David Phillips (@davidgphillips) is an academic, practitioner and writer, that celebrated the 50th anniversary of writing and sending his first press release this week.

He’s visiting Professor at Lisbon School of Communication and a lecturer at Gloucestershire University, head of digital at Publicasity and co-author of Online Public Relations.

I caught up with him to find out how he was celebrating the anniversary and his views for the future of the industry as it modernises.

Q. Tell me about that first press release. Did it generate any coverage?
I was 15, had recently joined the then booming Young Conservatives (YC) and frustrated with post war restrictions, fundamentally opposed to the war on people in countries like Poland and so wrote an inflammatory and emotional release as the new ‘publicity officer’ for our YC branch.

The content makes me blush even now and, when discovered, was an embarrassment to Alan Smith (the agent) and Sir David Renton MP QC.  I learned a lot.

This was of an era of ‘gentlemen public relations’ and a ‘quiet word’ with the Hunts Post editor resulted in a pretty well balanced article. Success. My first press release generated coverage.

Q. Will PR practitioners still be sending press releases in 50-years time?
I am not sure we are really sending out press releases now. The press release has morphed into an advisory note or short brief while no one was looking.

The nature of internet transparency (a concept first articulated by Professor Anne Gregory ten years ago) will kill off press releases quite soon.

Q. You have been a driver for modernisation in the PR industry for the past 20-years. Are you optimistic for its future?
In 1995, I stood up at the CIPR annual conference and with Dr Jon White and Dr Reggie Watts projected 25 years into the future of Public Relations. My theory, that the internet would be central to PR and that the first phase would be the, then, new wave of web (and websites) technologies. What a geek! I failed completely.

The CIPR/PRCA Internet Commission, which I chaired in 1999, included people like Mark Adams, Anne Gregory, Alison Clark and Roy Lipsk. Brilliant minds. It produced forward looking papers (published in the Journal of Communications Management) and a CIPR booklet (In Place of Spin).

The CIPR was brave enough to have an Internet Commission and, for ten years, clever enough to take no notice of its findings even to the extent of being rude to bloggers.

Practitioners, the institutions and academia have steadfastly refused to recognise the influence of near ubiquitous interactive communication, experiential communication, radical transparency driven by semantics and the power of cloud computing.

None of it is new. All of it is about values, relationships and communication.

That the work of Clay Shirky is not seen as pivotal to today’s PR profession is perhaps an indication of what lies ahead.  We still accept and endorse universities and academics who teach 20th century market segmentation and Grunigian ‘excellence theory’. Have a look at Phillip Young’s blog post on this issue.

Am I optimistic for the future? Yes I am. I can’t wait. Am I optimistic for the in-house practitioner, agency, institutions and even academic underpinning? Not really. With notable exceptions, they just can’t see the fun in change.

Q. Can you explain the importance of the semantic web to the PR industry in one sentence?
As if from crinolines to bikini, organisations can enjoy the new semantic transparency or blush, but the technologies will strip bare organisations that are not prepared and will reveal both new relationship insights and the lack of preparation of its so called PR consultants.

Q. You’ve been critical of PR academics, the industry’s media and our professional and trade associations in the past. How would you mark their current performance?
This year growth in online retailing from frocks to cornflakes has been strong double digit in a year of stagnant retailing in the high street.

Meantime the best effort the PR industry can offer is the Stockholm Accords (very important), a history lesson chaired by Professor Tom Watson in Bournemouth and how to measure column inches in Barcelona.

My verdict? Timid. Must try harder.

Q. You have a fantastic portfolio career. What’s your personal ambition for the next decade?
To enjoy the successes of my students of whom so many are making waves in online PR; ground breaking relationship and values research; astonishing original thinking in the area of semantics and significant developments in issues and crisis management practice and strategy theory.

My greatest wish for the next decade is that the industry that has enthralled me so much can evolve, survive and prosper.