Saturday, July 04, 2009
Life, liberty and the pursuit of work
This is personal. While I wanted to write it ('I write therefore I think') I'm not necessarily so keen on you reading it.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:00 AM in Careers | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Speed versus substance
Here's a confession: I've done no more than dip my toe into Twitter. I know it's where the conversation is, I know it's the latest toy loved by celebrities and social media mavens. I know it's where news breaks and gets discussed. I know it's a great example of the mobile internet.
So it's OK for me to come out as a Twitter refusenik. See how I'm ahead of the curve?"The other night Jeremiah Owyang told me that thought leaders should avoid spending a lot of time in Twitter or FriendFeed because that time will be mostly wasted. If you want to reach normal people, he argued, they know how to use Google. And if you want to get into Google the best device — by far — is a blog."
Posted by Richard Bailey at 09:50 AM in Social media | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Expenses scandal source named
The PR hand behind the parliamentary expenses story has been named. He's Henry Gewanter and his Positive Profile website proclaims his involvement in 'the story of the century'. So far, so transparent.
- On whose behalf was he acting? Public relations can be a neutral force; it can even act in the public interest. But it usually acts on behalf of a paying sponsor. Profesional ethics and transparency require that we don't conceal or deny the sponsor's identity.
- Why has his identity emerged now, and why was a PR intermediary necessary in this case?
- How much did the Telegraph pay? It remains a big political story, but payment by the newspaper shapes our understanding of the newspaper's motives in the same way that it shapes our understanding of the PR agenda.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, June 22, 2009
Now for The Fall of PR
Humans need narratives to simplify the muddy complexity of life. These narratives (stories) sometimes become so compelling that they appear to be the truth. But a narrative isn't the truth, it's a convenient and sometimes prevalent world view.
Continue reading "Now for The Fall of PR"
Posted by Richard Bailey at 11:49 AM in Books, Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Private citizen, public blog
A high court judge has ruled that "blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity", so unmasking an anonymous police officer who had previously won a literary award for the Nightjack blog (no longer available.) The news is reported widely; I've chosen to link to the FT's dispassionate account.
Libertarians are incensed. Here's their case: whistleblowers have an important role to play in a free society, exposing hypocrisy and wrong-doing. Without the cloak of anonymity, most would remain silent and our society could suffer as a result. Their case is even stronger in a totalitarian state: if speaking out would expose you to repression at the hands of those in power, then anonymous protest is the only viable route for most people. Essentially, this is an appealing argument in favour of free speech.
Ironically, this blogger was exposed following investigative work by The Times newspaper. Free speech for the newspaper has resulted in no expression for the blogger (and a warning from his employer).
Let's call the counter-argument the corporate perspective. This argues that employees have a contractual and professional responsibility to act in the best interests of the employer by, for example, not revealing confidential information. People dealing with matters considered to be of national security are governed by the Official Secrets Act; and most professionals and politicians struggle when personal conscience clashes with collective responsibility.
These questions have always existed. What's new is the ease in which personal publishing (blogging) can move from the private into the public sphere. What starts as a personal diary can end up being viewed as mass media. What lessons do we learn from this?
- Transparency requires that, in all but exceptional circumstances, blogs are stronger for coming from a named, identifiable source. The first place I turn to when visiting a new blog is the About page.
- The act of publishing means making something public. The rules have changed, though: 'publish then filter' means that most of what bloggers write remains effectively anonymous. But the advice has to be: 'Write with consideration. Your words may be read, even years from now.'
- Organisations need guidelines for employees on using social media. It's not a straightforward question of banning - or controlling - all engagement. Most organisations want to believe they operate as open, not closed, systems and many employees (certainly most knowledge workers) resent attempts at 'command and control'. It's not a narrow legal question; it's a broad matter of the mission and culture of the organisation and should be the domain of corporate public relations practitioners and advisers.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 04:53 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, June 15, 2009
New theme: music and public relations
I've had some enquiries about running a music theme in Behind the Spin - so here's your chance to write about your favourite topic. We're a public relations magazine, remember, so here are some possible angles:
- Use of social media to promote music
- Festival promotion
- PR careers in music
- The decline of the hit and rise of the long tail (and what this means for the industry)
- Downloads, copyright and legal issues
- Who's who in the music press
- The use of sound in public relations
- The revival of radio
Posted by Richard Bailey at 01:14 PM in Behind the Spin | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, June 12, 2009
You only spin when you're winning
It's a potent criticism of public relations. That we shout loud when there's good news to tell, but go very quiet when there's nothing new to say. Kevin Moloney calls it 'hemispheric communications' because the PR sun only shines on one side of the globe.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 08:04 AM in Consultancy, Publishing, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
News release revisited
I've been asked for some advice from a student on how she can improve her news release writing skills. (Obviously my twelve-week module on PR Writing at the start of the previous academic year had faded from memory).
I know that the traditional press release is discredited and that we should be willing to experiment with new forms. I prefer the term news release because this describes its essential ingredient. I also feel that the discipline of writing a 'story in a sentence' is useful even if the document gets discarded, and that a grounding in news values is important for PR students.
Here are my tips on news release writing:
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Ask yourself 'what's the story?'. Make sure that the story is focused on a matter of public interest or customer benefit - not just on the client's desire for publicity. No story, no news release. Does it meet the following test: 'is it new, or is it surprising?'
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To help you think about news, it describes an event so you should be able to answer the question 'what happened?' News is conventionally written in the past tense (eg 'launched', 'announced').
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Now write the story in a sentence using short words and dropping the adjectives (the descriptive words that can easily lead to hype such as 'revolutionary'). For style tips read the first sentence of any story in a newspaper - especially the tabloids.
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The rest of the document should elaborate on this sentence using the inverted pyramid principle (most important facts first, followed by next most important and so on).
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Always include a quotation: this is the next most important component as it should express a real opinion from a real person. Check and discuss this quotation with them and never resort to a statement starting with 'we're delighted...' That's not new, not surprising and won't be used, though it's opposite might gain you some attention. 'We're ashamed of our new product and apologise for introducing it...'
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Put the company puff in the notes or use a hyperlink. Don't clutter the news paragraph with a lengthy description of the client.
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The client will want to change much of the above, assuming the news release to be a form of placed adverisement. You have to earn your salary by advising them that without news there's no chance of publicity and that the news release is the start, not the end, of a process.
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Images are usually helpful, but don't automatically send large file attachments. Plain text is best (and a phone call first is usually better).
Posted by Richard Bailey at 12:13 PM in Media relations, Students | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, June 08, 2009
Challenging 'greed is good'
I often feel the debate on the professional status of PR misses the point when law or medicine are chosen for comparison. Public relations is a management discipline - and there's no formal profession guiding and governing general business managers either. (The argument has never been better crystallised than in a chapter heading in Morris and Goldsworthy's latest book on PR: 'Professional, but never a profession'.)
Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:48 AM in Profession | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Wake up call to students and graduates
Perhaps you need grey hairs to know just how bad it is out there (I have lots of grey hairs). What's a graduate to do in these circumstances?
Posted by Richard Bailey at 09:11 PM in Careers | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, May 29, 2009
How we learn: paddling pool or immersion?
Like many people involved in teaching, I like nothing more than learning something new myself. It's a pleasant bonus when the lesson comes from a student.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 02:49 PM in Academic, Crisis, Social media, Students | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
What works when you want work?
Universities are producing record numbers of graduates just when the economy can no longer absorb them, it appears. The credit crunch will turn into a career crunch for some.
I don't have any easy answers to offer: I suspect that we're experiencing a shift from working for large organisations towards smaller players, from secure employment to more flexible arrangements. This can be painful for some, but open doors to others. Graduates, I feel, should be better equipped to respond to change and uncertainty than non-graduates. We'll see.
But help and advice has never been so available to those seeking work. Much of this advice can be summarised in two points:
- Network. This involves connecting with and meeting people, and not just on Facebook. Explore PROpenMic, the professional social network LinkedIn and join professional bodies like the UK's CIPR. Allie Osmar tells how her Mentorship Connection initiative led directly to a job offer for one person. Sadly, her career's taking off so the Mentorship Connection is no longer being supported.
- Stand out. This has always been a competitive industry and it's not getting any easier, so you need to be an outstanding candidate. Sometimes this involves paying attention to detail and doing the basics well. In a thoughtful essay, Harold Burson argues that 'writing quality has been diminishing for half a century at least' and that 'the young job seeker who demonstrates writing skills is immediately differentiated from others'.
UPDATE: Richard Edelman offers seven tips for graduate job seekers.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 11:37 AM in Careers | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Desperately seeking symmetry
Every student of public relations learns about the 'two-way symmetrical model', considered to be the only excellent approach to public discourse by organisations. Though published 25 years ago (by US academics James Grunig and Todd Hunt) this model stands up remarkably well in an internet and social media age that prizes conversations and transparency.
I've just read a batch of essays stating that blogging exemplifies the two-way symmetrical model. Let's agree that blogging is (or should be) a two-way process. Readers can comment, they can continue the discussions on their own blogs through trackbacks and hyperlinks. But how is this symmetrical? A blog post always has more prominence than the comments; comments (particularly on corporate blogs) can be moderated and deleted. This is no more symmetrical than a newspaper that has a page for readers' letters and which prints occasional corrections (though rarely with the prominence of the original story).
If not blogging, then are there better examples of two-way symmetrical forms of social media? Conceptually, wikis are the most democratic form - since anyone (or any member of the community) can have equal rights to create and correct content. In reality, though, this is idealistic. Wikipedia (the most celebrated wiki of them all) has increasingly strong editorial controls and an army of volunteers policing changes and new content. So there's asymmetry here too. Besides, participation inequality (the 90-9-1 rule in Groundswell) suggests that very few members of any community are willing to do more than passively lurk - so we're back to one-way communications. Forget the conversations.
As for podcasts and videos, it's hard to argue that they're even two-way channels since they are products of editorial control (though the ease of creation and the way they are shared makes them a form of social media).
What about twitter? This is close to the ideal of unmediated voices in the public sphere (within the contstraints of 140 characters). Conversations can be joined and followed and there's apparent equality of voices because of the lack of editorial control. Clutter means we need filters, though, so Shirky's power laws still apply. Those with more followers have unequal conversational power.
Where are the social media examples of two-way symmetrical communications?
Posted by Richard Bailey at 09:35 AM in Academic, Social media | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, May 18, 2009
The bad-on-paper problem
You know about good-on-paper people? They tick all the boxes - on paper. In person, they can be disappointing to meet: there's just no chemistry.
Posted by Richard Bailey at 08:35 AM in Consultancy, Students, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The economics of news
I'm sure David Phillips will enjoy this (he's been defending the internet from the attacks of media pundits only today).
Posted by Richard Bailey at 07:54 PM in Media | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

