Comments on: The 1.2 Million Definitions of PR: What’s your take?

By: Cynthia Floyd Manley

Cynthia Floyd Manley — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:18:50 +0000

This is not entirely my own original thought but I can’t remember where saw it recently, so first generic apologies for stealing this. “The art/science involved in a series of conversations that build and nurture relationships in order to influence a desired outcome.” I also do a lot of work with fund-raising colleagues so I’ve been playing with some of their natural language to describe what I do, as in “cultivating and stewarding relationships” with media, with customers, with lawmakers, with whatever stakeholder group or “public” you want to identify.

By: Nadine Bonner

Nadine Bonner — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:08:44 +0000

Hi Lauren,

Just back from mini-vacation. Yes, I see a lot of connection between fund-raising and pr. We would like to think that philanthropists donate out of the goodness of their hearts, but they love to see their smiling faces in the newspapers – even community weeklies. And they also feel validated when they read about the agency or see it on TV. Also you never know what part of your agency’s story will touch someone’s heart and trigger a major donation. I don’t know how social media will feed into this, especially since the donors I work with are older. It will be a challenge.

Thanks for a great discussion.
Nadine

By: prcog

prcog — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:27:24 +0000

While I adore disagreeing with people in their stomping grounds I’m going to have to side with Lauren on this one…for a few related reasons….

Any professional job requires strategy – using that to define our profession just won’t cut it as a starting point. Doctors strategize on treatment plans, attorneys on how to approach litigation or a deal, even sales guy consider how to frame an offer. We can’t use “strategy” as a differentiating factor to define a job, or at the very least can’t lead with that.

Since the post originated with defining PR to non-pros action items (and actions themselves) speak louder than words. Explaining what we do by the actions we take will cement in the listener’s mind what we actually do. To say ‘first we think about what we do then we do it’ just isn’t a great opener.

For better or worse (particularly w/ my clients) the PR strategy is frequently pre-planned (and not in the C-Suite but in the Marketing Department’s lunchroom) and we don’t always get to play along [This is mostly a joke, check my feed if you need my background]. This is, of course, frequently notwithstanding any PPTs or plans we’ve sent over addressing all of the relevant issues.

I don’t think it’s a lack of strategy/thought keeping PR out of the C-Suite. Everyone in the C-Suite can define their job by what they do (run the company, finances, tech, marketing, etc.) and wouldn’t start with ’strategize’ about (for example) tech operations.

By: Margaret Morgan

Margaret Morgan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:23:08 +0000

I like Bernay’s definition because it relates, not only to the old traditional PR, but PR as it is today affected by social media, the building of community through interaction and relationships, and communicating on a global scale ~ all with the same goal in mind ~ getting the message out there honestly and to the appropriate media.
And, honestly, in more than 25 yrs. in the field, I’ve never been asked what I do as a Public Relations professional. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones!

By: Lauren Fernandez

Lauren Fernandez — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:27:53 +0000

Starr – I apologize, but my original post is more about tactics? I said etc. for a reason – I could go on and on about defining this industry. In many of my posts, I talk a lot about strategy because I know how important it is. Sometimes, PR people have no business in the C-suite, especially when it comes to financial decisions. Should they be at the table? Absolutely, when it comes to communications and messaging.

By: Starr McCaffery

Starr McCaffery — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:23:55 +0000

As Katie White pointed out, Bernays’ definition is encompassing and, Lauren, it is all over textbooks. It does concern me that in the original post the industry appears defined by tactics and not strategy, which is an unfortunate approach that hurts the understanding of the industry and, in too many organizations, keeps PR people out of the C-suite.

By: Megan

Megan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:44:34 +0000

I am still a PR student, about to enter my final semester. Woohoo! But every student in the PR sequence at my school (Florida A&M) knows to use the definition that we learned in Intro to PR.

Public Relations is the ART & SCIENCE of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organizational leaders, and implementing planned programs of action that can better serve and organization and its public.

And for the rest of my life and PR career that will be the definition that I will use. I think this is a great definition because it basically covers every aspect of PR that we have been taught. Even though what you do as a PR professional may vary, you can always go back to this definition and find exactly what you’re doing in how it’s defined.

By: Dave Meeker, APR, Fellow PRSA

Dave Meeker, APR, Fellow PRSA — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:34:30 +0000

My definition for public relations is:

Good performance, well communicated.

By: Erika Jarvis

Erika Jarvis — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:16:04 +0000

Lauren,
I think this is a great post! While I’m not in Public Relations,I am in Internal Communications and explaining that to people is BEYOND difficult. Often times people say “So…internal communications? Is that like connecting phone calls?” The only answer I can think of then? “No.” As I’m completely dumbfound by their questions! It is insane to me to think that people don’t understand Communication and what it can do for them! So no worries PR people…Internal Communications feels your pain!

By: Mary Barber

Mary Barber — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:43:32 +0000

Always asking the good questions aren’t you Lauren and generating even better discussions. The field of public relations is evolving fairly quickly, whether some of my fellow senior professionals like it or not.

At the same time, I believe we’re still all about building and maintaining relationships between a company and its publics to create mutual understanding and a stronger community. We just use different tools to build those relationships and generate the understanding than public relations pioneers used.

Let’s keep this discussion going and see how many variations on the theme we can find. Maybe we’ll answer the question once and for all…until tomorrow.

Mary