The Alberta Election is April 23 – Pencil it in!

Soon you will be standing at the ballot box, pencil in hand. Soon we will know who the next premier of Alberta will be. Or will our new premier be our old premier? Only time will tell.

Many public relations practitioners are following the race closely, knowing full well the role government plays in their everyday lives. Those watching closely know this race is different than those before it: more drama, more intrigue, more rhetoric.

I had a chance to catch up with noted political pundit and author, Dr. David Taras, who holds the Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies at Mount Royal University. I asked Dr. Taras if he thought television debates were still important in a social media world. He believes that these televised debates are more important than ever, and that there should be more than one. “It is a chance to compare leaders when they are out of their media bubbles. The camera brings a level of intimacy and, for many of us, this is the first time we get to see the leaders for any length of time.” Indeed, the 10-second media sound bite leaves a lot to be desired when trying to determine the future leader of our province.

As communicators, we talk of messaging often. So how well are our potential leaders doing on that front? Dr. Taras says Alison Redford has done a “terrible” job. “She started out in the first week apologizing and in the second week she made a series of health care proposals that drew fire from the doctors; she would have been better off to brand herself as the ‘education premier’ and then start her messaging around building schools.” As for Danielle Smith, Dr. Taras says things started out pretty well but her campaign has lost some of its steam lately. “She started out with a good news story everyday; the critics couldn’t catch up with her – it was a brilliant strategy. Then she ran out of good news announcements and the controversial stuff came out – crazy statements by candidates, issues with climate change and talk of the Alberta firewall.”

So what happens next? Well that’s up to you, you’re the one with the pencil.

 By Jeremy Berry, APR
CPRS Calgary Board Secretary

 

Mount Royal University PR students available for Winter 2012 work placements!

Do you have too much work and not enough resources? Are you working on a big project this winter and need assistance? The Mount Royal University public relations program can help.

January to April 2012, we have over 40 eager and capable 4^th year PR students seeking a four-month work term.  This is the students second work experience and they are skilled and ready to hit-the-ground-running for your company. Students already have hands on public relations experience from the summer and come to your organization with a strong academic background in the fundamentals of public relations.

This placement is employer-paid and forms part of Mount Royal’s University degree program. If you could use an extra set of qualified hands this summer, please consider one of our talented students. For more information or to post a term position, please contact Ashley Archer, work experience coordinator at 403.440.6231 (aarcher@mtroyal.ca). Further information is also available through the career services website at www.mtroyal.ca/careerservices.

Spotting a fake! Satire Twitter accounts and PR

JG: How can I figure out if a twitter account is real or not?  Clearly, this is most un-Zwoz like.

AM: There’s no magic bullet. Most “fake” accounts are satire and are typically labelled as such. Some of them can even be quite funny. The best approach is using your own intuition by treating strange accounts with the healthy skepticism they deserve. But if you have a look at celebrities or even a limited handful of politicians, like @pmharper for example, you will note the light blue “verified” check mark logo.

JG: I sure think Velvet Glove is phoney but it’s got me curious now so it’s an interesting tactic — don’t know yet where it’s going.

AM: Impersonation, anonymous accounts and “trolling” have been present in all internet communities since their earliest days. Only more recently, with Facebook and Twitter becoming the de facto internet communities,  have more people started using their real names. This change in behaviour created a much more fertile environment for satirical accounts lampooning public figures to coexist with the public figures’ real accounts and even take part in the same discussions. These new interactions of fake accounts with real ones have shone the spotlight on an older, but highly recognizable feature of internet culture.

Does Twitter equal journalism?

Does Twitter equal journalism? As Brian Solis points out, this is the wrong question to ask, instead choosing to look deeper into: “Can Tweets represent acts of journalism?”In the linked Bloomberg Business Week article Solis goes head-to-head with Michael De Monte on this issue. It is an interesting read, with some Canadian content. Where do you stand?

Posted by Jeremy Berry, CPRS Calgary Education Chair

Chris Anderson – The Future of the Inventor as the Entrepreneur By Brenda Reid

Mount Royal hosted the editor and chief of Wired Magazine – Chris Anderson as part of the Legacy of Ideas speaker series.  Anderson started with the past industrial revolutions – hey a little Marxism never hurts. As a non technical person such as myself, he made it very easy to understand certain concepts. One concept that he highlighted was the inventor and the entrepreneur. He began with a story of  his inventor Grandfather and his invention of  automatic sprinkler systems.  During that time it was a very hard reality of being an inventor as most ended up having ideas taken away due to the fact they did not have the means of mass production. This was an obstacle that most could not overcome. Now it has reached a great balance as inventors do have the means of being an entrepreneur and getting their ideas out. The internet has been a great outlet .  It can get the invention to the consumer, producer which can bring empowerment.  Anderson emphasized  that you do not have to have the best MIT education, money or moving to a location where the bright minds are such as Silicon Valley. Case in point his partner who was eighteen year old, undereducated boy from Mexico helped with the prototype in the  invention of Drones – these are the largest amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.  Visit www.DIYDrones.com for more info.

The main point that Chris Anderson was trying to get across is that the future is the internet and how it is changing the traditional view of the inventors & entrepreneurs. The internet is an open forum for them and therefore allowing the brightest minds to explore and take us along for the ride instead of being behind closed doors.

Brenda Reid is a CPRS Mentoree 2010-2011. Recent graduate of the Bachelor of Communications Studies U of C.

Pollster and strategist speaks to online demographics

Brian Singh: The New Role of Social Media:
Are you only using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Meetup.com to keep in touch with friends? Brian Singh, strategist and social media expert drops by CPRS on November 30th to discuss how social media can make all the difference in your public relations strategy. Social Media has revolutionized the communications industry, replacing ‘announcements’ with ‘conversations.’

The power of social media drew attention this year for its role in Mayor Nenshi’s overwhelmingly successful campaign. Brian Singh, principal of Zinc Research, and one of the strategists for the Nenshi campaign stops by CPRS November 30th to discuss the role of social media and strategic demographic segmentation in the success of the campaign.

As an expert in social media and market research, Singh’s presentation will provide valuable insight into the transformative role of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in modern communications.
Register online at https://securegs.com/cprs/

Date: Tuesday, November 30
Time: Registration at 11:30 a.m. Lunch and presentation at 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Place: Bow Valley room at the Westin Calgary downtown
Cost: $40 member $55 non-member $25 student member $30 student non-member

For more information, contact:

Michelle Harries
403.629.4912
or
Doug Lacombe
403.988.0791

About Brian Singh:

Brian F. Singh (CMRP) is a pollster and economist with 20 years of experience. Brian specializes in market research and strategy to support business development, communication efforts, branding and economic development. Brian is the President of ZINC Research, which he founded in 2006 on the principle of the “triple bottom-line,” and the belief that in today’s world, companies need to have a firm grasp on the social, environmental and economic aspects of their operation and vision for the future. He was recently the pollster and one of the strategists for Naheed Nenshi’s successful Mayoral Campaign.

Tiger Woods 2.0

In advance of the one year anniversary of the crash outside of his home and the crash of his public persona as we knew it, Tiger Woods and his PR team have decided to begin the repairing/rebranding process in earnest. It started yesterday with the re-launching of his Twitter account (he already has 180,000 followers as of 9:25 am on Nov. 18) and an op-ed piece in Newsweek. Today he did a 30-minute interview with ESPN Radio. It will be interesting to see what other approaches he will take in the near future, or if winning will be the only blueprint for this foundation-to-finishing rebuild.

Jeremy Berry, APR, CPRS Calgary Education Chair

The importance of social media monitoring

Here is another interesting story about a social media superhero forcing a big company to right a wrong. Public relations practitioners need to be vigilant in their social media monitoring and quick on the draw when  it comes to a response.

September already?

The summer that wasn’t has come and gone and CPRS Calgary is back from our summer hiatus – watch for upcoming events soon. Over the “summer” our Twitter account kept up with all the latest developments in PR, communications and social media. We shared many articles about the PR and news industries, but one really stands out.

On July 22, in the midst of the BP oil spill, Eric Dezenhall published a piece titled “Is a Crisis Really a PR Problem?” He raises some strong points – what he calls “a more sober analysis of the role of communications”  – a few of which are excerpted here:

A corporate or institutional crisis has numerous players, investors, agendas and external crosscurrents that are not under the pushbutton control of a centralized management team. In fact, as anyone who has been through one of these crucibles will confirm, you don’t really “manage” a crisis at all as much as you pilot through it.

Crises by definition are unique, negative events. Companies simply aren’t geared up to handle the PR fallout because it’s not what they do. Even institutions that are better prepared to handle crises—such as the U.S. military—frequently are perceived to have failed at the PR side of things because they are dealing with intrinsically bad, truly outrageous, developments. Furthermore, the media and pundit-ocracy want companies to fail at PR. What journalist wants to say that, “while the coastline of four states was fouled, an entire eco-system destroyed, and thousands of families driven into financial ruin by the oil spill, we applaud BP’s PR efforts?”

By perpetuating the convenient chestnut that these major crises are fundamentally communications problems, PR people not only lose face with top managers who know better, but continue to set themselves up for failure by overbidding the role that communications in the resolution of serious problems.

Mr. Dezenhall’s points about the limitations of even the best crisis communications planning and execution are timely and important for all PR practitioners to acknowledge.

If you come across a great story about PR, communications, the news industry or anything else you think the 330+ communicators that follow our updates on Twitter will find valuable, you can tweet us @CPRSCalgary or send an email with the link to the article to communications@cprscalgary.com.

CAUS

The 7 Barcelona Principles

More than 200 delegates at the recent Barcelona conference on measurement have come up with 7 key principles for PR measurement: 1. Importance of Goal Setting and Measurement 2. Measuring the Effect on Outcomes is Preferred to Measuring Outputs 3. The Effect on Business Results Can and Should Be Measured Where Possible 4. Media Measurement Requires Quantity and Quality 5. AVEs are not the Value of Public Relations 6. Social Media Can and Should be Measured 7. Transparency and Replicability are Paramount to Sound Measurement.

The “agreement” is creating some buzz online. Most people seem to endorse the agreement, at least as a first basic step. With agreements like this being negotiated in Europe some are speculating that the PR influence base is shifting from the US, perhaps not a bad thing for the globalization and further professionalization of PR… Just how these standards will be applied/enforced will no doubt be an interesting conversation moving forward. More information click here.

Jeremy Berry
CPRS Calgary Membership Chair