Month: June 2007

Participatory PR

Back in my college days, when I was learning about how to be a news reporter, I became interested in the notion of participatory journalism. Of course, back then, video display terminals (VDTs) were slowly replacing IBM Selectrics in newsrooms across America, the term referred to journalists like George Plimpton, who would play a role — for Plimpton, it was as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions — and then describe the experience for readers, listeners or viewers. (I was more interested in the participatory style of renowned gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, but that’s a topic best left alone for the moment.)

These days, participatory journalism refers to the readers, listeners or viewers actually participating in the process of gathering and reporting the news.

Now, Micro Persuasion blogger Steve Rubel in introducing another concept: participatory public relations. According to Rubel, it’s a brand of PR in which the flack (and I use that term as a term of endearment, for I am one) moves away from the time-honored practice of “pitching” a story idea to a media outlet to one of contributing and sharing — e.g., participating — in online social networks.

Also according to Rubel, PR agencies aren’t quite ready to give up the pitch for participation. “Many in PR seem to be treating Web 2.0 as simply an extension of the traditional media – another venue for buzz. They are pumping thousands of email pitches into the community every day.”

I just wrapped up an email interview with a fellow blogger who asked me about the state of readiness among higher ed PR flacks to enter into this world of participatory journalism. I’d say we aren’t much further along than our corporate counterparts. At UMR, we’ve been using blogs (here, here and here) to connect with some of our audiences, and to talk about some big changes on campus. Difficult as it has been for some of us (read: me mainly), we’ve dropped our “press release voice” when we blog, opting for more authentic, real tones in our writing — stepping out from behind the curtain, as Rubel suggests all good PR practitioners do. We’ve even posted some video on YouTube, and some staffers in our communications department share feeds from our blogs on their Facebook pages. But we’ve got a long way to go before we achieve Rubel’s vision of participatory PR.

My first webinar

webinar.jpgThis ———->
is how I imagined all of you faithful readers must have looked as you tuned in to my very first webinar, held earlier today and sponsored by Higher Ed Experts. Look at you all, hanging on every bullet point of the presentation and soaking up the wisdom I doled out like candy at a holiday parade. I can’t wait to read the evaluations.

Now that I can add “webinar presenter” to my resume, I must tell you that presenting a webinar is a rather surreal experience for someone who draws energy from a live, physically present audience. With a webinar, there are no visual cues, no way of knowing how the audience is reacting. (That’s why having an image like this one to focus on helps.) Still, webinars are the wave of the future — affordable methods of offering training and professional development — and I was happy to have an opportunity to deliver a session. It was fun.

I presented as part of Crisis Communications 2.0 Week, a series of three, one-hour presentations. I was the second presenter. Joe Hice of the University of Florida did a nice job with his overview of crisis communications. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s session: “From the Inside Out: Lessons Learned in Crisis Web Communications after the Virginia Tech Tragedy.” Michael Dame, director of web communications at Virginia Tech, is the presenter. I hope you’ll tune in, too.