PR-Bridge

Kent State professor Bill Sledzik is one of my “must reads” on the Web. He is honest about his often-tortured feelings about blogging and the time it takes away from the rest of life, threatening at times to pull the plug on his blog. While bemoaning the Web at times, Bill’s posts are always entertaining and thought-provoking.

His latest series of posts — a kind of “big-picture” examination of public relations — follow in the high standards he has set. I love the subtitle of his recent post “Repeat after me: Public relations IS NOT marketing.”

Bill and I have had friendly disagreements regarding the integration or lack of mixing the two disciplines, but I really enjoy the discussions and think that there really isn’t a large gap between our views.

I particularly appreciate Bill’s explanation of the basic skills necessary for success in public relations versus marketing: “pubic relations has a broader reach, not to mention a very different tool kit than the marketers. Still, no matter how hard we fight the perception, people tend to view us as ‘promoters,’ or part of the marketing function.” Building this skillset in my students is the reason I jumped into academe after many years as a professional communicator.

I urge anyone interested in communications to read Bill’s post and respond with their own thoughts and feelings.  

On his PR Junkie blog, Mark Ragan highlights a mystifying “challenge” the public relations industry confronts on a daily basis — the consistently poor writing shoveled out at agencies. As a person who teaches ”Writing for Public Relations” at my university, I can certainly understand Ragan’s disgust. “Every once in a while I’ll sit down with a jug of Jack Daniels and a bottle of Advil and dig through old press releases to see if PR agencies have learned how to write,” Ragan says.

And I believe him. Often, I have felt similar alarm as I review industry releases. I ask my students to read 10 releases each week while they take the writing course, which most often exposes more bad than good PR writing.

Ragan believes the problem resides at the feet of young professionals. He explains, “There is a reason for the template, of course. None of the kids hired by the agencies and billed out at $150 an hour have the slightest idea what they’re writing about. They don’t understand the product or the client. They have no background in the industry, and they never learned how to write in college.”

I agree with this statement to a degree. Just like the training lawyers and budding business executives receive, the PR programs at most colleges do not fully prepare students for the real world. Even students who have supplemented their classroom education with several internships still face a steep learning curve in the professional world.

The real problem, however, is the agency structure, not the young professionals forced into cookie cutter training programs.

Here’s my reply to Ragan’s post:

“One area to blame is the school system. I basically have to eliminate all a student’s bad writing habits, THEN figure out a way to get them on the path toward professional writer status. Certainly this is almost impossible in a mere 15 weeks.

The second area of blame falls on the agencies. They are so top-heavy on client teams that they are perpetually understaffed. This results in little hands-on mentoring and pushing off the pitching/writing to new grads who don’t have the experience or skills to do the job adequately.

The templates the firms force their junior people to conform to are horrible, but allow releases to be completed quicker, which saves money. I’ve had fantastic student writers get jobs at agencies, then have their skills beat right out of them because of time restraints, etc.

If agency leadership wanted to put a stop to this poor writing, they could. But, it’s cost effective and, at the end of the day, must prove that they don’t care all that much about writing quality. My hope is that I teach my students the best methods I know and then someday when they are execs, they implement that style at their agencies.”

Basically, my viewpoint is that we could blame young professionals, but it is really a systemic challenge that points to some major flaws in the typical agency structure. Agencies need to pay more than casual lip service to mentoring and training, certainly the writing that is being done is evidence of this point.

That’s my two cents…What do you think we can do to improve PR writing both while students are students and then once they get out into the professional world?

On the first day of the NFL draft, the Dallas Cowboys selected Mike Jenkins from the University of South Florida, the school’s first number one draft pick. Everyone at USF is elated for Jenkins and the football program.  

What I have noticed in my teaching career at the USF is that just like with star athletes, the School of Mass Communications produces star students/budding professionals. We routinely graduate number one draft picks!

In recent years there have been numerous “stars” that have charged out into the world, from Bryan Blaise (account executive at Fleishman-Hillard) and Mandy Cretella (writer at HSN) to Lynda Pasteur (M.A. in Strategic Communications Management at USF) and Wes Phillips (account executive at TriplePoint in San Francisco). The will be joined at the end of the week by another crop of amazing young USF Public Relations graduates.

One of our newly-graduating number one draft picks is Meg Roberts (sorry agencies, she’s been snapped up by Fleishman’s VOX Global Mandate to do public affairs communications in Washington DC). Meg really set herself apart from other students, even the best and the brightest, by fully engaging in social media. Her blog, for example, is considered by industry experts to be one of the best student blogs in the country. So, when Meg writes, students listen!

Her recent blog “Building ‘Brand You’: 10 Easy (and Free!) Ways to Market Yourself” is an example of the kind of online mentoring program Meg’s blog developed into for students pursuing a career in communications. She provides a list of tasks that students who want to get engaged in social media should examine, exactly the kind of smartly written blog that its target audience can immediately implement. Meg’s understanding of her audience and taking care to address them in a way that encourages further engagement is the kind of intuitive knowledge about the role of communicators that made her a number one draft pick.

I recently asked Meg to share her thoughts about social media with my “Principles of Public Relations” class this semester, an entry level course with students from PR, advertising, telecommunications, and journalism. The students came away with another level of appreciation for the medium and described Meg’s presentation as “inspirational,” “awesome,” and “awe-inspiring.” Within a week, more than a handful started their own blogs to begin building their online brand. Meg links to some of them on her blogroll…and, the next level of student superstars begins…

I feel fortunate to teach at USF and to have the opportunity to help these wonderful students learn more about their chosen profession (and maybe even a few life lessons along the way). Every spring, as students prepare to graduate, the air is filled with nostalgia and sentimental feelings, so forgive me for falling into that. While the NFL draft picks get the media spotlight, I relish in the notion that we have dozens of first-rounders who have graduated from our program. Now go out and tackle the world!

Literally overnight, rookie Nascar driver Michael McDowell went from an unknown to national sensation. Saturday morning, he appeared on at least one national television show. The reason: a fiery head-on collision with the wall while practicing for the race at Texas Motor Speedway. 

If you happened to be watching the crash live, you could hear the fear and anxiety in announcer (and former driver) Daryl Waltrip’s voice. Certainly, many people would have assumed that McDowell died in the accident. Much to Nascar’s credit, the innovations at the tracks and inside the cars themselves saved his life. The story at Nascar.com provides further details about the safety equipment.

The initial news stories on the crash focused on the safety elements that saved McDowell. However, if I were on Nascar’s communications team, I would be concerned about questions focusing on the absorbent material that was still on the track when subsequent drivers practiced and Nascar’s decision to allow those racers on the track with the substance still out there. As a matter of fact, if memory serves, McDowell was the second driver to slip a bit out there in that absorbent they place to dry out oil spills.

I think that the press should question Nascar about the decision to allow teams back on the track after an earlier accident. The McDowell accident proves that these are potentially life and death calls and drivers deserve better, even if the spectacular crashes draw publicity and increase fan interest.

Mark Weiner, the author of Unleashing the Power of PR, discusses Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) at Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog. He outlines why communicators have not put IMC into practical use: ”aligned for the optimal customer experience.” He broadly defines “customer” to include both internal and external audiences.

Weiner correctly pins the lack of integration on executives who “know that truly integrated marketing can only be derived from a truly integrated organization.” He continues, “Genuinely aligning an organization extends beyond most marketers’ sphere of influence and oversight. The unwillingness of the organization to become more fully integrated in its thoughts and actions can be an insurmountable obstacle.”

I think Weiner is absolutely right on the money in identifying this breakdown. IMC cannot happen if “integrated” isn’t part of the equation. The integration must happen across a company, which means some execs in HR, IT, Finance, etc. have to be willing to let communicators do their work. In my professional experience this is always a sticking point, because the chief of HR, IT, etc. wants to retain this power within their division.

“Thoughts and Actions”

Weiner identifies that an organization must integrate its “thoughts and actions” to truly conduct IMC. The disconnect that I see in the corporate world begins at a really basic level. Too many communications execs think IMC means giving up their power the entity the CEO values the most — usually “Marketing.”

As such, what I hear (with scorn and derision) from my public relations friends is that if they integrate, then they in some way surrender to marketing. The truth is that IMC does not mean that a marketing executive suddenly becomes an expert in PR, advertising, design, or vice versa. IMC means that the different functions align their resources to fulfill the CEO’s goals and aspirations.

The “thought” part of IMC is getting leaders of different parts of the communications team together and building their strategic plans as one, so when a new product launched or a new service introduced, the different fingers come together as a fist.

The “actions” segment is twofold. First, a company must create an organizational structure that enables and promotes this kind of interaction. This means that non-communications leaders have to give their colleagues the power to do their jobs without the short leash that many have in the current corporate world. Second, the communications leaders must set a tactical agenda across teams that provides the power to the fist.

IMC holds phenomenal potential, but as Weiner indicates, it is 15 years later and we’re still having the debate over whether or not to integrate. The reason IMC isn’t more universally used (or used correctly) is at its core a people problem.

What we have learned in the 15 years of attempting to integrate is that executives are not willing to put aside personal power for the good of the organization. Fiefdoms are as pervasive now as at any time in the past. What always shocked me in the business world is that people within the different communications functions treated their colleagues in another function with such disregard, often more like competitors than teammates. Usually, these individuals were taking their cues from their bosses, who saw their leadership as a land-grab. Until the people at the top of the ladder (from the CEO down) learn to plan and implement together, then IMC is doomed.

I love Fortune magazine. It is a long-time love affair that I routinely share with colleagues, friends, and students. I even create writing assignments around special themed issues, such as “The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business” and “The Leadership Issue” in hopes that my students will begin their own relationship with the magazine.

With the March 3, 2008, issue, however, I am finding much less Fortune to love. The issue weighs in at a paultry 106 pages. More distressing than the lean look is the anemic 35 pages of content I counted. Can there really only be 35 pages of interesting business news in the world today?

I am not disparaging Fortune’s content, but rather the lack of articles. As a matter of fact, I like the recent design changes to make the magazine look better. The layout is fine. But, “where’s the beef?”

Perhaps the answer lies in the overall economic picture. Time-Warner faces tough times. The company recently announced additional cuts to its magazine division, which includes People, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune. Last year, the company shuttered Business 2.0, the technology-focused magazine that somehow survived the dot.com bust, but died in the Web 2.0 revitalized world. Has anyone been able to sufficiently explain that one?

Certainly magazine ads (all advertising, really) are less appealing in a belt-tightening era. Many of the current issue’s advertisers are foreign companies: Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, RBS, etc.

Maybe the digital world is finally nailing the coffin of traditional magazines, as observers have predicted for the last decade or so. I teach pre-professional students, most of whom will make their careers in communications and my guess is that less than 10 percent of them have ever heard of Fortune, much less read it regularly. But, they know every detail of whatever pop culture scandal is current and they all read Perez Hilton. Marc Andreesen, Netscape founder and technology guru, initiated a “New York Times Deathwatch,” calling the company out for being…basically…obsolete in today’s age. [Ironically, reported in the link above by Josh Quittner, Fortune’s Executive Editor, who does not seem to get that the same forces that place NYT on a deathwatch do so for Fortune.]

So, take a great, venerable magazine…add a struggling parent, declining readership, younger audiences that would rather watch YouTube videos, and a general economic downturn and you and I get a Fortune on life support.

This after the annual reup for my subscription offered me the “special subscriber rate” of $49.95 a year, when the book is routinely listed on sites across the Web at $29.95! [I must note that Fortune’s customer service reps gave me the lower rate when I contacted them about this issue. But imagine how many people they got at $50 a year?]

Please Fortune, you’ve got great writers and a fascinating subject to illuminate. Figure out what gives. Just like any other organization, I believe part of the answer will be to reinvigorate the brand through reputation management and communications.  

Bill Sledzik, a public relations professor at my alma mater, Kent State University, recently posted an ode to his mentors and threw down the gauntlet to others to follow. I earned a Master’s degree in History at Kent, so I did not know Bill, but his blog is one of my favorites. I now count him as a great “virtual” friend…plus he’s a Steelers fan in the heart of Browns country, which makes him a brother of sorts.

My Mentors:

Lawrence S. Kaplan — Dr. Kaplan served as my Master’s thesis advisor at Kent State. I also took two classes of his, one on NATO and the other on Jefferson. I can still hear Dr. Kaplan’s soft New England lilt in my ear and remember his probing insights into the study of history. What I took away from my work with Dr. Kaplan served as the basis for the successes I have had since, particularly now that I am a college teacher: better critical thinking skills, improved writing ability, and an appreciation for his extraordinary kindness.

Anne Beirne — Many, many people have shown me kindness in my life, but none quite as much as Anne. She is a one-of-a-kind person, who brought me into the UpStart/Fleishman family and then into her own family. Anne is a phenomenal writer and served as a role model for just about every aspect of a career in communications. She is like a second mom to me, even though I now live across the country and don’t get to see her or her wonderful family.

Peter Magnani — Peter hired me at Bank of America in San Francisco and then over the next couple years, exerted a significant influence on my thinking about how one should conduct themselves in the corporate world. His engaging leadership, combined with marvelous storytelling and perfect business instincts, enabled those of us who worked for him to excel at our jobs. Peter also introduced me to his mentor — Ron Rhody — one of the founding fathers of public relations, in my opinion. I force students to read one of Rhody’s articles on the importance of communicators in maintaining an organization’s moral compass each semester. Here’s his Arthur W. Page Society Hall of Fame speech.

I’ve had a couple other important mentors, including Sidney R. Snyder, my AP History teacher who guided me to Kent State to study with Dr. Kaplan. His friendship means a great deal to me. Dr. James A. Kehl helped me appreciate and understand history at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Phil Sipiora, my dissertation advisor at the University of South Florida, is a wonderful mentor and guide as I traverse through the world of literature. His knowledge of Fitzgerald and Hemingway opened my eyes to the great authors in an entirely new way.

The School of Mass Communications (informal) golf team members have also mentored me on and off the course: Ken Killebrew, Larry Leslie, and Randy Miller.

I feel lucky to have had so many fantastic mentors in my career. I honor them by paying it forward whenever I can, particularly for my students as they begin their journeys.

I first delivered this top 10 list a couple years ago as a guest speaker at the Florida Public Relations Association — Tampa Chapter meeting. I’m revising it here for your consideration. Feel free to add more and share…

Top 10 Ways to Know You Work in PR

10. You divide your weekends into 15 minute billable chunks

9. You cringe when you hear jargon like “going forward,” “actionable,” “learnings,” and “incentivize”

8. Whenever someone writes you a letter, gives you a card, etc., you immediately begin editing it

7. Every four years, around presidential election time, you throw things at your TV when you hear “spin” for the millionth time

6. You have permanent scars on your tongue from biting it over and over again…whenever a lawyer has “edits” to your copy, an exec wants you to add some “verbiage” to a speech. The list goes on and on

5.  At some point in your career you’ve wondered what class it was as undergrads that journalists got their halos and/or capes

4. Your resume is a “living document”

3.  You’ve started drinking in the morning, explaining to your PR buddies, “Well, it’s got to be 5 pm somewhere in the world”

2. With a numb ear, you wearily hang up after a conference call and immediately say “What an *&((&&^!” (Insert expletive here)

1. You’ve been working in this profession for 10 years and your Mom still doesn’t know what you do

On Monday, Karen Russell at Teaching PR posted the week’s best blogs. She included one from Tamar Weinberg, titled “Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007.” Let me tell you, Tamar’s blog is mindboggling. I mean, it literally blew me away.

 Sprint, fly, surf to her site immediately for a complete education in social media. Caution, however, that you may never find your way out of the jungle of information Tamar provides.

Happy Monday! My co-author (USF Strategic Communication Management grad student Melanie Formentin) and I have an article coming out in a special issue “Public Relations and Sport” in Public Relations Review in June 2008.

Title: “Re-branding the NHL: building the league through the ‘My NHL’ integrated marketing campaign,” by Bob Batchelor and Melanie Formentin

Thoughts, comments, etc. greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob