Gender and life balance

The overwhelming majority of women in PR, makes one wonder why so many women are attracted to this field. Throughout my research I have found quite a few reasons, but the one that called my attention the most is the fact that PR is seen as a female-intensive industry, meaning industries more likely to hire women because of the flexibility they offer.

If a majority of women enter public relations with the view of having a flexible work, do they really encounter a friendly work environment for that matter? And what are the impacts it has for women and the profession?

It seems like those issues have to be addressed form many angles. First, a social model moving from traditional to progressive – or from male breadwinner and female carer to dual earner and dual carer - is rather an appealing view towards change. Otherwise we have the individualization heading to a society without families, backed up with the fact that a great number of successful executives remain childless, according to Sylvia Ann Hewlett.

Many women avoid the presence of children in the workplace – even on photos or conversations – as it can be reason for the discrepancies between men and women towards hiring, salaries and promotions.

The integration of work, family and community life provides a new vision of the profession, looking at men and women as human beings struggling to achieve balance rather than mere communication professionals. To offer flexibility and work arrangements compatible with practioners life style constitutes great advantages for employers including reputation capital and higher average stock returns. However it is not only up to employers to provide changes in the public relations field. Societal systems that promote gender bias are of great influence on the issue. It is possible for professionals in public relations to be well-paid, influential and happy, taking the example of PR field in Quebec, Canada where the majority of women are pleased with their position. Policies and social differences have weight on the satisfaction of those professionals who enjoy more generous parental leave than in most countries.

Women in public relations can enjoy flexibility parallel to successful work upon certain changes in social context which allows women and men to have a more meaningful professional and personal life.

Here are some sources for more reading on the subject: 

Feminist Phase Analysis in PR: Where have we been? Where do we need to be? Journal of PR Research 2006

Gender Discrepancy in a Gendered Profession. Jounal of PR Research 2002

Many Gender studies from Sylvia Ann Hewllet

Culture

Cultural understanding is essential to successful communicators. Global PR companies cover a range of local issues to produce campaigns. What works in one country will be not accepted in another. For example, for Americans and most Europeans the color white means purity but for Asians it means death; red is used by brides in China where it means luck and happiness while it means love and passion in Latin America.

Awareness of such details is crucial on campaigns. But also local practices need to be known. Practices such as the Russian zakazukhi (bought articles) can be surprising even to IPRA past President Alasdair Sutherland who has been calling for ethical behavior in media relations on different countries.

Culture goes beyond national way of life. Corporate culture is also relevant for communications especially within internal stakeholders. Strong corporate culture can make a Swedish model of power distance work well in Brazil. On a less positive note though, it can cause a Japanese car manufacture to ignore design issues driving the company to immense international crisis.

Clotaire Rapaille mentions a perfect example of well built corporate culture on the hotel chain Ritz-Carlton:

“The company calls its employees ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentleman. Their goal is to give their guest the best hotel experience of their lives, and their employees’ job is to provide that experience. […] If a cleaning person encounters a guest with a problem and the guest complains to her, that cleaning person has the power to improve his experience by giving him a free meal or even a free night in a room. This gives the cleaning person a strong sense of motivation, the belief that she is part of the corporate mission.”

Any well prepared practioner should know the principles of Hofstede on power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism. I would also recommend Richard D. Lewis for as a precise glossary for different countries.

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Sources and more reading:

PR News Wire: Unethical media practices revealed by IPRA report

Book: The Culture Code

Book: When Cultures Colide

CSR and the Crisis of Globalization

CSR and the Crisis of Globalization

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Crisis Case Study: Coca Cola Perception is Reality

Coca Cola had an interesting crisis to deal with in 1999. Michael Regester and Judy Larkin presented a case study of the crisis in their book Risk issues and crisis management in public relations. Here follows my short summary and analyses of the case study.

In 1999 more than 200 children felt sick after drinking coke in a Belgian School. Once the company was informed about the issue, it recalled several bottles of cokes from the market upon investigation. The issue reached the media which reported the case on TV among other channels. More and more people kept claiming the same symptoms from the school children.

Nevertheless further investigation from Coca Cola could not find any fault on the products which now were not even from the same plant. As the issue developed into a crisis, the company failed to explain the reasons of the symptoms to its stakeholders. Belgian and French government demanded actions from Coca Cola in order to remove products from the market. The political scenario was not favorable to Coca Cola with re-elections taking place in Belgium after previous dioxin food alike crisis – not well handled by the government.

Interestingly enough there was nothing wrong with coke cans (the initial issue happened on bottles). Finally a Belgian independent professor hypothesized about mass hysteria MSI but he had no evidence at all.

In conclusion it was a case of MSI. However Coca Cola didn’t handle the situation properly by not communicating in a timely manner with the stakeholders. The crisis represented vast damages to Coca Cola’s reputation and total cost of 66 million pounds. The main reason for the mistakes it was the lack of authority of local executives. Coca Cola identified the reason for the fails in communications and consequently empowered the local teams to deal with this sort of situation.

The lessons from this case study show how important it is to communicate with stakeholders. Even if a reason or solution is not clear it is necessary to pay close attention to the high power and high influence stakeholders - in the case study government relations was crucial.

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Source:
Risk issues and crisis management in public relations

Sustainable business

When Anita Roddick created the Body Shop following her activist and ethical principles, it made the company an example of sustainable business. In the video below, a speech she delivered to entrepreneurs in the British Library, she emphasizes and expands in a point mentioned in the last posting: how powerful business is in our society. Anita believes that along with the power, companies should have a sense of responsibility. The Body Shop is a company that, in Anita’s words “prove you can make a profit and can make contribution to the society.

This speech was given a few months after the Body Shop had been acquired by L’oreal. Since the acquisition The Body Shop was highly criticized as we can see in this article from the Independent.

Body Shop's popularity plunges after L'Oreal sale - The Independent - Apr 10, 2006

In the 2003, documentary The Corporation, The Body Shop is mentioned in a scene a member of the public refers to the company as deceiving.

The Body Shop, before and after L’oreal acquisition, is an example on how sustainability and CSR can affect a company’s reputation therefore how crucial it is for communicator to be involved in the CSR function.

CSR - Corporate and Social Responsability

When we started the CRS discussion in class, one of my professors said that my concepts made it sounds like an enormous thing. I cannot deny how fascinating the subject is in my view. How can you describe CSR in a world that companies’ profits are higher than countries GDP and companies’ culture can overcome countries way of life, but the power of corporations is underestimated.  What is the mission of CSR? Can business make the world a better place? Furthermore, is business willing to make the world a better place?

Before diving in CSR, here are two key concepts to develop the discussion:

[     Philanthropy definition: generous help or benevolence toward one’s fellow men (Webster’s dictionary). Corporate philanthropy use to be likely a mere choosing of charity or organization followed by donations. Philanthropy is related to strong moral or ethical values therefore backed by belief systems.

[     Corporate social responsibility encompasses not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them. It goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and addresses how companies manage their economic, social, and environmental impacts, as well as their relationships in all key spheres of influence: the workplace, the marketplace, the supply chain, the community, and the public policy realm. (Harvard Kennedy School)

 CSR goes way beyond what Corporate Philanthropy used to be. We can use the metaphor of license to operate. Scrutiny, visibility and trust make this license essential.

Now that the concepts of CSR are covered – and I agree it is not so enormous – we will discuss sustainable business on next posting.

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Here it is an interesting link on CSR and also the source of my definition above:

Corporate and Social Responsibility – Harvard Kennedy School

The Virtual Revolution

BBC series The Virtual Revolution is an interesting source of information on all the happenings behind the computer screen. When navigating and finding information “for free” most people don’t realize there is a price on “free”.

Keeping tuned with what people do on-line is the best way to communicate with stakeholders. Recently I posted a low rate on a product I bought from Philips Avent on Amazon. The product, plastic containers to storage food, has no indication of being BPA free. Within days there was an answer to my posting with a link to the company web-site where it is mentioned the product is BPA free. Interesting enough, every time I returned to Amazon to check on the product it was out of stock. My hypothesis is that the answer for my post comes from someone within Philips and furthermore it boosted the on-line sales.

In short, this is an intelligent way to communicate directly with the end consumers. To share more on tracking on line activities here it is a video from the BBC series I mention above, The Virtual Revolution.

NGO and Activism

NGO’s and activism are fascinating and growing areas of public relations. Check the slides below to find out some of my thoughts and some interesting points raised in class.

NGO and Activism

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And the spiner prize goes to...



Spin-doctor and Propaganda are terms often associated with Public Relations. And this is certainly an achievement we can give credits to Edward Bernays who worked so hard to have his place in history and be seen as the father of PR. However I ultimately agree with Larry Tye who gives Bernays another title: the Father of Spin.

Some spin techniques can certainly have a positive impact on society by supporting behavior changes or raising awareness of key issues eventually causing change. It is important to remember though that the ethical duty of practioners goes beyond what Bernays observed in our industry.

Alastair Campbell is one of the most iconic communicators in the UK. If in one hand he is seen as a spin-doctor, on the other he has supported Prime Minister Tony Blair through huge crisis and in one point we have to agree, he has done his job - and well done.

Campbell’s career illustrates the fine line to define each professional role in a spin situation. It is our duty to portrait the facts in a favorable manner for our clients and that does not necessary means lie or omission but protect information is crucial to preserve image and reputation. Now let’s think about the media. Despite the efforts to transmit public information in a unbiased manner, journalists are often under the pressure to produce stories that sell.

Recently, I was talking to two financial managers and they were complaining that every time they had been interviewed, for either personal or professional reasons, the article published did not reflect their views. Yes, I am taking in consideration that those were finance professional and they are not used to deal with the media. But how much we, PR professionals have to emphasize, repeat and create context to make sure journalists don’t misinterpret stories – or write them in a manner that sells better…?

It is hard to define Alastair Campbell is a spinner or a great communicator. It certainly depends more on who is judging than his actions. Personally, I can only respect someone who has dealt with the war on Iraq, the death of David Kelly, the extraordinary row with the BBC, and the Hutton enquiry. Therefore he does not get the spinner prize!

On the next posting I will share some thoughts on NGO and Activism.

Sources:

The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernay's and the birth of PR

Alastair Campbell web site

Social Media and Media Relations

Here are some insights on what is happening to Media Relations in the era of Social Media.

(Nevermind the books trying to jump out of the shelf in the last bit!)

Crisis

The Chinese characters for crisis mean two other words: Danger and Opportunities. The wise of Chinese culture is reflected in its semantics, anyone willing to take the risks of great dangers is also risking being highly successful.

Or in the words of Michael Regester and Judy Larkin: “Virtually every crisis contains within itself the seeds of success as well as the roots of failure.” 

The question though is: what is the difference between the ones who come out of a crisis cultivating seeds of success and the ones who come out the crisis with the roots of failure?

The first step to be successful in a crisis is to be prepared. Executives often fail to recognize that we have emerged from an old world with an industrial economy to a new world based in knowledge economy. Therefore in this new world reputation value shouldn’t be underestimated.

In my analyses this is the first challenge to communicators. Assure high management understands the need of a well placed crisis management plan and understand what kind of crisis can rise. According to Institute for Crisis Management (in their 1995 research) there has been a lot of focus in the wrong kind of crisis. “The real problems had revolved around white collar crime, labor disputes and company mismanagement.” The (mis)management can be tricky to tackle as the embarrassment to admit executives can make mistakes often prevent them to plan for this possibility.

Issues not well managed can become crisis in a quick and abrupt manner. So here it is the next challenge. A well planned crisis management plan will foresee and avoid crisis.

The list goes on: Perception versus reality; media support, putting together strategic, incident and communication team, managing all parties involved… are some of the key aspects to plant the roots of success out of a crisis.

There will be more on crisis in the upcoming postings along with some great case studies. 

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 And here it is a great book on the subject which is also source for some of my comments:
Book: Risk Issues and Crisis Management in Public Relations

War Spin

The public perception of a war can become more important than a war in itself. In consequence the control of information is an imperative piece of military strategy critical to win the war. The questions here are how practitioners portrait the information; how much access to information practitioners have and how biased will it be. Lippmann reffer to military as “a group of men, who can prevent independent access to the event, arrange the news of it to suit their purpose” as Sauber and Rampton quote in their book Trust us, we’re experts!

The Iraq war was an interesting example of how media can be controlled by the military forces. The term embed journalist emerged from the Iraq war with many questions about the way the war was reported.

What kind of news can be produced from journalists placed in an extended basis with limited access to information? Even the most ethical journalist will have an option to uncover or cover up information?

Most interesting though is the fact that those reporters were fed and protected by military. Does it result in bias? Journalist Gordon Dillow describes his experience as follow:

“But the biggest problem I faced as an embed with the marine grunts was that I found myself doing what journalists are warned from J-school not to do: I found myself falling in love with my subject. I fell in love with "my" marines.

Maybe it's understandable. When you live with the same guys for weeks, sharing their dangers and miseries, learning about their wives and girlfriends, their hopes and dreams, admiring their physical courage and strength, you start to make friends - closer friends in some ways than you'll ever have outside of war. Isolated from everyone else, you start to see your small corner of the world the same way they do.”

I cannot stop myself relating this topic with the most amazing spin fiction I have ever seen: Wag the Dog. I want to share a piece of this war produced to uncover presidential sex scandals. After all nobody better than Dustin Hoffman to make us think about how far people can go to manipulate and control our perception of reality.

Next week we will put war aside but there be interesting talks on crisis. 

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Here are some of my sources and further reading:

Book: Trust us, we’re experts! Sheldon Rampton and John StauberThe "Grunt Truth" of Embedded Journalism: The New Media/Military Relationship

The Embedded Life by Gordon Dillow

The correspondent War Spin

Alastair Campbell defends every word of Iraq Dossier

Just what Iraq needed: More Propaganda

Social Media

The internet first emerged in the 60’s when it existed only in academic circles. From Bill Gates and Bill Joy¹ to Mark Zuckerberg², we cover almost half a century of development that deeply affects our profession.

Some may argue that all those changes make public relations work more difficult. However I agree with Rob Brown who believes that despite the complexities social web brings to us, it makes the work of practioners more transparent getting rid of unethical practioners – but this is a subject we will explore in a later post when we talk about ethics.

In Consumer PR, instead of companies telling people what to buy, people can start to tell companies what to make. This is truly two way communications. Also there is a new trend due to social web. B to B and B to C, are not the only relevant business formats but C to C – consumer to consumer - is very significant in our days.

In NGO, social media has transformed even more all aspects of campaigning. On-line petitions have been highly effective and gathering incredible amounts of supporters. The high use of creativity and low costs involved has made possible campaigns like the Girl Effect - just to mention one of the campaigns that raised awareness among millions of people.

Shall we mention the changes in the Political scene and Obama’s presidential campaign? Yes, public relations in politic has been reshaped with new and social media. Whenever governments or politicians decide to use social media to listen and dialogue with people it becomes a huge success. Too bad, most politicians still believe it is a tool for one way communication.

On the down side, the misuse of social media can create significant damages to reputation. If before there was a risk of saying anything inappropriate in front of a camera accidentally left recording, today there are cameras in everyone’s hands and videos can quickly become hits on social web sites. Media training and PR advice is therefore indispensable.

Those are just a few examples of social media effects on Public Relations field there is so much more to talk about… we will return to this subject. But next week there will be more on…

Notes

1 - Co-founder of Sun Microsystems and mostly known for his contribution on BDS UNIX from which emerged many systems including MAC OS X from Apple.

2 - Creator of Facebook

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If you want to know more, here are some of my inspirations:

Book Public Relations and the Social Web

Book Outliers

Doodle Communication & Technology

During the design of this blog, much thought was given to its objectives and how is it sending a memorable message to readers. According to Alan Liu from University of California, Santa Barbara “networked digital media do a poor job of balancing focal and peripheral attention.” Given that so much of our reading nowadays is online, how is it possible to stand out?

Here it is one solution: Doddle Communication!

Contrary to general belief, doodling does improve concentration. According to Jackie Andrade’s study at University of Plymouth people who were doodling while listening to names of people and places were able to remember better than people who were just listening. So I hope you enjoy the reading and prepare yourself for a good sketch!

More on media technology on next post.

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You can read more on the study: "What does doodling do?" By Jackie Andrade. Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 3, Feb. 26, 2009

or on the following articles:

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/doodlerecall/#