You’re right, it would be good if the article were more dated today than it is. It does reflect a slower evolution of the profession than of its environment.

Definitely, one of the issues here is the name ‘PR’. I’ve come around to think that is actually a reasonable name and description of the profession. But the baggage associated with the terms means it is often better to relabel and rebrand, allowing your clients to see your capabilities in a new light.

As such, there is a question of how much individual practitioners or firms take the opportunities afforded by the new space, versus the industry shifting as a whole.

In line with the divergence in performance I see across all economic sectors, I think it’s likely that some will adapt very well (often by repositioning themselves), others will not, and probably the PR industry, at least by that name, will not be seen as of the times…

Thanks Frederic, I hadn’t picked up that Bernays explicitly spoke about influence networks. He’s a cynical guy and probably not the best face of the industry, but he is really where it all started.

Glad to see our conversation led to further thought on the topic!

I think the key point here is ‘business is a conversation’ and, as Geoff rightly points out, individual practitioners are grasping and perpetuating this as best practice but we do need leadership from the industry bodies to help the profession as a whole realise the opportunities and how to achieve them.

Perhaps one of the key reasons behind this is a result of PR, by its nature, focusing on addressing the immediate opportunities, issues and threats encountered every day, not taking into account the long-term consequences for the industry?

If we are to enjoy massive prosperity as you suggest, someone needs to take the industry forward and assert these skills on the current crop of practitioners or we will continue to evolve on a person-by-person basis. We need to learn how our skills can be applied in this new world and how we can best support business as a result. Any takers?

Cheers,
Roge

A couple of points for consideration. PR is a very split profession between in-house and consultancy. Consultancy tends to work by offering particular products (services) while in-house works by being a conduit bw the external and internal. The PR conversations tend to be dominated by consultancy because it is an avenue for obtaining clients, confidentiality issues faced in-house, and the perception of quality, among other reasons.

So we currently see PR debates dominated by questions like who “owns” particular channels or areas of work. This despite how ludricrous the proposition is that any one person, area or profession owns relationships, reputation or communication.

Despite the falling standards of traditional media, PR tends to be obsessed by the best way to get a story published, not the credibility, values and ethics behind getting the story published or the way any story is perceived after publication in traditional media. There is far too little apparent thought given to creating foundations for relationships, including trust and credible, multifaceted communication. They still seek channels rather than looking at the advatages of the increasing numbers of direct communication methods.

In a time when the workplace is becoming more integrated, when silos are being broken down, when action plans are based on shorter, customer-driven iterations, when strategies are becoming aspirations, and where organisations are becoming outside-in rather than top down, PR should be ideally placed to evolve and add value. Unfortunately it seems that the navel-gazing, product/service driven search for its own clear identity is driving the PR conversation, which perhaps explains why more and more practitioners are abandoning the PR tag.

This is partially why some have been focusing on the foundations of PR and organisational communication of all types, leadership communication.

I wonder whether what is happening in reality is the same as the apparent conversations taking place. Certainly my networks, contacts and experiences would indicate the individual practitioners, in-house and consultancy, are adopting the approaches in your post and driving them further. I’m not convinced that this is apparent in the conversations driven by the professional bodies (including conference agendas), popular blogs (which tend to look at the now, the extreme,and the populist, a habit picked up from trad media) and those who are the perennials on the speakers circuit.

Cheers, geoff