Integrated CIPR news on your desktop – shame about mobile

Posted on January 27, 2012 at 7:21 am UK

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) launched a social media newsroom on January 23. In their words, it “integrates announcements on our website with our Twitter feed, Facebook and LinkedIn pages and with the CIPR Conversation.”

It’s a good example of an organization evolving how it communicates information about itself (and, in this case, about a profession and its membership) and how it enables easier sharing of its content in ways that are measurable, eg, social-share buttons, and linking content in diverse online places.

I heard about the newsroom yesterday when I was out and about in London. I’d just finished a meeting so a moment to check email, Twitter and Google+ on my mobile device. No wifi at that moment but a good connection via 3 UK’s cellular network. A note on G+ from David Philips had the news. Naturally, I clicked the link and headed over in my mobile browser to take a look.

What a disappointment! What I got was the desktop website squeezed onto the 4.3-inch display on my Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone.

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The news site – indeed, the entire CIPR website – doesn’t offer a version that’s designed for use on a mobile device. As you can see from the screenshot, the site is, in essence, unusable on a mobile device like a smartphone.

Yesterday on Twitter, the CIPR’s Andrew Ross said that they haven’t yet made the step to a mobile site. Matt CIPR added that a mobile version is in the pipeline, “but it should still display ok on most smart phones.”

Hmm, I guess that depends on how you define “ok” in this context. In my initial experience, definitely not ok.

Think about it: you’re out and about, you want to see something on the CIPR’s website – read a news announcement, check some information, sign up for a course, maybe add a comment on The Conversation – but you get only the desktop website on your mobile. And that gives you the desktop experience – not really workable on a mobile device like a phone.

Just try the screen-pinching, squinting, “precision” finger-tapping and swiping in a busy Starbucks, never mind on a crowded bus. And if your cell connection isn’t that good, it will be like watching paint dry as the page attempts to load in all its graphical glory.

Not something you want to do more than once.

Undoubtedly the experience will be better on a larger-screen mobile device, eg, an iPad or one of the myriad Android tablets with their seven- to ten-inch screens. But display is only one part of the picture, as it were – great to be able to clearly see what you want, it’s then how you use that content on a device that you touch to interact, not point and click or hit an enter key.

Whether or not we’re embarking on the “Post PC Era,” there is no question that the “Mobile Era” is here.

Smartphones have become an integral part of people’s daily lives wherever they are: we use smartphones as an extension – even a replacement – of our desktop or laptop computers these days as we multi-task and, whether it’s for business or personal, consume and quickly share other content.

I do hope a CIPR mobile-optimized site comes very soon. In the meantime, enjoy what is a good resource on your desktop.Just don’t expect much if you try it on a mobile.

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Being inclusive about PR ethics

Posted on September 15, 2011 at 8:11 am UK

One of the great things about the Ethics Awareness Month initiative from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is that it helps focus clear attention on a core issue in the profession that, in many people’s minds, needs that attention.

It doesn’t matter a bit that the PRSA’s initiative happens to be organized by the professional body that represents practitioners in the USA. To give full credit to them (as well as recognize some good common sense at work), it’s very open – anyone with a point of view and some good ideas on ethics can contribute no matter where they are and whether they’re a member of the PRSA (or any other body) or not.

One feature of the initiative is the weekly tweet chat anyone can participate in around the hashtag #prethics. I took part in the first one on September 6 organized jointly by PRSA and the CIPR in the UK. It was a great discussion.

I wrote about it and the copy of my post that was syndicated in the CIPR’s The Conversation blog attracted some discussion in the comments.

Discussion on this topic is terrific, just what we need to have wherever it takes place. I hope the exchanges of views to my post contribute to some measurable course of action on this topic.

Yet it seems to me that there’s a risk of slipping into a cul-de-sac over territorial rights, being side-tracked by a debate about which professional body should lead the charge on the ethics debate.

That’s the least relevant matter, in my view. I don’t care who leads any charge as long as this important issue is on the agenda and that a clear course of action emerges. Heck, I’m not a PRSA member nor a CIPR one yet I find the debate wholly relevant to my practice as a communicator and I engage in discussion with peers who are members of these associations as well as others like CPRS in Canada. PR is just one part of my professional communication activity, one reason why the IABC is my professional association of choice for more than 20 years.

What I’d like to see is our lightbulb moment on ethics in the profession – where anyone, anywhere, is part of the discussion – not a discussion about how many PR organizations does it take to change the lightbulb.

If you have an opinion, why not chime in? Here, there or anywhere you feel like. Just connect your comments to the #prethics hashtag.

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So what will you do for ethics in PR? at The CIPR Conversation

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So what will you do for ethics in PR?

Posted on September 8, 2011 at 12:49 pm UK

The subject of ethics in public relations often provokes strong opinions from people, especially when questionable practices fall under the critical spotlight – as Scott Adams so cannily grasped in this Dilbert cartoon in August.

Ethics in PR issues from the past few years that readily come to my mind range from Edelman’s shattered pedestal over not one but two Wal-Mart kerfuffles in 2006; the anti-astroturfing campaign by Trevor Cook and Paull Young in that same year; ongoing PR spam (very much a matter of ethical behaviours, in my view); Burson Marsteller’s Facebook dirty tricks fiasco this year; and of course the News of The World phone hacking scandal that came to a dramatic head in July and the subsequent role of PR.

While such unsavoury events always provoke much debate, opinion-sharing and hand-wringing about ethics by many inside the industry as well as outside – especially in the mainstream media – not a lot actually happens, really, to credibly address such things in a way that’s scalable. So as fast as one crisis fades from public memory, another one comes along to outrage or entertain, depending on your point of view.

I believe that individual responsibility is the best way to address behaviours and practices within and by the profession where believing in and abiding by codes of conduct/ethical behaviour is fundamental. Yet that can only have a chance of working when it’s part of a framework, something that people are willing to sign up for, as it were, and where leadership by example is the essential ingredient.

I also believe that the industry’s professional associations occupy a critical role in this regard and could make a huge difference in one key area (in particular) – leading by example in education and awareness-raising about ethical behaviours.

I’d accept without question that bodies such as the PRSA in the US, the CIPR in the UK and the IABC from a global perspective already do a great deal through professional development and other activities for members. Yet I think it needs more, something that gives it a firmer push onto everyone’s agenda.

That was the prominent thought in my mind as I participated in a tweetchat (an online discussion via Twitter) on Tuesday jointly hosted by Rosanna Fiske and Jane Wilson, respectively Chair and CEO of PRSA and CIPR.

During the course of an hour, a wide- and far-ranging discussion and exchange of views about ethics and behaviours took place with some excellent views, ideas and suggestions ebbing and flowing in the discussion.

I think we had a good indicator of leadership by the fact that the PRSA and the CIPR collaborated in leading discussion this way on the topic of ethics, as the PRSA noted in its post-event report:

[...] We’d be remiss if we did not address the importance of this Tweet chat and of enhancing ethical standards in PR. It is something that both of our organizations firmly believe in and will continue to pursue for years to come. Simply put: Ethics form the backbone of PRSA and the CIPR. Our respective ethics codes — PRSA’s Code of Ethics and the CIPR’s Code of Conduct — are well established as the profession’s global standards for ethical conduct.

If anyone ever had any doubt about the significant role and value that ethics plays in PR professionals’ levels, Tuesday’s Tweet chat stopped that idle chatter cold in its tracks. We were impressed with the level of commitment and interest among the commenters to better understand and uphold ethical standards. From @thefishareloose Tweeting that “socialmedia and access to Internet is making it harder for people to hide a lie which should help show why #prethics is so important” to @brandjack commenting that “ethical behavior is what gets results” for clients and organizations, the chat demonstrated the level of recognition and respect that ethics now has in public relations.

September is PRSA’s Ethics Awareness Month. Why don’t we all make September our own ethics awareness month by asking ourselves: What am I going to do?

Here’s a start: before the end of this month, read your respective professional association’s code of conduct:

(If you’re not a member of any of these bodies, read the codes anyway.)

Tell your colleagues and/or your clients you’re doing this and will uphold the code’s values. Ask them to do the same. Ask your boss to do it. If you’re the boss, well, you know what to do.

Individual responsibility. And a framework. Sounds good to me.

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CIPR wants you to join The Conversation

Posted on April 6, 2011 at 8:26 am UK

Next week, the CIPR launches The Conversation. What is it? A content syndicator? An online place to network? Discover people? Discover interesting content? A social network? All of the above?

Better to let the CIPR tell you:

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is launching ‘The Conversation’ at its social media conference, 11 April. The Conversation is your one-stop shop for great blog posts by practitioners, consultancies, academia and students, from the UK and further afield. Syndicating your personal or company blog couldn’t be easier, allowing the wider PR community to find your content, find your personal, business and consultancy profiles, and respond to your news and points of view. Everyone is welcome to register themselves and their organisation.

In the spirit of The Conversation, the CIPR has invited some of the UK’s keenest PR bloggers to break this news.

There will be no need to ‘make friends’ all over again on The Conversation. Simply give your existing social networks permission to allow us to take a look at your network, your social graph as some call it, and we’ll make sure those relationships are established immediately on The Conversation (ie you won’t need to share your passwords with us). Hey presto, instant social glue.

The Conversation promises to be an exciting addition to the CIPR’s website, at least it will be with your input. It won’t match Facebook for functionality or LinkedIn for seeing who’s connected to whom, but it will be the first such attempt by a professional body to our knowledge. We hope you’ll jump in, and work with us as we iron out the inevitable glitch or two.

Following the successes of the CIPR social media panel – CIPR TV, ‘Social Summer’ events in 2010 and 2011, social media measurement guidance and input to ASA regulation – it’s apt that The Conversation will be launched at the CIPR social media conference. We hope to see you there.

The above text comes from an email I received yesterday from Claire Wheatcroft, the CIPR’s interim PR and marketing manager. In it, she says “We’re inviting you and a dozen or so others to post the following, with your commentary of course, as soon as you can.”

I liked Claire’s approach to outreach, even in an email, hence why I’ve posted the message.

A few years ago, I worked with the CIPR to plan and deliver a series of half-day workshops on PR and social media. They were aimed at the senior practitioner and were called simply ‘New Media for Old Hands.’

A bit of a corny title, perhaps, but it resonated with those practitioners, judging by the sell-out participation at nearly every one of the dozen workshops we did between 2007 and 2009. You can see an example of the kind of topics addressed in this deck from the last one I did in November 2009.

Driven in large part by Mark Willock at the CIPR, those events were in the early-adopter and experimenter days for the CIPR as far as social media was concerned. Things have moved on significantly since then with new initiatives led by CIPR members like Stephen Waddington and Philip Sheldrake as well as a visible shift in mind-set and thinking at the CIPR itself, manifested by the appointment last November of a forward-thinking and -looking leader, CEO Jane Wilson.

Today, it’s really good to see the UK’s professional association for the PR industry firmly at the centre of the conversation.

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A promising start for CIPR TV

Posted on September 8, 2010 at 5:52 pm UK

A new television channel started up today in London that offers the organization behind it an opportunity to reach out in a new and interesting way to people it wants to connect with, and viewers to gain access to information they might otherwise not have a chance to.

Broadcasting live on the net with scheduled interviews, the channel is CIPR TV and the organization behind it is the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). The inaugural live broadcast of CIPR TV took place today when hosts Philip Sheldrake and Stephen Waddington (left and right respectively in the show screenshot above left) interviewed Paul Mylrea (in the screenshot above right), Head of Press and Media Communications at the BBC and CIPR President-Elect.

It was a good start for CIPR’s audiovisual presence on the net with two hosts who appeared confident and relaxed, as was their guest. During 25 minutes or so, the three discussed a range of topics including communication in the public sector and how the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has gone about announcing its extended regulatory role on social media advertising on the net which has miffed many in the UK PR community (and about which the CIPR itself made a public statement). I did like Paul’s instinctive reaction to it: "The advertising industry does not own social media." Wonder if that will miff the ASA.

In all, though, a pretty safe viewing experience: no ambush journalism here. That’s not meant to criticize. On the contrary, I think that, with CIPR TV, the CIPR has taken a firm step into embracing different forms of communicating, such as video, that present the CIPR in a much more contemporary light, enabling the representative organization of the UK PR industry to extend its voice far beyond the reach it currently has, and be seen to be part of a communication environment that people just expect to see these days.

If this first episode is any indicator, Philip and Stephen are effective hosts who will surely develop the show into something that has real personality. I like the way in which they bring in people’s comments and questions via Twitter and the #ciprtv hashtag – this can add genuine spontaneity to what might otherwise be just a pre-scripted show.

So I’m looking forward to seeing more of CIPR TV. Nice job!

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