mediations

What has NEMO achieved?

Next week sees the third - and final - NEMO conference (Friday, October 17) and our second NEMO academic conference (Thursday, October 16). The project has been running for nearly three years and I have been working at Campus Helsingborg since July 2012.

This year's conference is themed Meet the Digital Naturals, a concept that emerged from my work with Marja Åkerström. A while ago a few of us started think about the ways Web 2.0 technologies were changing how our students engaged with politics. The obvious approach was to sit down and ask them, which we did.

We knew our sample would be small, unrepresentative, and partial, but we learnt a lot. Early on, we almost accidentally hit on a name for a our cohort. We didn't like the widely used Digital Natives, not least because it casts the researchers as Immigrants: Natives is both unhelpful and inaccurate so when Marja used the term Digital Naturals we instantly realised this was a much more effective framing.

Although our What Digital Naturals Demand from Democracy work, first presented in Stockholm in September 2013, focused on a fairly specialised group of educated, media-literate students, mostly under 30, who had grown up with the internet, it seems obvious that the ability to operate effectively in the online environment had little to do with age. Likewise, there was no more a convincing way of distinguishing between Natives and Immigrants as there was a significant difference between experiencing online and offline. Bye bye digital dualism.

Worse, assuming that one group magically acquired vital social and cognitive skills simply by being born after 1980 not only badly misrepresents the experience of the disenfranchised immigrants, it also short-changes many of the so-called Natives.

These themes will be developed in NEMO anthology, Strategic Communication, Social Media and Democracy: The Challenge of the Digital Naturals, edited by Tim Coombs, Jesper Falkheimer, Mats Heide and myself, to be published in the prestigious Routledge New Directions Series.

We will be debating the findings of 16 projects, involving reseachers from five countries, at the Academic Conference, and many of the Friday presentations will pick up the Digital Naturals theme. Together NEMO represents an impressive body of work which has played its part in establishing Strategic Communication at Campus Helsingborg (ISK) as one of the leading departments in Europe.

I am looking forward to welcoming NEMO 2012 presenter Neville Hobson back to Sweden (he was the first name I signed up for the University of Sunderland's Delivering the New PR series, way back in 2006), and meeting Brit Stakston and Robin Teigland for the first time. But the real pleasure and satisfaction has been working with an outstanding team of colleagues at ISK, many of whom will on stage on Friday.

I have learnt a great deal from working in Sweden, partly from teaching in a very different environment, with strong students and challenging methods, but also from constanly debating and developing new ideas with some very sharp minds. 

Tack!

There are a few tickets left for NEMO2014 - sign up here, but be quick!  

 

         

  

Deflection, Obfuscation and Magic: PR in Fiction

Effective PRs are often skilled magicians. They know how to make their audiences look in one direction, when the real action is happening elsewhere. The polite description is "moving the story forward," which is understandably seen as preferable to identifying a good day to bury bad news.

In Bloodland, an excellent Irish political thriller by Alan Glynn, we meet Phil Sweeney,an occasional PR consultant. "He does strategic communications, perception management, media analysis. He identifies and tracks, Echelon-style, issues that might have a bearing on his clients’ companies. Or lives. Like this one."

Put another way: "Be careful who you talk to. This from Phil fucking Sweeney? PR guru, media advisor, strategist, fixer, bagman, God knows what else?"

Jimmy Gilroy is ambitous freelance (ie semi-unemployed) journalist, who stumbles on a big story. Phil Sweeney and Jimmy's father Dec were partners for a time, co-founders of Marino Communications, and "good friends, but as basic types they were very different."

The old man was a political junkie. He grew up on the Arms Trial and Watergate, on GUBU and Iran-Contra. He was interested in what made public figures tick, psychologically, which meant that the move from clinical work into PR and media training shouldn’t have been that much of a stretch for him. You would think. But it turned out that he was markedly better at analysis than he was at manipulation, and it wasn’t long before the new job started wearing him down. Phil Sweeney, on the other hand, was a natural and in many ways a more skilled politician than a lot of the people they were dealing with. He’d studied in the US and worked there for years before coming back to set up Marino. The organisational brains behind the outfit, he was also the one with big plans, and this led to a certain amount of friction. In fact, by the time Jimmy’s old man got sick and had to start withdrawing from the business, the process of expanding it beyond all recognition had already begun.

One of Sweeney's clients is Dave Conway, and Conway doesn't like the idea of Jimmy sniffing around that particular story.

‘But look, don’t worry. I’ll talk him out of it.’ ‘OK,’ Conway says, nodding. ‘Or maybe, I don’t know . . .’ He pauses. ‘Maybe we could find something else for him to do.’ A signature Dave Conway technique. Misdirection.

Conway and Sweeney agree a plan, but their relationship sours:

All day, too, he’s been trying to calculate the cost of pissing Phil Sweeney off. Traditionally, Sweeney has been the great buffer zone between bad things happening, and how, when or even if those bad things show up in the news cycle – so he’s not someone you want to have outside of your tent, unzipping his fly.

Later Jimmy meets Bob Lessing, "a guy in his late fifties wearing a grey suit and a bow tie. Apparently, he and Phil Sweeney worked together in the eighties and have been friends ever since. Lessing runs a PR firm here and specialises in strategic communications and risk analysis for large companies working overseas.

‘You see, I work on the opposite side of the fence from you, and a lot of what I do is actually keeping people like you at bay. Or subtly veering you in certain directions. Perception management. Therefore even though I don’t work for BRX my gut instinct here is to protect them, and to obfuscate."

As the plot darkens, Sweeney appears to come clean with Gilroy.

‘Damn sure I helped you along, Jimmy. But I also played you like a fucking fiddle. Every story I fed you had an agenda, my agenda.’ Sweeney makes a sound here, a laugh, but it’s hard, mirthless. ‘And you were so easy. You were so eager to get ahead.’

Maybe PR Sweeney does have a conscience after all... 

‘I don’t know what’s real here and what isn’t, what’s spin and what’s truth.’

‘I thought that was the whole point, Phil. Of Marino Communications. Of you. Of why we all pay you so much.’

‘For the little stuff, maybe, expense sheets and zipper trouble, for papering over the cracks, but this . . .’ He shrugs, shakes his head, searching for the words.

‘This, Phil?’

‘Something about this stinks to high heaven.’

PR in Fiction: The Church press officer

‘Roger Holden. I’m the diocese’s press secretary. I’d be happy to help you with any questions you may have.’

(Det Insp Jack) Carrigan stood up and shook his hand, flinching slightly at the unexpected pressure on his fingers and the way Holden looked directly into his eyes as he did this. The man was in his early forties, an expensive haircut framing a bland square face, teeth gleaming white behind fleshy gums. He wore a pink pinstripe shirt that looked as if it had been squeezed out of a tube of toothpaste and he smelled faintly of soap and mint.

‘Our appointment was supposed to be with the bishop.’

Holden smiled apologetically as they entered the office, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He wore a silver ring inset with a small ruby on his little finger and he kept worrying it with his other hand. ‘Unfortunately, the bishop is indisposed right now, but I’ll be happy to provide you with whatever information you may need.’ Holden took his seat behind a large, neatly ordered table, the papers and stationery all squared and aligned.

‘A drink?’ They both nodded and Holden cautiously poured some water from a silver jug, careful not to let a single drop land on the table. He took a small white handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to dry the lip of the jug before placing it back on the tray.

‘So, you’re in charge of investigating the fire?’ Carrigan nodded. Holden turned and stared at Geneva as if surprised to find her there. Carrigan had noticed how he’d studiously been avoiding her until now. Holden took a sip of water, his lips barely touching the glass.

‘You seem very well informed.’

‘It’s my job,’ she replied, bristling against the smooth purr of his voice.

‘That bastard Holden never mentioned any priest,’ Carrigan said, not knowing if Holden had been evasive because he had something to hide or because it was his default position.

All she knew for certain was that Holden had lied. He’d told her the dispute between the convent and diocese was nothing important and yet Spaulding had said that the nuns were on the verge of being excommunicated.

‘Are you telling me he’s in rehab, not on retreat? That he just decided to check in the day after the fire?’

‘I’m not saying anything, Miss Miller, I’m just explaining the situation...’

From Eleven Days, by Stav Sherez

This blogging business

Stephen Waddington has put together a useful collection of articles, The Business of Blogging, in which people who regular comment about communications consider its contribution and relevance.

I was flattered to be involved, but also a little uneasy. I think it is quite difficult to asses the impact of blogs when the form is so difficult to define. Judy Gombita talks of "long form" blogging platforms, I talk vaguely of of "pure" blogging - and Richard Bailey wants us to stop using "blogging" at all, preferring "personal publisihing." We are all trying to talk to about posts that take a little bit of thought, and are probably several paragraphs long.

The contributors all have blogs, and see them as part of their work. They show some of the author's personality, but in a professional context. They read, review and edit their contributions, not least because they are expected to be a significant factor in their online reputation. At the same time, many write positively about the benefits of blogging as a way of thinking out loud, of focusing and refining thoughts.

A harsh criticism of the essays would be that they the self-reinforcing thoughts of a small group of people who are pretty much chatting amongst themselves.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Social media and online communications have radically changed the way most of communicate, and find out about the world, so it is not in the least surprising that the evolution of the public relations discipline has been, in part, negotiated on blogs. 

It is splendid that we can all join and contribute to loose communities of people with similar interests, all over the world, but very difficult to say anything meaningful about a medium that ranges from corporate blogs representing Fortune 500 companies through to Mediations.

 

 

 

 

    

The #AskBG reputation meltdown...

It really was great fun to watch the tweets flooding in after British Gas celebrated a hefty price rise by launching the helpful #AskBG hashtag.

But, although it is hard not to see the tag as disaster waiting to happen, an online version of pinning a Kick Me notice to your own back, a few days on it is worth reflecting on exactly how much damage the stunt did to British Gas.

Has anyone switched to another gas supplier because they were so amused by a scarcastic tweet, has anyone cut their energy consumption in protest at the outrageous profits critics accuse British Gas of accumulating? Is any pensioner warmer, or more likely to freeze to death because of a witty and/or offensive comment?

People are angry, bewildered, outraged or whatever because BG hiked its prices well above inflation. The social media comedy or Two Minute Hate was what it was.... but it didn't reflect any reputational damage that wasn't directly linked to a business decision.  

What it did do, though, was make life just a bit easier for the other energy suppliers as, one after another, they quietly but inevitaby announce their own inflation-busting price rises.   

A History of the Future: Concepts for telling the story of online PR

Here is the abstract for the paper I will present at the 2013 Euprera Congress in Barcelona in October. I am trying to argue that the language of PR bloggers is influencing the way the discipline presents itself to the world, and encouraging a deeper change in what PRs think they do...

Many honourable mentions for David Phillips, Neville Hobson, Stuart Bruce, Richard Bailey and Stephen Waddington! 

The internet has had an impact on public relations that goes well beyond significant adjustments in practice made in response to technological change. Mirroring the emergence of ”Web 2.0” platforms, the discipline is increasingly articulating its purpose and culture through discourse associated with social media. Concepts such as transparency, authenticity, conversation and engagement can be inextricably linked with the mainstreaming of social media practice; although they are not unique to social media, and predate much of the opening up of platforms and channels seen over the last two decades, their meanings have to a significant degree been negotiated across social media fora.

Some will want to trace this history through a chronological narrative of invention, innovation and artefact, others through an examination of core concepts associated with online public relations. This paper seeks to explore ways in which the critical historian can excavate, order and interpret the discourse surrounding the commentary provided by influential PR/social media bloggers, and to identify ways in which this might have influenced emerging normative models.

Storytelling and co-creation are an important part of the narrative projected by social media evangelists. It is therefore natural to want to see how these concepts helped in creation of normative practice.

The chronological narrative around which the research centres will identify the emergence of new terminology, the rate of acceptance of emerging concepts into the discourse, and the drivers that allowed particular words and framings to become part of a shared understanding. (The research would be grounded primarily in close study of the conceptual language and themes that can be identified within the public discourse, and rather than an attempt to reveal the motivations of key players).

The proposition to be tested is that the normative discourse defining 'modern' and 'ethical' public relations practice in the 21st century constitutes, to a large degree, an appropriation and reinterpretation of discourses in social media circles.

 

Conferences: Image and Reputation, or the Undead and the Unsaid

Inspired by Toni Muzi Falconi's reflections on the academic conference season (PR Conversations) here are a few thoughts from my experience to BledCom2013, BCN Meeting PR in Barcelona, but also Ragan's International Social Media and PR Summit in Amsterdam.

This was my first Bled since 2006, and although proud of the contributions of Lund colleagues, and the politics panel with Liz Bridgen, Sarah Williams, Holger Sievert and the irrepressible Bruno Amaral, I can't honestly say I came back with a bulging notepad full of new ideas. Plenty of stimulating conversations, yes, but not much that rocked me on my heels. That said, Dejan Vercic and colleagues have done a splendid job in energising debate across Europe for 20 years: tehirs is a considerable achievement and we should have very confidence that Dejan will deliver again in 2014.

And Barcelona did deliver.

I did the book launch for my PR in Fiction opus "I Wish I were a Cow", but I suppose I will have to concede that the second edition of Robert Heath's Encyclopaedia of Public Relations, due out in September, will probably have the greater lasting impact, and it was impressive that Bob, David McKie, Michael Palenchar and Tim Coombs turned what could have been an embarrasing back slapping session into an enlightening and stimulating reflection on progress of PR academic study. Tim made an excellent presentation highlighting the role the Encylopaedia has played in defining the ontology of PR, and Bob's overview gave interesting insights into the way the emphasis and pressure points are evolving, including the emergence of power and internationalisation as core topics. 

I was lucky to go first in my session, as Roumen Dimitrov and Kate Fitch each delivered five star presentations - on the Undead and the Unsaid. Rouman spoke about Silence and Invisibility in PR, making the obvious but underexplored observation that what an organisation doesn't say is as significant as what it does, that the pause between musical notes is as important as the notes themselves. Philosophically fascinating, but as Rouman demonstrated, the role of silence does not lend itself easily to empirical study. He argued that silence is also a form of engagement, and contrary to some accepted wisdom, silence and invisibility are neithre good nor bad, but simply onotlogical categories. 

Kate ended the morning with Promoting the Vampire Rights Amendment: PR, post-feminism and True Blood. I will have to find out more about Nan Flanagan, "the PR practitioner for a post feminist, media-literate world."

On the positive side, Sherry Holladay, Tim Coombs and Paul Willis were among those who who challenged some of the conceptual language used by social media advocates in a way that reflected sophisticated understanding of the seismic changes of the last ten years. Words like conversation and engagement have helped to change the way people think abut PR but as Sherry argued, many of the metaphors commonly used in framings of PR as relationship management simply don't stand up to close scrutiny: "Relationship management is more illusion than enlightenment."

We should be less happy that, particularly at Bled, people were still talking about "publics", were still seeing the online and offline worlds as somehow separate places, and that there was a continuing misunderstanding of reputation. What one person says, even if that one person is writing in the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal isn't reputation, it is opinion. Reputation is an aggregation of opinions, (today often facilitated through social media), with the defining thread being shared values. It is these shared values, not the superficial connection of likes etc, that holds the key to modern public relations.

Thinking again about silence and the unsaid, what was missing from both Bled and Barcelona was an appreciation of importance of visuals in PR discourse. I am not just talking about Instagram, Pinterest and Vine, which may or may not have real traction, but it is inescapable that from Facebook to BBC News, images are replacing words. You Tube, anyone?

Speaker after speaker at Amsterdam, from Lego and MTV, Ford and Marvel recognised that the conversation (pace Sherry) is visual. Reputation is being shaped by images, and the PR academy needs to find a language to capture this shift. 

I know from not always comfortable experience that it is not easy to fuse practitioner and academic themes two, and I hate what Paul Willis would call "Serve and volley" marketing pitch presentations, but I can't believe any academic wouldn't learn a great deal from Lars Silberbauer, Peter von Satzger and some of the other brilliant communicators brought together by Mark Ragan and his team.

 

PR in Fiction: Time to pay Attenzi?

In the next couple of weeks I will present two papers that draw on my ongoing interest in how PR is represented in fiction.

At BledCom 2013: Trust and the New Realities, I will join with Lund University Campus Helsingborg colleagues Camilla Nothhaft, Howard Nothhaft and Sara von Platen to present Public Relations: Rules, Gamesmanship and the Professional Project: Why academics must confront the realities of practice.

And at the BCN PR Meeting #3 Representing PR: images, identities, and innovations in Barcelona, I am on my own to argue PR in Fiction vs The Professional Project: Who tells the most convincing story?

In both papers I try to suggest that fiction can tell us more about the realities of PR practice than is usually gained from reading textbooks or the official version of the discipline that is put forward by, say, the CIPR.

For several years I have been scouring novels for representations of PR and noting that most references are fairly oblique. Not many novelists choose to put PRs at the heart of the action, and fewer still write from direct experience as practitioners. (I have previously posted about MC Beaton's Agatha Raisen, and the rather dark, even threatening versions of PR put forward by David Michie, Michael Shea and perhaps Graham Lancaster).

Now, I have to try and work out how to approach an almost-novel that definitely does attempt to explain a great deal about PR practice and, indeed, has an inspiring and creative vision of what today - and tomorrow's practice might look like.

Philip (@sheldrake) Sheldrake has created Attenzi: A Social Business Story. It is a very ambitious, not to say brave, project which sets out to examine the steps needed to create a social business, embracing the ideas he developed in his impressive 2011 book, The Business of Influence.

Philip has generously made Attenzi a free download .... and you should take up his offer!  

 

 

  

Defining Public Relations. Again

Defending the indefinable: Richard Bailey is right to draw attention to the fascinating joust between CIPR leadership hopefuls Jon White and Stephen Waddington, two strong candidates whose contrasting views help propel debate over the future of public relations. 

Although I don't think I have ever told students that "Public Relations can't be defined," I would have to plead guilty to giving the impression that a. doing so convincingly is pretty hard and b. I am still not sure myself. (Whilst seen as a weakness in may areas of life, this sort of indecision carries some virtue in academia -  we prefer to call it critical reflection).  

I read the vibrant LinkedIn exchange between Jon and Stephen just after noting this observation from former Burson Marsteller big gun Robert Leaf's PR memoir, The Art of Perception:

No matter what you call it, its role is still the same: to convince key audiences that the messages that are being delivered are completely true, and that it is to their benefit to react to them accordingly. 

Whilst it may not answer questions about the future of PR its many layers of ambiguity do help to highlight some of the problems encountered by those trying to understand the nature of ethical practice within the discipline.

Where next for PR?

When I started talking about "all PR being online PR" it was a hard sell, and the idea was often dismissed out of hand.

I still do these sessions, but it increasingly it seems to be merely stating the obvious. Today, even if the primary focus appears to be elsewhere, every PR campaign has a significant online element, and it is almost impossible to think of an organisation whose reputation is not shaped by an online presence.

Recent interconnected posts by Stephen Waddington, Stuart Bruce and Jed Hallam, among others, highlights how far the debate has shifted, and how that shift is bringing significant challenges.

From an agency perspective, and as argued by Waddington, it is about what to offer in pitches, and trying to distinguish the PR contribution from big budget advertising. Part of the solution, he suggests, is tied to confidence. 

And there is another strand to the debate, and that is taking place inhouse where the blurring of roles between PR, information, marketing, internal comms, human resources and customer service, can be yet more pronounced.

The arguments are well rehearsed, and often seek to distinguish PR from advertising by emphasising its two-way nature, and by moving from reputation management to relationship management. (I am very uncomfortable with "reputation management" as, unless this comes from action, all that PR is offering is spin and distortion).  

Waddington tells us: "The public relations industry for its part arguably has the most potent proposition for organisations. It has always worked in the editorial environment, listening and crafting a narrative to enable organisations to build their reputation by earning attention rather than buying it."

But does the "earned attention" argument really stand up? It is related to the 'third party endorsement model' that suggests messages have more credibility if carried by 'independent' media channels. This works if we are talking about buying a TV slot for a commercial, but starts to weaken if the same, or similar, material is presented on a YouTube channel. What PR is saying is that we are better people people so we can make friendlier, less shouty messages - essentially we do the same thing but we are nicer, and you advertising folk will never learn to be nice.

Stuart Bruce writes: "If we are to be seen as a true management discipline as Wadds asserts then we can’t allow ourselves to be defined as mere publicists or as simply part of marketing. Public relations and marketing are totally different disciplines and the confusion arises because both will often use some of the same tactics. It’s quite legitimate for public relations to use paid media."

Yes, but how is PR 'totallly different'? There is an argument to be made, but Stuart confines himself to observing that PR achieves its results with less money.

He is right to suggest we should have gone beyond the 'who owns social media' debate (even if this debate is ongoing in many, if not all, organisations!); it is as useful as trying to define a professional role by saying "we are the ones who use the telephone."

As well as using social media itself, one of the main roles of public relations is to ensure that others within the organisation neither abuse social media nor use it unwisely, as this will inevitably lead to reputational damage.

This is helpful, as it positions public relations as the discipline concerned with values, but that is a difficult trick for agencies to pull off. Yes, there is a clear and important role for someone operating within an organisation, and ideally at a high level but it is not a easily saleable role for those outside.

Jed Hallam makes some strong points: 

"There is no ‘lead role’ in communication between a brand and its audience anymore – this ‘power’ has been effectively disseminated across the whole organisation – that’s the challenge. It used to be that public relations was the pipeline to the public, but now that’s no longer true. So the role of PR now has to become more strategic. It has to evolve and has to take centre stage at a more strategic, and senior level."

He concludes:

"... all disciplines are going to have to work in harmony – the whole idea of who ‘owns’ social breaks down when you accept that your social strategy should be aligned with your business and brand strategy (two areas traditionally owned by management consultants and ad agencies, respectively). When social is aligned with those two fundamental parts of a business’s strategy, social splits into two areas;

• Strategy
• Channel tactics

The conversation then becomes split in two – which type of people (with which skill set) need to advise on how to align the social strategy with the wider business, and then which type of people (and with which skill set) then activate that strategy across different social channels? As businesses move closer to becoming more ‘social’ as a whole, this challenge is only going to get bigger. If public relations isn’t careful, it’s going to find itself at the tactical activation end of the chain. Again."

I am increasingly of the view that social media is chipping away at those practices that might best have been described as public relations, and that, with some of the consequences that Jed outlines. Strategic communication is a broad field, encompassing a range of disciplines, requiring a challenging set of management skills, some of which arise from public relations expertise.

It is also about the communication of organisational values, and the processes which align those values to those shared by its disparate stakeholder groups.  

 

PR's Confidence Crisis: ReadList

Sequential vs Simultaneous multi-screen storytelling

Last summer Google Think released a report detailing the prevalence of multiscreening.  Beginning from the position that 90pc of media consumption (among a US sample) takes places on screen, the report highlights the complex ways in which people shift from device to device, creating new and disruptive dynamics for storytelling, and creating 'found' time, where extra activities fill what used to be gaps in viewing experience.

 

Much of the paper concentrates on the need for developers and marketers to ensure smooth transition between devices - ie synching shopping baskets across devices, using log ins and idents etc - but it should also prompt message creators to think more carefully about the challenges of fragmented narratives.

The report says:

• The prevalence of sequential usage makes it imperative that businesses enable customers to save their progress between devices. Saved shopping carts, signed-in experiences or the ability to email progress to oneself helps keep consumers engaged, regardless of device used to get to you.

• During simultaneous usage, content viewed on one device can trigger specific behavior on the other. Businesses should therefore not limit their conversion goals and calls to action to only the device where they were initially displayed.

• Most of the time when TV is watched, another screen is being used. These instances present the opportune time to convey your message and inspire action. A business's TV strategy should be closely aligned and integrated with the marketing strategies for digital devices.

It distinguishes between sequential usage and simultaneous usage. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Webs of Influence, by Nathalie Nahai

Public Relations has been flirting with neuroscience for some time now, but although the attractions are obvious, it often seems that the relationship is still at the giggling and coy glances stage. 

For PR, the factors that prevent full on courtship include shame and lack of self confidence. Some in PR go to great lengths to promote their good intentions as communicators and information providers, and go all squeamish if it is suggested they might be trying to manipulate the way people think and behave. Studying the science of how people make decisions, and learning psychological techniques to trigger certain bahaviours is somehow cheating.... and bad PR for a discipline that is so sensitive to mentions of propaganda and spin.

More importantly, even those who are happy to accept that persuasion is integral to PR, fear the embarrassment of backing the wrong horse in a rather confused race. The challenge, and from where I stand it is a huge one, is to try and distinguish the serious science from the quackery. How does a beginner build a body of knowledge that is sufficiently robust to feel confident in one's judgments?

In Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion, Nathalie Nahai (@TheWebPsych) makes an impressive stab at writing an accessible book that is full of useful insights, but not reticent with caveats and questions.

Nahai, who is billed as The Web Psychologist and clearly has a sharp eye for marketing and self-promotion, brings a common sense approach to some complex issues. It is not easy for a non-expert to assess how influential are the thinkers and theorists that shape her narrative, but her conclusions are sensible and carry the ring of truth. As she says: "When it comes to the art of persuasion, there is no silver bullet. There are, however, many principles that you can employ to significantly increase your chances of success."

The combination of new online technologies and new scientific understanding leads Nahai to predict: "We're witnessing the dawn of a new kind of business, one that utilises neuroscientific research to aid marketing, advertising and the film industries."

In ways which will be familiar to readers of Daniel Kahneman's big selling Thinking, Fast and Slow, she shows how few of the decisions we make are under our conscious control. There are three elements to the human brain, the primal brain, which deals with sex, hunger, motion, contrast etc, the emotional brain (empathy and storytelling) and the rational brain (gut instinct, authority), and that these processes can work in parallel. It follows that messaging that understands this multiplicity can be effective.

A few moments thought about our own individual behaviours will doubtless reinforce the insight that emotion often trumps reason, and that many, many of the "decisions" that feel natural are not necessarilly the most logical or even the most advantageous.

The online world, whether through ecommerce of social networking, seems to highlight the link between behaviours thought to have had evolutionary benefit in the past and a virtual environment which presents few physical dangers but many distractions of pleasure and suffering.

For communicators, Nahai writes convincingly about segmenting audiences, the sue of Hofstede to provide insights into culture, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as well as pointing towards apparent gender differences in our approach to online environments.

Her discussion of self-esteem and self-actualisation rings true and present a useful framework to explain the power of sharing platforms, not least Flickr and Pinterest.

Likewise, her observations on symmetry, colour, simplicity and motion, will be of real value to webdesigners and content providers. Although most of us no longer hunt, we are evolutionarily primed to respond to motion, and this can either distract attention from the desired message or provide the contrast that highlights certain eleemts.

Arguing for simplicity and signposting, Nahai says: "The role of well-presented information is to reduce the the cognitive load that you place on your users when they visit your website.... but a break in flow can be used to dramatic effect."

She uses Picasso's Bull's Head to illustrate the enjoyment we derive from discovering implicit, hidden similarities between seemingly disparate items. She shows how our brsins are hard wired to identify and link related features, ie the yellow dots that are lions among the trees), explains why we are drawn to high contrasts in images, which tend to be data rich and how we show an intense dislike of an unusual vantage point, which makes the brain work harder - and can if used properly, grab our attention.

Part 3 of Webs of Influence, titled Sell With Integrity, contains useful sections on influence and reputational capital, and further explores the tensions between cognitive and affective trust (information-based decisions versus the emotional).

Webs of Influence is very good when it seeks to deliver on its cover line, "The secret stratgies that make ius click" but, perhaps understadably, Nahai is a little less forthcoming with an exposition of what it means to sell with integrity.

Overall, I found this one of the most interesting PR-related books I read in 2012 and am very much looking forward to welcoming Nathalie Nahai to Campus Helsingborg to lead a NEMO research seminar in March.

Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion (2012) by Natalie Nahai is published by Pearson 

 

 

 

 

It's Boomsday!

It's Monday morning and the Great Academic War on 2013 is underway in earnest...

And what better way to limber up for the battles ahead than with a train read of Boomsday, by Thank You for Smoking author Christopher Buckley?

The intellectual adrenalin was already pumping as I pulled out of Malmö Central...

Cassandra Devine was not yet thirty, but she was already tired.

“Media training,” they called it. She’d been doing it for years, but it still had the ring of “potty training.”

Today’s media trainee was the chief executive officer of a company that administered hospitals, twenty-eight of them throughout the southeastern United States. In the previous year, it had lost $285 million and one-third of its stock market value. During that same period, the client had been paid $3.8 million in salary, plus a $1.4 million “performance bonus.”

Corporate Crime Scene, the prime-time investigative television program, was doing an exposé and had requested an interview. In her negotiations with the show’s producers, Cass had learned that they had footage of him boarding the company jet ($35 mil) wearing a spectacularly loud Hawaiian shirt and clenching a torpedo-shaped—indeed, torpedo-size—cigar in his teeth while hefting a bag of expensively gleaming golf clubs. Unfortunate as it was, this footage was only the appetizer

I think I am going to enjoy the company of Cassandra and her boss, Terry Tucker:

Terry Tucker had built a successful PR firm, Tucker Strategic Communications, on the premise that those with a debatable claim to humanity will pay through the snout to appear even a little less deplorable.

Terry had represented them all, from mink ranchers to toxic waste dumpers, dolphin netters, unzipped politicians, makers of obesity-inducing soft drinks, the odd mobster, and pension fund skimmers. Terry had apprenticed under the legendary Nick Naylor, at the now defunct Tobacco Institute....

 

 

Learning PR lessons from Robots

As more and more crucial processes move online, we are all being asked to place increasing trust in mechanical devices. The internet of things sounds wonderful, but if you can hack a PC, what is to stop an assassin attacking a heart pacemaker?

Technophobia has been a staple of science fiction since Frankenstein created his monster. What if it gets out of control? What if this new device turns on its creator?

Such fears were grist to the mill for classic sci-fi writer, Isaac Asimov, who in 1941 laid down the Three Laws of Robotics that went on to underpin a whole genre of speculative fiction.

Despite the Laws being hardwired into their positronic brains, people in Asimov's world were still scared of robots, so much so that they were banned from operating on Earth. This is, of course, rather bad news for monopoly supplier, United States Robots and Mechanical Men, IncRobotics. They are confident they have a good product, but somehow they have to build trust in a technology that spooks the ordinary person.

It is an interesting PR conundrum, and one, Asimov addresses in several of the stories contained in The Rest of the Robots. Take this, from Lenny, which was first published in 1958:

(Research director) Lanning grunted. The idea of public guided tours of US Robots was a fairly recent origin and was supposed to serve a dual purpose. On the one hand, the theory went, it allowed people to see robots at close quarters and counter their almost instinctive fear of the mechanical objects through increased familiarity. And on the other hand it is was supposed to interest at least an occasional person in taking up robotics as a life work.

Classic tactics that many a PR would recommend now. Immediately, however, Lanning raises an equally familiar line - ROI.

"Once a week work is disrupted. Considering the man-hours lost the return is insufficient."

"Still no rise in applications?"

"Oh some, but only in the categories where the need isn't vital. It's research men that are needed. You know that. The trouble is that with robots forbidden on Earth itself, there is something unpopular about being a roboticist."

"The damned Frankenstein complex," said Bogert.

By framing the debate in terms of a cultural icon, opponents make it even harder for the pro-robot lobby.

In Galley Slave, from 1951, two scientists at a prestigious university are discussing the merits of accepting a robot proof reader offered to them at a cut rate by US Robotics (again, a classic PR tactic).

"The question in my mind, Dr Lanning, is why we need a robot at all, with all the difficulties in public relations that would entail."

Unfortunately, the robot, Easy, tries to protect an academic by correcting an error it fears maybe damaging, leading to an acrimonious court battle.

Robertson mangled his sandwich. The corporation would not founder for the loss of three-quarters of a million, but the loss would do it no particular good. He was conscious moreover, that there would be a much more costly long term setback in public relations."

Inverse sponsorship: Quantifying Self for Charity

One of the reasons I am becoming increasingly interested in the Quantifed Self is that brings together mechanisams for changing behaviour (that thing some people call PR) and concerns about privacy and constructed personality.

It so getting to the time of year that people make resolutions (which usually means less of the things we like). We all know that New Year resolutions seldom make it to the end of January, and that will power alone is not enough for many people (i.e. me).

One of the motivating factors can be visualisation, linked to tangible reward or disincentives.

The game plans for fitness and weight control businesses such as Withings and Fitbit draw on the benefits of sharing motivations and success. One of the areas that is likely to see a growth in the near future are aggregators which bring together results from QS devices, and Beeminder offers an interesting model.

I like the carrot and stick idea of a Yellow Brick Road showing a desirable path, and could sign up for mild punishments if I break my resolutions, but I don't really want to my penance to enrich a commercial organisation.

It is so obvious that many others must have proposed this, but wouldn't it be great if Withings used the model to bild a charity app, rather like Just Giving? It would be an sort of mirror image of charity - instead of being sponsored by the mile to run a marathon, I would pledge to make a smallish payment to a charity of my choice every week or month I didn't hit a weight reduction/drinking/smoking/book-buying goal?

 

Related articles

Beeminder ♥ Fitbit

Some LeWeb links....

Proving it: How Charity:water uses Google maps to show how it sends donations

Whatever 2 Whatever sen.se

At Sen.se, we believe there is no such thing as the Internet of Things.

We rather believe in an Internet of Everything where Humans, Nature, Machines, Objects, Environments, Information, Physical and Virtual spaces all mix up , talk, intertwine, interact, enrich and empower each other in all sorts of ways. This is what we are building and we think that we are not alone

Twiplomacy: Burson-Marsteller research into marketing a country on Twitter. 

 

LeWeb Paris: The Internet of Things

Just back from three very full days at LeWeb in Paris. It was my first time, and it was impressive.

The theme was The Internet of Things and it was interesting to see how the focus has shifted from traditional communication in the form of sharing words and texts to the we-are-all-cyborgs-now emphasis on the ever-blurring boundaries between technology and people.

I am not quite sure about either the Internet of Things or Brian Solis's version, the Sentient World, as labels - neither, I think, have a life expectancy that will exceed 'the information superhighway" but it is part of a process that will change the world.

LeWeb have done a useful job in bringing together videos of various presentations, from the inspiring to the little more than a commercial product pitches, but trying to catch hold of the abundance of new ideas shows quite how hard online curation really is.

There were some good storytellers, not least Benjamin Cichy, Chief Software Engineer, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, who gave a masterclass in "goodwill and understanding" PR. 

I was also very impressed with Tony Fadell's presentation of the Nest. OK, you are off to a good start when you are introduced as the man who invented the iPod and iPad, but at the end of the day he was still talking about a thermostat. Not a very sexy product... except when you present it with the product values of Apple, and are able to show how it bring imeasurable energy saving benefits.

 

It was also interesting to see the glint of steel that occasionally flashed from the apparently laidback entrepreneurs who had created hugely influential platforms and devices, and to hear how some of them are putting something back with philanthropic projects.

I am sure I wasn't the only person who ordered a Fitbit during LeWeb and I am sure I will be thinking more and more about the Quantified Self during 2013 - with much of this thinking being concerned with privacy and ethics.

I enjoyed discovering LiveTrekker, which does a brilliant job of linking photos, sounds and GPs trails, but was horrified at the notion of somebody wearing a sensor which could tell them if the person nearby was running a fever. I suppose there is no difference between using technology and moving away is a stranger is snuffling and sneezing but I still find it objectionable.

So what is PR, anyway...? (Remake/Remodel)

OK, yesterday's post How PR works was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I don't really think PR is merely the process which encourages me to see a link, read an article, watch a video interview, then buy a Bryan Ferry album with just one click.

But it was part of the battle to complete Online Public Relations 3rd ed - the really difficult bit when the book is close to sign off and I suddenly start asking myself "What is PR?"

On one level I am trying to assess to what extent online interactions influence my behaviour (and whether my behaviour is in anyway typical!). In terms of consumer activity, the Bryan Ferry example was misleading - I didn't need much persuading to buy the album and my long if troubled relationship with Bryan is too deep for me to be much influenced by one interview. I did, however, genuinely buy an album last week purely because I read an article in the Guardian, "It was a tragedy we didn't stay together" (iPad edition, of course).

I had all but compleetly forgotten 10cc, but something about the interview aroused my curiousity. I wanted to know if they really were the missing link between Abba and Frank Zappa. (Oddly, a social media friend who I like a lot but who has very different tastes to me, tweeted a link to the same interview and, if anything, that made me less likely to buy...).

Anyway, this line of thinking very much frames PR as 'part of the marketing mix', the bit which is categorised as earned media. Conceivably, the article contributed to an increase in my goodwill towards and undertanding of 10cc.

What it doesn't do is make me part of a "public." I was not mobilised into action by any shared ambition or response. 

I was part of a distinct market segment - of an age to have grown up with 10cc singles (and they lived nearby), and Guardian reader down to my beard and sandals, etc. Should a similar article have been published in the Daily Mail it would have triggered a whole different range of responses and I wouldn't have bought the album. 

It is down to perspective and values. I share some of my perspective and some of my values with other readers of the Guardian piece. An article in the Guardian is still a reasonable way of reaching me, and reaching me in a way that goes beyond alerting to me to new Bryan Ferry album I would bought as soon as I was aware of it, to creating an interest in 10cc that I didn't know I had. The Daily Mail could have done the first part, it couldn't have done the latter.

Exploring the concept of semantic analysis, David Phillips explains:

What is evident is that the technologies we are deploying (based on semantics) provides us with this new type of constituency segment:  ‘community perspective’ segment. 

It is sensitive to the values of the people who are engaging at the time and it is sensitive to the values in on-line and offline conversations of the minute.

Not publics, not stakeholders, not socio-economic and cultural demographics but people with a community perspective expressed in some words they have in common.

This constituency does not have to be very engaged but does have similar values:

 

 Giving a tantalising glimpse of what he calls The Lisbon Theory, David goes on to argue:

A new theory is emerging based on the idea that the perspectives of people evident in their values. These are evident in what they are interested in and look for and are made available to the practitioner by application of Big Data semantic applications.

Historic segmentation theories such as Grunig and Hunt's publics, Freedman's stakeholders and the marketing approach of social and economic demographic segmentation models need to be re-cast to accommodate the new reality.
....

Most notably, we now have considerable evidence of people commenting about organisations and brands with little of no reference to the organisation or brand (often no experience at all). They are part of an eco system of brand values that are not much influenced by organisations but are (often if only by sheer numbers) influential. 

Organisations, in many instances have lost control of the brand. It is owned by what can be regarded as the community perspective

Anyway, simply alerting people to new products is marketing, isn't it.   

 

 

Does social media take us back to pre-industrial times?

Reading Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Internet Persuasion, by Nathalie Nahai.

She tells us:

The very existence of social media has enabled many of us to revert back to a pre-industrial system of reputational capital, in which we rely on trusted, filtered sources of information to help us make informed choices on whom to endow our business and loyalty. Of course, this system is far from perfect and trust can sometimes be misplaced but the fact that this system exists at all has forced many companies out from their PR closets to face up to and engage directly with their customers again. Social Media has made business accountable (p130).

It is an interesting idea that social media usage is somehow 'pre-industrial', which I take to mean as being no longer dependent on the physical technologies of mass communications  (Web 2.0 doesn't need a printing press).

Likewise, she makes a valuable point about PR having to make a dramatic switch from being a defensive cloak to becoming a channel for enagement.

I am looking forward to Nathalie speaking to NEMO researchers at Campus Helsingborg in March... 

How PR works, made (Virginia) plain....

Saw link, read article, watched video interview, bought with one click.

"Denigrating" Sodastream ad banned in UK

Marketing Week reports: "SodaStream was forced to pull a television advertisement hours before it was was scheduled to break after it the body that clears spots for air slammed it as “denigrating” to the soft drinks market."

Here's some background: The campaign claims consumers can save up to 2,000 plastic bottles every year by using SodaStream to make soft drinks from tap water at home.

The British Soft Drinks Association says: “The nation’s favourite brands need the best quality packaging to ensure that they delight their consumers every time. Soft drinks packaging is recyclable and recycling rates are growing fast. This packaging makes up only a small proportion of all packaging used by households, and we don’t think that asking our consumers to recycle their empty bottles and cans is too much to ask.

The decision to ban the advert - which seems bizarre to me - seems not yet to feature on watchdog Clearcast's website.

Can anyone explain the fuss?

UPDATE: ClearCast say: “In this particular case, Sodastream did not allow sufficient time for clearance of their ad for the airtime they had booked. In their press statement this was translated to us pulling the ad at the eleventh hour

My favourite search engine is..... Instagram

Just been talking to a class about getting noticed on the web. 

"So what is your favourite search engine?"

First answer:

"Instagram."

OK, everyone used Google as their prime means of sourcing information but the rise of Instagram deserves serious attention. My student gave as an example her search to find out more about Santorini and it is very easy to understand why Instagram delivered the most useful - and persuasive - results.

As in all my straw polls, almost everyone here at Campus Helsingborg said they checked their smartphone before getting out of bed, and there was predictable 50-50 split between those who went first to Facebook and those who went to Instagram.  

 

 

 

Twitter tips from @jangles

Neville Hobson posted a long comment on my Twitter for Academics post, and it's too useful to be buried away.... 

Here is what he said:

1. Make a Compelling Profile

Together with a photo or other relevant image, the concise information in your Twitter Profile is an essential element of a Twitter account as it lets others know a little about you, your interests and your community - an important aspect in decision-making when deciding whether to follow someone or not.

Here are three tips to help you when you're setting up your Twitter account and Profile:

• Write your brief bio informally and naturally. Look at Philip's or mine for an idea. It's a one-line bio, not a brochure intro or a press release headline.
• Choose an image that reflects how you'd like others to see you. If it's a photo of you, a smile is good.
• Add a link to more about you, your blog, something where a potential follower can go to find out more detail about you. In other words, somwehere that that potential follower can verify you to their own satisfaction.

Want some ideas of what other people do? Take a look at this Twitter list of communicators that I put together: https://twitter.com/jangles/communicators

2. Are You Public or Private?

There are two types of Twitter account: public, open to the online world; and closed or private accounts where your content - known as 'protected tweets' - can be seen only by those you have granted access to.

If you intend to use Twitter as a means of openly engaging with others online, sharing comments, opinion and links, then a public account is your obvious choice. If you wish to engage only with a small group of people, for instance, where you manually approve each request to follow you, and where your tweets don't appear in Twitter Search results, then private would be your choice.

The point is, you do have a choice. See the Twitter help page "About Public and Protected Tweets" for more information.

PS. Neville was the person who first introduced me to Twitter, soon after he joined in December 2006. I thought he was mad. Since then he has collected 11,000 followers and I have read a significant number of his 57,000 tweets.

Twitter for academics

After having a pop at PR academics who teach communication but don't use Twitter I suppose it is only reasonable to offer a helping hand. With apologies to most Mediations visitors who probably know more about it than I do, here are a few thoughts on Twitter for non-Tweeters.

OK, the first hurdle is quite a tough one. "Twitter" and, more so "tweeting" sounds very silly. This is unavoidable. Try to ignore it. The vague embarrassment about using the words never quite goes away but you can live with it.

Next, start following interesting people. Following - listening - is the key to getting value from Twitter. You could begin by following the people on Richard Bailey's PR Educator's list, but another good starting point is to check the profile of someone you find interesting and see who they follow. (Note that anyone can see who you follow, and sometimes the lists can give unexpected insights!).

Remember that you don't need permission to follow someone and potentially anyone can follow you and read what you are saying.

Take a little care in choosing your Twitter name and think through what the account is for. You need to use separate email addresses for the sign up process but you can then have multiple Twitter accounts so it makes sense to have a dedicated academic profile.

Once you get into the swing of tweeting, be a little bit personal. An academic Twitter account might be there primarily to pass on information but don't be afraid of let some of your character show. (It will, anyway - whether you mean to or not!).

Be useful. In an academic context Twitter is often about sharing information, stories and resources. Nobody can read everything they need to read nowadays but if you follow the right people they will do some of the reading and filtering for you. A large proportion of the examples, case studies and videos I use in lectures were flagged up for me by Twitter friends.

Ask qustions. If you need some information, or background, ask your Twitter followers.

Share stuff. I teach a lot of social media and it is a fast moving world. Parts of my lectures, the illustrations and examples, have quite a short shelf life so I lose nothing my sharing slides etc, and gain a great deal when friends do the same. 

Use a Twitter client, not the Twitter site. This especially important if you are using a Mac or PC, not such a problem on a smartphone. I use Tweetdeck, which has columns for people I follow, for mentions of @mediations (comments addressed to me, or RTs of my tweets), direct (private) messages, and then many columns for hashtag searches on particular topics. For a many of my sceptical students Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or a similar platform was the thing that finally convinced them Twitter was worthwhile. 

Learn the etiquette, and try and see your tweets through other people's eyes. It helps if you can make Tweets self-contained - "Yes, I agree entirely"!!!" isn't very illuminating for someone who has not followed the coversation.

Be concise (though avoid text speak), and if possible keep to around 100 characters maximum, so people can RT (retweet) your comments without chopping the end off.

Use hashtags to link your tweets to an event, debate or programme. I add #skchbg to tweets and retweets I think might be useful for Campus Helsingborg students. Hashtags are also the vehicle for trending memes and can be an artform in themselves. If you see an interesting Tweet with a hashtag, click on the tag and you will see all the other tweets similarly tagged.

When you do RT something you think is interesting, add a comment yourself - people often use < or <- to add their opinion, or give some indication of why they felt it was worth passing on (not sure how to do this on a Swedish keyboard!) 

You can link Twitter to Delicious, so you automatically save posts you tweet about.

If you have got this far, I hope you have found some of this helpful. And if, by any remote chance you are one of those brilliant academics who frustrate me and others by not using a very powerful communication tool, do let me know your Twitter address so I can follow you.

And do try to avoid some of the mistakes flagged up here by Hootsuite (showed up in my Twitter feed just as I was writing this...

Being a social academic.... on Twitter

For some time now Richard Bailey at Behind the Spin has run a leaue table of the UK's most social PR students, based on their Klout and Peer Index scores. Being able to build networks and maintain a strong online presence is increasingly important in the job market and #socialstudent has worked well for several Sunderland graduates.

Now Richard has put together a similar list for UK PR Educators... and it is rather disappointing.

Some good people rate well, though some of the higher ranking names are not full-time univeristy academics. What struck me was that even with casting his net quite widely, Richard only managed to include 34 names and there is not a very strong correlation between the most "social" educators and the most significant names in PR academia.

The metrics used to create Klout and Peer Index scores are certainly open question and scores shouldn't be taken too seriously but the Behind the Spin chart does highlight how reluctant acadmics are to use Twitter and even blogs (which I think should be part of the job description).

A lot of serious people who study communication regard Twitter as trivial and simply can't see that anything worthwhile can be said in 142 characters. They are missing the point.

Careers may be made by publishing articles in academic journals, but PR is a dynamic subject, with issues and controversies worthy of debate emerging all the time. Twitter is a really valuable tool staying abreast of new ideas, sharing online finds, and now and then getting into a healthy argument.

Most of the people on the PR educators list are worth following and the best do a splendid job of opening up PR issues to practitioners, students and fellow academics. There should be more of them ... and I hope the #social students will be checking if their tutors are on the list, and if not, asking why...

I am @mediations, by the way...  

 

So why did CIPR Northern invite Max Clifford?

Many of tweets I have seen commenting on Max Clifford's contribution to yesterday's CIPR Northern Conference have been critical of the man and his methods.

Even before the conference, Deborah Copeland, chair of the CIPR's Yorkshire & Lincolnshire group had felt the need to post "Protecting our profession" on the CIPR's Conversation blog. In part she was responding to a post by Justin McKeown's splendidly provocative "What if Max Clifford was an axe murderer?"

Here is how Sarah Hall reported Clifford's contribution. Sarah asked "Have you ever presented facts that you know to be untrue?" and Max, predictably replied: "Of course I have."

The next contribution came from Rob Brown, of Staniforth. Sarah doesn't report the exchange, but as @robbrown this morning tweeted: "I posted in 2009 on why the media should stop indulging Max Clifford. bit.ly/RwPmMg The PR industry must take a stand. #ciprnc" I think we can guess the flavour.

Here is a Storified selection of tweets...

And here is a useful reflection by Leeds Met second year Faye Oakey at PR Examples.

UPDATE: Here is a comment on Rob Brown's post by CIPR Policy and Communications Director Phil Morgan:

It was depressing to read adulatory tweets from some who attended his session at the CIPR Northern Conference. It shows that we have to do more to highlight the real difference between the trade that Max Clifford plies and the profession of public relations.

The CIPR has stated its intention to promote our Code of Conduct and, with a public register of members, is creating a platform to offer stronger commentary on the ethics of practice. The standards of professional conduct in public relations are a significant contributing factor in shaping the image and perception of the profession.

The need for this is highlighted strongly by those tweets, many of which appear to be from students or younger practitioners. We need to show them that there is a professional path and an unprofessional path, and which one they should follow to achieve a worthwhile career.

 

 

 

 

Why the "PR as endorsement" model fails

Still thinking about Morris & Goldsworthy's view that what they call digital PR somehow diminishes its unique strength.

The view chimes with Morris's one time colleague Tim Bell, who is quoted by Richard Bailey in Tench & Yeomans (2009) as describing PR as "the use of third-party endorsement to inform and persuade." This works quite well in explaining 20th century media relations, but less effective as a critique of modern PR, which is shaped significantly by online activity.

The reason PR relied so heavily on media relations was not to do with somehow legitimising and or authenticating its messages but simple logistics. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio were channels for reaching people in ways it was very difficult to achive without them. Get a story in a national newspaper and they do the otherwise very expensive transport work of getting a message out to lots of people very quickly. It was about trucks, trains and transmitters.

Online changes that. Message creation still involves investment but (broadly) distribution pretty much doesn't.

The hard bit is not making content available, but getting it noticed and making it interesting.

Here, big name media platforms are still matter. One of the reasons that it is so useful to have a message covered by a major news platform, be it the Guardian or the Sun, is that 'traditional' media stories are much more interesting. And they are interesting, partly because of the skill and judgment of the writers but mostly because good stories and features draw on many different sources in a way PR puffery does not.

The added value is not so much "If it is in the Financial Times it must be true" but that the richness of journalism adds context. It is hard for so-called brand journalists to draw on competitor sources or find the oblique perspectives that make for a compelling read.

Te traditional send-a-press-release-to-the-usual-suspects style of media relations has to be superseded by making interesting information to a wide range of commentators, some of whom will have the skill to weave compelling content. OK, few will begin to deliver the circualtion numbers associated with the heyday of Fleet Street, or even today's Wapping, but both the cumulative effect and the ability to engage with sophisticated niche areas offers every bit as much potential.

(Approaching this from another angle, it is easy to see Twitter retweets, for example, as an archetypal example of the third party endorsement model. I read this and needed to pass it on).

One of the weaknesses of discussing "digital PR" is that it seems to encourage the view that it is about digitising the same content that has always been part of PR outputs, a bit like drawing the distinction between a film camera and digital camera. Somewhow it misses the crucial implications of digital transmission, which are about unlimited reach and unlimited replication and amplification.

Organisations used to need to hitch a ride on high capital cost media platforms to achieve reach, replication and amplification. Now they have direct access to the channels - if they can create the right content.

Digital PR doesn't undermine PR's unique selling point, it makes doing what PR should do more worthwhile (if more challenging).   

Does 'digital' destroy PR's USP?

Flicking through Morris and Goldsworthy's PR Today (Mediations Book of the Year review here) I saw I had highlighted a passage in a chapter called PR in the Online World which claims:

"When it creates its own media, digital PR loses PR's unique selling proposition: third party endorsement, usually and hopefully from an authoratative media source." (2012:145)

Setting aside my discomfort with the term 'digital PR' which I consider pretty meaningless, I am still trying to decide if they are right...

One of the tricky bits comes with the word 'authoritative' which implies both expertise and impartiality. But why? Are facts and figures reproduced by a newspaper more likely to be accurate than those coming directly from an organisation? Or is the argument based on a belief that such information will be selected and filtered in a less partisan manner if that selection is done by a journalist?

From another perspective, is the claim that a journalist or commentator's opinion is likely to be more reliable because they are external to an organisation and more likely to take into account competing assessments and interpretations? 

Or, again, are M&G saying most people don't have the courage to back their own judgment and need media endorsement to help them through tricky process of choosing dog food or the next US president?

There is a strong argument for believeing that organisation should have the confidence to speak directly with stakeholders, and and this is an opportunity for PR, not a drawback. 

At the same time, this requires communicators to speak in normal, straightforward language, and not have to rely on gatekeepers to cut away the puffery and sleight of hand.

PR in Fiction: MC Beaton Agatha Raisin

It is 20 years since the publication of MC Beaton's first novel featuring PR-turned-sleuth Agatha Raisin.

There's a celebratory profile interview at We Love This Book:

Beaton began to write theatre reviews for the Scottish Daily Mail, and a career in journalism followed—including an eye-opening spell as a crime reporter for the Scottish Daily Express, where she witnessed first hand the terrible poverty in Glasgow’s crime-ridden tenements. After she married theDaily Express’ former Middle East correspondent Harry Scott Gibbons, they went travelling, had a son, Charles, and spent some eventful years in the US, including a down-and-out spell living in a doss house “with hot and cold running winos”.

.....

 

Beaton and her husband moved south to Gloucestershire in 1990, whereupon the character of Agatha Raisin was derived variously from E F Benson’s Lucia and Miss Mapp stories; Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair; and the thrusting PRs Beaton encountered during her newspaper days. “She’s middle- aged and rather pushy. Someone you may not necessarily like, but want to win out in the end.”

Agatha Raisin on Media Relations

Moonlighting for Murder - Karen Russell on Agatha Raisin

Curating NEMO

At the Euprera Congress in Istanbul I presented a paper on Curation; last week I "curated" a conference, NEMO: New Media, Modern Democracy, at Campus Helsingborg, Sweden.

In a PR context curation can very broadly defined this:

"...concerning the creation, display and management of content in a consistent manner to encourage a desired understanding of an organisation."

For the last couple of days I have been trying to do something like this for the conversations surrounding NEMO. The most obvious step is bringing together links to conference content, beginning with the core texts - agendas, powerpoint presentations, videos, speaker bios etc, and wrote a couple of round-up blog posts.

In Curation Nation, Rosenbaum says: "Curation is about adding value from humans who add their qualitative judgment to whatever is being gathered and organised."

I have also tried to capture some of the social media interaction, for example, through Storify (http://storify.com/mediations/nemo-new-media-modern-democracy), giving a selective (persuasive) synthesis of what I consider to be helpful Tweets, mostly sourced through #nemoconf .

Naturally, I linked to Facebook updates and photo albums, uploaded pictures I took myself, and linked to others on Instagram and similar sites.

Rosenbaum emphasises ordering, presenting and making accessible information generated by and around an organisation: "Creating structure for conversation and contribution gives users clear opportunities for participation and creates a coherent experience for visitors."

He goes on: "Content curation centred on a clear set of content policies, with orderly governance, means using all your enterprise's resources in a holistic way."

My Istanbul paper discussed the creative synthesis model which describes teh processes of human intervention concerned with the aggregation of content. 

In the context of PR, curation is inherently linked to content management, but it is important to recognise that much of the curated content will be off-site.  Online curation is characterised by its signposting of outside content, much of it user generated. Online curation provides a roadmap of text, sound, images and video, fact, opinion and commentary on topics relevant to a particular understanding of the organisation. It will naturally privilege content that has a persuasive effect that complements prganisational objectives but it will also interpret and remediate dissonant content and messages.

The challenge is to actually perform these tasks in a comprehesnive accessible manner...

Setting the news agenda, with Orhan Pamuk

Preparing for Euprera's Istanbul Congress, I read Snow, by Turkey's Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.

Ka, a poet, travels to the eastern city of Kars, partly to investigate several suicides among young women, partly to track down a childhood beauty. Shortly after he arrives, Ka meets the proprietor of the Border City Gazette. He is rather surprised when Serder Bey shows him a copy of the next morning's newspaper, which includes a report on a theatre performance during which he read a poem.

"I don't have a poem called Snow and I'm not going to the theatre this evening. Your newspaper will look like it has made a mistake."

"Don't be so sure. There are those who despise us for writing the news before it happens. They fear us not because we are journalists but because we can predict the future. You should see how amazed they are when things turn out exactly as we've written them up. This is what modern journalism is all about."

Later, Serder explains: "The Eastern Anatolian press is in desperate trouble. Our average Kars citizen doesn't bother to read the paper. Almost all our subscribers are government offices. So, of course we are going to run the sort of news our subscribers want to read. All over the world - even in America - newspapers tailor the news to their readers' tastes. And if your readers want nothing but lies from you, who in the world is going to sell papers that tell the truth? If the truth would raise my paper's circulation, why wouldn't I tell the truth?

"Anyway, the police don't let me print the truth, either." 

 

 

Media Relations: Led Zeppelin

Instructions to journalists covering Led Zeppelin's 1977 US tour: "1 Never talk to anyone in the band unless they first talk to you. 1A Do not make any sort of eye contact with (drummer) John Bonham. This is for your own safety."

From a Guardian review of Trampled Under Foot, by Barney Hoskyns.

Feed: In praise of Zombie Journalism

We’re never going to forget how badly we were betrayed. People died in the streets while news anchors made jokes about people taking their zombie movies too seriously and showed footage they claimed depicted teenagers “horsing around” in latex and bad stage makeup.

If I was still teaching journalism I would think about making Feed, by Mira Grant, a set book...

It is 2040, and the world has spent a generation coming to terms with The Rising - the nightmare of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead has come true and life for the survivors is a constant battle against zombies.

Remarkably, Grant has managed to think through this scenario to good effect, and paints a plausible picture of the politics, technology and security concerns that, not surprisingly, dominate daily life. Apart from screening and weaponry, the most valuable tool for survival is information, and in the world of Feed, this is provided by a new breed of journalists - bloggers. 

The blogosphere wasn’t threatening the traditional news media, not even as it started having a real place on the world stage. They thought of us as “quaint.” Then the zombies came, and everything changed. The “real” media was bound by rules and regulations, while the bloggers were bound by nothing more than the speed of their typing.

We were the first to report that people who’d been pronounced dead were getting up and noshing on their relatives.

We were the ones who stood up and said “yes, there are zombies, and yes, they’re killing people” while the rest of the world was still buzzing about the amazing act of ecoterrorism that released a half-tested “cure for the common cold” into the atmosphere. We were giving tips on self-defense when everybody else was barely beginning to admit that there might be a problem.

When blogging first emerged as a major societal trend, it was news rendered anonymous. Rather than trusting something because Dan Rather looked good on camera, you trusted things because they sounded true.

In this future news sites employ five types of journalists:

Newsies, who report fact as untainted by opinion as we can manage, and our cousins, the Stewarts, who report opinion informed by fact. Irwins go out and harass danger to give the relatively housebound general populace a little thrill, while their more sedate counterparts, the Aunties, share stories of their lives, recipes, and other snippets to keep people happy and relaxed. And, of course, the Fictionals, who fill the online world with poetry, stories, and fantasy.

We’re the all-purpose opiate of the new millennium: We report the news, we make the news, and we give you a way to escape when the news becomes too much to handle.

The central characters are Georgia Mason, (licensed online news representative, After the End Times), and her brother Shaun. They are the adopted children of a media star parents.

I never wanted to be Lois Lane, girl reporter, even though I dressed like her for Halloween one year. I wanted to be Edward R. Murrow, facing down corruption in the government. I wanted to be Hunter S. Thompson, ripping the skin off the world. I wanted the truth, and I wanted the news, and I’d be damned before I settled for anything.

I always knew I wanted to be a journalist. When I was a kid, I thought they were the next best thing to superheroes. They told the truth. They helped people. I wouldn’t find out about the other things journalists did—the lies and espionage and back-stabbing and bribes—for years, and by that point, it was too late. The news was in my blood. Like every junkie in the world, I needed my next hit too badly to give it up. I’ve wanted nothing but the news and the truth and to make the world a better place since I was a little girl, and I never regretted it for a minute. Not until now. Because this is bigger than me, and it’s bigger than Shaun, and God, I’m scared. And I’m still a junkie. I still can’t walk away.  

        From Postcards from the Wall, the unpublished files of Georgia Mason, June 19, 2040

 

Theorising augmented reality

From Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality, by Nathan Jurgenson:

Digital dualists believe that the digital world is “virtual” and the physical world “real.” This bias motivates many of the critiques of sites like Facebook and the rest of the social web and I fundamentally think this digital dualism is a fallacy. Instead, I want to argue that the digital and physical are increasingly meshed, and want to call this opposite perspective that implodes atoms and bits rather than holding them conceptually separate augmented reality.

From Towards Theorising an Augmented Reality, by Nathan Jurgenson:

Augmented reality: the merging of material reality with digital information, as well as the augmentation of digitality with materiality

Digital and material realities dialectically co-construct each other. For example, social networking sites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook) are not separate from the physical world, but rather they have everything to do with it, and the physical world has much to do with digital socializing. No longer can we think of a “real” world opposed to being “online”. Instead, we need to think with a paradigm that centers on the implosion of the worlds of bits and atoms into the augmented reality that has seemingly become ascendant.

Will I - dare I - Tweet my vital stats? #viktbubblan

Parachuting Teddy Bear stunt no picnic for KGB

 

Gero Breloer/AP 

Three people working for a controversial Swedish guerilla marketing agency have been "invited" to KGB headquarters in Belarus after a PR stunt that has led to jailing and a diplomatic row.

In July, controversial publicists Studio Total arranged for several hundred teddy bears to be parachuted from a light aircraft which entered Belarus airspace without clearance. The bears carried signs calling for freedom of speech and human rights (Wikipedia).

On August 3, Minsk expelled the Swedish ambassador to Belarus alleging he was trying to "destroy" ties with the ex-Soviet state, a move Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt conceded could be linked to the teddy bear incident (The Local).

Great stunt, good cause... but an ethical minefield. 

Background: Washington Post

Reading around... and other plausible excuses

This is the time of year academics spend "reading around" their subject.

Reading around is about broadening understanding, exploring texts that are not directly connected to the still unwritten lecture you are about to deliver in around and an hour and a half; (that is called 'preparation').

Put another way, reading around is a conscience-salving code for spending hot summer days immersed in books that wouldn't make it on to any of your Reading Lists but are lot more fun than most of the ones that do.

On one level this can justify romping through Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic and saying it gives an effective insight into PR ethics. (It does, but I am rather hoping no-one is going to point me to a PR connection lurking within 50 Shades). It is also a good way exploring subjects that should be seen as essential to understanding how PR works, such as psychology and sociology, or statistics and probability, which are not part of many courses and are actively shunned by some academics. 

Among the Read Arounds I am enjoying this summer:

Neuroculture, by Edmund T. Rolls

The Way of the Panda: The Curious History of China's Political Animal, by Henry Nichols

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman

The Decisive Moment: How The Brain Makes Up Its Mind, by Jonah Lehrer

From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know About the Internet, by John Naughton

What are yours?

PR, Spooks and Protection

Inspired by a presentation on The Israeli Mossad and the Media at this month's International History of PR conference, I was speculating with friends about how you might go about researching MI5's use of PR. As any John le Carré fan knows, spies often pose as journalists and planted stories are part of the spook's stock in trade. We thought a bit of ethnographic research might be exciting but concluded we would never know whether what we were being told was true, or even guess at what we weren't being shown.

(So no change there, then...).

What I hadn't thought about until reading Tim Burt's new book, Dark Art, was an increasing overlap between reputation management as practiced by PR and a slightly different variety being developed by self-styled ‘intelligence agencies’.

Occupying a grey area between private detectives and forensic accountants, these secretive companies have won significant amounts of business from clients looking for market intelligence to help shape or protect their core strategies

Burt claims that "combination of boardroom anxiety over reputational damage and a rapid demarcation of advisory roles" has allowed new players to encroach on PR territory. 

On one side ... PR firms offer proven media handling skills and the ability to shape coverage on behalf of their clients. On the other side, the intelligence agencies promise better strategic risk analysis and crisis avoidance capabilities. In theory, the two disciplines should co-exist happily. The firms at the security end of the spectrum – often staffed by former army officers, CIA and MI6 agents – tend to work below the radar. They do not engage with the media or proactively manage reputations with external audiences.

The new players usually migrate into the corporate world from the armed services or national security agencies. Burt cites Mike Baker (ex-CIA) and Nick Day (ex-MI5), co-founders of Diligence, as examples of intelligence agency veterans who have adapted ‘Cold War’ experience for commercial gain.

Diligence is a US–UK business specialising in reputational threats and risk management. It says it uses research and analysis to deliver ‘the “information edge” required for success in an era of unprecedented global competition and risk’.

Burt argues:

Similar pledges of ‘strategic advice in an increasingly complex and unpredictable world’ illustrate the common ground occupied by PR firms and intelligence agencies that include G3 Good Governance Group, Risk Advisory, Montrose, Guidepost Solutions and Stirling Assynt among others. Their service offerings – ranging from transactional support, dispute resolution and regulatory compliance to competitor analysis and advice on communication strategy – are causing some anxiety for PR firms which thought such skills were their core competence.

I am not quite as convinced the two approaches are in such a straightforward conflict as Burt suggests, but it is interesting to see G3 projecting Corporate Social Responsibility in a less fluffy manner than PR might choose...

• Clila Magen The Israeli Mossad and the media: Historical and theoretical perspectives

Trust Me, I'm Lying....

"Bloggers are incentivised to suspend disbelief," says "controversial publicist" Ryan Holiday, in a Communication Lab audio interview. Mea Culpa?