Pulling Together

Continuing my foray into the breadth and depth of Public Relations and as part of a proof that it is really a practice of Relationship Management. I offer some more thoughts.

It is important to us all and especially practitioners entering the profession as this industry expands into new areas and applications of modern communications. It is importnat for the PR industry so that its practitioners as a sector all pull together in areas like PR strategy, education, institutional support and investment.

In addition, and taking the view of CIPR that the practice includes "“..Effectivee management of relationships and communications..."”. the papers emerging from the Henley Research Centre (http://www.henleymc.ac.uk) with its 'Sprite' approach extends practice by evaluating the strengths of organisation's relationships with a wide range of stakeholders including customers, suppliers, employees and investors.

The epitome of the breadth of Public Relations is provided by Rex Harlow (quoted in Wilcox et al 2003)i who identified 472 definitions for public relations and Theakerii provides an academic's guide to the main activities for public relations practice.

PR, as practised, is as diverse as medicine.

• i Wlicox, D. L., Cameron, G. T., Ault, P. R., Agee, W. K. 2003 Public Relations Strategies and Tactics 7^th Edition Allyn and Bacon

• ii Theaker, A. 2004 The Public Relations Handbook 2^nd Edition Routledge