What is your reputation worth? (#PRethics)

What is your reputation worth? It’s worth protecting if you expect to flourish in the field of public relations.

Yes, it’s your reputation at risk, always, on the job or not. Some of the most serious hazards are on the job.

Check out the values of the organization or client who is paying for your public relations efforts. You are not the conscience of top management, including its Board. You can’t be if management has no conscience.

If you are asked to do something that conflicts with your own personal code of ethics, your own values, you have three choices.
The first is to talk about the risks to the organization if it is taking, or plans to take, a wrong turn. If personal, professional counsel fails, you can turn to PRSA’s code for behavior for its members and simply say the plans are putting your career in jeopardy. When that doesn’t work, you can quit. I’ve done it. Only once. I had four small children, a husband out of work and was in a similar economic climate to what we are experiencing now. It worked. I was coaxed back, and listened to thereafter.

If you don’t do this, you hurt yourself and the practice of PR.

Once when teaching at TCU, I had the idea of asking a philosophy professor who taught ethics to teach a class for us. When I asked him, his first response was, “I didn’t know PR people had any ethics.” You are still up against that perception. Now it’s called “spin.”
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Guest post by Dr. Doug Newsom, APR, Fellow PRSA, Professor Emerita Texas Christian University, for PRSA September Ethics Month.

Photo credit: nylffn via Flickr Creative Commons

Related articles

• Guest Post: The Importance of Ethics to the PR Industry (mediabistro.com)
• The State of Ethics in Public Relations (prsay.prsa.org)

Know thy objective

Guest post by Linda Jacobson, APR

I recently judged communication campaigns and tactics, and was struck by the lack of planning involved in nearly every entry.  Particularly absent was the lack of specific communications objectives. If you’re in public relations, marketing or corporate communications, you need to know how to craft a solid strategic communication objective because that is the single most important focal point of any communications campaign. If you don’t know what you're aiming for, you’ll never know if you reached it.

Below are components of a communication objective, but ultimately, you’ll want to ensure this is part of a strategic communication plan that aligns with your organizational or departmental business objectives.

• Expect your outcome. Are you trying to raise awareness of a new widget or new process? Or do you need to move the needle by changing employee or customer attitudes? Perhaps you need a target audience to adopt a specific behavior. Before you can craft an objective, know what you expect the outcome to look like.
• Use verbs! Once you know the expected outcome of your objective, select an appropriate verb. Do you want customers to buy, ban or endorse? Are you looking for employees to adopt, support or change?
• Be specific. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at communications plans that aren’t tied to specific objectives. If you can’t articulate the objective specifically, then you are already missing the goal.
• Who is the audience?
• What is the timeframe?
• What is the attainment level?
• Measure the objective.  Know how to accurately measure your objective, and know your baseline. This is your starting point. What is the current status quo? You need to know this before you initiate your strategy; otherwise, you won’t know whether you moved the needle or not.

Below is an example of a specific communication objective that anticipates an increase in audience awareness:
 

Within the next 60 days, 70 percent of our organization’s customers will see or hear about our new widget.

Starting with these basics, you’ll add a solid, measurable component to your strategic planning. What other components help you achieve your goals?

What PR Pros Should Know About the GLBT Community - August Recap

The August 2011 speaker shared some stats that all public relations professionals should know, but may have surprised many in the room:

• 75.4% of all Texas voters support prohibiting employment and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
• 68% of all Texas voters support gays/lesbians having the same legal rights with respect to their children.
• 79.2% of all Texas voters support uniform anti-bullying legislation to prohibit harassment in schools. [Note: Texas legislature passed an anti-bullying law in May.]

“Texas has come a long way,” said Fairness Fort Worth President Thomas Anable, who grew up in the state, and marvels at how perceptions have changed over the years. After the Rainbow Lounge Raid just two years ago, “Fort Worth now has the most progressive and inclusive policies and ordinances of any other city in the United States.”

Anable said that unlike other cities, Fort Worth residents and officials swiftly acknowledged perception issues associated with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community – with the Raid as a catalyst – and earnestly sought to find peaceful, workable solutions.

To show how far we’ve come, he said all City of Fort Worth employees are now required to take four hours of GLBT diversity training. Other organizations are following suit, including public and corporate entities. Also, Fort Worth’s newly elected Mayor Betsy Price is lending political support, having agreed to Grand
Marshal this year’s Fort Worth Gay Pride Parade.

PR Professionals wanting more information about GLBT issues, including the political and economic power they now wield, were directed to the following resources:

1. Human Rights Campaign
2. Equality Texas
3. Lambda Legal
4. North Texas GLBT Chamber

Diversity Committee Chair Mary Gugliuzza said that part of PRSA’s mission is to be more inclusive and welcoming and thus, each year, the chapter dedicates its August program to diversity issues. This includes reaching out to industry professionals of diverse racial backgrounds, ethnicity and sexual orientations, for improved multicultural understanding so that we’re better prepared to address the nation’s diverse audiences.

Related

• PRSA Diversity Today Blog
• PRSA Diversity Efforts
• PRSA Diversity Efforts Handbook

PRSA Southwest District Quick Start 2011 - #prsasw

#Fail: Social Media #PR Disasters - recap

(Cross-posted from the Next Communications blog)

Thanks to Stephanie Scott and Corey Lark for sharing their 10 Lessons from Social Media PR Disasters for the June Ft. Worth PRSA luncheon: (Get their presentation slide deck.)

1. You are not in a vacuum
2. Err on the side of caution; Respond swiftly
3. Be prudent; Accept responsibility
4. Update your tactics
5. Context matters
6. If you apologize, mean it
7. Mocking your customers = bad
8. Be transparent
9. Manage your social media presence (or someone may manage it for you)
10. Sometimes you are the problem

Below is a recap built on Storify from last week's Fort Worth PRSA luncheon. Aside: This was the first time for me to use Storify. (Way cool tool.)

Our chapter blog went to the dogs

(Photo credit: readinginpublic via Flickr Creative Commons)

Ok, I suppose it's not fair to blame Lucy for not coming up with anything good for our chapter's blog. She tried her best, it was just too much to ask this furry friend to write posts for us with any consistent frequency for this blog. Of course, most canines can't understand the in's and out's of public relations, corporate and nonprofit communications trends or thoughts on the profession. Plus, her spelling was atrocious.

We should have tried to get the PR professionals to handle the writing process. Unfortunately, we've not had a major push within the chapter to offer up this blog as a place for members to write posts. And thus, we haven't had anything new since January. (Face in palms)


But, things are about to change. We've let Lucy run free in the backyard and have now opened the blog up to posts from our fellow PRSA members. 

Here's how you can help: Use the online submission form for your guest post. Blog writing is a great way for PR pros to hone writing skills. If you don't have your own blog, feel free to use our chapter blog submission opportunity to share your thoughts. If you do blog elsewhere, be sure to note where you blog so we can include it.

We're looking for posts that cover public relations trends, tools, topics and more. What's happening in your industry or area of expertise? Be creative and share.

What do you think? Is this a good way to add writers to our chapter blog? Have you wanted to write for the blog but didn't know how? We can't wait to see our members' posts.