Seat at the Table

There’s plenty of conversation on the new PR skills needed and the future demand for PR. In thinking about it, I would argue that many PR professionals are more than ready for this shift as they have long been advocating open dialogue strategies (using town hall programs, public chats and other similar programs). The questions is when this will turn into a wholesale shift.

Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWatcher writes a great piece on why the the mainstream PR sector is booming as the mainstream media sector is fading. Read the whole article to understand his bottom line point: PR will change, when company executives start to realize the inneficiencies of the older model (as many have on the advertising side).

Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion comments that PR agencies are in fact slowly adapting. He makes the point that the agencies do change the “theater of operations” as appropriate.

The latter point is quite important. While PR has a lot of skill development to undertake, it’s structure is well suited for this change. We do have a tradition of looking at clients’ audiences and objectives in order to determine what communications medium the program should focus on (not to exclude others, but to be the central piece. Sometimes the program may be print media centric, sometimes the blogosphere and sometimes local, in person events.

Why is this important to realize? Because it makes it easier to adapt when it’s a matter of broadening and learning new areas of communications, rather than undertake a wholesale restructuring. There is a strong arguement that a wholesale restructuring is necessary given the command and control tradition of many PR professionals. Perhaps. But there are also many agencies and professionals that have long advocated a dialogue with audiences through town hall meetings, online chats and other types of programs. For these agencies and professionals, it’s an easier matter of expanding the skill set.