The new literature - is important to CIPR

Thirty billion page views in one month by a newspaper owner is a number that should bring every PR practitioner up short. How would anyone get that number of eyeballs on newspaper and magazine article and advertisements. Rupert Murdoch doesn't. The eyeball count he likes are in Internet media.

This media attracts the equivalent to one and a half times the membership of the CIPR clicking on a web page every second of every minute of every hour of every day. These are audience numbers that PR has to engage with. We have no choice. We have to use every method for communication available to reach these audiences.

Our competition is no longer an alternative agency. David Siffrey shows one competitor. It is the 50 million bloggers. The audience, the public, the stakeholder is also the medium. Two new blogs are created every second. These are people like Rt. Hon. David Milliband, Sir Peter Stothard, Oliver King, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Some are not quite so erudite as others but together they are publishing 18 articles every second. Of course one in three of these articles are in Japanese and probably only one in 16 emanates from the Europe. So just short of 750 posts are made by Britsh bloggers every second. Its not that many really. Just 13 million articles a month.

Wait a minute..... It is more literature generated by our population that at any time in history. It is even more powerful than the penny post. It is a literature that, like these people taking part in the BBC programme is engaging a generation. It is also a public literature.

If your profession is to engage with public literature. It would seem extra-ordinary not to engage with the most prolific of all literature in all time.

Of course this literature will change, it will morph, like all media and all literature before it, it will mature. That is no reason to ignore it.

This is why I have cross posted a comment on Stuart Bruces' blog about the apparent view of the principle advisor to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

I have thought hard about whether to comment on this issue. I have commented in the past. Stuart shows who else has engaged in this conversation including Richard Bailey who is a long time observer of public relations education. It does matter to our industry and especially the members of the Institute.

It matters at a number of levels.

The evidence that there are new channels for communication are all round us. Take any train journey and count the number of iPods in use and one gets the idea. Not all are used for music. One may also see evidence of people creating and responding to text messages frantically writing text into their cell phones. In Starbucks round the world people work on laptops using wireless connection to the Internet. The most insular of people must surely see these things round them and a moment's thought shows that these are channels for communication.

But are they legitimate channels for Public Relations communication?

Well, in part, yes. The are the means by which a press releases can be distributed, for example, by email. Cell phones are good for arranging meetings and events. The Web is useful for the delivery of lists of people such as journalists.

But this is not using new media in the practice of PR it is using the Internet to facilitate PR activities.

Detailed, independent, and empirical analysis of the job descriptions of people who work in public relations (PDF) and join PR associations shows that the industry predominantly attracts people whose main work (in the UK at least) is press relations and event organisation.

The New Media involvement of people at home and at work with forms of communication such as Instant Messenger combined with conference and video telephony, Interactive web sites such as blogs, collaborative project management, co-created knowledge bases like, for example, this new PR Bibliography (a wiki), and completely different commercial Second Life like environments, some with very business oriented applications, is a different form of communication and relationship building.

On the fringe of both these forms of communication and engagement (on/offline) are people who have an interest in reputation management, corporate and product brand promotion, investor relations and influence among communities who affect organisational behaviours. These people form a third phalanx of practitioner with interests that are not mainstream to either the traditional party organiser/press officer or New Media relations practitioner.

• That there are people who earn a living from each of these areas of activity is not in dispute.
• That there are companies that invest heavily in these areas of activity a matter of public record.
• That there are communities of practitioners, to a greater or lesser extent, associated with these activities such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), PRCA IABC PRSA is evident.

What is important is the relevance of these associations to the three areas of practice outlined above.

I am saddened that the CIPR's principle advisor is not very serious about committing to New Media practice and practitioners.

The latest comment uses a privileged position in the Institute, is retrograde and flies in the face of the CIPR's own Internet Commission findings (I was its chairman) in 2000/1. Perhaps it is now time for the Institute to publish those papers for all the members, and not just a select few to see the papers that were presented.

The CIPR's spokesman, prescient in so many other ways, seems to dismiss an area of practice that is growing by being critical of a form of Internet Mediated communication, namely blogs.

His comment in Profile Magazine: "If there are any good blogs still around in six months I'll come back to it," may not be directly aimed at blogging literati and Knights of the Realm , senior political commentators or Ministers of the Crown but are, this time, all-inclusive. As, in his own words the principle advisor to the Institute'e Council (For Imediate Release show 160) seems to be that my organisation (the CIPR) is under no pressure to consider, let alone act on, the significance of New Media in the interests of its members.

This view runs contrary to informed opinion among the world's most involved commentators such as WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell (owners of Hill & Knowlton and GCI among other PR firms). In a CNN interview last week, Sir Martin said: "One of the interesting things is that the new technologies, the blogs, the development of Web sites, the development of social networking sites, is really I think probably giving a new driver to public relations and public affairs. Paid-for publicity, it is known from research, is probably less effective than editorial publicity".

Sir Martin makes it apparent that this is an area of development for the most powerful PR agencies in the world and, at the same time makes the connection between New Media and the third phalanx of practice.

It would also appear Edelman's David Brain, who commented last week that Public Relations practitioners are the 'natural inhabitants of this (Social Media) world' is of a like mind. There is agreement that development of skills, models of best practice and working in New Media, is an opportunity for PR practitioners.

The critical issues for Edelman, H&K and GCI and many, if not most other, PR consultants and in-house practitioners are:

• Who will represent the interests of practitioners involved in New Media;
  
• Who will ensure the training, education and mentoring is available;
  
• Who, will take up the sector wide mantle of representations with officialdom as this area of work evolves to the majority of members both in-house and in smaller agencies and
  
• Where is the imprimatur for proposing planned, managed and properly evaluated New Media programmes?

....


The timing of the CIPR statement was not good. Within 48 hours the Economist in an article headlined 'Who Killed the Newspaper', suggests that current media relations practice (the rock and foundation of CIPR member numbers) will have to change. It is not the first publication to identify the online threat to newspaper survival and journalists in-post.

Are PR practitioner members to die with the print media? Is there nothing the CIPR can do for them - such as retraining for the New Media. The present stance seems not to serve even the core membership well.

Critical comments from a leading official of an influential PR association (even if research of its membership demonstrates a focus that leans towards relationships with print journalists and party planning) are not helpful to those who make a living advising organisations about managing their social media presence (including Edelman, Hill & Knowlton and GCI,). This is especially true when many of these agencies boast significant membership of the CIPR and other like associations world-wide. Such criticism has, to an outsider and however misleadingly, the ring turf wars, splits and division.

The CIPR seems to be selectively representing its members but not the practices of public relations identified by Sir Martin or David Brian.

Colin Farrinton's exposure to a Public Relations audience in numbers well in excess of any CIPR conference platform in an interview in For Immediate Release (a New Media public relations specific podcast), experience of the President's blog and a scan the Institue's own Commission papers would at least have shown that there is a place for members who are active in the New Media.

...


This most recent statement, to return to the blogging issue in six months, indicates that client investment to engage a community of people who comment about client brands, products and behaviours can wait for six months or so before further guidance is available.

Indeed, it would seem an even later date because that is as soon the Institute will vest time considering the significance of this New Media for members.

Meantime:

• Member can see comments online about their clients companies and professional practice but have no professional guidelines.
  
• There is discrimination between New Media member practitioners and other members.
• It even has policies.
• The Institute is willing to accept freely donated articles in its magazines and training in this area during such a New Media moratorium.
• Its regional organisations are running well attended New Media events.
  
• The Institute is even charging members money to attend these activities.
  
• There is a miss-match in the education programme.
  

The CIPR New Media strategy, to a casual observer would seem to be dysfunctional. A dichotomy, or worse?

Who distinguishes the private comments of John Presott and Governement policy or the comments of Colin Farrington and The Chartered Institute or PR practice in general.

This apparent public voice of Public Relations in the UK, (the CIPR)

• Suggests that practitioners working in New Media are less than welcome into the fold because they are:
  

• At best, too far ahead/different to mainstream practice (press release writing, pitching and party planning and something called 'spin')

• At worst, engaging with people (that is, bloggers like the Rt. Hon. David Milliband, Sir Peter Stothard and Oliver King) who fall outside some, as yet, ill defined but hoped for blogging elite.

• Already has (a) blogging policies:

• a policy against bloggers astroturfing (but does it have a credible capability to campaign, advise members or even align itself with the real, global, campaigners who are working in this area?), which suggests a deep understanding of the blogersphere.
  

• Wants to profit from New Media:

• Does not have a publication, white paper or guidance note about New Media. Its five year old Commission Report is out of print and its text books do not even mention Technorati or Google Blog Search.
  
• Is able to accept voluntary contribution (e.g. articles in magazines, books) to generate wealth on its expertise (?) in New Media (Profile cover price is £4.75)
  
• Takes money from members and non-members attending events associated with New Media.

• Seeks educational organisations to prepare and educate young people for the industry
  • Is prepared to engage trainers who have no experience of social media to teach it
  • Is prepared to teach new media techniques without a prior foundation in new media context, strategy, planning, monitoring or evaluation
    
  • Endorses F/E courses that do not include New Media modules by default
  • Provides no franchise to F/E establishments to examine the social and economic consequence deriving from the semantic Web as it affects the practice of PR.

I start writing the the second edition of the CIPR's book on Internet mediated PR this week. It shows that there is a commitment in this area.
I begin teaching New Media courses at first degree and Masters level in a month's time which shows there is commitment among CIPR recommended FE establishments.
The regional branches are, evident in the course I ran for the west of England last Thusrsday, running new media courses. With people like Juliet making their first ever blog posts.

This is evidence of an underlying groundswell of interest, support and commitment to New Media and that is important.

However, it shows there is inconsistency and that is not helpful.

Picture: Rupert Murdoch

Introducing Juliet Spare

My name is Juliet Spare and I'm currently studying for my CIPR Advanced Certificate in Public Relations at the University of Central England.

My chosen critique subject (which has a deadline looming), will hopefully hone in on a strand of social media: namely blogging. I'm hoping this lecture will inspire my essay!

Online retail sales £22bn - Online PR budgets ???

We recently heard of predictions that on-line food retailing was due to be 'the next big thing' in online retailing. Well from e-Consultancy I discover this snippet:

Research group comScore Networks said Tesco.com captured two thirds of all online grocery orders in the first seven months of this year, generating sales of approximately £2.5 million per day. Its closest competitor was Asda online, which took 16%, followed by Sainsburystoyou.com with 14%.

Customers of Sainsbury's, however, spent the most per order, averaging almost £90 compared to £80 for both Tesco and Asda. Asda and Sainsbury's online shoppers also bought more items per order, with both averaging 69 units per order compared to Tesco's 58.
Meantime, research from Datamonitor, reported in This is Money, found that retail spending is likely to reach £21.6bn by 2010, with £18.5bn of that being cannabalised from the High Street.

However, the predicted overall online spend, including services, will be nearly double that, hitting £39bn by the end of the decade.

If we add to this the ammount of non-retail and B2B buiness now on-line and it suggests that the PR industry has to race into the media that supports these economic drivers which is why I am in Bristol today.


Picture: Because I am in Britol today meeting West Country New Media Chartered Institute of Public Relations enthusiasts, the picture is about a concept store on behalf of Tesco in Taunton.

Now we know why the media moguls are so keen

The BBC reports that 73% of households connected to the Internet are using Broadband.
14.3 million homes in the UK - almost 60% - are now online. I recon that means that 30 million people have access to broadband at home.

For Rupert Murdoch and Martin Sorrell it shows their faith in the the Internet is not misplaced and for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations' members, this is now their biggest challenge.

On average, we can anticipate that nearly half of the population is spending 23 hours online each week of which under three hours are spend on banking and buying stuff.

Our challenge is to be able to capture the interest of these people for the other seven hours they are online each day as they multi-task watching TV, listening to iPods and texting their friends.

One can picture the family waiting to get to the PC.

Obviously the family of Louis XIV did not have such domestic pressures. Cute domestic bliss though!

Picture: The Family of Louis XIV

Who is enamour'd with whom

There is an extraordinary relationship between bloggers and the press. Each refers to the other a lot. Of blogs referencing to the major newspapers, we see some very well represented online titles. It must drive quite a lot of traffic to these sites.








On the other hand, we see that newspapers are finding blogs interesting too and in no time at all, the number of references has blossomed.












These numbers are part of the Future Media Report to be found here.

Reading newspapers and reaching relevant readers

The extent to which newspapers are read online is significant.
The Future Exploration Network report offers this information in a very red bloodied way.


There are newspapers that reach half of the online population and in the UK this is over 30% of the total population.

The guardian with a circulation of 370,000 has an immense online presence and it makes a profit from its online activities of about £0.09 per online reader.

In PR we need to be aware of the online publisher models because it is where most of our stories get the most relevant exposure.

Hack-off customers at thier fingertips

Email marketing (mostly spam) has some fine metrics and Ashley Friedlein CEO E-consultancy.com has just given his rule of thumb in a post today.

He says:

"Results will depend on the target market, proposition and so on, but as a rough 'rule of thumb' which is easy to remember, I tend to use the following:

(NB these are based on e-mailing an opted-in in-house list)

Open rates - 33% (divide/multiply by 3)

(Unique) Click rates (of those who've opened) - 20% (divide/multiply by 5)

Buy / Convert rates (of those who open) - 10% (divide/multiply by 10)

The 3-2-1 bit equates to the 33%-20%-10%.

If you compound these metrics you can work out:

- Divide total number of people on your list by 150 to get approximate number of conversions you should get.

- Multiply the number of clicks you get by 15 to work out the active list size."

Lets suppose 150 get the marketing guru's email. We know that 149 don't want it, a hundred have already rejected your company and you just upset another 40 and there are nine more who have just realised that they have wasted their time. Scream marketing is really great at turning customers away.

Now, here are some alternatives. Get a conversation going; offer RSS and stop upsetting all those people who did not realise they has signed away the integrity of their email when they visited your web site.

Use email as the last option in marketing communication, only by invitation, sparingly and with very very relevant content.


Picture: Filtered light

Twelve communications channels for hundreds of programmes

The BBC has changed its news web site. It is making a lot of its multi channeled approach to communication. I count twelve channels for communication for the majority of its stations and programmes ranging from blogs to email.

Should every company offer this range of channels. The BBC, in addition to its web site, broadcast, cable and satellite radio and TV and its blogs is really reaching out. It could go further with even more channels .... watch this (My/Bebo?) space.

The BBC adventure shows just how many channels a professional communicator now has to master just to be considered competent. In addition, for those of us who want to provide material to multichannel information and entertainment distributors, like the BBC we have to serve it up to them so that they can re-purpose it for each channel.

We need microformats and XML to create capabilities do this which is why these initiatives are so important. They may seem arcane but are the bones of future communication and much as a photocopier was in the last century.

From the BBC site I take this away:

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

• 
  E-mail news
• 
  Mobiles
• 
  Alerts
• 
  News feeds
• 
  Interactive TV

• Podcasts"
  

• 

Headlines for your website


And don't forget Interactive TV............. Its a comming to a gamer near you soon.

Numerate Practitioners

There you are looking at how the company web site is doing. How is it affecting sales?
Is this the right question?
Is there an even more important question?
Perhaps it is worth looking at how you web site is building relationships and this probably means you need to analyse the effect of social media.

To do this, there is a need to use analytics and there is a useful report published by e-Consultancy today.

"The focus of this report is the UK Web Analytics market, including an analysis of market trends and challenges, as well as detailed coverage of the leading vendors.

E-consultancy: the UK market for web analytics will grow 22% in 2006 to an estimated value of £56 million.

"According to leading vendors, this year is already proving to be a strong year of growth following a similarly successful 2005 when we estimated the market value to have grown 25% year-on-year from £37 million to £46 million.

"Our valuations reflect the total UK revenues of web analytics vendors including income from software licences, hosted solutions and consultancy services.

"Trends within this market include:

*

Continued investment in web analytics across a wide spectrum of sectors including retail, financial services, automotive, travel, media and gaming.

*

Google’s free analytics tool gives impetus to market and shapes landscape as vendors differentiate themselves.

*

Marketers embrace analytics ‘in year of the executive dashboard’.

*

Analytics becomes key part of Business Intelligence as it ‘comes of age’.

*

Lack of education and shortage of business analysts continues to hold back industry."

But it is no so difficult if you start with the free services such as Google Analytics or Sitemeter and work up from there.

More companies are realising (and, more importantly, acting upon the realisation) that they require a multi-channel overview and joined-up understanding of how their customers are interacting with them, whether on the telephone, in a shop or online. Gartner calls the emerging importance of cross-channel reporting and analysis the ‘third wave’ of web analytics.
As the report says: "

It is instructive to compare the size of this market compared to other online channels and sectors.

For comparison, E-consultancy has previously estimated that:

• Commissions and fees paid out to UK affiliate networks amounted to £83m in 2005.

• The market for online advertising networks in the UK was worth about £60m in 2005.

• The combined UK revenue for shopping comparison sites (focused on retail) was between £120m and £140m in 2005.

• The UK market for Search Engine Marketing will be worth an estimated £1.41 billion by the end of 2006. Paid Search alone will be worth £1.26 billion and Organic Search will be worth £147 million.

• The UK Site Search market was worth around £20 million in 2005, and will grow by 30% in 2006 to a value of around £26 million by the end of 2006.

• The UK market for Email Marketing Platforms and Services will grow 20% to an estimated value of £178 million by the end of this year (2006)."

Of course, as we all know, its not PR unless you can evaluate it.

Picture: Numerate woman

Social networking "A New Driver to Public Relations" - Quote

I don't want to jump up and down with glee but the temptation is there.

Sir Martin Sorrell and Rupert Murdoch between them are singing my song.

"One of the interesting thing is that the new technologies, the blogs, the development of Web sites, the development of social networking sites, is really I think probably giving a new driver to public relations and public affairs. Paid-for publicity, it is known from research, is probably less effective than editorial publicity." Martin Sorrell interview.

"Our newest efforts, the most exciting of which for me are our digital media assets represent our next generation of growth, poised to become drivers in the same way SKY Italia or FOX News or STAR are for us today.

"In the month of June alone, our web properties at FOX Interactive attained 30 billion page views, second only to Yahoo! and just yesterday served 4 billion ads." Rupert Murdoch Comments.

There are two issues here. Time and place.

I have been far to far ahead of the market and not in the USA which is several months ahead of the UK.

To be really ahead of the market just look back.

Way back in 1995, when I suggested to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations annual conference that the Internet was going to be big, important and pivotal was a pretty bold statement. No one understood a word.

In 2000, as Chairman of the CIPR/PRCA Internet Commission, there were a lot of doubters.

Today, not many people even remember the recommendations. Few took heed. They have suffered along the way as a result and perhaps I have been a little scornful.

Today, I am not going to talk about the economic change that is the digital tsunami; the disintermediation challenges we face or the rigours we shall go through as our client changes in the face of change.

All of that is tomorrow. Today I leave a single thought: Mashups – that bring together two or more data sources to provide original perspectives – are one of the fastest growing phenomena
on the Internet. Almost half of these combine mapping data with other information, helping users to understand where people, things, and activities are located is just the tip of a mega iceberg which we see from our flimsy bark looming in the mists.

Picture: Iceberg

Beta Blogger

I have converted to the new style of Google's blogger. It is in Beta and I have some work to do on it to add the things I like to have. Time is short and it will take a few days before full service is, again resumed.

So far I like what I see.

News finds people

The US trend showing that news finds people when they are on-line (email, social media, web etc.) and a growing disinterest in daily and weekly newspapers as a source of news is not much of a surprise. In France, this is probably even more true because blogging has higher penetration. Even Rupert Murdoch is spelling out the direction of the media is heading.

We really need to get a handle on the drivers behind relationships which McKinsey now recognise as one of the key long term wealth drivers.

What we need is more research into the nature of public relations as the means by which organisations are engaged with their constituents.

I am amazed that the biggest PR firms and departments are not research sponsors in the UK.

The biggest PR school in Europe does not have the Kevin Murrey Bell Pottinger Research Trust or the Chadlington Centre for Political Communication.

Now, if this news reaches Kevin or Peter, it will do no more than prove a point that there is a need for more research. Because if they ever find out about this post, it will demonstraight that many PR practices have changed.

Go on Kevin.... just click below and add a comment before the old boy does!

A Semantic Opportunity for Sir Martin Sorrell

There is a lot of drive behind the Social Media Club and its flagship 'New Media Release' which has its own wiki, blog and podcast.

I am an enthusiast. It is not that I see this capability levering advantage for the Public Relations industry as it tries to cope with so many media channels (see here for both a list and a podcast). It is of no consequence to me (the fee has not been paid) if no PR people use all or any of these channels. What is important is that someone (loads of people) will. I just hope it is PR professionals.

For a decade I thought that it was the PR industry that could benefit from initiatives like these. Well, lets examine the reality.

When Sir Martin Sorrell puts on a best face on for the annual financial results party on Friday he could reflect on how much of his empire is now leaching away from around the foundations of his monolith.

His company will use XBRL to announce its results (Quote: “Getting the right information to the right people at the right time—faster, more accurately, and with greater efficiency—is vital in today’s business world. Which is why investors and analysts alike favour XBRL” says PriceWaterhouseCoopers. This company has invested heavily in XBRL so it could communicate with its client's stakeholders efficiently.

Sir Martin's statement will use the equivalent of paper because he and his companies can't see the advantages of supporting XPRL to deliver words to investors and analysts despite his empire's claim to be “A World Leader in Communication” (WPP ).

The people running traditional companies do not move rapidly enough. It is impossible to change a company rapidly enough in this era of technological change (quoth Sir Martin) and over four years, the Sorrel companies have briskly demonstrated this as the semantic web marched in a completely different direction.

Because all of this is about the semantic web. It is manifest in the New Media Release initiative.

It seemed obvious to a number of us in 2001 that there would be a need for a Public Relations to be involved in the semantic web. It is all about communication. To us this meant there was a need for an industry XML schema.

There were four reasons for this.

• The World Wide Web Consortium was backing it.

• Closer to home, Reuters had a standard which they released to the news publishing industry which because NewsML. It seemed to us that if we were going to communicate with the media using NewsML, there was a need to join the club.

• The financial sector was developing a schema (XBRL)for posting financial results in a structured way to the major stock markets. It was providing the numbers but not the statements and text related content. For financial PR it was important to be able to use XML in this environment.

• It became clear that, as the emerging semantic web took hold, every communicator would need capabilities to lever the value of XML in all their software.

We formed a group called XPRL.org, involving the CIPR and PRCA in the UK and a number of people in the UK and USA.

Timing was awful. It was 2001. The dot com bubble burst, there was recession and the PR industry struggled for every buck.

Furthermore, this was a time when in PR even the web was new and attempting to move thinking among people like clip companies, press release distribution companies and PR agencies was very difficult. It was still a time of paper and, tentatively, email.

The PR evaluation companies really did get it. Mostly because they could see how good XML would be for creating mine-able data.

Using volunteers we created the site, I wrote the Vision statement, and a group created the first schema.

We had a number of meetings with a range of organisations (agencies, clip companies, press release distributors, government departments etc.) asking them to adopt the standard.

The concept was taken to the Global Alliance, the worldwide organisation for all the national Public Relations Associations. It was, and remains, supportive.

However, the vendors and practitioners in PR, just could not understand or see the value of XML in their businesses.

What happened then was that, as companies realised that XML was useful, they started to build it into new software. It soon became obvious that the CEO and CIO across the PR industry have little in common and mostly have no way of discussing the niceties of communications technologies.

Time after time I would visit companies to hear that they were using XML in development; had not heard of XPRL and, in any case, preferred proprietary XML schema thinking that it gave them some kind of competitive advantage.

Time after time, I saw programmers building 'look up' tables so that the proprietary schema could 'talk to' other schemas most often not just in the same group of companies but on the same computer!.

We now have a circumstance where even in the same group of companies for example where there are a number of big PR firms under the same ownership they do not have common data management standards and have mix'n match XML knitting in their computers.

I also know of two PR big service providers who have two or more schemas running in parallel inside the same company. One is for proprietary computing and one is for interface with other, external schemas.

The IT costs run to five if not six figures.

Part of the problem is that most companies feel that what they do is unique. Is what a big PR company does each day so novel or can anyone do it?

There is almost nothing unique in PR.

(a quick diversion here, I founded Media Measurement, we had a complete software capability to replicate all the evaluation outputs of all of our competitors in the late '90's. We chose not to because our approach was, to our mind, better. For most in the PR industry, the same applies).

What these organisations have not yet managed to understand is that by co-operating they can up their individual game to levels they would not believe.

Meantime, other industries were not so reticent. They brought their XML schemas together, they shared their technologies and they created huge advantages that allowed them to prosper.

There are a number of reasons why the PR industry needs to take XPRL seriously now.

First :

Much (probably all) of the services delivered to in-house and agencies are now delivered using XML as the basis for managing data. While this is delivered as a one off service this is of no consequence. But the minute the organisation wants to make two services work together, they are at (an expensive) disadvantage.
Where services are delivered using the Internet, it can ONLY be optimised using XML. For example, if you have a Google News RSS feed to bring you breaking news about a client, industry or other news, you are using XML and need to be able to integrate using other XML enabled software. This is also true of press lists, clippings, events calendars and without exception, all social media. It is only the PR industry that is out of step.

None adoption of an industry schema is costing the industry a lot of money AND it is losing competitive advantage because the more advanced competitors are using XML standards. A small number may be edging towards involvement but the announcements are thin on the ground.

Second:

To be able to provide services to clients (intranets, extranets, web based, social media based, news release, SMS etc) the industry now has to use XML. Other computers just don't use any other common standard. At present, the industry is relying on a human interaction (such as a journalist transposing words in an email to his article). This is no longer an option for many publishers, the time cost is too high. They have to change the rules to survive.

This means that the PR industry needs to adopt an XML standard to be able to deliver its offering.

The delivery of financial results in XML format is now important even if only to get the timing right and yet the XML standard is presently optimised for numbers and not text. XBRL (the business schema was forced

Third

Most of the emerging practices such as posting photos to web sites, including video and podcasts in blogs, and monitoring the Internet with RSS is dependant on the application of XML.

In fact, to receive press clips from most of the major clipping companies is XML enabled.

Not being able to optimise XML means that PR practice is hamstrung. It cannot compete with people and practices that can use XML.

These three reasons:

Reception and integration of information from suppliers; distribution of information and an ability to optimise interaction with digital media are the three reasons why the PR industry globally needs XPRL. It needs a group of people and the companies involved in providing vendor and client side services to come together to provide both a Public Relations Schema and XML services and advice to the industry.

In a time when the media is becoming the audience, the industry and each of its competitors will be stronger if they collaborate. Beggar thy neighbour is not a policy, it is a suicide note and one hopes that recent events are not an attempt at rushing the pearly gates.

This of all industries should know pro bono publicam. Which is what XPRL is really about.

Of course, there is one other reason why the semantic web and XML is important. For the unwary, it leaches out value from the foundations of the big companies unless they can, to quote Sir Martin again, find better poodles.

Go Join XPRL. This is the person to talk to.

A Semantic Opportunity for Sir Martin Sorrell

There is a lot of drive behind the Social Media Club and its flagship 'New Media Release' which has its own wiki, blog and podcast.

Go Join XPRL. This is the person to talk to.

xprl
new media release
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Social Media Club

Up the Tubes

YouTube have been "putting out some new features, sweeping out the cobwebs and zapping a few gremlins" for the last four hours.

They say they will "be back later. In the meantime, please enjoy a layman's explanation of our website..." See graphic left.

This at a time when I included it in a Usenet post among the new media resources for consideration for added content in the New Media Release.

How embarasing... But where has YouTube gone?

Keeping the faith

“The media industry is the top career choice for graduates, but many companies are failing to provide clear training and development opportunities for first jobbers and this needs to radically change.”

Says Sue McLelland, Divisional Leader at Pathfinders.

“Research from our annual ‘Blue Book’ salary survey in 2006 highlighted that 91% of graduates place career development before money as the top priority when selecting a job.


OK but in an age when graduates are the norm?


Sue has also put this into other contexts:

"The market is now flooded with graduates, making competition for entry-level jobs tougher than ever.

"Graduates need to be armed with bags of initiative, work experience, IT and communication skills to survive - but this is not being effectively communicated by businesses or university career departments. It is little wonder that graduates are unwittingly ill-prepared for work, and thereis disappointment on both sides.

"Graduates need to realise that academic skills do not necessarily translate into success in the workplace and that, evenwith relevant skills, they might have to startat the bottom. Equally, businesses need to communicate to career departments and students the skills they are looking for intheir choice of graduates.

"If only one in four graduates expects to stay in their first job for five years, UK businesses are not doing enough to retain graduate talent. Those who insist on employing graduates need to offer the training and development opportunities that today's graduates expect. The workplace is a two-way street. These issues need to be addressed before the gulf between graduate and employer expectations becomes too large to bridge."

It tough out there.

Stakeholders matter - Sir John Sunderland

Sir John Sunderland is one of those inductry leaders who makes sense and yet whose organisations seem not to heed his words. The woes of Cadbury, the company he heads up, seem to fly in the face of the corporate words of wisdom. But he has just acquired the Seven-Up Bottling Company of San Francisco and the chewing gum business is seing a revival. Like your truly and McKinsey, he too, is talking the relationship langauge and also has an interest in stakeholder management.

Last July, Sir John, currently President of the CBI, talked about the nature of Stakeholderism as it applies today to the Henley Parnership meeting where he gave the keynote address. I have extracted some interesting paragraphs.

What he said is realy the job description of the Corporate Public Relations Chief. Here are words that are wise for all companies and all practitioners in Public Relations in the 21st Century, even if now he may wish he had a public relations member of the Board to add professionally qualified strategy to Group corporate and external affairs.

The Stakeholder Paradox

"Today business is expected to engage with a vast crowd of poorly defined newcomers – its so-called stakeholders. And in the UK, for the first time, these newcomers are set to acquire formal rights over businesses if the Company Law Reform Bill becomes law. It will oblige directors not only to safeguard the financial interests of the companies they serve but also to have regard to their employees, customers and suppliers – and to nurture communities and the environment – in every decision they make.

"In complete contrast to its original meaning to a present-day business a stakeholder can be someone with no formal relationship to it and no obligations towards it - whatever.

"A stakeholder means anyone and any group affected by the activities of an organization.

"A few years ago the US Corps of Engineers found it necessary to define its stakeholders. It listed the Army, the Air Force the Administration, Congress employees, the environmental community, trade unions clients, the media, state and local governments professional organizations, architect-engineer firms, construction companies “and others.” Building bridges to these groups has become almost as important to the Corps as building real ones over rivers.

"Almost anyone can be a stakeholder: it is as easy as posting an entry on the Internet. I did a Google search recently on GM Foods and it produced 6.4 million hits. The entries ranged from governments and scientific bodies to NGOs, pressure groups and individuals. 6.4 million self-appointed stakeholders, and, through Google democracy, each gets the same weight. Even interests which cannot use the Internet – like endangered species – can become stakeholders if the media and pressure groups appoint themselves on their behalf. Through environmental pressure groups, the planet itself has been turned into a stakeholder.

"Essentially, these new stakeholders are claimants, who take no account of how their demands on business will be met. They are mostly unelected and unaccountable and think only of their own constituency.

"If the proposed UK Company Law Reform Bill is enacted, British businesses could face substantial new costs in routine administration and record-keeping to defend themselves from the prospect of litigation. It opens up new possibilities for directors to be sued for decisions which adversely affect stakeholders. Directors will have to prove that they acted in good faith towards those stakeholders and to demonstrate that they took their interests into account.

"Even without the complications of this Bill, the arrival of new stakeholders has dramatically complicated business strategy and relationships with traditional stakeholders, particularly consumers and owners.

"... even consumers and owners have become highly disparate groups of people with conflicting interests which modern business is often hard to put to identify, let alone reconcile.

"Consumer markets are increasingly segmented, not only in conventional ways (region, age, income, class, gender, family status and so on) but in their means of accessing goods and services (conventional shopping, or home delivery, or online). Consumers have also segmented themselves in more elusive ways – in their self-perception and their relationship to products and brands.

"Consumers have a limitless ability to re-invent themselves: one minute caring, the next selfish; one minute self-indulgent, the next self-improving; one minute proud of their origins, the next aspiring to be something new. It has always been a challenge for business to search for new consumers whilst retaining the loyalty of the old. The volatility of modern consumers makes this challenge even more acute and with it the penalties of failure.

"Moreover, this volatility has made consumers even more vulnerable to being got at by other stakeholders particularly government and pressure groups.

"The complexities of consumer relationships are matched by those of investor relationships. One is the sheer number of investors in any public company and the disparity in their power, status and interests. Every shareholder, across the world, is entitled to reports and communication – in itself a significant cost to business. Investors range in size from individuals with a few shares to massive institutions.

"Institutional and large-scale investors review these options every day even second by second in today’s instant, always-open global markets.

"Adding to the complexity, we now have the twin phenomena of the ethical consumer and the ethical investor. These people select from the myriad of available goods and services and investments those which give them the greatest moral satisfaction. Some get professional advice, from ethical investment funds but many more take their information from pressure groups, through the Internet and from each other. The Company Law Reform Bill would give such investors new power without giving them any additional responsibility towards other investors or towards other stakeholders in business. There is nothing to stop such investors taking instructions from pressure groups even those who actually want to undermine the company in which they have bought shares.

"So much for consumers and investors. What of another traditional stakeholder – the employee? Employee relationships too are more complex than ever before. Most major companies have global workforces and every major company now has the possibility of acquiring a global workforce through outsourcing. With or without outsourcing operations, more and more companies are turning to more flexible employment patterns including part-time working and short-term contracts.

"Increasingly, companies survive or prosper because of the talent they command in their workforces, their accumulated knowledge and experience allied to their capacity to create new ideas and with them to conquer new markets.

"Joining ethical consumers and ethical investors are ethical employees – people able to choose an employer who gives them a sense of worth.

"All of these factors give business a huge task in managing relationships and many of them also apply to relationships with suppliers of intermediate goods and services. As with labour forces, global companies have to manage global supply chains with no common interest and subject to disparate laws, customs and practices. It is why our human rights and ethical trading initiatives are so important and followed so closely at Board level.

"Consumers, shareholders, employees, suppliers: all of these present challenges as stakeholders even though they have formal and defined links with business. But how much more complex is it to manage stakeholders without formal links who define their relationship with business in their own terms?

"Let’s examine these.

"The first is government. People still talk about “the government” – but government is not singular but multi-layered. If you do business in London you deal with no fewer than five layers: your local council, the Mayor and Assembly, the shadowy Government Office for London, central government, and the EU. None of these bodies have the same agenda and they are elected or appointed by different methods and on different timetables. And as well there is the plethora of quangos and other publicly-funded busybodies who have relationships with business.

"Within each layer of government different departments have different interests. Indeed a single department can sometimes harbour diametrically opposed interests.

"Now let us add to the stakeholder stew the media, pressure groups, NGOs and the law. All these groups have their own interests and priorities, but they feed off each other and of course off government and they all feed off the climate of suspicion which surrounds business in many countries.

"The law, especially in the United States, has become an independent stakeholder as a direct beneficiary of any stakeholder activity which results in legislation or litigation. Moreover, lawyers can now define their own relationship with business and other stakeholders. They can choose to defend business from the claims of other stakeholders or to offer them a means of pursuing those claims through the courts – a phenomenon vastly expanded by the arrival of contingency fees.

"The media, particularly the new flourishing Internet media, are more ready to circulate hostile stories about business.

"Through their relationships with government, media and the law pressure groups and NGOs have become powerful in their own right. Their claims to represent local communities and other interests are often unverified: all that matters is that government (or media or the law) accept them. From that moment on, the pressure group becomes automatically a stakeholder.

"Pressure groups and NGOs also benefit from an asymmetry between their reputations and that of business. If a pressure group plants an inaccurate story or launches a frivolous lawsuit the worst that can happen to it is to be thought misguided or misinformed. (It may even enjoy the halo of martyrdom if it goes down in court). For business, the inaccurate story or the frivolous lawsuit can damage a company or brand reputation which may have taken decades of investment and effort to establish.

"Stakeholder demands, especially from government, have also required major new governance processes and more importantly they have required the entire business organization to understand and commit itself to high standards of business conduct. Nothing wrong with that.

"There are no simple answers but I think that businesses will not go far wrong if they base their strategy on five simple elements.

"The first is self-confidence. Business should always believe that its core activities are worthwhile and represent a contribution to society.

"The second is consistency. Business process, values and statements should be constantly understood, constantly applied.

"The third is engagement with other stakeholders. Even at their most interfering and self-righteous other stakeholders can have a genuine interest in the decisions it makes and very often genuine new insights.

"Indeed, I believe that business itself should behave like a responsible stakeholder – a legitimate and necessary interest group in all the societies in which it operates. Business should display the same persistence and clarity in expressing its views – if not the same self-righteousness – as the pressure groups and NGOs with whom it has to contend. Indeed I believe that business is the natural defender of values which are deeply cherished in world society including the rule of law, protection against arbitrary power, freedom of thought and expression and social mobility. Let us act as stakeholders for those values wherever we operate.

"For the fourth I will paraphrase Abraham Lincoln: you cannot be loved by all of the people all of the time and business needs to recognize this.

"Fifthly, I believe that business must keep uppermost the vital importance of its and its brands reputation.

"Finally, we have to recognize that stakeholder proliferation and its management paradox is a permanent reality. There is no point grumbling about it. As a business grows its markets and activities, it inevitably engages with more interests in local, national and global society. The complexities this causes should be counted as part of the price of our success."

Picture: Sir John Sunderland President of the CBI

Managing PR after last Thursday

Bill Thompson is on the button for Web 1.0. The public relations industry, having let its communication role slip, needs to 'get it'.

It is easy to be destructive and critical. I want to help.

Let us suppose that the Public Relations Directors (that is, the person with responsibility for these activities) wants to review policy after last Thursday.

The first priority is to ask Dr Jon White to generate comprehensive stakeholder maps. There is a need for a map based on a number of scenarios based on volume of activity (thus an ability to manage a crisis). Of course, it is possible to continue conversations about stakeholder mapping on a blog.

The next step is to identify communications channels that can be made available to each stakeholder group.

A useful list of channels for communication is available here.

Such lists need to be considered in the context of available technologies and how such technologies can be used in an integrated and convergent fashion.

With this knowledge, there is then a need to begin to develop strategies.

An example of how strategies can be developed is available here.

Because the unexpected is round every corner, managing and escalation process is needed for day to day management and this is a well worn example (and massive graphic from the book 'Online Public Relations' is here) .

Now, implement the plan.

On-line, there a lot that can be discovered that is so much cheaper than going to time consuming conferences and breakfast meetings and there are some really 'got it' consultants available too .

I guess some of them might even comment on this post (see below).

Picture: Critical Points

Wired Town

Swindon, the home of Billie Piper, Melinda Messenger, and yours truly has the highest number of homes in the UK with a broadband connection, research revealed today.

Research group Point Topic said over 50% of homes in Swindon have a broadband connection reports the Guradian. It said the high take-up was because of the large number of young families in Swindon with children and that such households tend to opt for broadband.

We have wifi on our trains, and hope to have town wide wifi soon.

With Intel inside, it seems that there is a lot that can happen not least is a PR consultancy with new media expertise.......

Picture: Billy Piper

'Plot to blow up planes' disrupted - PR in the front line

Today in the UK we have both a plot foiled and an on going threat alert.

On a day like today, when a major criminal threat on lives on an unprecedented scale affects the police, airports, airlines, travel industries and many others, the Public Relations Industry has to work very hard.

The need for reliable information is at a premium. The range of publics desperate for news is enormous and those of us who are onlookers have interests too.

In the last six hours, the Public Relations industry has, for the most part, shown how good it really is.

At the heart of this is trust. People have gone to our professional communicators for information and have been able to trust companies and receive good, timely and accurate information.

We will all learn lessons but with PR now in the front line we have to both follow through with existing capabilities and adopt new ideas too.

Not only is this a matter of being able to trust the organisations but the means they have available for communication too.

Emergency plans have to be ready anyway but the need for a real person to be available to make live statements is important too. The real voice of organisations using as many channels for communication as possible is critical.

What is evident is the role digital media has played and continues to play.

There are places people trust. Online News 24 hours a day like News24 from the BBC, the news web sites and those of the airports and airlines are obvious stopping off places.

We have to consider what the essentials are. The first is a reliable pipe.

I live 70 miles from the most affected airport, London Heathrow. Where I live has the highest penetration of broadband in the country. My available BT bandwidth is down 30%. This is an issue. It has to be an issue for governments and the need for alternatives is now critical. In addition to broadcast, cable, copper, public wifi and cellular options have to be in place for all civilised countries. Without this capability all the other forms for communication at a disadvantage and public safety and security is at risk. On this occasion, the networks coped but BT, the primary provider of Broadband in the UK looked sick.

Given that the Internet is capable to deliver traffic, PR practitioners in both public and private organisations have a primary consideration be able to serve up web sites. Without this basic ability, they cannot communicate.

The bandwidth issues are critical and are a public relations responsibility. Can your servers cope South Roof Office Block? BAA, the primary airport operator in the UK failed at this first hurdle. It had a single page up and served up a 404 when I clicked on all the other links. BA, the Airline responded online effectively

Finally, the Internet is robust as a network. Being able open up channels from a range of locations is important too, with a capability to serve information from a number of locations is helpful.

The next big problem is an ability to deploy a range of outlets. Web sites can be overwhelmed as we found out during the 9/11 attack. Today, we have a wide range of alternatives and can lever the capacity of the biggest servers in the world. Trusted social media needs to be in place. Channels like blogs have a role to play because they can distribute information across the network fast and being networked is robust.

In addition, the use and application of mobile has to be a consideration. Mobile can now be both push and pull and can help reduce concerns over both the telco issues such as my BT problem and an ability to manage bandwidth problems more effectively.

Being in a position to share information fast is paramount. The chief communication manager in the organisation now needs to push ahead with collaborative media. Managers, even in relatively small organisations just have to come to terms with wiki style information sharing and knowing that some (designated) wiki pages can be used to serve up news to other sites as soon as approved and by a range of authorised employees.

There is a big role for trusted social media.

This crisis in the UK today has pointed up a need to explore the role of a wider range of communications channels.

Picture: Heathrow today

CIPR to Adopt Social Media

The Director General of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Colin Farrington, revealed a social media outreach programme and an online ethics policy review yesterday.

In an interview for the premier PR podcast 'For Immediate Release', he made it clear that the the Institute is taking the changes in communication very seriously, commenting:

"We absolutely recognise that the whole public relations and communication world is changing.

"We have to be part of that and have to understand it.”

Acknowledging information overload he said the CIPR has to 'provide information in every format we can', 'looking for a wide range of channels for outreach'. In the eight minute interview, he announced the following new initiatives:

• a re-vamp of the Institutes online magazine, Profile Extra,
  
• greater use of RSS for Institute online publications,
  
• more use of social media including
  
• more Webinars and
  
• use of the President's Blog, PRVoice,
  

This to offer a wider mix of communications channels used in 'outreach' to member professionals.

Running ahead of members.

He revealed that the Institute was in 'Listening and learning mode' and noted that the UK was behind the USA in adopting Social media making it clear that it was important to "be careful not to run ahead of members."

Acknowledging that there was a need to inform and educate members, plans were revealed for the Institute to 'shortly' publish skills guides for:

• podcast
  
• blogging.

Ethical Issues

He said that he recognises an "Immaturity in blogging in the UK" and pointed out that there are ethical issues that need added consideration. Specifically he mentioned that anonymity online (not revealing identity or not revealing action on behalf of an employer or client) contravenes the Chartered Institutes's code of professional conduct.

He said "People in PR need to consider their relationship with clients; PR is largely about relationship building and that Blogging is an easy medium to run away with.

He highlighted the problem with Astroturfing, a form of passing-off to dupe decision makers, electors and consumers and noted that this was a problem to be dealt with both on and off-line and which mirrors growing concern among on-line PR practitioners.

Picture: Colin Farrington

Chartered Institute of Public Relations
Colin Farrinton
astroturfing
ethics
public relations

Don't frighten the client

I was very recently introduced to a Public Relations consultancy because the intermediary thought I knew something about the Internet and, in particular, social media. As we know the more you find out, the more you know you know nothing.

Anyway, we talked.

Now, they do use email, have used PRNewswire and have a web site. The son of one of the directors had introduced the idea of blogging to get a number of friends together to do things.

They had heard that blogs were the cool thing for PR these days.

Could I help?

Well, quoth I, some basic rules:

• All your clients should be monitoring Social Media and extracting strategic if not specific inferences about their sector, competitors and environments.

• 'Social Media' is not for every organisation and needs strategies behind application

• It makes organisation much more transparent.

• Once in, there is no going back

• It will change the client both internally and externally

• The consultant is just that and the only authentic voice is the voice of the client

“Oh!” said the consultant, “But you can't say that to our clients, it sounds expensive, technical and frightening.”

“Yes,” I said, “and if they are frightened by that, they will be even more frightened by the consequences of ignoring the new media.”

We parted.

Such a shame.

Nice people.

A local government authority suggested that, because it had award winning web sites and a couple of its councillors had blogs, they were doing well.

I suggested that, perhaps, they were failing their community.

They were missing the opportunities for democratisation, community decision making, attracting inward investment, tourists and a global reputation at a time when local councils were competing with both near neighbours and towns on the other side of the world. There was every need to get up to speed fast.

I offered them some thoughts on Social Media strategy along these lines.

They think the Chief Executive should have a blog - written by the PR department.

Such nice people. So earnest. So very good at PR1.0.

Pity, pity.

Where is the leadership in this profession? St Stephen’s Club perchance?

Picture: Pity Willliam Blake

SEOing just keywords

Ranked in order of search engine popularity ToolURL identifies the most searched for keywords including their search count. it is used for Search engine optimisation. A practice all PR people should be aware of.

I thought I should try 'Public Relations' in a blog post. I can then compare it to WordTracker on the My Internet Lectures Blog.
Next experiment is to put the same words in the same order in tags. Not today though - of course I'm playing!


10791 public relations
4309 public relations agency
327 public relations consultant
276 public relations agency uk
236 london public relations
220 public relations uk
203 public relations firm
174 public relations photographer
144 public relations jobs in london
141 public relations consultancy
131 institute of public relations
110 consultant london public relations
106 public relations manchester
98 public relations jobs
93 public relations company uk
92 public relations kent
91 public relations services
82 effective public relations
77 crm public relations
74 public relations course
70 public relations specialist
69 public relations east sussex
63 north west public relations
60 public relations company
59 public relations definition
59 engineering public relations technical
56 brighton consultant public relations
53 public relations doncaster
49 handbook public relations
49 public relations south yorkshire
48 care health public relations
45 financial public relations
44 spotlight public relations
43 agency asian public relations
43 chartered institute public relations
41 company limited public relations
40 marketing and public relations
39 public relations strategy
37 public relations plan
35 public relations degree
34 effective public relations skill writing
34 fashion public relations
34 public relations tarantino
33 communication marketing public relations role sme
32 `internal public relations`
31 career in public relations
31 communication designing public questionnaire relations survey
30 agency colchester public relations
30 agency media public relations
30 consultant doncaster public relations
30 freelance in job public relations
30 ophthalmologists public relations
29 public relations job description
29 hair product public relations
28 pr public relations
27 gym public relations
27 physician public relations
27 plastic public relations surgeon
26 celebrity public relations
26 public relations fitness
25 firm public relations state united
25 public relations glasgow
25 public relations major
25 public relations recruitment
24 beauty product public relations
24 public relations book
24 exploring public relations
24 media public relations
24 public relations writing
23 public relations spa
22 care public relations skin
22 dermatologists public relations
22 dummy public relations
22 public relations salon
21 public relations association
21 beauty public relations
21 business course media public relations
21 cosmetic public relations
21 government local public relations
21 international public relations
21 public relations theory
20 brunswick public relations
20 public relations career
20 jobs in public relations
20 international ltd public relations
20 kelly public relations teri
19 the business public relations
19 competency framework public relations
19 public relations consultancy uk
19 consultant manchester public relations
19 public relations music
19 national public relations
18 public relations campaign
18 cheltenham public relations
18 creativity in public relations
18 framework public relations skill
18 studying public relations
17 corporate financial public relations
17 public relations education
17 public relations officer

Picture: A New Tool Kit

Where does relationship value come from?

Today I identified the McKinsey has begun to take relationships seriously as a corporate asset.

This theoretical framework has to resolve the issues associated with identifying relationships (Ledingham,& Bruning), description of an organisation (Coase/Sonsino) and the means by which organisational value can be described, valued and changed.

It is this that enables us to develop a Relationship Management model of public relations practice when defined as: “influencing behaviour to achieve objectives through the effective management of relationships and communications”

(Chartered Institute of Public Relation and the UK Department of Trade and industry “Unlocking the Potential of Public Relations: Developing Good Practice” 2003)

In essence, I posit that peoples' (actors') cognition is expressed explicitly as tokens in the formation and maintenance of relationships. The formation and maintenance of such relationships is through networks which allows these tokens to be recognised and through which the values actors' attribute to tokens can be understood. Such understanding, when they converge in a process of cognitive consistency, are the conditions under which a relationship is formed. As the array of convergent tokens becomes richer, the relationship deepens. As more people recognise these tokens and their values, they coalesce into social groups such as organisations.

Using this approach, one can identify the nature of an organisation and the nature of relationships between organisations, their members and social (often commercial) groups.

Organisation value need not be merely financial (Hall) or physical such that relationships, brand and corporate values (including Intellectual Properties, tacit, explicit and process knowledge) can be, and mostly are, of greater significance in valuing an organisation, government or even nation state than, for example, share price. John Kenneth Galbraith coined the concept of 'intellectual capital', the imbued, actualised and evolving 'know-what', 'know-how', 'do-what' and 'do-how' of social groups in the form of an organisation and its sphere of influence.

The significance of attributes inherent in relationships, brands, reputation, IP, process knowledge and capital is that they are the elements that describe the assets of an organisation. Such attributes are, in actuality, only held by individuals. Such descriptions are all metaphors (Lakoff 1993) even when apparently describing physical assets and their asset value. The values we ascribe to these token-values need not be financial. Value is to a greater or lesser extent unique to each actor. For example brand values can be explicit, implicit and or tacit and are 'My brand values' and may be different to everyone else. Another example may be a token as tangible as an office. For one person it can be an impersonal blot on the landscape and for another a place of social interaction, work and fulfilment. Such values can be held tacitly, implicitly, metaphorically, or explicitly. In seeking to identify value, we have to look, as nearly as we can, from the perspective of the actor.

The value of tokens can be described explicitly, implicitly or metaphorically but cannot be described when tacitly held.

There is an old soldier who, having fought throughout the Second World War, had a distinguished career in politics. In his garden is a lump of concrete with rusty bits of iron poking out of it. He shows it to all his visitors and tells them it is his most valued possession. It turns out to be part of the Berlin Wall that separated the Western democratic part of the City from its communist neighbours for four decades. The value of this lump of concretes is in its representation of subjugation and division and its iconic symbolism of demolished oppression and the resulting freedom it presaged across Europe. To the old soldier and all he show it to, it has many values – it represents the apogee of his life's work as soldier and politician. The lump of concrete sticks in the minds of his visitors and changes their opinion of the this old man. The tangible manifestation of all these values is nothing more than the rubble to be found on any urban building site in the world. Tangible assets seldom have any value except when they are associated with intangible values.

To gain cognitive consistency and in resolving dissonance, there is a need for shared understanding of the token and its values in order that it can be identified as relevant in creating convergence.

There is a need for the other major ingredient in the Relationship Value Model. The old soldier, needs visitors so they can enjoy is values.

The rose, valued in terms of a coin's monetary value can be worth £1 to a florist and yet valued by the wife as a token of a loving relationship after the husband has been out for a night with the boys. This needs a structure for the token to be exchanged. Some form of network that allows the husband to present the rose and its associated values of romantic attachment. In other words the actors, tokens and values need a mechanism to ensure material relationship values are available to the parties and achieve convergence in terms of value exchanged at a cost acceptable to the parties. In management speak, a cost effective relationship.

Picture: Perfect Rose

CIPR purchasing guide

The CIPR will launch a Government backed procurement guide for the PR industry. it vwas due out on 13th July but I have not seen it yet. There is a guide available from the PRCA (PDF) so it will be interesting to see what it looks like by comparison when it arrives.

The press release covers off the main points.

The purchasing guide is co-authored by Tom Wells, managing partner of Gyroscope, and is designed for use by anyone involved in the buying or providing of PR services.

Following the recommendations of the 2003 CIPR/DTI study, which identified the lack of a purchasing common standard as a major problem affecting the competitiveness and future success of the PR industry, the guide provides an overview of what PR is and is not.

The Guide is said to look at the workings of PR and how it can be used to greater effect. The practicalities of buying-in PR expertise 'a step-by-step account' sounds just like the PRCA model and i hope it is covered as well.

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations is the professional body for PR practitioners in the UK. With possibly 8,000 members involved in most aspects of the public relations industry, it is said to be the largest body of its type in Europe. The CIPR boasts that it advances the PR industry in the UK by developing policies for the PR industry, representing its members, and raising standards through education and training.




Chartered Institute of Public Relations
Public Relations
Colin Farrinton