When the boss talks, what’s it worth to the company? Marianne Eisenmann (Determinus, Chandler Chicco Agency) and Katie Paine (KDPaine & Partners) have authored a new paper entitled “Measuring the Effectiveness of Speaker Programs.” It offers tools and methods for doing just that. Speaking opportunities are often sought by executives who want to profile their organizati ...

Rejoice. You can now cite proof that a media placement has the same effectiveness as advertising. But not more than that – at least not yet. In a new Institute-sponsored study entitled “Exploring the Comparative Communications Effectivess of Advertising and Media Placement,” David Michaelson (David Michaelson & Co., LLC) and Don W. Stacks (University of Miami) designed an experiment to test a long-held, oft-re ...

As measurement is increasingly seen as a requirement for communications professionals rather than a “nice-to-have,” the number of different methodologies and techniques to measure results has proliferated. Now that the tipping point seems to have been reached and measurement is appearing on almost everyone’s to do list these days, its time to move beyond “any measurement is good measurement” to the stage where CEOs, clients and agencies aren’t just demanding “measurement” but rather de ...

The New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America has issued a call for entries for the 2007 Big Apple Awards. This year for the first time, the Institute for Public Relations will present a “Best Use of Research, Measurement and Evaluation Award.” Big Apple winners in every category will automatically be eligible for the additional research award, which will be judged by members of the Institute’s Commission on PR Measurement & Evaluation. The Big Apple Awards progra ...

Most public relations practitioners intuitively believe in the power of media coverage to create the awareness, knowledge, interest and intent that is needed to achieve desired behaviors by target audiences. But how much media coverage is needed to affect change, and is more really better? And before you say yes, when and where have you seen it proved? A new Institute paper by Angie Jeffrey (VMS), David Michaelson (David Michaelson & Company), and Don Stacks (University of ...

The Professional Bond: Public Relations Education for the 21st Century is required reading for anyone who thinks that public relations professionalism matters: practitioners, educators, students and university administrators. This new report marks the fifth time that such curriculum guidelines have been issued. It is the work of the Commission on Public Relations Education, which includes representatives of 12 professional and ed ...

I recently wrote a column for PRWeek in which I discussed some of the issues involved in developing tomorrow’s leaders in PR and communication. In the column, I noted that what I find too often in college students and young practitioners is a serious gap in the fundamental knowledge of how business works. I am currently serving as vice chair of the Advisory Council to the College of Charleston’s Department of Communication. As a result of this involvement, as well as the gues ...

Does the profession of public relations contribute more than $200 billion in economic impact worldwide, and does that matter? Toni Muzi Falconi thinks it does. He also thinks that there some 3 million public relators operating in the world today, but less than 10% are members of professional associations. Falconi – who teaches at Lumsa University in Rome as well as New York University, founded a highly successful PR agency in the late 1970s that Weber Shandwick acquired in 1999, and serves ...

Dr. James E. Grunig, University of Maryland professor emeritus, keynoted the 50th anniversary celebration of the Institute for Public Relations this month. His speech, “After 50 Years: The Value and Values of Public Relations,” is available on the Institute’s website. Grunig takes issue with those who say that PR tacticians operate ...

A few months ago, I authored a column for PR News entitled “Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations.” The article was based on work by Dr. Brad Rawlins of Brigham Young University to synthesize a new model for prioritizing stakeholders in a way that is especially relevant for communications managers: by communication strategy. According to Rawlins, advocate stakeholders should be approached with action-oriented mes ...