Bill Sledzik on “What Public Relations is Not…”
Kent State professor Bill Sledzik is one of my “must reads” on the Web. He is honest about his often-tortured feelings about blogging and the time it takes away from the rest of life, threatening at times to pull the plug on his blog. While bemoaning the Web at times, Bill’s posts are always entertaining and thought-provoking.
His latest series of posts — a kind of “big-picture” examination of public relations — follow in the high standards he has set. I love the subtitle of his recent post “Repeat after me: Public relations IS NOT marketing.”
Bill and I have had friendly disagreements regarding the integration or lack of mixing the two disciplines, but I really enjoy the discussions and think that there really isn’t a large gap between our views.
I particularly appreciate Bill’s explanation of the basic skills necessary for success in public relations versus marketing: “pubic relations has a broader reach, not to mention a very different tool kit than the marketers. Still, no matter how hard we fight the perception, people tend to view us as ‘promoters,’ or part of the marketing function.” Building this skillset in my students is the reason I jumped into academe after many years as a professional communicator.
I urge anyone interested in communications to read Bill’s post and respond with their own thoughts and feelings.
July 24th, 2008 at 20:23
You are too kind, Bob. I have enjoyed our exchanges and our disagreements. I’ll get you turned around on this marketing thing yet. I posted a long exchange to your comment on the previous post. Be sure to check it out.