In building a communication strategy, both for infrastructure projects and other initiatives, it is imperative that business objectives, approaches organisational leadership aspires to take with the project and the organisational culture are considered. In fact, they should drive the communication and engagement approach – bearing in mind that any communication leader has a responsibility to counsel leadership on what approaches are likely to lead to best-possible outcomes.

Infrastructure (roads, rail, parks, amenities etc) provides extensive benefits for communities. But infrastructure development is not without its sensitivities. Local communities and businesses, politicians and government departments are chief amongst entities with a stake in them. So a great upside in working in a public relations role on infrastructure initiatives is that not only do they leave a valuable legacy with longevity, they also provide an opportunity to apply best practice communication, integrating stakeholder needs and wants and engaging, through communication, large numbers of people.

Whilst I strongly believe that marketing plays a central role in business and that PR can and must support the brand, I also believe that PR and marketing must remain two distinct responsibility centers: PR must not answer to marketing, period. They must work closely together – marketing centered on the brand, PR centered on the relationships. Or, put another way, marketing centered on the consumer and PR centered on the citizen.

The primary code of ethics I refer to is my own moral compass. In most cases there is a clear right or wrong way to go about business activity. But, of course, that is subjective and dependant on each individual’s own moral perspectives, which will of course (and thankfully) vary.

It’s hideous to countenance the possibility that corporate social responsibility has been a passing fashion for public relations, for its diminishing profile in business communication has struck me as both mystifying and disappointing. A new study underlining the impact that CSR has on perceptions of the reliability of a company’s products will hopefully contribute to getting the discipline back on PR’s agenda.

In responding to industry calls for more emphasis on practical skills rather than academic education which I discussed in a previous post, the public relations industry and professional bodies need to be careful that there is not an over-emphasis on practical vocational skills and too little emphasis on producing graduates who know how to think ‘outside the square’, how to question, how to challenge current practices and envision the future, and how to participate in the wider debates and discussions of society.

There is a clear choice in how the team that runs the reputational dimension a crisis is comprised: communication and reputation management can be run either as a stand-alone process or integrated into a team that addresses the crisis’s logistics/operations side making it, therefore, a more holistic approach.

There is widespread if not universal agreement that education and training are important to advancing a field and helping it gain legitimacy and recognition as a profession. But what is not agreed, and often controversial, is the balance between theory and practical skills. Public relations is no different, with theory often being thought of as esoteric, remote from practice and, even, dangerous.

There’s a never-ending debate about who’s the leader – PR or marketing – when it comes to getting an organisation on the map. Ford Kanzler argues that marketing is the ‘brains’ of the outfit’. That it provides the direction for all communication. PR is the helpmeet providing the support. If there was no marketing, there would be no organisation. Ford takes this further in saying an organisation’s “essential reason for being is marketing.”

The glut of information that all of us in western (and many other) societies encounter is making this information on the way to being close to meaningless, with meaning for people have most resonance through behaviour and tangible outcomes, such as products and services. An outcome of this is that unless PR practitioners focus more on outcomes of communication, not communication processes themselves, then we are on the way to making ourselves redundant.