Is this PR? Newspring (5)

Recently, Newspring Church has had some trying to put their name in a bad light and a few things went a little unruly in the church. In order to reset the order and make sure not to damage their reputation of being straight forward about what is going on at all times in their church they sent links to their website for this announcement.

I think this is a great example of PR and semi-crisis communication.

To tell a long story short, a man, who had been writing negative blogs about Newspring already, was working to adopt a child with his wife. During the adoption process the mother of the child had a choice between them and another couple who happen to go to newspring. The mother chose the newspring couple. He accusing Newspring of influencing the mother of the child to give the child to their couple. He is now asking for 1.5 million and a chance to come on stage whenever he wants and denounce Christ or 3 million to keep all of this from the media. Of course Newspring does not believe they have done anything wrong so they are not responding to this man with money. I think this announce is a great example of PR because they are informing their public, which is the church body. They actually keep constant communication with the church body through the blog where they posted this announcement.

THIS IS PR! lol

Social Media: How to Engage Employees

According to this weeks presentation given at the IABC Social Media states that communication is one of the most important factors to having happy, hard working employees and this same presentation points out that social media could help in getting employees engaged in the conversation.

So where do companies start. Well I think it was best said on the The Employee Factor blog. At the same time they also made a great point about how this will help. On their blog they encourage companies to take small steps, which is brilliant. Don’t jump in blindly to something that you don’t know much about if anything at all. They recommend starting with “intranet 2.0″ which consists of wikis, blogs, social network tools. By starting with this it can get the employees educated and accustomed to what social networking is. If used properly it can help with collaboration and allow for knowledge that would be looked over or not mentioned because of the lack of communication to be brought to light. It allows for organization as well. Everything is all in the same place. There is no confusion of where the research (or whatever) is placed because it would be attached there. If there was a discusion with a chat program it can be brought back up here.

There is one thing though. I do think social networking, such as twitter can be taken too far in the workplace. I think that if overused it can be distractiong and a  little annoying. To finish up this thought and to emphasize what I mean by that I would like to end with this video. I think this video portrays the wrong way to use a social network and it shows this example in the workplace. Love this video.

Public Relations: Diverse Employees

While studying the PR Practitioner’s role in the work place I discovered that one of the major roles they must take is the job of meeting all the diverse needs of the employers in a company. One company has already taken that role seriously. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has developed a workplace diversity plan. This instantly fascinated me as I saw this. It is the first time that I saw implementation of a workplace diversity plan. I know many times we try to made advertisements look certain way and the appearance of the company seem diverse.

Straight from the website:

The principles of workplace diversity, consistent with the Tribunal’s Charter, are to:

• treat each other with respect and dignity;
• provide a safe, secure and healthy workplace;
• make decisions genuinely based on equity and fairness;
• value the diversity of people; and
• take appropriate action to eliminate discrimination.

I think this defines what the PR practitioner should work out in the company. This should be their goal in the area of diversity. There should be an encouragement to treat each other, despite their differences, with respect and dignity. After that, the practitioner should make the workplace a safe for a multitude of people. The practitioner should also make sure that the decisions he/she makes is equal and fair. In the same sense don’t just make decisions because you know that you have to make diverse ones but choose people for things because of the value of their diversity and what their differences could do for the company.

To complete all of that, there is one that all PR practitioners need to be aware and eliminate if necessary and that is discrimination. On the AllBusiness:A D&B Company website there is an article that discusses what discrimination is and what actions an employee can take if they feel like they are being discriminated against including the statute of limitations. This is a great website to inform anyone who thinks they are being discriminated in anyway in the workplace. I really learned a lot from this website despite that I do not believe I have ever been discriminated against. He was really intriguing to find out that there was a lot that a person could to act against something like that.

PR Practitioners and Corporate Social Responsibility

There is one question I have recently been asked:

What role does public relations practitioners take in corporate social responsibilty?

(To be honest I did not know at first so I had to do a little bit of reading.)

According to this research paper a PR practitioner’s role is to provide qualitative evaluation of social trends which help the practioner develop policies leading to a corporate social response. Bernays himself said, “Public relations is the practice of social responsibility. It holds the key to America’s future.” I agree that this is the kind of role, if chosen by the practitioner, that can be taken in corporate social responsibility.

There is no reason that a PR practitioner shouldn’t take this role because their primary focus is reputation and for a company to take corporate social responsibility as discussed in this article. So, IF the PR takes this role they take on the responsibility of figuring out what their corporation must consider in the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment in all aspects of their operations. The practitioner does the work that determines what factors that connect the corporation to each of these and the impacts of each of these and how the corporation can change the impact if negative to good. The practitioner can then incorporate a plan to encourage this social responsibility. After this, if successful, the PR practitioner actual improves their companies public relations.

If that makes sense at all, thats all I have to say.

Starbucks and Corporate Social Responsibility

When trying to find a company that practices good corporate social responsibility I quickly came upon Julio Viskovich’s article about Starbucks.

Starbucks creates a unique opportunity for both its employees and its customers. Starbucks also has been recognized as one of the 100 ethically run companies in America.

Starbucks is so intent on keeping this apart of their corporation that they release a corporate social responsibility report each year. An example from a few years back can be found here. They strive to make sure their customers, employees, and the society around them are not negatively affected by any of their actions.

Despite these actions, Starbucks still seems to deal with poor rumors and bad PR. In their defense Starbucks has in their yearly reports a place where they debunk all rumors. They want to make sure that people know they are just rumors and nothing more.

Starbucks as a company wants to make sure that their employees are well taken care of. They pay more for their health plans than they do for their supplies for the coffee. They also make a point to create a great experience for their costumers. They make sure customer service is supreme and the product it at its best at all times. They are working on also the communities from which they receive their coffee beans. They hope to be able to invest in the farmers and help them to be able to improve their profits and their quality of living. Starbucks is also a part of the big “Go Green” movement. They have made sure that their cups are recyclable and that none of their practices harm the earth.

I think this is the best example of corporate social responsibility. Their company works hard to make sure that they have social responsibility while running their corporation.

Is this PR? Carolina First Saturday Market (4)

I think the Carolina First Saturday Market is an interesting example of PR for the upstate farm communities.

Here on this website is the details but basically, Carolina First Bank has held a farmer’s market every Saturday for most of the summer and partly in the fall. The reason why they do this is to encourage the purchase of area goods instead of importing them from elsewhere.

I think this is PR for the bank because they are doing a good thing by encouraging South Carolina products and I think it is great for those farmers who attend because they get a chance to promote the goods they have.

It is such a great way of putting money back into the community especially in times like these. We have so many farms and family businesses going under why not find a way to support the communities we live in.

The Law and PR: Interesting…Statute of Responsibility

“Freedom of expression is easily taken for granted-unless you don’t have.”

I love that statement from our book Public Relations: A Values-Driven Approach. Too many people do not realize how much we, as Americans, take advantage of including our right to freedom of expression!

In 1948, we adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (A full version and be read HERE), where member states of the United Nations agreed that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.” Many of the countries now have a right to freedom of speech provision that came with that later on. Many people think though, that in reality not everyone has that right or any human rights. They see that we “have” these rights but some say governments do not always respect these rights for individuals. I found this interesting.

After reading a little bit about this in our book I decided to do some googling about what others thought about this. The website, The New Editor, had some interesting thoughts. He actually hits on the basis of whether we believe in the freedom of speech, which in his terms means you support the freedom of speech and ideas that even you don’t agree with or what you might find repugnant/utterly offensive. I think I agree with what this website is saying. I think that people too many times agree/support freedom of speech but then at the same time they don’t want anything they don’t agree with be allowed to be said/published/announced. I personally agree that what Don Imus said was completely inappropriate but if we are supporting freedom of speech/opinion than he had a right to say (NOT THAT WHAT HE SAID WAS RIGHT, IM NOT AGREEING WITH THAT!) but according to the constitution he had a right. Another example would be Ann Coulter. Many times I don’t agree with her, especially the time she said that the reason an intern on CNN was loose was because she was a communication major (RUDE!), but that does not mean that her freedom of speech should be revoked, it just means she makes stupid comments. It does not mean she should have any rights revoked, even though in my opinion she does (yet another opinion), even if I think its repugnant. Just remember, if you support freedom of speech, it means complete FREEDOM, not what you think is right or wrong

Alright, thats all for now…

Libel, “What does that mean?”

What does that mean?

Libel – false communication that wrongfully injures the reputation of others

Libel in publication is something that can be defined in many different ways though so I would like to use my teacher’s, Mr. Randal, five points of libel to explain it a little bit better.

Mr. Randal says there are five things that you must prove in order to prove libel. And here they are:

Is it false?

Is the statement that was made false? Is it an untruth? The person trying to prove libel must have evidence that the statement at question is a false. If they opposing party can prove that it is true then the case is thrown out because then it is just the statement of a harsh/mean fact.

Is it defamatory?

Once again I think, what does that exactly mean? according to wiktionary defamatory is when someone makes a statement that harms someone’s reputation. So the question is, Does the statement harm the person’s reputation? Does it put it in a bad light? Like my teacher said, if someone made a false statement about you being pretty, are you going to be mad? not likely (and you prob won’t file libel charges).

Is it published?

According to my professor being published means anything that is written or recorded that can be reproduced such as: A letter, newspaper, website, blog, email, etc. So, Is it? Did someone write you a libel email? Can it be reproduced?

Is the person identifiable?

Even if the person isn’t named, can you tell who it is? For example, if I was talking about a person and said she is blond, pop star, got wild, married K. Fed, I think everyone would know who I was talking about (if you don’t, you are probably pretty lucky).

Is the reporter at fault?

The main question here is, did the reporter know that what he/she was writing was false/wrong? This is hard to prove but if the reporter knew what they were doing then that is the nail in the coffin for a libel case.

Now, I won’t get very far into this but these rules change as you look at public figures, private citizens, and public officials. Those who put themselves into the limelight have a little bit of a difficult time being able to prove libel because they have put themselves up for judgment.

What is a Crisis?? and do you have a plan?

“A disruption that physically affects a system as a whole, and threatens its basic assumptions, its a subjective sense of self, it esistential core.”

Researchers Thierry C. Pauchant & Ian I. Mitroff

A crisis in not exactly the same as a problem. A problem is  commonplace occurence and fairly predictable and can usually be addressed within a limited time frame, often without arousing any public attention or without drama (according to our book Public Relations: A values driven approach). A crisis is less predictable, it requires a cosiderable investment of time and resouces to resolve and often bring unwanted public attention; along with that it can challenge an org’s core values.

The question to be answered for most companies is do you have a crisis plan?

So how do you plan for the unknown?

On Continuity Centra’s website they give a two step process for crisis management created by Andrew Fernandez, who works for Dell inc., USA as a Manager-global business continuity. This is the two step process he prepared for this company.

Phase 1 – Pre planning (Risk assessment and mitigation)
The pre-planning stage follows the usual business continuity development cycle, which has been developed over time and ratified by bodies such as the Business Continuity Institute and the Disaster Recovery Institute International. However, the documentation available to explain how to develop a business continuity plan can be fairly extensive. My simplified version is as follows:

Step one KNOW your risks!! Risk is a very broad term, but here is a very simple way of breaking it down into bite sized pieces:

* Get your senior management team into a room;
* Identify all risks (internal and external) that can potentially impact your organization;
* Group ALL known risks into two categories – high probability, low probability;
* Assign downtime tolerance against each probability (Downtime should be restricted to three timelines: less than one business day, 1-2 business days, 2-7 business days);
* Identify the potential impact of a risk event on the business – high or low (notice there is no medium!).

Step two – ALL high probability risks should have a LOW impact. If NOT, your business is really in dangerous waters!! If any high probability risks turn out to have a high impact, then it is very important that an operational solution is put in place absolutely as soon as possible.

Step three – Get management prioritization for low probability/high impact risks, to ensure that as a business there is a clear consensus on what business continuity activities should focus on. Not sure where to start? Concentrate on the top three unaddressed risks with the highest impact.

Phase 2 – Crisis assessment and management planning (Incident resolution)
For starters, the crisis will need to be managed either by location and/or by business function and to manage it the team must be predefined and members must be clear about their roles. A crisis management team needs the following to be in place to be effective:

Role one: There must be clearly identified ‘assessors’ (along with back-ups to these people) whose sole mission is to be able to assess the business interruption impact and provide feedback to the incident management team.

The assessor is the eyes and ears of the business and clearly needs to have the expertise to understand and assess the impact to the infrastructure and people. Assessors typically represent functions such as HR, Security EHS, and Operations. Based on the size of the organization, they can perform their functions individually or as a group. If they work as a group, they would typically form the ‘Site Response Team’. Their core responsibilities are to:

* Analyze and assess incidents.
* Resolve incidents; and if no resolution is possible immediately, to escalate.
* Provide recommendations.
* Execute actions to facilitate the return to a state of normality.
* Coordinate the return to normal operations once the threat has been concluded.
* Initiate a post incident review to provide feedback – what went well/what did not work, areas for improvement etc.

Role two: Identify a group of senior executives whose role is to receive the feedback provided by the assessors. Depending on the size of the organization this can be one individual or more, or a group of individuals. Either way their role is to perform crisis management and hence they are what we typically know as the crisis management team.

This team or individual (s) are authorized to approve recommendations given and are mainly involved in the crisis management process because they have their finger on the pulse of the business and can gauge the impact that the interruption will cause to the organization and business activities in general. Core responsibilities for this team or individual(s) are:
* Provide guidance to the assessors.
* Receive recommendations and provide approval and direction.
* Be accountable for the direction provided.

Role three: Irrespective of the size of the organization, you must have a person designated to drive internal and, if required, external communication efforts. One of the fundamental flaws in many crisis responses is that an overdose of information is provided but with no real focus to the communication. Effective and proactive communication will create and build the perception that the organization is under control; that the company knows and understands what is happening; and that it will resolve the situation. No matter how big or small an organization, creditability can be gained or lost during a crisis.

For an organization that has multiple sites, or multiple locations, replicate the above process. Remember you must have eyes and ears on the ground. Speed is of the essence. Some points to consider are:

* If you have a cluster of buildings that is considered one site, your team needs to decide whether they need to have an assessor per building or per site;
* If you have sites in different locations/cities you must have a separate site response team. You may be able to work with one crisis management team as long as the site leads are part of the crisis management team.
* If you have sites in multiple countries, and regions, it is strongly recommended that you have regional crisis management teams and country specific response teams.

Is this PR? Tesco (3)

Here is another intersting example of PR.

This company, Tesco, recycles old meat into renewable energy.

This is great PR because they are doing their social duty to help the environment. They are diverting 95 percent of their wasted in order to create energy to power more than 600 homes a year.

I think this is a great example of PR because they are helping the environment and helping power people’s home. I think any example of someone helping the environment is an example of PR. They are answering the calls of their public to change how they dispose of waste because it is going into a landfill and this is their answer. The more and more people talk about it, the more respect/customers they will get.