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| Vol.
6, No. 11, March 2008|
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Measurement Conferences
IPPRC
2008 Wrap Up by Katie Delahaye Paine As always, IPRRC in Miami was boot camp for your mind. If you can survive three days of stimulating conversation, debates until dawn washed down with quantities of wine, and 100+ presentations to comprehend, you can probably survive anything. I still haven't recovered fully, but at least I've sobered up enough to sum up a few observations. In another month or so, all papers will be published on the IPRRC website. In the meantime here's a wrap up. IPRRC vs. South by Southwest Digital First of all, at the same time the PR crowd was meeting in Miami, the social media crowd was gathering at South by Southwest Digital in Austin, Texas. Thanks to the magic of Twitter, there was even some cross-pollination of ideas between the two groups. But what was ironic was that whereas the folks in Austin were subjected to traditional people-on-stage-with-PowerPoint, those crazy PR people in Miami were gathering around tables arguing with the presenters. Here's what a typical table looked like:
(See all my snapshots from the conference here at Flickr.) In the end the effect was the same, the tools were just different. Attendees in Austin initially complained to each other via Twitter, and then finally shouted down the interviewer during the keynote with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In contrast, Miami attendees gathered around each presenter at separate tables, constantly questioning and challenging them. In both cases, it was the dialog among attendees that proved the greater value. But that was about all the two conferences had in common. The IPRRC had distressingly few presentations about social media; less than ten percent of the 85 total papers discussed the impact of blogs or bloggers. What is frustrating is that it is precisely in the arena of social media that real solid research is the most desperately needed. The vast majority of discussions focused on testing of existing theories of crisis, relationships, and organizational structures. Crisis Communications The area that garnered the most attention was crisis communications. There were numerous papers on the topic, a few of which we summarize elsewhere. The large number of crises in the past year -- pet food poisoning, mine disasters, toy recalls -- provided solid fodder for study. What was missing, of course, was the one answer that practitioners always want: "What is the recipe for perfect crisis handling?" The answer the IPRRC researchers provided was: "Well it depends." There are a bunch of good and bad ways to handle crisis, and you still need to pick the one that best suits your particular marketplace. PR and Business Education Another significant theme of the conference was how PR education is organized. There were some great conversations about whether PR should be taught in business schools, or business taught in PR schools. The answer is clearly both. PR people need to be taught to think like business people and become part of the overall value proposition in a company, but at the same time business people need to better understand the role that PR plays in corporate health, welfare and reputation. For anyone wanting to understand PR in other cultures, there was lots of information, and presentations on PR in Turkey, Slovenia, Brazil, and Japan. Also a comparison of PR in Western and Eastern Europe. Ben-Piet Venter's paper on making PR a support function, similar to IT, made a lot of sense. And of course there was the usual conversation about how to "get into the dominant coalition" and get them to listen to you. The answer seemed to be: Stick it out long enough for a crisis to happen so they'll see how indispensable you really are. Most
of all I was left with lingering excitement about the next generation
of PR folks, now coming up through the ranks. These are recent graduates
who understand the power of social media and the fruitlessness of
the
old command
and control structure. People who inherently look for data on which
to base
decisions, and rely less on "It's the way it's always been
done," and more on "This is the decision that the data
supports." For them the route to the dominant coalition and the proverbial
"seat at the table" will be quick and direct, because they'll
always have the data to support their decisions. |
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