Lying on the beach for five days at a stretch – as I have done while on vacation in the beautiful Outer Banks of North Carolina this week – puts one in a reflective mood. And one of the things I have been thinking about is that it would be nice to offer a positive counterbalance to my PR Death Watch series, my blog chronicle of the growing number of anachronisms in our field.
After all, it is fairly easy to pick off the profession’s old and tired habits, and ingrained ways of working that no longer seem to be effective. But what about positive signs of change? Why not propose a vision of where PR should go next, and how we can adapt and continue to grow?
There were many good questions raised in the comments and posts I referenced last week in PR Apocalypse Now. My Reimagining PR series will strive to answer these questions and lay out a roadmap and direction, based on my own thoughts and by referencing the writings of others who are speaking out on the topic.
One positive development has been that PR people are increasingly coming out from behind the curtains, proving to the world that we can speak in our own genuine voices, and be smart and articulate. This may be no great revelation to people who actually work in the field, but might come as a surprise to those who hold a cynical view of PR.
For too long we have labored in obscurity. “You are not the story!” we have constantly been reminded. Although this approach seemed to work well for years, it has not done us any favors because it has not promoted an understanding of the field, and, not understanding or knowing, people tend to assume the worst.
Now, whether it is on their own blogs, or by commenting or posting on others’, or through Twitter, PR are people are revealing themselves, cultivating their online personalities and personal brands.
In growing numbers, PR people are launching their own blogs (see Brendan Cooper’s PR Friendly list for August (inactive), which cites the top 100 PR blogs – I am thrilled that Flack’s Revenge is now on the list).
Back in May, Web 2.0 Working Group member Stowe Boyd proposed something called MicroPR as an antidote to pitch spam:
So, this is an additional argument for MicroPR: forcing PR firms to
approach us in the open, on open social flow apps like Twitter, and in
the small, where they have to jettison all the claptrap of the old
press release model. In the open, that can’t lie easily, or they will
be caught on it. In the small, they have to junk the meaningless
superlatives, the bogus quotes that no CEO ever mouthed, the run-on
phrases, the disembodied third party mumbo jumbo, as if the press
release were edited by God.
Blogging and other forms of social media have driven an ethos of greater transparency. While all this transparency presents obvious challenges to those who want discipline and control in communications, it also presents opportunities for those who are first wiling to acknowledge reality and then take this understanding and adapt.
We are PR, hear us roar, it is a beautiful thing!
