Interesting article by Robert Reich, ex-Goldman Sachs and very successful Treasury Secretary under Clinton, now Professor of Public Policy at Berkeley on our role as consumers in the crisis of capitalism.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Organisations start to post corporate communications plans online
The transparency and public diplomacy agenda is seeing a growing number of public organisations start to post their strategic or corporate communications plans online. This is a new trend although it is one where very few commercial organisations have followed the same path and would seem to be an area crying out for more research. Here are the unscientific results of some of these reports which I have found online in preparation for a course I am running this term on Corporate Communications and also for the Erasmus IP programme in March in Belgium on lobbying and government relations.
I became aware of this trend, attending the Euprera conference at Leeds Metropolitan University in the summer where Robert Hastings, formerly Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs at the US Defense Department spoke about the development of a strategic communications plan for the department. Staying with the military and the US Marine has its 2007 report online. Be prepared for an aggressive corporate agenda!
As part of this process and here the public diplomacy agenda would appear to be particularly influential and is driving the development of several reports looking at the role of strategic communications at a national level. First the US Defense Department's research team, the Defense Science Board has produced one and more recently the UK's Chatham House think tank has produced one in conjunction with Bell Pottinger, titled Strategic Communications and National Strategy. The idea underpinnng these is that communications is a strategic resource and is a response to the perceived dominance of communications by Al-Qaeda in the first few years after 2011.
It would appear that the forerunner (happy to be corrected if readers have other examples) of major communication plans online is the EU's White Paper on Communication Policy in 2006 and the EU Green Paper on Transparency in the same year. Although the borough of St Edmundsbury in Suffolk deserve an honourable mention for putting up corporate communication plans in 2003, the earliest I have found.
Active current corporate communication plans available online are Portsmouth City Council and the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence.
Finally a special mention should be made of one commercial group of companies, cement manufacturers, which with funding from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and carried out by environmental consultancy ERM and Batelle has produced a corporate communications guide to its operators, titled Communication and Stakeholder Guidebook for Cement Facilities.
I would welcome any links to add to the list.
I became aware of this trend, attending the Euprera conference at Leeds Metropolitan University in the summer where Robert Hastings, formerly Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs at the US Defense Department spoke about the development of a strategic communications plan for the department. Staying with the military and the US Marine has its 2007 report online. Be prepared for an aggressive corporate agenda!
As part of this process and here the public diplomacy agenda would appear to be particularly influential and is driving the development of several reports looking at the role of strategic communications at a national level. First the US Defense Department's research team, the Defense Science Board has produced one and more recently the UK's Chatham House think tank has produced one in conjunction with Bell Pottinger, titled Strategic Communications and National Strategy. The idea underpinnng these is that communications is a strategic resource and is a response to the perceived dominance of communications by Al-Qaeda in the first few years after 2011.
It would appear that the forerunner (happy to be corrected if readers have other examples) of major communication plans online is the EU's White Paper on Communication Policy in 2006 and the EU Green Paper on Transparency in the same year. Although the borough of St Edmundsbury in Suffolk deserve an honourable mention for putting up corporate communication plans in 2003, the earliest I have found.
Active current corporate communication plans available online are Portsmouth City Council and the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence.
Finally a special mention should be made of one commercial group of companies, cement manufacturers, which with funding from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and carried out by environmental consultancy ERM and Batelle has produced a corporate communications guide to its operators, titled Communication and Stakeholder Guidebook for Cement Facilities.
I would welcome any links to add to the list.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Leveson enquiry and reputation of UK tabloid media
Does the media "get" the impact of the Leveson enquiry? I think it is starting to, but it is finding the whole process extraordinarily difficult and alien to it. Many of the commentators on Newsnight and the Today programme, often former editors now Professors of Media, seem to me "behind the curve" and very protective of their former colleagues and not aware of the major reputational damage being inflicted.
Associated Newspapers was very ill-advised to put out such an intemperate comment/news piece about Hugh Grant's evidence to the enquiry within just hours of his appearance. Note that they are no longer allowing comments on this piece and also the announcement does not appear to be on the Associated Newspapers web site! Leveson was not amused. These were the comments of a major power broker - editor Paul Dacre and Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday team - under pressure and not at all happy - were they shown to Associated Newspapers?
News International and now Associated Newspapers both with formidable insight into their readers and customers. But the evidence of the last year is that both seem to have no understanding of their responsibility to their wider stakeholders. Perhaps this is because of their long held power and deference of many stakeholders to them. Does PR play any influential role at Associated Newspapers - I wonder - I suspect similar to News International which did not understand the role of PR until Edelman came on board in the UK in recent months.
Having just given a lecture on crisis PR in the consumer context, there is a very apt quote from Timothy Coombs and Sherry Holladay in PR Strategy and Application (Ch.12), "crises typically violate how constituents expect an organisation to behave." Yes, we might have known about some of the tactics of the tabloids which have come out in the Leveson enquiry, but the extent and range of evidence does feel to me like a "violation". I wonder if we may in a few years look back and realise that Leveson was the start of an important reformation of the tabloid press.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Kaizo talk at Greenwich
A big thanks to Dave Robertson and Bryony Chinnery from Kaizo who gave an interesting talk last night to the Masters PR students on recent work. This included talking about Cargill's Truvia, a natural sweetener which has just gained EU regulatory approval and which had a major pre-launch event in London in the summer and Unilever VIP, a Facebook community which they have helped develop for the global brand.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Lobbying - readings part 2
My colleague Paul has come up with some very good additional readings on lobbying.
Dahan, N.M. (2009) "The four Ps of corporate political activity: a framework for environmental analysis and political action", in Journal of Public Affairs, 9 (2 ), pp. 111-123;
McGrath, C. (2006) "The ideal lobbyist: Personal characteristics of effective lobbyists", in Journal of Communication Management, 10 (1), pp. 67-79
McGrath, C. et al. (2010) "The evolving discipline of public affairs", in Journal of Public Affairs, 10 (4), pp. 335-352;
Industry Paper: (an oldie, but still a goodie - link supplied, and copy attached)
Parvin, P. (2007) Friend or Foe? Lobbying in British Democracy - a discussion paper, London: Hansard Society
[Accessed via http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/downloads/archive/2007/09/24/friend-or-foe-lobbying-in-british-democracy-jan-2007.aspx on 20/11/2011]
Books:-
Strictly functional/nuts and bolts rather than theoretical, but in that respect, probably necessary and worth including. Has full section on the EU too.
Zetter, L. (2011) Lobbying: The Art of Political Persuasion (2nd ed), Petersfield: Harriman House
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Lobbying in the EU - readings
This is a list of introductory readings and links which I have put together for the Erasmus IP which Greenwich along with six other universities across Europe is participating in next March in Gent, Louvain and Brussels studying lobbying and government relations in Europe as part of postgraduate public relations study across Europe. The timing of the intensive two week workshop could not be better with lobbying a topical issue in many countries. I and my colleagues would be interested to hear about other works which we should be including and any suggestions would be welcome. I have also included the participating universities below.
de Bussy ,
N.M.
Amin., M.
2010. The “L” Word: Is lobbying
actually a sign of progress in developing countries? World Bank
blogs. http://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/node/10439
University
of Greenwich
Papers and cuttings
Alter, R. 2010. Clearer Lobbying for Cleaner Policy Making. OECD Observer.
Anon. Lobbying in theEU. 2008. EU Insight.
Anon. Expert Group on Conflict of Interest with aspecial session on lobbying: enhancing transparency and accountability, Paris. June 2007. 2007.
OECD.
Godwin, R. 2011. Lobbying, a ticking timebomb. Evening Standard. 14th Oct. 2011.
Jensen, I. 2002. Public Relations and Emerging Functions ofthe Public Sphere. An Analytical Framework.
Journal of Communication Management.
Mack, R. 2005. Lobbying effectively in Brusselsand Washington– getting the right result. Practice
Papers. Journal of Communication
Management.
Jaatinen, M.
1998. Lobbying for conflict accommodation – contingency model. Corporate Communications.
Svendsen, G.T., 2011. Evaluatingand Regulating the Impacts of lobbying in the EU? The case study of greenindustries. Environmental Policy and
Governance. Wiley.
Schepers, S. 2010. Business-government relations: beyondlobbying. Corporate Governance.
Books
L’Etang, J. 2009. Public Relations – Concepts, Practice and
Critique. Ch.5. Public Affairs and
the Public Sphere. P.96. Sage.
Von Schendelen, R. 2003.
Machiavelli in Brussels Amsterdam
Tench, R., Yeoman, L. 2006.
Exploring Public Relations. Pearson.
Ch.23, Public Affairs. p.447.
Links
Amin., M.
2010. The “L” Word: Is lobbying
actually a sign of progress in developing countries? World Bank
blogs. http://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/node/10439
Alber & Geiger.
2011. “EU’s leading lobbying law firm.” http://www.albergeiger.com/?gclid=CPPoiaz_9KsCFYMPfAodjSOWJQ
Banks, M. 2011. UK
Bingle, P. 2011. Why lobbying is a good thing. The Dispatch Box, The blog of Bell Pottinger
Public Affairs. http://bp-pa.blogspot.com/2011/10/musing-on-why-lobbying-is-good-thing.html
EU Transparency Register. 2011. http://europa.eu/transparency-register/index_en.htm
Igan, D., Mishra,
P., Tressel, T. 2009. A
Fistful of Dollars : Lobbying and the Financial Crisis. IMF Working Paper. Accessed online.
Lobbying in the European Union. Current Rules and Practices. 2003.
European Parliament. http://ec.europa.eu/civil_society/interest_groups/docs/workingdocparl.pdf
OECD. 2008. Lobbyists, governments and public trust. Building a legislative framework for
enhancing transparency and accountability in lobbying. http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,3746,en_2649_34135_41074896_1_1_1_1,00.html
Sharif, H. 2011. I
hate lobbyists. And I am one. But they are absolutely necessary. The Commentator. 18th Oct. 2011. http://www.thecommentator.com/article/546/i_hate_lobbyists_and_i_am_one_but_they_are_absolutely_necessary_
Worst EU Lobby Awards.
http://www.worstlobby.eu/
European partners in Erasmus IP
Nancy-Université
(Université
Nancy2) http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/
Universitatea din Bucureşti
http://www.unibuc.ro/depts/litere/dcrp/index.php
Universidad Cardenal Herrera
www.uch.ceu.es
Instituto Superior de Novas Profissoes http://www.inp.pt/
Monday, 26 September 2011
Facebook and privacy - how will it impact on the IPO?
It would appear that there is a growing concern over recent Facebook changes which in turn raises more general worries over Facebook's approach to privacy. Certainly speaking to my students today, all active Facebook users (I am not a Facebook user), there is growing concern about the new changes. Next year's likely IPO for the company must raise concerns that the company will seek to commercialise too quickly, something which Sir Martin Sorrell has recently alluded to at the recent Royal Television Society Cambridge conference.
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