This week in PR (2 March)

News in brief

• Holmes Report has the fullest analysis of the ‘reverse takeover’ of Burson-Marsteller by Cohn & Wolfe.
• Hope Hicks, the longest-serving (and fourth) White House communications director of the Trump administration, has announced that she’s leaving.
• The PRCA has established an Employee Engagement Group chaired by Ruth Dance
• The CIPR is to launch an Independent Practitioners’ Network and its first task is to consult with potential members
• Vuelio has published its ranking of the top ten UK PR blogs.
• The latest issue of the open source PR Journal is freely available, containing articles on internal communication, global capabilities and decline in trust.

Calendar

Our calendar of events now appears on a separate page

Thought leaders: Pick of the posts

These are the editor’s pick of posts about public relations this week from a UK perspective. Recommendations are welcome to [email protected] or @pr_place

There’s lots here, so I’ve organised these into categories:

Business of PR

• David Brain: Burson Cohn & Wolfe (28 February)
  ‘[20 years ago Burson-Marsteller] was the world’s biggest PR firm and the only one most CEOs had heard of and it had Harold Burson, the icon of the industry. It was ahead of its time and it defined public relations.’
• Brendon Craigie: Four problems ingrained in most PR agencies and how to fix them (26 February)
  ‘Not everyone wants to become a manager and yet nearly every employee in the traditional agency template will be funnelled up the same career path from practitioner to manager.’

Careers and skills

• Dan Slee: WINTER COMMS part 1: Seven ways to communicate using video (1 March)
  ‘For a handful of days a year the state of the roads, grit levels and snow are really important… I’ve been banging a drum for video as a comms channel for three years now.’
• Amanda Coleman: Snow joke (1 March)
  ‘Emergency services workers, local authority staff, NHS workers, those caring for others and even those looking after animals all have to be at work.’
• Kevin Ruck and Heather Yaxley: Professional PR Development. Why bother?  (28 February)
  ‘I have seen people openly state that they have no qualifications but lots of experience, where having ‘no qualifications’ almost becomes a badge of honour.’
• Ross Wigham: Lessons from the stoics (26 February)
  ‘Stoicism as a philosophy has had something of a resurgence recently as the idea of resilience becomes increasingly important in modern corporate life.’
• Arianne Williams: ‘Ending the data deficit’ – PR Analytics (23 February)
  ‘All evaluation must come back to the organisational goals and objectives, not start with the data you have.’
• Ste Davies: The Communications Stack. How To Effectively Communicate In The Digital Era (no date)
  ‘To navigate this landscape requires a particular set of communication skills. Skills that you acquire and perfect over a lifetime.’
• Louise Thompson: Can you speak human? Why we underestimate the power of simple. (23 February)
  ‘If I could wave a magic wand for the communications profession, it would be to remove the blinkers that keep us from speaking in clear, simple, human language.’

Creativity

• Mike Sergeant: PR for Humans – Mike Sergeant + James Gordon-MacIntosh [podcast] (26 February)
  ‘The best PR is the champagne at the party – it’s stuff that makes people smile, it makes people think. It’s got to be surprising and it’s got to be interesting.’
• Andy Green: Why we need #speakcockneyday on March 3rd (26 February)
  ‘Linguistic experts predict the Cockney dialect faces a diabolical future – and will disappear within 20 years.’

Crisis and reputation

• Ella Minty: Community relations in time of crisis (27 February)
  ‘Always, always question your thinking and intervention priorities. Don’t think like a corporate nodding head – think like the journalist you fear most. Then you’ll know what you have to do.’
• Charlie Pownall: Ten useful books on online reputation (26 February)
  ‘Online reputation is a diffuse and slippery concept that means many things to many people. Amazon lists over 950 books with the phrase in the title.’
• Jonathan Hemus: Lessons from Oxfam (25 February)
  ‘From a reputational perspective, it is important that organisations create a crisis-resistant culture that flows through the business.’
• Rebecca Henderson: How KFC has dealt with a total cluck up! (25 February)
  ‘Cue chicken chaos across the UK, with some people even contacting the Police during their chicken emergencies. No, I’m not joking!’

Internal comms

• Cameron Craig: How Steve Jobs Broke Down The Wall Between Internal and External Communications (28 February)
  ‘The wall between internal and external communications has come down. The world of PR people writing press releases and internal communications people writing memos is gone.’
• Paul Sutton and Rachel Miller: The impact of digital on internal communications [podcast] (27 February)
  ‘There was no one in the room at the last Big Yak who said ‘digital isn’t for us’ whereas five years ago the conversation was ‘you know I’m not sure if this is for us or not’.’
• Ellie Buckingham: Communicating change: The five things I’ve learnt about employees’ emotions (27 February)
  ‘When people’s futures are uncertain and they’re desperate for information and news, I’ve found that even the most carefully crafted message can land wrong; be it timing, targeting or content.’

Media and digital

• Rich Leigh: ‘Anti-ad’ social network Vero – what the hell is it and why should you care? (27 February)
  ‘OK, you’ve probably heard there’s a new social network called Vero. Now, you’re wondering what the point of it is.’
• Scott Guthrie: Kylie Jenner, Snapchat and a warning for Vine 2.0 (no date)
  ‘Was Kylie Jenner’s 88-character Tweet really responsible for sinking the company’s stock by 6.1%?’

#prstudent #bestPRblogs

Here are two useful resource for PR students:

• PR Careers: 2018: 150 PR internships and graduate schemes
• Stephen Waddington: Updated: public relations dissertation topics

And here’s our pick of the best posts by those studying public relations and/or aspiring to work in PR. Note that two of these are seeking help with their dissertation research.

• Lauren Hill (Ulster): Syria: A Bleeding Country (2 March)
  ‘This episode [of Educating Greater Manchester] still highlighted the struggles which another Syrian pupil named Murad met within the multicultural school as he came face to face with ‘Islamophobia’.’
• Jessica Pardoe (Liverpool John Moores): #MyPRJob: In-House or Agency? (1 March)
  ‘There’s tons of jobs you can go in to on the back of a PR degree, and these posts will hopefully provide a little insight in to them.’
• Alicia Squadrone (UWE Bristol): The Dark Side of Influencers – Is it more authentic than celebrity marketing? (28 February)
  ‘Because influencers have a niche they’re passionate about and generally nurture and engage with their audiences more, it’s much more of a two-way conversation than it is with celebrity marketing.’
• Olivia Shalofsky (Loughborough): In the female leadership spotlight – Bibi Hilton (28 February)
  ‘To my twenty year old self I would say be confident, never be afraid to ask questions and join Women in PR!’
• Orlagh Shanks (Liverpool John Moores): #PlacementYear: Month Eight (28 February)
  ‘For the shortest month of the year, it’s going to be a hard one to beat. The rest of 2018 better step up its game. From London Fashion Week, to the BRITS, to the Black Panther Movie Premiere, I mean, what is this life I think I’m living?!’
• Hollie Thomson (Ulster): The repeal of Net Neutrality – is America okay? (28 February)
  ‘Under the new rules, ISPs won’t just be free to charge more for faster access, they’ll be completely free to simply block access to whatever part of the Internet they feel serves their financial interest.’
• Connor Peters (Bournemouth): What impact does high cultural intelligence have on comms? (26 February)
  ‘It’s a simple concept: the higher your cultural intelligence (CQ), the better you are at handling cross-cultural situations.’
• Annie Shivers (Ulster): Crisis communication – the winners and the losers (27 February)
  ‘The academic literature surrounding crisis management has detailed theories regarding how a PR practitioner should react when their organisation comes under fire.’
• Katya Hamilton-Smith (LCC/UAL): Propeller PR networking event (27 February)
  ‘Attending networking events such as these really help to build your contacts and are generally a great way to learn about new opportunities and have fun.’
• Hannah Martin (Ulster): What do the UK Grime scene and the Labour Party have in common? (26 February)
  ‘In 2017 64% of registered voters aged 18-24 fulfilled their voting duties, with the highest youth share since 67% voted in 1992. And who or what have we got to thank for this? Schools? Colleges? Parents? Westminster? No… Grime.’