I don’t think when Jim Grunig and colleagues thought up two-way symmetrical communication they would have conceptualised the internet and social media, for instance, nor:

• electronically changing signage at sporting arenas
• signage on bus shelters
• in elevators with further messaging
• incredibly integrated manner in which sponsorship, marketing, public relations and other business disciplines have become so enmeshed.

The opportunities for information provision have accelerated and become more dynamic as technology has advanced. It would be nice to see more of the law of the jungle applied to this growth in ‘media’, but whilst avenues such as print media have had their influence decline, unfortunately the jungle has primarily fostered growth on growth.

The information thicket is evolving into impenetrability.

Of course, and this is encapsulated by younger people as they are born into this battle zone of media and content, we are evolving to cope with, counter and take advantage of the growth in media and content. But the opportunity to engage with and enrich stakeholders is getting slimmer and more slippery all the time.

And whilst communication will always be necessary to discuss attributes of organisations, products and services, without a customisation of all three to the needs and wants of their stakeholders then they are destined to go the way of dinosaurs. Unless, and this is a big unless, those responsible for these big three take an unethical, entirely self-centred approach and do things like engage in lobbying for their own – and their own alone – interests.

Many of us in public relations preach the thought leadership gospel, seeking a higher content ground on which to engage our stakeholders. And it’s a gospel I subscribe to. But even then, thought leadership is hardly thin on the ground. And this blog is an example of being part of the problem – more information!

Quality not quantity in PR communication

Part of the solution is communicating less and doing it better.

This goes to two of the basic precepts of effective public relations, customisation and targeting (underpinned by a third – knowing your audiences through market research). I think we often talk a grand old talk in this regard but mostly we trip over miserably in the walking of it.

Customisation means refining the content of our communication until is suits, as precisely as can be, our target audience. Too often we are happy with a ‘broad embrace’ of content, one that tries to tick too many boxes. This is an ineffective way to gain ROI. It will actually lead to disenchantment and intellectual and emotional ‘calluses’ being formed – scar tissue that builds up barriers to being affected or influenced.

The ‘broad embrace’ thinking applies equally to target audiences. We say that we have a specific target audience in mind, but really we’re happy for more than this audience to receive the information, in the hope it might generate a sale or pique the interest. It’s a real long shot, guys, and once again doomed to deliver dodgy ROI.

So how do we improve our customisation and targeting? Well, market research is your first port of call. And it should frequently be integrated into the communication to help with speedy feedback and ROI. Social media provides plenty of opportunities for this but so do nearly all other forms of communication:

• Who liked your Facebook post?
• How many click throughs/sales occurred through a Facebook or blog post?
• How many comments did you get on your Facebook post/blog?
• After a speaking engagement what did the attendees say about the presentation?

There’s many more, but undertaking thorough, evidence-based market research is the most reliable way of moving forward.

Moral dimensions of communication overload

There is a moral dimension in regard to information overload, too, as well as its customisation, as Kathy Cripps recently implied. Studies have confirmed the negative impact on health of too much information. It is a psychological burden.

We can either be part of the problem or part of the solution. We can help people with quality, customised relevant information or we can essentially ‘junk mail’ their brains with clutter.

We can also use meaningful forms or modes of communication, as Kathy also points out, such as images to help facilitate information flow if, of course, the target audience is receptive to and/or prefers receiving information in this manner.

There is a tension, of course, between the information that people want to receive and the information an organisation wants to supply them with – such as the promotion of a new product, for instance. But such is our lot – balancing commercial/organisational interests with stakeholder well-being.

Changing the focus of public relations

It isn’t really changing the focus of public relations as it is meant to be. It is changing the focus of what we in public relations are trying to achieve, a constant refrain of this blog.

The greatest value in public relations resides in its ability to understand the needs, wants, issues and preferences of both the organisation that employs it, as well as organisational stakeholders. We are the boundary spanners. We are the bridge between an organisation and its stakeholders.

Our role is to provide information and counsel to organisations and their stakeholders to assist all parties in being aligned. The most powerful way of doing this is often prompting an organisation to change the way it operates. If we focus more on this dimension of the discipline and less on generating reams of content – no matter how well intended and customised – then our profession will add more meaning to the organisations we work for and the society in which we exist.

Are you up for the challenge?

Do you ever reflect on the impact the abundance of communication we in PR distribute in the context of information overload? Do you think we have a moral responsibility to reduce the amount of information we are responsible for distributing? How can we solve this issue? Where do you think public relations should focus its effort in organisational business life?

Yet, according to Australia’s outgoing commissioner responsible for age discrimination, from the age of 45 employment options start to shrink for people. “From that point on, one of the greatest barriers to employment is age,” said Elizabeth Broderick, who worked in her role for three years.

Gender discrimination is not tolerated, as Ms Broderick said, so why should age discrimination be any more acceptable?

I was nearly fooled into discrimination by age

A few years ago I was recruiting for a role that reported to me. There were a number of younger, as well as an older, candidates. Compared to the others, much, much older in fact. And considerably older than most of the team I had working with me.

Yet, according to the job specs this was clearly the most qualified and suitable person for the job. But I wavered.

What if this person wouldn’t fit into the fast-moving, fluid culture of the team I already had? Would the candidate be able to offer the insights into new technology that were emerging for web and digital communication? (Somewhat ironically, this role was all to do with managing a website, supposedly young turk turf…)

But I hired the old guy (oh yes, he knows who it is!), and you know what, here’s what happened:

• He educated all of the team, but me especially, on a range of digital communication capabilities
• He was way ahead of most other IT/web-related professionals I’d interacted with
• He recognised age as a perception-barrier from other people so worked extremely hard to deliver not just what was required by the role, but to provide value-add on top of that
• His energy levels and devotion to the job meant you had to prise him out of the office and even then, as we soon learnt, he’d continue working on delivering beyond best practice outcomes at home
• His experience enabled him to navigate turbulent political waters and interact with those unhappy with change (because this guy led a huge seachange in website communication at the organisation) successfully
• He provided sage advice to me many a time, sometimes specifically relevant to his own role and sometimes in relation to leadership, management and business communication in a broader sense.

And you know what, he also became a good friend. Not just of myself, but of all those younger folk in the team as well. Multiple wins all round.

Suffice to say, lesson well learnt.

Why age rules in public relations

Hopefully (!), the more you do something the better at it you get. The flipside of this is that you can also get jaded by it, losing enthusiasm and hence an edge or creativity or freshness that is required. Like most things, it comes down to the individual and their attitude.

Certainly, as writing is PR’s number one skill, we can do with all the expertise we can get. I’ve found younger people in PR to often possess very poor writing skills. Age can be a real winner in this regard.

The more you write, the more feedback you get, the more lessons you learn – the better you get. Either that, or you get unemployed.

Dealing effectively with people – whether they be journalists, senior management, colleagues and others – is probably PR’s number two skill. And as you age you naturally encounter a range of different people and are put in a range of situations, many of them confronting. These experiences impact not just on knowledge, but in the array of responses we develop to resolve and leverage them for the best possible outcome.

This is nothing against youth (which has plenty going for it too!) it is just a simple result of aging. Age definitely wins in these regards!

Within PR, age seems to me like it should be perceived as having excellent POD. This is an industry dominated by youth. Perhaps this is partly because it is a female-centric industry and women tend to leave the workforce (due to family commitments?) as they age. I don’t know, I’m just speculating, because having a lot of women in PR is one of the best things about the industry.

The dwindling of PR professionals as we age underlines that in PR we should be trying to hang onto older workers for as long as possible. The knowledge they possess is equally important, and in many situations vastly more so, than whatever we learn from doing a Masters degree or deep-diving into social media 24/7/12/52.

Funnily enough, in my experience older people in the workforce tend to behave in a young way. That’s if you characterise the young as having:

• Energy
• Creativity
• A willingness to try something new.

We could all do with a bit more age in our workforce.

What examples do you have of either age discrimination in the workplace or where older employees have delivered excellent value? What do you think it is about older workers that adds value to the workforce? Or do you disagree; do you only want to work with young people in the PR industry?

Perhaps it is somewhat ignored because it isn’t the big corporate end of town. It’s not flash like crisis management and it’s not glitzy like FMCG. In my experience, it is not where young PR practitioners choose to head. It often doesn’t have the sex appeal (including inner city locations, near the hippest bars) of PR agencies.

Martha Halliday, an experienced community relations PR professional, said a key differentiator for community relations (or communication) is that, “There is much more face-to-face communication so that you are always relationship building. The community wants a relationship with whatever is impacting on them. Through the community relations person, the community has a personal relationship with the organisation and vice versa.”

What is business-to-community PR?

Reasons why this ‘other’ B2C is important are because it can be used in the following manner:

• To help build reputations of organisations with a strong community audience, such as Australia’s only nuclear installation where I used to work
• Get feedback from and inform communities about infrastructure work taking place in their area
• To help encourage safety relevant to specific communities (e.g. in the surf; in a landslide or bushfire prone area; when a storm, flood or tsunami may be imminent)
• Broader public safety campaigns such as drink-driving or liver disease
• Putting in place a schools education campaign, one that meets curriculum’s/children’s needs, as well as that of the organisation’s
• Recruiting people for local sporting, social or cultural organisations
• Fulfilling an organisation’s regulatory need to consult and/or liaise with the local community.

These are all pretty interesting and important sorts of communication, don’t you think? And a damn site more substantial than selling booze and snacks.

A variation on this theme is that B2C can also be applied in the context of selling a product or service, including real estate, restaurants and more. Perhaps this isn’t as ‘heavy’ as the categories noted above, but these are still lifestyle-rich categories and will no doubt have an impact on people’s navigation of their own lives

The community relations strategic mindset

Martha emphasised that, “It is important that community relations – the process and its professional communicators – show empathy and not always defend the organisation. I would agree with community members that, ‘Yes, it’s terrible to have noisy construction works outside their property for months on end, and they are entitled to complain.

“People really appreciate your empathy and there are things you can do to alleviate some of the pain – alternative accommodation, movie passes, change of construction works etc.

“Strategic partnerships with targeted community groups are also important – personal relationships with local school principals and staff (and delivering a range of programs and benefits to schools) and other important community groups. For example, when working on a large infrastructure project we created positive relationships with national park staff and whale watching volunteers working in the park. We also collaborated with the local council’s environment team. These initiatives helped with both relationship building and providing facts on the project.”

For any project that involves community relations, or B2C, it is imperative that the relationship element is an integrated part of the planning and implementation. Those projects that are able to adapt somewhat to the needs of their stakeholders – the local community included – are the ones that are likely to leave a positive impression and have less problematic issues.

This will lead to less delays, less political interference, less negative media and, ultimately, a less costly outcome. And for many engineering projects, this means less cost to taxpayers, as well.

Another community relations professional, Laura Fayers-Pooley, made the point to me that her current community relations role includes, “More evaluation than any role I’ve had. Our gainshare/painshare financial regime is linked to community relations KPIs around response time and client satisfaction.”

Evaluation is one of the building blocks of strategic communication. You can be strategic without it, but guesswork and gut-feel don’t provide the information we really need to do the best possible business communication job. And hard, evidence-based results are what will impress the CEO, politicians and media.

Tactical PR elements of B2C

The tactical elements of B2C are, in the main, no different from other forms of marketing and public relations. They could include:

• Media relations, with a special focus on local media
• Advertising, including banners strung up in public places
• Database and direct mail and email; and letterbox drops
• Website and social media
• SMS/text/mobile
• 1800 phone info line
• Public ‘large group’ meetings and/or consultations, as well as deliberately smaller group or one-on-one interactions, including door knocking
• Site tours
• Events
• Sponsorship.

Community consultation is always an important area to cover off. Consultation means getting information that allows an organisation to potentially adapt the way it is going about its business (i.e. two-way symmetrical communication). This is an approach that Laura seeks to apply, as she attempts to act not just as an organisational advocate, but also as one for the community. “I try to sell the notion that good community relations can help deliver projects on time and on budget,” she said.

If the purpose of the ‘consultation’ is actually just to share information, don’t ever pitch it as consultation. Otherwise you are building up false expectations in your stakeholders and, almost certainly, you and your organisation’s reputation will come to grief.

So what do you think about the B2C that dare not speak its name? Have you worked in this area? What are your experiences? What value can you add to the points above? Or have you not worked in B2C and/or do you have no interest in the field – and if so why?

Nationalism, then, is bad PR. Or is it?

National days, like Australia Day and the USA’s Independence Day, are a symbolic representation of nationalism. They are pure spin, based – in contemporary society – on little more than hubris. Getting drunk, castigating minority groups and engagement in non-reflective activities such as sport are the lingua franca of national days. But is this true?

Couldn’t our governments adopt more of the essence of what public relations is about to help make our society a better place in which to exist? Applying the key themes of public relations means society would be more inclusive of difference by championing behavioural and cultural change. Integrating ‘promotions’ into these programs would attract and drive great subscription to them.

Nationalism, despite what its promoters say, is an insular activity – the property of the social majority. Australia struggles to represent, and be inclusive of, its indigenous community at normal times. On Australia Day the situation is magnified.

This is the day that represents the arrival of the English First Fleet (i.e. foreigners landing on, and claiming for their own, indigenous Australian soil!), after all. No surprise, then, that indigenous Australians have a problem with the ‘celebrations’.

Superiority is not good PR

Nationalism is characterised by people bragging about their country’s superiority, not its brotherhood or collegiality. It is contradictory to the notion of multiculturalism, a notion that Australia and the United States (try to) position themselves as representing.

And why should we promote our country as being better than others? We are all human beings. Implicit in nationalism is a condescension and sense of superiority over other countries and their people. That is hardly conducive to people getting along and creating a society where all constituents feel valued, feel like they belong and feel like they can achieve their dreams.

Australia Day focuses on the simplistic, the tacky. Reflective discussions on the nature of being Australian and living in Australia are thin on the ground.

Pride: the good and the bad

A valuable pride in one’s country is surely a quiet pride, not a chest-beating one. It is humble. Yet national days provide little perspective to enable this to occur.

Beating chests may well incite the likeminded, but it is almost certain to repulse and alienate those who are not. This is hardly, then, an inclusive behaviour. It is a divisive one. It is not reflective of key tenets of public relations:

• Dialogue – this is at the very heart of effective public relations – so how have governments worked to impact on the culture of Australian society through their management of national days?
• Embracing of a plurality of perspectives (i.e. diversity – this being wonderfully analogous to multiculturalism, which is not effectively celebrated on Australia Day)
• Tolerance – how often do we see this characteristic embodied on Australia Day?
• Collaborative (working together to generate fresh perspectives, new ideas and resolutions to issues). Without this, individual, organisational and societal potential will never be reached
• ‘Accommodation’ (i.e. accommodating the interests of each other)
• Empowering the marginalised; giving voice to the voiceless (thus helping develop social equity; one of the most meaningful and rewarding dimensions of public relations).

If governments adopted the tenets that underpin strategic public relations, it would lead to an enriched society, one where its indigenous and multicultural elements became more effectively integrated into our culture as a whole.

Government relations helping society

Governments have introduced a range of activities on Australia Day that are inclusive of multicultural and indigenous communities, but they seem to have little impact on the nature of its day or its mood. What hope do these superficial activities have when more fundamental, ongoing and ‘cultural connectivity’ policies and programs are clearly required?

It is these policies and programs (and legislation?) that have the potential to be the manifestation of a true public relations approach, one where structures and processes are changed to facilitate the equalisation of society and integration of its human elements.

Public relations is about all relevant people/entities changing their behaviour (and by implication modus operandi) to accommodate each other. It is not simply about raising awareness or pulling the wool over people’s eyes

Australia has failed to do this with indigenous Australian culture (and I have no optimism this will change), but that is no excuse not to keep working to right the wrongs that have occurred, as well as being more assertive in embracing those non-Anglo-Saxon cultures which have decided to embrace the schizophrenic beast of Oz culture.

What do you think about the arguments put forward in this post? Would nationalism be better if it replicated elements of best practice public relations? Are the fundamental underpinnings of nationalism inherently opposed to those of public relations?

PS. I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!