Be Mindful of Stakeholders

Stakeholders are a tricky lot.  They do not necessarily serve as part of an organization's customer base; nor are they part of the demographic that entities go after when they advertise, recruit or try to promote their initiatives or programs. Yet heaven help those same organizatrions if they make even close to a significant move without being sensitive to the perspectives or reactions of the stakeholders. This public, though often small in number, carries much weight and influence over the organization, and more directly, the men and women who run them. This, then, is a practical reason why any public relations practitioner needs to factor stakeholders into all promotional effort they undertake.

Who exactly are these stakeholders any way? The quick answer is they are individuals that have a vested interest in the well being of an organization or entity. An example is found at any institution of higher learning. All colleges and universities have some kind of governming body such as a board of visitors or trustess or, in some cases, both. These bodies are comprised of individuals that care about the welfare of their institution and, as a result, lend their expertise to helping oversee its budget, hire and fire its president, and give direct input into all major administrative decisions.  They are either appointed or, in some cases, elected to these positions. But do any of them actually take classes at the instittion, teach or work at them? Generally not.

Obviously, however, the stakeholders, collectively and individually, must not be ignored. They must be kept in the loop as well as any of the organization's other publics.  One challenge is found is determining specific strategies to do this. As they are a unique lot, whatever tactics the public relations worker devises must be unique to the stakeholders. Further, the strategies should be formulated with direct input and involvement from the organization's top administrators, including the president or chief executive officer. To ignore staekholders is to travel down a foolish path, one that could create.a gap between those who run the organization and those who care about it. For the well being of all involved, this should never happen.





  

The Art of Communication

In one of his state papers to King George III of England, revoluntary Thomas Jefferson wrote, "....the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail....." With a slight alteration, this statement, written nearly 240 years ago, speaks to the core of communication. Specifically, it is art of communication that consists in the art of being honest. Putting aside all the fancy graphics, colorful language, bright lights or gripping backdrops that often accompany acts of communication these days, is what one is saying the truth?

Much of what drives communication these days is an attempt to persuade. Professional communicators strive to motivate consumers to buy a particular product, support a cause or candidate or adopt a certain belief. Often their efforts are slick and efficient and in many cases successful. This, of course, makes the clients of the communicators very happy as it helps them make money, gain greater visibility and/or attain higheer levels of power. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. Who among any of us does not wish for any or all of them at some points in our lives? But those stations are only meaningful if they are attained with truthful effort.  

Professional communicators are individuials, too. At the end of each day, they go home to families and friends who view them as proponents of virtue. These family members and friends trust this professional who happens to communicate for a living is a person who does so in ways that are upfront, honest and without deception. If they are wrong, then the communicator is betraying the art of communication. Further, they are betraying those who hold them in high regard. Communcation's essence rides on the shoulders of the professional as this person is its most visible soldier. Ideally, this should not be viewed as a burden but rather as a privilege,

Beware of False Promises

Presently, there is a humorous  posting on You Tube of a young man attempting to bench press an undisclosed amount of weight in his basement. In it, he sets up his camera, positions himself under the weights and then begins to lift. Unfortunately, the weights prove far too heavy. Unable to place them back into their stand, the best the young man can do is slowly lower them onto his chest. What follows over the next three minutes or so is the young man trying to squirm out from under the weights. All the while he is calling for one or both of his parents to come rescue him from his predicament. He finally crawls out from under the weights uninjured but no doubt humbled.

My guess is in making the decision to film himself bench pressing the weights, he felt very confident he would have little difficulty doing so and, as a result, showcase to all who were interested his strength. To say the least, it did not work out that way. One of the lessons from this amusing tape can, I believe, be applied to practitioners of puiblic relations. It speaks to the Public Relations Society of America's code of ethics. I speak of the tenant that says practitioners should not make promises to a client they know they are in no position to guarantee. Doing so is an act of deception. In this case, the young man misled his client: himself.

It is an understandable and even easy trap to fall into. A client hires us. We believe in what them and what they stand for. Consequently, we want to do well for them and in our exuberance guarantee certain results in our promotional efforts that in reality are beyond our control.  For instance, we promise we will get the local newspaper to run a front page profile on our client's chief executive officer, Not only is that a false promise but it threatens the working relationship between the public relations professional and the client. Further, is can do harm to the reputation of the practitioner. Bottom line: those in public relations should not try to lift more than what they are capable of.

Internet Use in 2012

Though we all agree that ours is a hustle-bustle world in which so much of our time is spent "on the go," it seems as if much of the running around people did in 2012 was actually spetnt in front of their computer. According to a set of statistics regarding Internet use released recently by Pingdom, the amount of internetting worldwide is quite astounding. Pingdom, by the way, is a company that monitors or tracks the uptime, downtime and performance of websites throughout the world. It is headquartered in Sweden. Their numbers reenforce the enormous popuularity of  the computer but also suggest we as a species are becoming more stationary.

Following are among the more astounding numbers: 2.2 billion email users worldwide; 144 billion total email traffic per day; 68.8 percent of email is spam; there are 87.8 million Tumblr blogs; there are 246 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains; there are 2.4 billion Internet users worldwide; 40.5 is the average age of a Facebook user; 37.3 is the average age of a Twitter user; there were 1.2 trillion searches on Google; Brazil is the most active country on Facebook; and the top trending question of the year on Ask.com was: "Will Rob and Kristen get back together?" Perhaps what is not surprising is that these and other related statistics Pingdom released indicate a notable jump from 2011.

As fascinating as the statistics are, they raise the question of how this relates to the efforts of communication professionals. Upon first glance, these numbers raise three basic questions: What impact does it have on the strategies they devise to best serve and support clients ? What  expertise do they need to possess in order to do well in the profession? and What does it suggest about the future of the communcation or public relations profession? Answers to the first two question seem obvious: more strategies will need to revolve around the Internet and that practtioners will need to become very comfortable with this tool. In terms of the profession, the statistics indicate this field is becoming more of a "young man's" game. 

Working With Clients

Someone writes an interesting book and now wants everyone to know about it. Who can blame them? The author recruits a public relations professional for assistance. The author's initial request is they want to be scheduled as a guest on as many national talk shows as possible, ranging from "The View" and ""Fox and Friends" to "The Colbert Report" and "Piers Morgan." Without question, this is a tall order for any public relations worker, regardless of how much experience they may have. What to do? What steps can the publicist take to try and make this happen?

The first step is for the PR worker to take a step back and assess the request as objectively as possible. There are several initial factors to consider: (1) The book itself. How well is it written and researched? Is the topic timely and compelling? Is the topic of interest to a broad audience? (2) The Author. Is this person well known? What is their level of expertise? Answers to these fundamental questions tell the PR worker what they need to emphasize in their media advisories, pitch letters and press releases. The PR worker should not let the understandable enthusiasm of the author sway them from giving a disspassionate, realistic assessment of what they have been called upon to do. This, of course, means the worker may end up providing the author with feedback they do not want to hear.

One of the main points in the Public Relations Society of America's code of ethics is that public relations professionals should not make any promises they cannot keep. Unless one's client is an unqualified national figure, guaranteeing them a guest spot on a national talk show is a most definite no-no. But all is not lost. If the PR worker believes in the client and their work, there is nothing wrong with trying to book them as a guest on various national shows. More realistically, they should also consider second tier talk shows that may have a wide following though not on a national level. Working with clients is always a challenge. Being successful with them, however, begins with honest.

Lucky is Not Good

For many years I served in the capacity of media or organizational spokesman. That was my function though I worked under the title of "press secretary." How well I did at that job I will leave to others to determine. One of the benefits of working in that capacity is it provided me with numerous opportunities to learn important lessons about both communication and life. One example of this involved a story the press - local and national - had gotten wind of regarding one of our employees. This gentleman, who's name I will not disclose though it has been reported in the press, was charged with professional misconduct. The charges were serious to the point he was at-risk of losing his job. 

As press secretary, I was brought in to handle any media inquiries regarding this person and his alleged actions. This was fine except I myself was not given access to all pertinent information regarding the case. Nevertheless, I was instructed to deal with all media calls. This is what I did even though I was not totally comfortable talking about it because I knew the gravity of the case and that I was not as well informed or knowledgeable about it as I needed to be. Reporters called with their questions and I addressed them as best I could. Looking back, several of the more experienced ones sensed my unease and did not press me as hard as they could have. 

I was lucky. And, by extension, so, too, was my client. Had reporters been more aggressive in their questioning, all of us could been more vulnerable to public scrutiny and criticism. More than how I handled reporters, I attribute the fact they weren't much more to good fortunate than to my actions. Thus, the lesson I learned is that if one is to be successful, then they need to be good. Being lucky is nice but that is nothing one should ever count on. However, being good, which involves solid preparation and hard work, does give one a sense of readiness and control over their circumstance. Lucky is certainly nice but good is light years better.

Relationships and Choice

Let me begn by stating what seems to be universally accepted: relationships are hard. In this case, my use of the word "relationship" speaks to those of the romantic variety in which two people join together because they are mutually attracted and want to maintain an exclusive commitment toward each other. Often times the end result of this is marriage or, at least, going steady, being pinned or living together. Interestingly, other relationships we have do not seem to be so challenging. For instance, I get along just fine with the person who takes my dry cleaning, co-workers, students with whom I interact, and even people at the gym I frequent.

All of us are involved in multiple relationships. My guess is the great majority of those relationships or connections are positive and cordial. Even in the professional world of public relations, so many interactions are positive even if we do not always generate as much publicity as we want, hit the target we are shooting for, or attract as many clients as we wish. Thus, if one were to make a list of all the relationships in their life, my hypothesis is very few would be placed in the negative column. As social beings, we need relationships inthe broad sense and, for the most part, seem to be pretty good at establishing and maintaining them.

Assuming this is true, I go back to the initial statement about relationships of the heart being hard. Are they really? If so, is the reason for this because we do not know what to do to make them successful or because we decide we no longer want to do what is needed to keep them viable and strong? My sense is when those special relationships take a negative turn or fail it is not because of any mysterious or mystical reason. We have and knowledge-base to keep those ties bound tightly. They fail or end out of choice rather than something beyond our level of comprehension. It is a choice-thing.

Top Teaching Priority

Communication is as fundamental to life as breathing. There is no action we take or word we impart that does not constitute communication. Everything we say and/do is subject to a response or judgement. These truisms apply to those who earn a living in communication as well as to the rest of the population. In other words, it is universal. Thus, in the area of teaching there is no subject more relevant than communication. It is this basic notion as much as any I seek to drive-home in every class I teach - something I have been doing now for several decades.

Because the classes I teach revolve around communication or public relations, the great majority of my students are majors in this field and have hopes of making a career in it.  Whether they do or not, these young men and women have lives as do I and everyone else. They, too, face the day-to-day challenges of interacting with others, dealing with conflict, trying to get across various thoughts, ideas or information, and processing information. None of these efforts necessarily involve writing a press release, devising a formal strategic communication plan, preparing a speech, helpng organize a special event, or briefing others as to what they should or should not say - topics I cover in my various classes. Nevertheless, the lives of the students outside the classroom are dominated by communication challenges.

As I write this I am preparing for another semester of classes. I will, of course, be giving the more than 120 students I anticipate being under my charge the usual array of assignments, readings, and tests. Hopefully the result of all that I do with them will be students that are more appreciative, skilled and knowledgable about communication. Even more than that, however, the students will walk away with an understanding that for them to succeed in life, they must never stop working hard at trying to connect with others no matter whether they are getting paid for it.   


   

Sir Henry Cole

How many people have ever heard of Sir Henry Cole? It is not surprising I do not see any one raising their hand. With the holiday season just ending, it is appropriate that Cole be remembered - or should I say "introduced?" - as it is he who many recognize as being the inventor of the Christmas Card. The year was 1843. His first card contained the basic message: "A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year." It, of course, is a seasonal salutation that has been replicated in many ways over the past 170 years. While no one knows for sure, a conservitive estimate is over several hundred billion Christmas cards have been produced and distributed during that time.

Cole was an English civil servant who was also credited with introducing the Penny Post and designing the first postage stamp. These as well as the Christmas card are not bad achievemnts to list on one's resume. Queen Victoria thought so, too, as in 1875 she bestowed knighthood upon Cole. He lived another seven years. Looking back, it would be difficult to identify any other who on the basis of a single theme-based message could match the communication impact of Cole. Year-in and year-out all of us extend holiday greetings to family, friends and colleague often in the form of a greeting card. Our actions were triggered by Cole's initial inspiration.

This reflecting on Cole serves as a reminder of the potential impaact and magnitude of any effort to communicate. Whether it is in the form of a gesture or physical act, greeting card, an advertisement, a speech or a catchy phrase, one never knows what attempt to reach out to another might capture the attention of publics beyond the so-called targeted audience. This is why communication is and will remain the most serious of social sciences. It can and does often have impaqct and make a difference in people's lives. Whether a person views themself as a professional or non-professional communicator, they carry with them a potential for great significance.