4 responses to “Can PR evolve quickly enough?”
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I’m a PR man. Recently returned to the UK after three years doing volunteer work in Hanoi.
While I was away, because i was working fundraising for a grass roots ngo and I had no budget – we had to be creative in communicating with people.
Sponsors got to see what donations were achieving via flickr, we cut down on our phone bills with skype, my own blog even brought in several thousands dollars worth of donations.
But being out of the UK loop I assumed that everyone was doing this. I thought this was the natural PR evolution.
So when I came back and had my first interview I was amazed at the blank faces when I mentioned Flickr and Felicious, Facebook etc.
I was amazed after my relative successes that people were still more bothered about whether or not I was on first names terms with the business editor for the local rag.
Certainly from my own experiences PRs are making so little progress towards understanding (never mind utlising) all those web 2.0 tools.
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Nicely said Mr Mayfield. There may not be a thing….
PR and marketing could be seen as different budgets, different people, different agents, but the work is coming together all nicley ain’t it.
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Absolutely, Drew – cheers for the comment.
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Antony, this is excellent and thank you. It also is timely after Eric Schwartzman’s interview with CIPR Director General Colin Farrington in his On The Record Online podcast. There is a huge body of PR opinion that has not quite grasped what this is all about. They use web applications on their phones, buy online, have a FB account but imagine that online is not pervasive.
Colin puts it well. He records, and seems to believe, that there is an area of PR that is not touched by social media. What he fails to impart is that there is a balance and the scales are fast tipping to the point where traditional PR (press, events, lobby, conference etc) is the optional add on and not the mainstream of relationship building or communication.
The indicators are all there and yet many industry leaders don’t see soaring media readership online, fast growing BBC podcast audiences, MySpace and Facebook, views and content contributions, huge paid for online interactive games players and lots more.
The leaders in the PR industry do little service when they fail to even recognise so many signs showing not just change but the magnitude of change.
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