This week in PR (26 January)
It happened this week
Profession and ethics
- Farzana Baduel with Tom Mayne: PR’s kleptocracy problem
(23 January)
‘My mission is to inform people about the dangers and risks of grand corruption – kleptocracy – and how we in the UK may feel we’re removed from this, but our actions can facilitate the corruption we see overseas.’
- Louise Thompson: 20 questions… if you want to be an effective communications leader (23 January)
‘Here we go then. 20 questions you absolutely need to ask as a communications leader.’
Business and finance
- Molly Gretton: Shareholder activism in the UK markets (23 January)
‘The UK’s appeal to activist investors can be attributed to firstly, having more listed companies than other European markets and secondly, more open share registers.’
Purpose, climate and ESG
SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION DIPLOMA
Consulting, skills and careers
- Jim Houghton: Becoming the European management consultancy for integrated communications – in conversation with Lansons/Team Farner CEO Gordon Tempest-Hay [podcast] (24 January)
‘My career has all been a total fluke. I left school at 16 without qualifications; I tried to be a musician but couldn’t pay the bills. All I was interested in was music and politics. So I took a job in the Civil Service.’ - James Crawford: I asked Chat GPT to interview me and was amused by the results (24 January)
‘I think my leadership style is fairly natural. I take a lot of that from my dad. We are both very honest, sometimes to a fault, and we don’t mind risking temporary unpopularity to tell people what we think if it helps achieve an objective.’ - Claire Munro: Book Review: The Nowhere Office – Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future (22 January)
‘The nowhere office is one shorn of “fixtures and fittings,” at once a real and virtual space, much harder to imagine or categorise – or manage – than the traditional office building.’
Gender, diversity, health and wellbeing
- Priscilla Chun: Navigating multicultural leadership (no date)
‘Now, I’m not here to say one leadership culture is superior to another, nor am I saying all leaders from one culture share identical behaviours and thoughts. There are distinct features between leadership styles across cultures and I believe it’s possible for them to converge, paving the way for a well-rounded one independent of cultural boundaries.’
Public and third sectors
- John-Paul Danon: Hope and positivity from being together (25 January)
‘On a chilly Friday in early January, communicators from a range of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire organisations came together to look forward. District, county and city councils, colleges and universities, care partnerships, tourism, fire, police, and the NHS all took part.’
- Dan Slee: AI TOOL: How the Generative AI Framework for HM Government can help comms people (23 January)
‘UK Government has been keen to develop the UK as a place where AI innovation takes place. This document is a useful tool for it to be used responsibly and in a way that people inside and outside the organisation can be reassured by.’
Politics, public affairs and public sphere
“It won’t be an election fought on policies but trust.”
The @NewStatesman’s @RMCunliffe predicts that the state of the economy means parties are writing manifestos with one arm tied behind their back and the next election will be “a vibes-based election”.@CIPR_PA pic.twitter.com/64HzGUPLFp
— Jon Gerlis (@JRGerlis) January 25, 2024
- Phil Briscoe: Boots on the ground dilemma for Rishi as battle 2024 looms (25 January)
‘To mobilise an army (whether on the streets or on the battlefield), the troops need something to fight for, something to fight against and a commander-in-chief they want to follow.’ - Joe Cooper: Fall in government borrowing paves way for tax cuts in the Budget (23 January)
‘New figures published by the Office for National Statistics today revealed that the government borrowed around £6bn less than expected in the year to December, paving the way for a programme of tax cuts in March’s Budget.’
- Simon Neville: ‘Captain of industry? No I just answer the phones’: How the UK lost its superstar CEOs (24 January)
‘The UK will never become Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley and a global business hub when we fail to produce or nurture any captains of industry.’
Research, data, measurement and evaluation
- Emma Drake: Harnessing SEO: The Unseen Pivot in PR Success Measurement [podcast] (25 January)
‘[SEO’s] data driven-approach offers us this really quantifiable method to track our PR campaigns, and it enables us to fine-tune the messaging and outreach to get really good results.’
- Doug Downs with Anne Gregory: Challenging the Status Quo in PR Metrics [podcast] (21 January)
‘When we set objectives it’s always to benefit the organisation – but I think that’s ethically questionable and pragmatically I’m not sure it achieves what public relations is all about. I think we need to adjust our models for the modern age. Public relations is about securing legitimacy and we don’t do that by persuading people.’
Crisis, risk and reputation
- PRovoke Media: Crisis Review: The Top 21 Crises Of 2023 (Part 3 Of 3) (23 January)
‘Corporate communicators know better than most that the rise of ESG as a business imperative is proving to be a reputational minefield, in which companies are having to carefully tread the line of underlining their sustainability credentials while avoiding the very real risk that they will be accused of greenwashing.’
Internal communication
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION DIPLOMA
Media, digital and technology
- Steph Edwards: The SEC Newgate AI Weekly (25 January)
‘A YouGov poll commissioned by the communications consultancy Cavendish reveals that 70% of MPs are concerned about AI’s potential to spread misinformation. This has prompted demands for regulatory overhauls before the election season gains momentum in 2024.’ - Ben Smith: How technology is rebooting communications: Ashwani Singla, founding managing partner of Astrum Reputation Advisory on the PRmoment Podcast (22 January)
‘Technology disruption is here to stay. When the language of programming is the language that’s when it emulates human intelligence. There’s no turning back the clock on this one.’
