Happiness is now on the agenda and its official

Following the discourse in policy and political circles since the financial crash has been a giddy but fascinating ride.  The latest development is that President Sarkozy has called for the way we assess GDP and national economic performance needs, to be reassessed and that happiness and health need to be measured and added to the picture.  This would have the impact of pushing France much higher up world economic rankings and closing the gap with the USA. 

What gives the speech added impetus is he is drawing on the work of US economist and Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and the publication of the results of the Commission of Economic Performance and Social Progress, set up by the French government of which he was a leading member. Stiglitz is quoted in the FT (print version but not online) as saying "What we measure affects what we do." (Useful to remember for PR campaigns as well.)   He then goes on to say "Behind the cult of the figures, behind all these statistical and accounting structures there is also the cult of the market that is always right."  (A nice nod to Foucault.)

What is interesting for PR is the way that the dominant paradigm of market force supremacy which has stood relatively unchallenged for 40 years continues to be worked over from a range of sources.  It would be very interesting to hear how this discourse is influencing the work of the large PR agencies and in-house teams for major global companies.  Second, it also raises issues about the way that PR programmes are measured - what metrics are being used and are the metrics all market based or is there some debate going on in the industry about using metrics which might have a wider social context.  Finally, it could be argued that what Sarkozy and Stiglitz are wanting to measure and to value in an economy are aspects such as social cohesiveness even social capital.  Some commentators have argued that PR is about organisational social capital and that makes this intiative particularly interesting and also one which will further add to the interesting discourse developments over the coming months and years.

PR Academic Conference, University of Stirling - initial thoughts

Just a few initial thoughts on the PR conference at Stirling which I much enjoyed.    

• Foucault and Habermas were mentioned more than Grunig.
• PR as dialogue, discourse, rhetoric as well as power and contested space were well explored reflecting developing research agendas.  
• The PR practitioner as an ethical negotiator might have been a sub-heading for the event as certainly ethics was a constant refrain.  In fact by the end, when Joanna Fawkes from Leeds Met said that "PR as persuasion" was a more ethical stance, there were plenty of nodding heads looking for some moral confidence and certainty on the subject.
• From a practical PR perspective, Prof. Anne Gregory's talk with Paul Willis on work on the UK National Health Service was fascinating for integration of business and PR strategy, interpretation of social values which the NHS embodies into the campaign and then how the communications training programme is being rolled out across the NHS. 
• Some interesting European research from Ralph Tench on corporate communications due to be launched this week was unveiled.  Perspectives from practitioners on new and developing areas of practice from the survey highlighted decline of marketing communications in terms of importance for corporate comms and growth of internal communications.  Research also highlighted uncertainty about how to use social media. 
  
• A fascinating session on terrorism and PR; with a particularly interesting paper from University of Coleraine in Northern Ireland on the way they have used a research project looking at first year students' perspectives on the Troubles to develop awareness about media and PR.
• No mention of social capital which surprised me.
• Leeds Met and Stirling had an impressive range of papers and both bring different and complementary research perspectives to the industry.  Leeds Met is more practice based while Stirling is more focusing on explore the influence of different social sciences on the PR sector.

Stirling is a great location and the conference was held in the management centre which is superbly designed for networking with the bar just off reception.  Very welcoming and stimulating event.

A great summary of the media landscape in a Robert Peston blog/speech

Planning a course on Media Relations it would be hard to find a single source which raises so many issues on role and future of journalism and by implication role and future of media relations as Robert Peston's latest blog entry.  This is a reprint of Robert Peston's speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival sponsored by the Media Guardian and reprinted as a blog.  The speech being a blog is of course significantly enhanced by readers' comments underneath (114 two days later) - for a recent Royal Bank of Scotland blog he ended up with over 700 - and this is of course an increasingly interesting and important aspect of media relations in terms of monitoring and judging how a story and discourse is being received and in its future development. 

I also thought it was particularly noteworthy how important the blog is in the development and disseminaton of his ideas; "For me, the blog is at the core of everything I do, it is the bedrock of my output. The discipline of doing it shapes my thoughts. It disseminates to a wider world the stories and themes that I think matter.....Most important of all, the blog allows me and the BBC to own a big story and create a community of interested people around it. Sharing information - some of it hugely important, some of it less so - with a big and interested audience delivers that ownership and creates that committed community."

A grand discourse on the future of the City of London

The fall-out from the financial crash continues. Markets and economies may be stabilising but we are now in the midst of a grand discourse and clash of ideas on the role of financial markets. Lord Turner, head of the FSA, the City regulator, has been quoted in a magazine article as saying that some City trading activity is "socially useless" and "efficient market theory" has been found wanting and consideration should be given to a transaction tax called Tobin's tax, after the US economist who first suggested it, to reduce the power of financial markets.

The reaction from the City and also government has been strongly critical but interestingly the reaction from the financial press has been more nuanced and supportive of the debate. This supports my sense that the City has ridden roughshod over the financial media (and society?) for too long and is paying the price. The City has also ignored the requirement in a modern democracy that a major sector needs to participate in the debate of ideas with society, along the lines of Habermas' communicative action with a genuine interest in hearing different perspectives. The City has put forward a very narrow ideology based on jobs and importance to UK plc and the financial crash has led to this being questioned. Somehow one cannot imagine that the industry body, the British Bankers Association, has ever funded research on supporting the rationale of financial markets, but perhaps this now needs to be part of its communications strategy going forward, if it wants to protect the interest of its members.

The French philospher, Michel Foucault, would surely have been interested in this debate. Not only is the accepted "truth" of the primacy of financial markets now being contended but it is the way that the new discourses are being developed. Foucault was interested not only in the "regime of truth" but the processes developing it. The current debate has not come from the left and traditional critics of the City; but this time from the heart of the City establishment - and in Foucauldian terms, this is what gives it such power. In fact the original Prospect article which takes the form of a round table discussion/interview with Lord Turner by leading City analysts and journalists including a recently retired Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, John Grieve. In PR terms it will be interesting to see what discourse strategies are developed by the City establishment in the coming weeks and months to defend its position; certainly it is a particularly interesting challenge for the City's financial PR community to consider.

No doubt the City will "win" the argument in the short and medium term. However, as some media have suggested the most difficult long term blow for the City comes with the comment that it is "socially useless" In a society where corporate social responsibility is part of the framework and language of modern organisations and the way that they sell themselves to future employees - that is indeed a damaging blow.

US healthcare debate - PR's dirty secret?

Is the US healthcare debate which seems to have quickly moved to "sound and fury" and limited illumination of the various points - or at least how it is reported over here in the UK - also an example of PR distorting the "public space".

Bloomberg highlights that it is a lobbying feeding frenzy with most of the lobbying coming from the major interest groups such as the health insurers. Open Secrets a NGO whose mission is to bring into the public forum, the link between private finance and Washington politics, has a table showing that healthcare lobbying accounts for some of the largest investment in lobbying by any industry sector groups over the last 10 years. Another list provided by Open Secrets , shows leading Washington lobbyists. I can only see one firm which jumps out with strong links to major international agencies, Ogilvy Government Relations, which is part of WPP.

Behind the lobbying will be some very large PR campaigns, both media relations and public engagement. A former PR director of communications in the US insurance sector has given insight into this area and criticised some of the techniques used in an interview on another NGO site, Center for Media and Democracy, whose domain name suggests the agenda, PRWatch.org.

I am not across the debate and the various points of view. However I was very struck by hearing recently from my cousin who lives in the USA about her fears and concerns about health care and the cost as she and her family get older particularly as unemployment grows. Certainly looking at the sheer volume of money from the health industry in the US going into the political process which has probably been matched by PR and advertising campaigns over this period and it does suggest that the communication process has been "colonised" as Habermas suggested.

Is there a debate in the US PR industry about its role in the healthcare debate as it raises important issues for all of us involved in the industry?

Goldman Sachs reputation under the spotlight - time to read about Habermas and social legitimacy

The reputation of Goldman Sachs, the legendary investment bank, which survived the financial crisis in better shape than almost all financial institutions, has now come in for a new series of attacks in the media, some from unexpected media sources, such as Rolling Stone magazine as well as the New York magazine. These articles have in turn generated a wider news agenda.


Recent comments have been more nuanced than the general attack on all banks earlier in the year; as this time it has primarily focused on Goldman Sach's access to power particularly under President Bush, and how the bailout of the banks and other key financial institutions such as the insurance company AIG was especially beneficial for the organisation. Taibbi, the author of the highly critical article in Rolling Stone would say even saved Goldman Sachs.

The Financial Times this week, entered the fray about Goldman Sachs, as it had commissioned WPP company Brand Asset Consulting, to do a major survey on the attitude of US citizens to financial organisations. This large 17000 people survey, which one assumes had taken place prior to these recent critical articles, highlighted that the reputation of Goldman Sachs had suffered over the last two years, more for example, than Morgan Stanley which has been noticeably less successful. The FT quoted survey organiser, Anne Rivers, that "Goldman Sachs still has that Gordon Gekko look to it among the general public,” referring to the villain of the 1987 film Wall Street.

It raises an interesting point about corporate reputation which the New York magazine suggests, that Goldman Sachs may be suffering as it is seen as too successful and powerful. Can too much success be damaging for the corporate reputation of a major organisation - Microsoft might suggest this is feasible. But is this the reason in the case of Goldman Sachs?

I think the problem is related to the fact that financial organisations are still coming to grips with the new order. They are no longer "Masters of the Universe" - able to set the political and financial agenda - which for the last 20 years they have been able to do so, with governments in awe of them. The financial community needs to think about the concept of a "licence to operate". Social legitimacy draws on, amongst others, Habermas and communicative action and that organisations need to earn the right to operate. The financial sector has been a classic example of a sector which has "colonised" and so distorted the communicative process with wider society about its role i.e set the agenda, not listened carefully to society and other interest groups.

The financial crash and rescue of the financial community by international governments has changed all this. I would suggest that society is now requiring that large financial organisations like Goldman Sachs need to be more than just financial technocrats and need to articulate more strongly how they are contributing to society. This is not something which changes over night but, I would suggest, is an important element of corporate reputation and the latest comments from the Head of Communications at Goldman Sachs suggests that this lesson is still being learned, as the Reuters blogger suggests.

Every company is a media company

I have recently had a trawl through the news related applications on iPhone and downloaded a number of these to try them out. It is interesting to note that a number of US government organisations have developed applications for the iPhone at a minimal cost (99 cents) and one of these is for the CIA.

What struck me looking at my iPhone this morning is that alongside the Financial Times icon, Sky, Daily Telegraph, BBC (why has the Guardian not created one?) etc on my iPhone, now sits an icon for the CIA - but it could be BP, University of Greenwich or any organisation which I have a relationship with or interest in. Somehow the iPhone screens and collective icons - all of the same size - bring home the point made by various commentators including Andrew Heyward and Richard Edelman that all companies are now media companies and content producers in the social media environment. This of course raises major challenges and opportunities for PR as credible "content producers" for organisations. But perhaps this process can be seen as a necessary development for organisations as they seek to develop new more direct channels of communication and dialogue with stakeholders as traditional media fragments.