known actress called Antonia de Sancha. Clifford had touted the story that Mellor, a renowned Chelsea football fan, had asked the actress to make love to him whilst he was dressed in his Chelsea football shirt.

“The story made the front page of The Sun newspaper. During lunch, I took the opportunity to ask Mr Clifford whether the story had in fact been true. He laughed and admitted it was a total fabrication.”

Brown said that if he became President of the CIPR he’d front a spokesperson for every PR story that led a mainstream news agenda.

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August 19th, 2011 by Wadds

CIPR Summer Social: Getting ahead in social media and PR

This is my presentation from the CIPR North East Social Summer in Newcastle last night.

There has arguably never been a more exciting time to work in the PR industry. As traditional media continues to be disintermediated by technology practitioners have the opportunity to engage directly with an organisation’s audiences.

The deck covers three of the key areas where individuals need to skill-up to operate in this emerging environment, namely content creation, community participation and personal networking.


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August 3rd, 2011 by Wadds

CIPR TV: The 2012 Olympics and the challenges for the PR industry

Much of the PR and marketing discussions around The London 2012 Olympics has focused brand protection. Understandably the main sponsors are keen to maximise their £900 million investment. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has produced excellent guidance on this issue.

CIPR TV heard about the opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses across the UK to get involved in Olympic programmes and share in the excitement and profile of the games. Check out the Inspire programme, Our Team 2012 (PDF) and the Olympic Torch relay for starters.

Marketiers4dc’s Russell Goldsmith and I were joined by Andrew Owen, Programme Director for Our Team 2012, and Andy Sutherden, Global Head of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship at Hill & Knowlton.

We also talked about the programmes that we might expect to see from headline sponsors, the opportunities and some of the threats for businesses in the South-East, and the challenges that the PR industry faces in creating cut through during the Olympics.

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June 17th, 2011 by Wadds

Slidedeck: how to get ahead, and hired, in social media

Here is my deck from the CIPR Summer Social session that I ran last night at the CIPR in Russell Square on personal reputation and how to get ahead, and hired, in social media.

There are three components of personal brand: your work; your personal network; and increasingly your online footprint. The session last night focused on the latter two and explored how you can use social technology to build your network and online profile.

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April 5th, 2011 by Wadds

Farewell Marcom Professional. Say hello to The Conversation

The CIPR is taking over the Marcom Professional community and renaming it The Conversation.

I’ve been a member of the community since September 2007 sharing content and engaging with the community. The weekly mail-outs from the keyboards of Andrew Smith and Philip Sheldrake have always been a must read.

But as Andrew Smith says the move brings an expanded audience for contributor content and provides CIPR members and the wider PR community with an excellent platform for learning and debate.

The launch takes place on Monday to coincide with the CIPR’s Social Media Conference in London. Its a bold move by the institute, but then like all professional membership organisations it needs to demonstrate its value and engagement with members, at a time when it is so easy for people to create their own communities online.

Bring it on.

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January 14th, 2011 by Wadds

CIPR TV: regulating lobbyists

CIPR TV returns on Wednesday at 5pm when the topic for discussion will be the UK Public Affairs Council (UKPAC). UKPAC chairman Elizabeth France CBE and UKPAC and CIPR board member Keith Johnston will join Philip Sheldrake and me in the studio.

UKPAC was established in July 2010 with the aim of promoting effective self-regulation of the public affairs sector through the quarterly publication of a voluntary register. The show is timely as registration closes on 31 January 2011.

UKPAC brings together existing registers held by APPC and the PRCA as well as CIPR members who fit UKPAC’s definition of lobbyists. In the autumn legislation is expected to be passed through Parliament to make the register compulsory.

If your work involves lobbying in any form it would be worth you catching the show. If you’ve got a question you want us to put to Elizabeth and Keith please leave it in the comments.

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