No one is exempt from change; this can be a great threat or strength to any organization. The challenge for the PR Pro is how to deal with change. The advantage depends on the situation; if, for example, you are trying to introduce a new way to travel (read: Segway), you may find some resistance to change, for obvious reasons–price point, tradition, feasibility. On the other hand, if you are introducing a new, less expensive type of gasoline, you will probably have the upper hand from a PR perspective.

The savvy–and probably successful–PR Pro will know how to leverage the message and strategy to use change to his or her advantage. Knowledge and familiarity of key publics, perspective, as well as a handle on history will probably help you most. As an example, when dealing with people, there are some things that just do not change. For one, disclosure and honesty are always good ways to garner support or understanding from key publics, everyone is very familiar with the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol crisis and you probably know why it was considered a landmark PR case study–if not, you might want to catch up.

Even if you’re the PR Director for Google right now, you can leverage your message correctly to use change to your advantage. Talk about how Google has been a catalyst for change and innovation, talk about what Google is doing to stay up with the trends and times. Bottom line: the good PR Pro will always look for ways to keep a good PR message out there. With the speed of information exchange at an all-time high, today it is better said: no news is bad news! You have to keep your publics informed or they’ll turn elsewhere for that info.

My Two Cents: Look at change as an opportunity to be creative, innovative. Look at it as a chance to shine, the more you do, the more successful you’ll be.

You know, I am a relative newcomer to the PR field, but I think I see where executives have a hard time with PR. Executives are concerned with value, and PR, unlike advertising, doesn’t always bring immediate results–especially big immediate results. Ask Russ how long it took to get articles published about his clients in top tier publications, it is very much a relationship process, and how many of us can go out and become best friends with someone in only one day? (Execs and shareholders don’t want to wait that long)

PR’s eternal struggle will be to bring and show value. I had a manager who believed that PR was not measurable. As desireable as this was, it simply wasn’t true. If PR wants to keep its seat at the C-suite table, it needs to show results, it needs to show how it meets the bottom line. Where I see a struggle today is with new and emerging communication channels, how do you measure the effect of a YouTube video for your client? How do you measure the value of a Podcast or blog? The PR Pros who succeed in demonstrating value in these media will be very successful.

As a communicator, I really get a kick out of the new communications channels the Internet has provided, and podcasting is cool because it is tech-heavy, i.e., it requires a little bit of techknowledge in order to put it out there. The problem I have is this: How many people are going to use/listen to my podcast?

My gut tells me that tons of people know what a podcast is, thanks to Steve Jobs’ iPod. But I think, and my good friend Russ Page agrees, the curve for adoption from there drops off big time. Now ask people if they’ve listened to a podcast, probably a pretty good response, but then get into “Do you listen to the podcasts you subscribe to on a regular basis?”; “Do you know how to subscribe to a podcast?”; “Do you know how to create a podcast?” I base much of this off of my own experience, I listen to podcasts from time to time, I even subscribe to a handful, but because my work is thought intensive, I really can’t listen to the podcast during the day, and that doesn’t leave a lot of other time for me to listen to the podcast.

I think podcasting is a valuable tool, but it needs a little more education to speed up the adoption process. According to the Pew Institute, an April 2005 report stated that more than 22 million Americans own an Ipod or an mp3 player, of those, 29 percent have downloaded a podcast. that’s 6 million people. Definitely a lot, but the study doesn’t show repeat use, and can’t say for certain if the podcast was actually listened to–which as a communicator is very important. The research was also limited to those older than 18.

Here are some other interesting points:

• There are no differences between men and women owners of iPods/MP3 players
when it comes to podcasting. They are equally likely to have downloaded
podcasts.
• Nearly half of those who own iPods/MP3 players between the ages of 18-28 have
downloaded podcasts, compared to about 20% of the owners iPods/MP3 players
over age 29 who have done so.
• Somewhat surprisingly, there is no notable gap between those who have
broadband access and dial-up users when it comes to podcasting. Some 33% of
the owners of iPods/MP3 players who have broadband at home have downloaded
podcasts and 28% of those who have dial-up at home have done so. This is not a
statistically significant difference.

My Two Cents: I think it is still an evolving channel and given the adoption rate thus far, it may prove to be a quickly growing channel that is growing exponentially. At the very least, I think that a podcast can be a great additional resource, I would use a podcast to compliment a fact sheet or bio, it would add some audio that investors or journalists might be interested in listening to.
What do you think? Have you had success/failure with podcasting? Do you think it is a viable channel?

Let me say that as a PR person, Wikipedia is an important player in PR 2.0 and social media tactics, not only does it get your message, client or product in front of a lot of people in a very unbias location, but it is also a great SEO tool in the Web 2.0 realm.

Here are a couple of articles discussing the growing pains Wikipedia went through:

BW’s Heather Green’s post and CNET’s article

My Two Cents: I don’t think this is a bad thing. Granted it isn’t pleasant for Wikipedia or the parties that have been wronged, but we–players in the media industry–need to figure out how to use these developing media and I am hesitant to regulate the heck out of them, so I think this is an interesting point of discussion as long as some resolutions are made in the end and can be applied to the media industry.

What are your thoughts?

Russ is our in-house expert when it comes to many of today’s social media tactics and Web 2.0 stuff. Bob Mimms quotes Russ Page in his Google Trends article; the article appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune on Monday, August 14, 2006.

I think the problem with any new media channel is that we don’t quite know how to use it. Like a new born baby figuring out how to use its arms and legs, we know the channel is there and that it works, but it hasn’t been put to the test like many traditional media, i.e., regulated!

The other sad fact is that there are those in our industry who are dishonest–I know, I had a hard time believing it too when I found out. We definitely benefit from the nature of social media which relies on a very symmetrical, all-way communication model. If someone were to abuse a new media channel like Digg or Del.icio.us or YouTube, it is probably safe to say that there are enough of us are opinionated to say something and reverse or stop the abuse before it becomes a trend.

My Two Cents: the ease of use of new media channels does not remove the learning curve–in some cases, like YouTube, the novelty may serve to steepen the curve.

What do you think?