They buried the lead … last two paragraphs of … Openly displaying pride in their industry will help PR pros earn recognition as innovators – publicAffairs – PRWeek US
Student outreach is everyone’s responsibility
Not everyone who studies PR stays in PR, and recent evidence of that was found in a survey of Lagrant Foundation scholarship recipients. I am on the board of the foundation, which was created to increase diversity in the ad and PR industries. Many of the recipients have moved on to marketing-oriented positions. But even with the support of an organization designed to ease their way into a marketing career, some students never take up those opportunities at all, opting instead to move into sales, finance, banking, or something else.
While part of the problem is obviously keeping people engaged throughout college and beyond, another issue is bringing them into it in the first place. Kim Hunter, who launched the foundation, points out that many enter college with no idea what a PR career even is. The entire community should be willing to get involved in building awareness of the profession among those who haven’t had to pick a major yet.
Well, we are trying to keep them engaged through experiential learning: projects, campaigns, internships, blogging and mentoring. We’ll continue to keep our end of the bargain – and continue to push the process forward.
But we have some serious problems.
We have to look at the newer forms of public relations influenced by legislation such as non-financial reporting, material information affecting stock values (both own company and third parties), the influence of lawyers etc.
Relationship Management, CSR, value based PR, Reputation management, monitoring and evaluation are now all drivers.
The traditional press relations/agentry business is becoming disreputable (a form of aggressive telsales) against a backdrop of smaller newspapers and real survival issues for the sector is, rightly a turn off for educated youngsters.
The range of communications media is burgeoning (on top of the web, knowledge management, back office capability there are blogs, wikis, Internet protocol TV, podcasting, sms, IM – fast growing as a major corporate communication medium – VoIP and mobile everything).
And, all the while, the domains of PR practice grow.
Encouragement, pride in our industry yes, but with it comes a big range of responsibilities.
So its not Sex and the City its much better than that.
Amen, David. I agree. There are many more areas we need to address. And, I believe we do address them in the educational activities for our students. Do we cover them all as sufficiently as anyone wishes? That’s another post.
I was having that discussion yesterday with a practitioner. Our frustration in the classroom is to be able to sufficiently expose students to all the possibilities they will face in practice. We just can’t do it in the classroom alone in a broadly sufficient manner. Well, we could – with another two semesters, or so (actually more). So, the need for extra-curricular activities, mentoring and work experiences is crucial.
My point about the PR Week article is that the education has to go beyond what happens in college. It has to be happening in continuing education in the profession. A formal supported practice funded by the firms and associations is just one answer.
As for the “…its not Sex and the City” – I wholeheartedly agree. The statement could even be a daily mantra.
Be certain. That is not the perception of the profession we allow our students to leave school with – at all.
I’ll just point to MarcomBlog and their two internships as initial examples. Certainly it goes much deeper than that. Particularly in sufficiently addressing the issues raised in the article and in your comment – daily.