This week in PR (7 January)

Author: Richard Bailey, Editor
7th January 2022 16 min read

About the author

Richard Bailey Hon FCIPR is editor of PR Academy's PR Place Insights. He teaches and assesses undergraduate, postgraduate and professional students.

Home. And I can FINALLY see the actual clock face of Big Ben for the first time in 4 years! And the London Eye is pink, which is kind of cool too. 😀 @woolfallalex on Instagram
Home. And I can FINALLY see the actual clock face of Big Ben for the first time in 4 years! And the London Eye is pink, which is kind of cool too. 😀 @woolfallalex on Instagram

People in the news 

    • New Year’s Honours: Jane Wells, managing director of JComms was awarded an MBE for ‘services to the public relations industry, to the economy and to the community in Northern Ireland’.
    • The death of Colin Farrington, former CIPR director general, was announced before Christmas.

Profession and purpose

  • Jon Gerlis: “Make this the year to get involved.” Meet the new CIPR president Rachel Roberts (5 January)
    ‘For members, it’s critical to maximise awareness of the vast number of learning and development opportunities that come with membership, but members are often unaware of. All members will be able to benefit from new free training sessions, the Employability Hub, together with the Influence Blog and Engage Podcasts, which means it’s possible to achieve their annual CPD goals as part of their core membership.’
  • Paul MacKenzie-Cummins: How does a strong brand purpose improve business outcomes? (5 Janiuary)
    ‘By creating a clear brand purpose, you’ll become a stronger business – which also performs better financially – as a result. As Claire Phillips, Head of Social Purpose at ITV, puts it, “Often we talk about this split between profit or purpose, ethics or economics. It’s a false dichotomy.”’

ESG, corporate and financial

https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:6884135840914702337

Gender, diversity and wellbeing

  • Clare Parker: The power of your outdoor break: evaluating the value of woods (29 December)
    ‘A report from the social science team in Forest Research, the Great Britain-wide research arm of the Forestry Commission, for the first time put a figure on it. £185million A YEAR can be saved by visiting woodlands.’
  • Kelly Harrison: After a hard few years, this is what happened when I recognised workplace trauma (29 December)
    ‘Until last year, I hadn’t really heard of workplace trauma. Of course I was aware of how people working in the police or fire service could be traumatised by the things they have to do and see every day. That fitted my understanding of ‘trauma’, but I didn’t realise that you could be traumatised by a toxic workplace.’

Public and third sectors

  • Connor McLoughlin: Three ways to re-purpose your conent and grow your public sector LinkedIn page (6 January)
    ‘We find LinkedIn is a place where our great news for our business and our area are celebrated by our audiences. New film studios in our area and our borough coming top of the ONS health index (see above) are two examples of this in 2021. Both had more impressions (6,000+) than we have followers (less than 4,500 at the time of posting). On Facebook these items were dampened with pessimism from a few residents, the type all local authorities deal with on that channel.’
  • Lucy Denton: Make it worth the time (5 January)
    ‘I have long believed in the concept of ‘more impact, less noise’, and I’ve spoken before about my experiences of working with teams to become more focused on core priorities to try and curb the dreaded ‘send out stuff’ (SOS) churn.’
  • Amanda Coleman: Is it time to leave public sector communication? (2 January)
    ‘The last two years have been a huge test to everyone in public sector communication. The pandemic has demanded a lot and left people exhausted with little resilience to face the next wave. I continue to be concerned about the toll that the pandemic has had on public sector communicators.’
  • Dan Slee: LONG READ: Predictions for public sector comms in 2022 (30 December)
    ‘Buoyed by a low unemployment and burnt out by two years of pandemic public sector comms people will increasingly feel able to walk off the job, recharge with gap months away safe in the knowledge they’ll likely find work on their return.’

Politics, public affairs and public sphere

  • Laura Griffiths: No-vax Djokovic (6 January)
    ‘Novak Djokovic and his journey to compete in the Australian Open has become a story of visas, vaccinations, and vacuity.’
  • Louise Farmer: 2022: A year for answers in Women’s Health? (6 January)
    ‘To fully ensure women have equal opportunity to the best health outcomes, alongside system and societal changes, health innovations are critical. Treatments to support reproductive and post-reproductive health, from contraception to endometriosis to the menopause can have a substantial impact on how women interact in society and our ability to play a role in the economy.’
  • Stuart Thomson: In defence of lobbying (6 January)
    ‘The Cabinet Office consultation on the introduction of a statutory lobbying register said: “Lobbying – seeking to influence public policy, government decisions or legislation – can improve results by ensuring that those developing and considering the options are better informed about the consequences of the available options.”’
  • Ben Smith with Jonny Bentwood: The increasing polarisation of society and its implications for communicators [podcast] (5 January)
    ‘People are living in echo chambers that reaffirm their views – and this is a fundamental shift in how people think and behave… Polarisation is a communications problem.’

Consulting, teams and careers

https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:6884521610452205568

  • Emma Drake: ReRun! New Year: time to do a communication audit? [podcast] (6 January)
    ‘Most businesses will undertake financial audits and expenses claims audits, but how often do you audit how you communicate with customers and other stakeholders?’
  • Orlagh Shanks: My 11 Goals for 2022 (5 January)
    ‘I learnt a lot in 2021 when it comes to work/career. I realised that I can’t be in a job where I have no drive, no motivation and just no love for the job. I then realised that I don’t want to be overworked, stressed to the hills and not valued for the work I was doing, and so I find myself in my third job since 2021 began.’
  • Adam Driver: The (non-strategic?) sharpshooter (5 January)
    ‘There is a time and a place for all: strategy and time to think; tactical activity; and the sometimes-needed all-in, firefighting retainer (also known as get sh*t done).’
  • Paul Holmes: 2021 M&A Review: Seven Trends As Independents Drive Increased Activity (4 January)
    ‘For the second consecutive year, independent PR firms initiated more than half of the acquisitions we tracked (28 out of the 51).’

Behaviour and influence

Internal communication

  • Vicki Marinker with Jenni Field: How to build a cohesive and diverse culture that’s fit for purpose [podcast] (7 January)
    ‘How does your culture or your desired culture come through in the way you communicate? That’s the tangible bit.’
  • Sam Bleazard: Why storytelling matters more than ever (6 January)
    ‘What is the X Factor in your culture, what’s unique, quirky, original, or authentic that would surprise people? Capture it no matter how small, and play it back while it’s live – and while you’re inspired. That’s what the child would do…before it gets stuck in corporate treacle or falls into turgid debates about how to capture it, or where it fits in the company story.’
  • Martin Flegg: New year, old priorities (1 January)
    ‘What should our ‘own’ priorities really be this year? What are the things that we should be focusing on for our own benefit as a bunch of professionals, that will put us (and by definition our employers and clients) in a better place by the end of this year?’
  • Rachel Miller: Podcast: How to create an IC channel strategy [podcast] (30 December)
    ‘A channel strategy could be one page. It could be at a glance, here are all of our channels, this is the thinking behind them, this is what good looks like and we are good to go. Or it could be really in depth and it could be packed with screenshots and measurement and metrics and resource planning and budgets. Before you dive into creating a channel’s strategy, think about the intention.’

Media, digital and technology

https://twitter.com/EllieDigitalPR/status/1478659173080612864

  • Charlotte Grant: Why the appointment of Deborah Turness is a coup for the BBC (no date)
    ‘Now, as the new CEO of news and current affairs at the BBC, she has arguably the most important job in British broadcast journalism.’
  • Neville Hobson: The Metaverse, Web 3 and Internet 2: the conversation (and hype) continues (1 January)
    ‘Today, we see many people trying to figure out the metaverse – I see this as a successor to Second Life although I’m not saying that’s a definition – with Big Tech companies like Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Epic Games, Google, Nvidia, and Apple, and myriad newer entrants like Roblox and Decentraland, all of which are major players in constructing foundations and creating experiences that run on them.’

Academic and education

https://twitter.com/CIPR_Global/status/1478417726804840451

#prstudent #CreatorAwards22

  • Julie Mari (Solent): My 2022 Goals (6 January)
    ‘I don’t plan to stop my studies here, because I think I have so much more to learn, and I don’t think I’m ready to leave school now, because I love it. I have in mind to do a master in digital communication.’
  • Jasmine Denike (LCC/UAL):
@jazzdenike cue the comments i guess #fyp #minivlog #datinginlondon #dating #singleinlondon #dailyvlog #london #londonlife #londonvlog #vlog #uktiktok All Too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version) – Recorded at Long Pond Studios – Taylor Swift

  • Katie Coyne (Salford):

 

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#CreatorAwards22 #prstudent #ThisWeekinPR