Putting the Public Back into Public Relations

Yesterday, my fellow PR student's and I wrote an E-book in a day on 'Peer2Peer' PR.  This movement creates an innovation for PR using social media to engage key stakeholders of PR reaching PR agencies, CIPR professionals, Southampton Solent PR degree alumni and all other fellow PR lovers. Not to mention CIPR President Stephen Waddington, who was present and contributed in the writing of the book. Have a read of Stephen Waddington's blog to see what he had to say about the day. 
So this is how the day went. We started the day at 9am with enough snacks to feed a small army.  

Tip #1 for writing an E-book in a day: BRING SNACKS

Tip #2 never underestimate the power of the SELFIE

The book was split into eight sections and the section I was working on was: Co-Creation.

This involved collaborating with PR professionals and PR students to find out what they thought the #perfectintern or #perfectinternship was. We used social media platform twitter to get people to tweet in their opinions between 12 and 1. The response was great, we totalled 42 responses in 1 hour. 
Here are a few examples of what people tweeted in: 

             "The perfect intern should be full of fresh ideas and be media savvy"

  "The perfect intern should be proactive, motivated, interested, interesting. Show                                  your initiative and it will be rewarded!"

"The perfect internship has a mentor who the intern feels comfortable talking with about what their enjoying/need support with"

Here is a sneak peak of my contribution to the E-book:

The concept of co-creation is to create value, it is a collaborative exchange of conversation (Tussyadiah and Zach, 2014) and where better than to create conversation than social media. Social platform’s are key enablers (Lewis and Pea et al., 2014) that bring people together. Co-creation can ultimately drive business growth and enhance brand reputation (Glassman, 2014). Social media was effective in engaging with PR professionals and PR students to collect meaningful insights into what the perfect intern or internship was, it successfully reached a range of people and asked them a question which received instant feedback. 

What are your views on co-creation and social media?
Nikita

Glassman, N. 2014. How Co-Creation Can Spark Innovation and Build Your Brand [CONVO] | Social Media Today. [online] Available at: http://socialmediatoday.com/neilglassman/488907/how-co-creation-can-spark-innovation-and-build-your-brand-convo [Accessed: 26 Mar 2014].

Lewis, S., Pea, R. and Rosen, J. 2014. [online] Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A169_Lewis-Pea-Rosen_SSI_2010.pdf [Accessed: 26 Mar 2014].

Tussyadiah, L. and Zach, F. 2014. [online] Available at: http://www.tussyadiah.com/Publication/enter2013_tussyadiah_zach_co-creation.pdf [Accessed: 26 Mar 2014].

Obama's Nice Negotiations go Nowhere!

When it comes to negotiating, skilled, well-researched tactics are essential. It is a crucial part of winning any negotiation to know and understand how far the other party is willing to cooperate. You would think with all the people that work for President Obama someone would have told him that there is no way that a few visa restrictions would stop President Putin from taking control of Crimea and Ukraine. Putin wants power and power is what he has. 

When examining their negotiation styles, it can be seen that Putin has adopted a forcing and competing style and Obama an accommodating style. Which do you think is better? I personally think there needs to be some collaborating going on, before things get worst!

 The clip below shows Obama’s full statement.

"Vladimir Putin’s argument that Russia must protect Russian speakers in Crimea has echoes of Hitler’s tactics in the 1930s.” 

-Hilary Clinton, the former US secretary of state and likely 2016 presidential candidate

Image: Ukraine protest's against Russia's invasion

Hilary Clinton's statement show's the extreme power that Putin has. He has set out to take control of Crimea, he has used strong propaganda to gain the power of the people in Russia. The Russians are united, they are fuming and they know that they have the military strength to defend their country and their people. It is pretty much a done deal that Putin has taken over Crimea. The question remains how much of Ukraine will he take?

The US and EU will have to be brave and courageous if they really are willing to protect Ukraine. The US has said that using military action is not something they are prepared to do. However, I think that a credible commitment to support the Ukrainian government in case of military confrontation inside Ukraine is definitely needed. 

There needs to be a united front from the US and EU. What Russia is doing is unprecedented in the 21st century, the US and EU should not stand for it. Russians respect strength and consistency, neither of which has been displayed by Obama or his European counterparts. The US need step up their negotiations and rise from being the accommodating type.  

What is your view? Should the US and EU be doing more to protect Ukraine? Is there any way you think Obama could improve on his negotiation skills? Are there any particular negotiations you have been successful in getting the desired WIN-WIN?

Insensitive coverage of missing jet causes Twitter backlash

Have the media taken it too far in their recent camera attack of those unfortunate families who have just found out their loved ones are in the missing Malaysia Airlines plane? In my opinion YES!
This is a clear example of how not to deal with a sensitive issue. When delivering high concern messages being compassionate is of the utmost importance, it is essential to listen to those who are suffering and deal with it in an appropriate manner.   

A few examples of the twitter backlash are shown below. Personally, Im not surprised the public reacted in this way.

The video below shows how families have had to fight through reporters and cameras in their face, you can see the pain they are in and surely any humane person would know that a death of a loved one is the worst thing any person can go through. Yet, the media still choose to hound these people who are clearly suffering!

http://live.wsj.com/video/mother-reacts-to-news-son-is-on-missing-plane/D68F883A-7B76-4AC3-B1EC-9822473FA0A3.html?mod=e2tw#!D68F883A-7B76-4AC3-B1EC-9822473FA0A3

No compassionate person would want to see this! As caring human beings our natural instinct is to sympathise with those people who are suffering. Not the media though! Their natural instinct was to put a camera in the face of the distressed.

As anyone can imagine the families of these passengers are going through a dreadful heartbreaking shock. People from all over the world have been offering their support and sending their love and prayers to the families.

However, it seems the media have not been so sympathetic. Posting photos of grieving families has shown how hungry they are for a newsworthy story, even at the expense of others.



WSJ had clearly not thought about what kind of reaction posting this grief porn would attract. The first thing I think they should have done was:

1. Pay attention to and understand the feelings of the families in pain. 

If they had listened and empathised with the families their first reaction would not have been to film their agony. If the media had kept a good relationship with the families and offered sympathy before trying to get a story they could have acquired a better story once the families had a chance to calm down from the initial shock.

This example of insensitivity can be related to every day life. For example, redundancy is a very sensitive issue which can also be heartbreaking and resemble a great loss. When making people redundant managers can often look past the feelings of their employees and simply "do their job". I think in everyday life it is important to bring compassion into what we do and think about how other people are feeling, because although you may just be doing your job the person opposite you is suffering and if you were in their position you would want someone to show sensitivity and appreciation of the situation.  

What do you think about how the media has posted news about this tragedy? Is there another way you think that the media could have dealt with this issue? How would you go about dealing with high concern messages? Please comment your views.

My prayers and love go out to the victims of the Malaysia Airlines.

Nikita