And I believe him. Often, I have felt similar alarm as I review industry releases. I ask my students to read 10 releases each week while they take the writing course, which most often exposes more bad than good PR writing.

Ragan believes the problem resides at the feet of young professionals. He explains, “There is a reason for the template, of course. None of the kids hired by the agencies and billed out at $150 an hour have the slightest idea what they’re writing about. They don’t understand the product or the client. They have no background in the industry, and they never learned how to write in college.”

I agree with this statement to a degree. Just like the training lawyers and budding business executives receive, the PR programs at most colleges do not fully prepare students for the real world. Even students who have supplemented their classroom education with several internships still face a steep learning curve in the professional world.

The real problem, however, is the agency structure, not the young professionals forced into cookie cutter training programs.

Here’s my reply to Ragan’s post:

“One area to blame is the school system. I basically have to eliminate all a student’s bad writing habits, THEN figure out a way to get them on the path toward professional writer status. Certainly this is almost impossible in a mere 15 weeks.

The second area of blame falls on the agencies. They are so top-heavy on client teams that they are perpetually understaffed. This results in little hands-on mentoring and pushing off the pitching/writing to new grads who don’t have the experience or skills to do the job adequately.

The templates the firms force their junior people to conform to are horrible, but allow releases to be completed quicker, which saves money. I’ve had fantastic student writers get jobs at agencies, then have their skills beat right out of them because of time restraints, etc.

If agency leadership wanted to put a stop to this poor writing, they could. But, it’s cost effective and, at the end of the day, must prove that they don’t care all that much about writing quality. My hope is that I teach my students the best methods I know and then someday when they are execs, they implement that style at their agencies.”

Basically, my viewpoint is that we could blame young professionals, but it is really a systemic challenge that points to some major flaws in the typical agency structure. Agencies need to pay more than casual lip service to mentoring and training, certainly the writing that is being done is evidence of this point.

That’s my two cents…What do you think we can do to improve PR writing both while students are students and then once they get out into the professional world?

What I have noticed in my teaching career at the USF is that just like with star athletes, the School of Mass Communications produces star students/budding professionals. We routinely graduate number one draft picks!

In recent years there have been numerous “stars” that have charged out into the world, from Bryan Blaise (account executive at Fleishman-Hillard) and Mandy Cretella (writer at HSN) to Lynda Pasteur (M.A. in Strategic Communications Management at USF) and Wes Phillips (account executive at TriplePoint in San Francisco). The will be joined at the end of the week by another crop of amazing young USF Public Relations graduates.

One of our newly-graduating number one draft picks is Meg Roberts (sorry agencies, she’s been snapped up by Fleishman’s VOX Global Mandate to do public affairs communications in Washington DC). Meg really set herself apart from other students, even the best and the brightest, by fully engaging in social media. Her blog, for example, is considered by industry experts to be one of the best student blogs in the country. So, when Meg writes, students listen!

Her recent blog “Building ‘Brand You’: 10 Easy (and Free!) Ways to Market Yourself” is an example of the kind of online mentoring program Meg’s blog developed into for students pursuing a career in communications. She provides a list of tasks that students who want to get engaged in social media should examine, exactly the kind of smartly written blog that its target audience can immediately implement. Meg’s understanding of her audience and taking care to address them in a way that encourages further engagement is the kind of intuitive knowledge about the role of communicators that made her a number one draft pick.

I recently asked Meg to share her thoughts about social media with my “Principles of Public Relations” class this semester, an entry level course with students from PR, advertising, telecommunications, and journalism. The students came away with another level of appreciation for the medium and described Meg’s presentation as “inspirational,” “awesome,” and “awe-inspiring.” Within a week, more than a handful started their own blogs to begin building their online brand. Meg links to some of them on her blogroll…and, the next level of student superstars begins…

I feel fortunate to teach at USF and to have the opportunity to help these wonderful students learn more about their chosen profession (and maybe even a few life lessons along the way). Every spring, as students prepare to graduate, the air is filled with nostalgia and sentimental feelings, so forgive me for falling into that. While the NFL draft picks get the media spotlight, I relish in the notion that we have dozens of first-rounders who have graduated from our program. Now go out and tackle the world!

If you happened to be watching the crash live, you could hear the fear and anxiety in announcer (and former driver) Daryl Waltrip’s voice. Certainly, many people would have assumed that McDowell died in the accident. Much to Nascar’s credit, the innovations at the tracks and inside the cars themselves saved his life. The story at Nascar.com provides further details about the safety equipment.

The initial news stories on the crash focused on the safety elements that saved McDowell. However, if I were on Nascar’s communications team, I would be concerned about questions focusing on the absorbent material that was still on the track when subsequent drivers practiced and Nascar’s decision to allow those racers on the track with the substance still out there. As a matter of fact, if memory serves, McDowell was the second driver to slip a bit out there in that absorbent they place to dry out oil spills.

I think that the press should question Nascar about the decision to allow teams back on the track after an earlier accident. The McDowell accident proves that these are potentially life and death calls and drivers deserve better, even if the spectacular crashes draw publicity and increase fan interest.

Weiner correctly pins the lack of integration on executives who “know that truly integrated marketing can only be derived from a truly integrated organization.” He continues, “Genuinely aligning an organization extends beyond most marketers’ sphere of influence and oversight. The unwillingness of the organization to become more fully integrated in its thoughts and actions can be an insurmountable obstacle.”

I think Weiner is absolutely right on the money in identifying this breakdown. IMC cannot happen if “integrated” isn’t part of the equation. The integration must happen across a company, which means some execs in HR, IT, Finance, etc. have to be willing to let communicators do their work. In my professional experience this is always a sticking point, because the chief of HR, IT, etc. wants to retain this power within their division.

“Thoughts and Actions”

Weiner identifies that an organization must integrate its “thoughts and actions” to truly conduct IMC. The disconnect that I see in the corporate world begins at a really basic level. Too many communications execs think IMC means giving up their power the entity the CEO values the most — usually “Marketing.”

As such, what I hear (with scorn and derision) from my public relations friends is that if they integrate, then they in some way surrender to marketing. The truth is that IMC does not mean that a marketing executive suddenly becomes an expert in PR, advertising, design, or vice versa. IMC means that the different functions align their resources to fulfill the CEO’s goals and aspirations.

The “thought” part of IMC is getting leaders of different parts of the communications team together and building their strategic plans as one, so when a new product launched or a new service introduced, the different fingers come together as a fist.

The “actions” segment is twofold. First, a company must create an organizational structure that enables and promotes this kind of interaction. This means that non-communications leaders have to give their colleagues the power to do their jobs without the short leash that many have in the current corporate world. Second, the communications leaders must set a tactical agenda across teams that provides the power to the fist.

IMC holds phenomenal potential, but as Weiner indicates, it is 15 years later and we’re still having the debate over whether or not to integrate. The reason IMC isn’t more universally used (or used correctly) is at its core a people problem.

What we have learned in the 15 years of attempting to integrate is that executives are not willing to put aside personal power for the good of the organization. Fiefdoms are as pervasive now as at any time in the past. What always shocked me in the business world is that people within the different communications functions treated their colleagues in another function with such disregard, often more like competitors than teammates. Usually, these individuals were taking their cues from their bosses, who saw their leadership as a land-grab. Until the people at the top of the ladder (from the CEO down) learn to plan and implement together, then IMC is doomed.

With the March 3, 2008, issue, however, I am finding much less Fortune to love. The issue weighs in at a paultry 106 pages. More distressing than the lean look is the anemic 35 pages of content I counted. Can there really only be 35 pages of interesting business news in the world today?

I am not disparaging Fortune’s content, but rather the lack of articles. As a matter of fact, I like the recent design changes to make the magazine look better. The layout is fine. But, “where’s the beef?”

Perhaps the answer lies in the overall economic picture. Time-Warner faces tough times. The company recently announced additional cuts to its magazine division, which includes People, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune. Last year, the company shuttered Business 2.0, the technology-focused magazine that somehow survived the dot.com bust, but died in the Web 2.0 revitalized world. Has anyone been able to sufficiently explain that one?

Certainly magazine ads (all advertising, really) are less appealing in a belt-tightening era. Many of the current issue’s advertisers are foreign companies: Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, RBS, etc.

Maybe the digital world is finally nailing the coffin of traditional magazines, as observers have predicted for the last decade or so. I teach pre-professional students, most of whom will make their careers in communications and my guess is that less than 10 percent of them have ever heard of Fortune, much less read it regularly. But, they know every detail of whatever pop culture scandal is current and they all read Perez Hilton. Marc Andreesen, Netscape founder and technology guru, initiated a “New York Times Deathwatch,” calling the company out for being…basically…obsolete in today’s age. [Ironically, reported in the link above by Josh Quittner, Fortune’s Executive Editor, who does not seem to get that the same forces that place NYT on a deathwatch do so for Fortune.]

So, take a great, venerable magazine…add a struggling parent, declining readership, younger audiences that would rather watch YouTube videos, and a general economic downturn and you and I get a Fortune on life support.

This after the annual reup for my subscription offered me the “special subscriber rate” of $49.95 a year, when the book is routinely listed on sites across the Web at $29.95! [I must note that Fortune’s customer service reps gave me the lower rate when I contacted them about this issue. But imagine how many people they got at $50 a year?]

Please Fortune, you’ve got great writers and a fascinating subject to illuminate. Figure out what gives. Just like any other organization, I believe part of the answer will be to reinvigorate the brand through reputation management and communications.  

My Mentors:

Lawrence S. Kaplan — Dr. Kaplan served as my Master’s thesis advisor at Kent State. I also took two classes of his, one on NATO and the other on Jefferson. I can still hear Dr. Kaplan’s soft New England lilt in my ear and remember his probing insights into the study of history. What I took away from my work with Dr. Kaplan served as the basis for the successes I have had since, particularly now that I am a college teacher: better critical thinking skills, improved writing ability, and an appreciation for his extraordinary kindness.

Anne Beirne — Many, many people have shown me kindness in my life, but none quite as much as Anne. She is a one-of-a-kind person, who brought me into the UpStart/Fleishman family and then into her own family. Anne is a phenomenal writer and served as a role model for just about every aspect of a career in communications. She is like a second mom to me, even though I now live across the country and don’t get to see her or her wonderful family.

Peter Magnani — Peter hired me at Bank of America in San Francisco and then over the next couple years, exerted a significant influence on my thinking about how one should conduct themselves in the corporate world. His engaging leadership, combined with marvelous storytelling and perfect business instincts, enabled those of us who worked for him to excel at our jobs. Peter also introduced me to his mentor — Ron Rhody — one of the founding fathers of public relations, in my opinion. I force students to read one of Rhody’s articles on the importance of communicators in maintaining an organization’s moral compass each semester. Here’s his Arthur W. Page Society Hall of Fame speech.

I’ve had a couple other important mentors, including Sidney R. Snyder, my AP History teacher who guided me to Kent State to study with Dr. Kaplan. His friendship means a great deal to me. Dr. James A. Kehl helped me appreciate and understand history at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Phil Sipiora, my dissertation advisor at the University of South Florida, is a wonderful mentor and guide as I traverse through the world of literature. His knowledge of Fitzgerald and Hemingway opened my eyes to the great authors in an entirely new way.

The School of Mass Communications (informal) golf team members have also mentored me on and off the course: Ken Killebrew, Larry Leslie, and Randy Miller.

I feel lucky to have had so many fantastic mentors in my career. I honor them by paying it forward whenever I can, particularly for my students as they begin their journeys.

Top 10 Ways to Know You Work in PR

10. You divide your weekends into 15 minute billable chunks

9. You cringe when you hear jargon like “going forward,” “actionable,” “learnings,” and “incentivize”

8. Whenever someone writes you a letter, gives you a card, etc., you immediately begin editing it

7. Every four years, around presidential election time, you throw things at your TV when you hear “spin” for the millionth time

6. You have permanent scars on your tongue from biting it over and over again…whenever a lawyer has “edits” to your copy, an exec wants you to add some “verbiage” to a speech. The list goes on and on

5.  At some point in your career you’ve wondered what class it was as undergrads that journalists got their halos and/or capes

4. Your resume is a “living document”

3.  You’ve started drinking in the morning, explaining to your PR buddies, “Well, it’s got to be 5 pm somewhere in the world”

2. With a numb ear, you wearily hang up after a conference call and immediately say “What an *&((&&^!” (Insert expletive here)

1. You’ve been working in this profession for 10 years and your Mom still doesn’t know what you do

 Sprint, fly, surf to her site immediately for a complete education in social media. Caution, however, that you may never find your way out of the jungle of information Tamar provides.

Title: “Re-branding the NHL: building the league through the ‘My NHL’ integrated marketing campaign,” by Bob Batchelor and Melanie Formentin

Thoughts, comments, etc. greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob

On the plus side, there are interesting intersections between what I learn in English and the public relations classes I teach. Before I started taking classes, I would never have thought that English lit theory would add to my thinking about PR. Recently, however, we looked at a New York Times blog, “Will the Humanities Save Us” by Stanley Fish, a celebrated English professor and provocateur.

The essay linked to above is both oddly alluring, indirect, and ultimately frustrating. An example is one of Fish’s final paragraphs:

“Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by ‘do’ is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.”

I am intrigued by Fish’s willingness to admit that the humanities exist for their own good and the pleasure they give, although he is fully aware of the assault against the humanities by education bureaucrats and others who would do away with the liberal arts in general. I decided to look at another Fish article, from a collection English as a Discipline: Or, is there a Plot in this Play? edited by James C. Raymond.

In “Them We Burn: Violence and Conviction in the English Department,” Fish argues for English to reclaim its ownership “taking care of verbs and adjectives,” rather than engage in the multidisciplinary tasks (Fish cites “cultural studies” as one example) that critics rail against when examining what these departments bring to higher education (161).

Instead, Fish says, “It is a requirement, then, for the respectability of an enterprise that it be, or at least be able to present itself (which is even more important) as, distinctive” (162). The point, for English departments to find success — just as I would argue for public relations professionals to distinguish themselves from other would-be “communicators” across an organization — is to be distinct and champion that distinctness.

Fish exclaims, “A practice only acquires identity by not being other practices, by representing itself as not doing everything, but as doing one thing in such a way as to have a society habitually look to it for specific performance.” More importantly, for the argument in favor of public relations within the organization, “When the hard outlines of a practice are blurred by a map that brings into relief its affiliations, borrowings, lendings, and overlappings with other practices, those affiliations, rather than anything specific to the practice, are what become visible” [emphasis mine] (169).

From one perspective, this argument for public relations might seem odd coming from me, particularly if you read Bill Sledzik’s fine blog and my stab at a rebuttal. But, Fish’s idea about what space a discipline should claim provides great clarity.

My idealistic viewpoint is that integrated communications means each part of the marketing mix works together toward common organizational objectives. In the business world, this does not happen often enough because the respective directors of PR, Marketing, and Advertising/Creative pursue their own agendas without much, if any, interaction.

From Fish, I realize that PR professionals need to trumpet their distinctiveness and more actively carve out what it is that we do so exceedingly well, like broker relationships between organizations and the seemingly endless number of interested parties, or stakeholders, all around them.

Given the PR profession’s manic inferiority complex, constantly bickering over definitions of what PR is and is not, and whether or not executive’s value it, I am not sure how one would go about making its distinctiveness known. Maybe such an attempt means blowing up everything about the profession and starting from scratch. Perhaps, as Fish also suggests about English, it necessitates PR’s demise, hoping that an eventual rebirth will occur (if a world without PR serves as a catalyst for recognizing its value).

What do you think?