Even though it is flavored with both the psychoanalyst Freud and the flamboyant huckster P.T. Barnum, public relations is neither science nor promotion art, but- okay, I am going to burst
a few purist bubbles here- basic common sense.
One might ask the obvious two-part question: If it is so easy, why isn't everyone doing it? And, why do people such as you get paid for what you do if it is just something that comes naturally to people who can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Well, for starters, a lot of folks are in the PR business. The sad part is that a lot of them wouldn't know a strategic application of common sense if they were drowning in it.
They hang out a shingle that says PR because they have a board, paint, a hammer and a couple of nails and the words are not that difficult to spell. Then, they mystify the profession by draping it in catch phrases, spin and spinmeisters and image guru.
It goes without saying that they become, of course, instant experts on crisis management. That is the equivalent of suggesting because one can sing he can also play the Palladium. They also offer media training, as if it were a product picked off the shelf.
Those folks, my friends, are of the charlatan class of what we do, a full-feathered and sometimes colorful but hardly an exotic bird. Their numbers grow every day, and they set up shop on very street corner.
In terms of the second question about remuneration for what we do, common sense is often a rare commodity when placed in the pressure cooker atmosphere of a crisis, or even in being creative about a new product launch.
It is the CEO's job to be creative in a different way, and to apply his common sense to the myriad of obstacles associated with merely running a business. It is our job to handle the flak around him by giving our best advice.
In Eastern Europe, there is a tendency to talk in terms of "PR techniques", as if there were set formulas for success. While there are dozens of options generally to each PR problem, none have the certitude that results from, say, engineering, architecture or even
medicine.
If one were to ask a dozen truly PR professionals how to approach a specific issue, they might reach the same conclusion by following a similar, barely visible thread, but their outcomes might also be as varied as the colors of the rainbow.
I believe PR is truly the mongrel of the professions, which isn't bad. What we should never do, however, is give it attributes that are phony, such as the oft-heard "image making." This is to say a glistening new coat of paint is all that is needed for the termite-infested fence. This perpetrates a form of fraud.
We also should not smother the profession in academia. A certain foundation, perhaps, can be established through a public relations education, but I believe those basics can be taught in a few months in a classroom or, alternatively, a fortnight in the real world.
Because I have been in public relations for about thirty years, following a first career in journalism, young people often ask me what they should do to break into the profession. Be curious, I say, and read a lot of just about everything.
I have never suggested a higher degree in public relations, though a master's in common sense might not be out of the question. The crux of the matter is that PR is a way of thinking- and this is generally experience taught rather than classroom osmosis.
That way of thinking is based on what I call the ricochet principle- a way of thinking politically about every public relations situation. In other words, if a gun is fired in a forest of petrified trees, it is best to have made an educated guess not about the first glancing impact, which is obvious, but the second, third and fourth.
In other words, the target is interesting, but how will the PR approach impact future points of impact. This third and fourth stage thinking is crucial in public relations; a discipline many people believe is merely about news conferences, setting up events, and monitoring publications.
This is why some years ago I came up with what I call my "white sneakers" definition of public relations: PR is telling someone - perhaps a CEO or politician- what he already knows but doesn't want to hear, and doing so in a compelling way.
I admit it is a rather iconoclastic approach to PR. However, it's based on common sense.
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