PR-Bridge

The disparity between what communications students and business students learn in the classroom is immense, though there are some critical overlaps, at least from the communications side of the fence. Basically, mass communications students are required to take some introductory-level business classes, while business students are often shut out of our classes due to the entrance requirements in many journalism and mass comm departments.

Despite that business students often take no formal communications classes, they still somewhere in their curriculum pick up enough to assume that they understand public relations, advertising, etc. While it may seem insignificant for 22-year olds marching across a stage to pick up their diplomas, the lack of actual training versus the opposite notion leads to ramifications that are negative for budding executives and communicators.

Assessing the “challenges” in overcoming this issue, the best option seems to be beefing up the business-side of the communications curriculum, primarily due to the silo nature of higher education. My experience is that business school faculty and their colleagues from mass communications and communications rarely work together for the good of the whole. [Though I am hoping I find a different situation here at Kent State] Creating future public relations professionals who have a greater understanding of business management (beyond the basic introductory classes, which are often large lectures) will enable those new communicators to prove that they can “talk the talk” with their business colleagues.

My own experiment with infusing my courses with more business management perspective has been ongoing for the five years I taught at the University of South Florida and continues now as I transition to teaching graduate classes in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State. My self-assessment is that the effort at USF lead to some better basic understanding of business, particularly when it came to introducing my students to integrated marketing communications.

At Kent State, I am upping the ante significantly in a graduate-level class this semester: “Public Relations Management.” Traditionally, the class is taught as a glorified case study-centered course, focusing on having the students create a strategic plan for a local nonprofit organization. While I do not denigrate those that follow this format — there is certainly value in it for PR grad students who have little practical knowledge — where is the “management” aspect in that scenario?

Instead, I ask the students to actually engage with strategic management thinkers and to look at the business environment from an executive position. As I set up the course, I found it shockingly easy to find material that provided accessible executive viewpoints. Using the Harvard Business Review, I have them read Peter F. Drucker, arguably the greatest management mind in recent history, and other pieces that address how c-level businesspeople think, feel, and make decisions.

In both my professional and academic careers, one recurring criticism of public relations and communicators I hear (particularly from executives) is that the agency, company communicators, etc., “don’t understand my business.” Though I personally see this as a challenge on the part of the executive as much as the communicators, it is my hope that introducing my students to some innovative business thinking and theory will help them look at business challenges as business challenges and not just communications challenges.

In discussions with educators, I often use the analogy that we are all some version of Johnny Appleseed, spreading seeds of knowledge that our students will go out and grow. My march continues…in a future post I’ll share the sproutlings.

ROI, ROI, ROI…one might assume these three little letters would be first on the mind of communicators, particularly as they evaluate 2009 and plan for 2010. Yet, anyone with experience in the industry knows that evaluating the value of a communications program often falls by the wayside in the hurry to implement the next plan or phase of the current plan.

As a result, the rhetorical question contained in the title of this post becomes hazy. Communicators think quite a bit about ROI, but coming up with meaningful methods of determining return are less bountiful. My thinking is that 2010 should be the year of ROI in the communications industry — as should every year — until we have an accepted method of measuring return that is accepted among professionals and our executive brethren.

Below is an excerpt of a comment I posted at PR Nonsense, March Communications’ blog written by Meredith Eaton, which examines some trends for PR in the new year, rightly identifying an increased interest in ROI in the CEO’s office:

“ROI will remain increasingly important, but [I] wonder how the industry will address this challenge. As a former professional and current PR academic, my thinking is that coming up with a reasonable method for measuring ROI is going to take a partnership between practitioners and scholars that is currently only taking place in pockets.

I find it ironic that the industry has about a million social media “gurus,” but only a handful (if that) of widely-acknowledged ROI/measurement experts (such as Katie Paine). The development of ROI is essential for respect in the executive suite, yet the industry lacks the ability to prove its worth.

Overall, from my perspective, it seems as if too many communications professionals think like consultants, rather than CEOs.”

A quick search around the blog world shows that many others are discussing return from a variety of viewpoints. Rachel Rose Belew, for example, examines the difference between the hard and soft sciences of communications writing at her blog The Copywriter’s Crucible. She sees a marriage between the “art” of creativity and “science” of measurement.

Beth Harte, at Marketing Profs Daily Fix, provides a detailed overview of building a strategic communications plan and how one would calculate ROI based on its implementation. Beth also provides a list of links to other pieces she’s written on ROI, which are valuable for anyone hoping to gain insight on the topic.

Of course, no discussion of measurement is complete without acknowledging the leadership of Katie Paine. Her latest post is a clinic in thoughtful thinking about calculating ROI in social media.

My Kent State colleague Sean Williams is also a frequent commentator on ROI at his blog Communication AMMO! His recent post on the theoretical underpinnings of social media provides a basis for thinking about ROI in that area. Sean’s future research will be a real eye-opener as organizations continue to search for measurable methods for developing social media campaigns.

I keep returning to the last point I made in the comment at PR Nonsense regarding the mindset of communicators. The notion that we should emulate consultants (”counselors”), rather than executives seems to be a hindrance to thinking through ROI. If professionals started looking at the business from the viewpoint of the C-level executives they work for, they may find that this perspective naturally leads to greater emphasis on calculating return.

However, students and young professionals are taught to link of themselves as counselors — sitting at the CEO’s table and whispering communications nothings in his ear — rather than as members of the CEO’s operating team, focused on the same things that keep the CEO up at night. In reality, we need to think more like business leaders and less like communicators.

This idea is also central to my conception of integrated communications, which at its heart, means that communications leaders link their strategic plans directly to the plans of the CEO and/or Board of Directors. Conducting this kind of planning forces the communications team to directly focus on the organization’s plan and its outcomes or aspirations.

Making ROI the centerpiece of the industry necessitates cooperation between the professional and academic worlds. I look forward to the day when we have thousands of Katie Paine-like ROI “gurus” tackling measurement. The industry needs it, as do our organizational partners.