A recent international report shows PR agencies around the world enjoyed boom times in 2007, clocking up their best ever financial performances.
It’s all symptomatic of the rise and rise of communicators who are increasingly critical in the fortunes of governments, political parties, businesses, not for profits and just about every other type of other organization.
They may not know how it works, but managers at all levels now instinctively recognize the value of PR. And the more astute ones understand that without good PR, corporate or personal reputations can be end up in the trash.
Apart from (long overdue) management recognition, the boom times are also here because communicators now have more tools than ever to connect with customers, clients and citizens. Web2.0 technologies have given us the chance to engage with the people we need to reach, without going through traditional gatekeepers or self appointed mediators.
Despite all the hype no-one really knows where the world of on-line communications is heading. Just when we come to grips with one application, others spring up. Which means communicators are entering pioneer territory and the way ahead is likely to be uncharted, unfamiliar and often uncomfortable.
I hope we take a key lesson from the 1990s when the Internet really began to emerge. Then, most PR areas didn’t understand it, so almost by default, it became the property of the IT department. The “techos” quickly captured the new technology and from that point on people, who knew little about communicating, owned history’s most powerful communications tool.
In today’s organisations communicators must understand, use and promote the use of Web 2.0 or risk the fate of the monks in the Middle Ages. Then monks in cloistered monasteries labored for years to produce Europe’s manuscripts. In 1440 when German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented his wooden printing press, a generation of monks likely looked at each other and said “this printing press won’t work… can’t understand it… not for us”.
Fast forward to today. Many printing presses … few monks!
It’s all symptomatic of the rise and rise of communicators who are increasingly critical in the fortunes of governments, political parties, businesses, not for profits and just about every other type of other organization.
They may not know how it works, but managers at all levels now instinctively recognize the value of PR. And the more astute ones understand that without good PR, corporate or personal reputations can be end up in the trash.
Apart from (long overdue) management recognition, the boom times are also here because communicators now have more tools than ever to connect with customers, clients and citizens. Web2.0 technologies have given us the chance to engage with the people we need to reach, without going through traditional gatekeepers or self appointed mediators.
Despite all the hype no-one really knows where the world of on-line communications is heading. Just when we come to grips with one application, others spring up. Which means communicators are entering pioneer territory and the way ahead is likely to be uncharted, unfamiliar and often uncomfortable.
I hope we take a key lesson from the 1990s when the Internet really began to emerge. Then, most PR areas didn’t understand it, so almost by default, it became the property of the IT department. The “techos” quickly captured the new technology and from that point on people, who knew little about communicating, owned history’s most powerful communications tool.
In today’s organisations communicators must understand, use and promote the use of Web 2.0 or risk the fate of the monks in the Middle Ages. Then monks in cloistered monasteries labored for years to produce Europe’s manuscripts. In 1440 when German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented his wooden printing press, a generation of monks likely looked at each other and said “this printing press won’t work… can’t understand it… not for us”.
Fast forward to today. Many printing presses … few monks!
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