So I am officially a Nobody... I knew it all along but it was reassuring to learn, from Andrea (see comment) that my declaration had simply vanished into the flood of other similar declarations - there are simply too many of us out there.
The lesson, of course, for David Murray (and, it has to be said, many, many others in PR) is that in the communications business there is no such thing as a nobody - and especially now when a range of social software tools gives a platform to so many...
Aha - I knew it! Glad to see you join our ranks...
Posted by: Serge Cornelus | April 10, 2006 at 09:10 AM
But is this true? If I look for the values of a person and find that they do have issues in common they tend towards being a social groups. But such groups have much more in common. For example, they have one or more common cultures (and there are many types of cultures) and many communications channels that are mutually exercised. In addition, where there is a tight knit group like a company, the evidence suggests that the range of common values is broad and varied well beyond beyond narrow corporate issues. We know this in our daily lives. People who work together tend to build up a range of common interests (family, interests, hobbies and even favoured nightclubs).
David Murray was inconsequential until he explicated a set of values that had resonance with a number of people with common (PR) values and using common communications channels. This is a great example of relationship management. We can learn from it. The important questions are: how he came into this group; whether his level of value(s) empathy will engender a productive, long term and valuable (value can be positive or negative) relationships; the extent to which his values (and those of the PR community) will morph and be changed by the values added to his original comment by third parties and, finally, can we translate this into practice.
As we have seen, the interaction so far has considerable value.
Posted by: David Phillips | April 10, 2006 at 01:13 PM
Or perhaps everybody is a nobody. It's just that some get that, and others (confused and misguided) do not....
Posted by: Susan Getgood | April 10, 2006 at 01:42 PM
It's time to unleash your inner nobody: http://andreaweckerlecopywriting.typepad.com/new_millennium_pr/2006/05/standing_behind.html
Posted by: Ike | May 05, 2006 at 06:43 AM