Will junior turnover always be with us in PR?

June 23rd, 2010 / 5:00 am

Check out B-M Seoul’s new ‘Intern-Speak’ blog, the first of its kind in Korea. I like it because the idea is to engage the rising next generation of PR talent, listening to what they have to say and providing a place where colleagues can build peer-to-peer relationships with each other.

I just don’t accept that junior turnover is an insoluble problem for PR agencies. Sometimes I see this depressing tendency for senior managers to throw up their hands and assume high staff churn will always be with us, so why bother doing things differently?

Such wrong-headed thinking results in attitudes where entry-level staff can feel like they are an anonymous labour commodity expected to fail, rather than as a precious community of individuals supported to succeed.

Just about every PR firm’s offices are brimming with young digital talent. When they see their firm using modern platforms and techniques, I hope they will see a future in the consultancy business and be empowered to proactively advocate the digital approaches senior people in the profession need to personally master.

Let’s face it: there is a generation gap in pretty much every PR firm (crudely between the older ‘analogues’ and the younger ‘digitals’), and this makes staff retention more difficult. PR business leaders of high caliber and true character should confront that reality as a motivating challenge to overcome, not as a necessary evil to accept as a given.

PR leaders need to wrap their heads around the fact that the future of our business will be built by people who ‘get’ the importance of transparency and information-sharing, where the credibility of communication comes from fearless conversation, not from timid control.

That’s why I like the thinking behind B-M Korea’s intern blog.

Categories: talent
comments(1) Tags: b-m, korea, PR, talent, young

Steve Bowen of Burson-Marsteller

June 21st, 2010 / 1:00 pm

One of the key influences in my recent PR life is Steve Bowen, who joins Burson-Marsteller on July 1st [from Edelman] as our new regional Managing Director for Marketing & Training in Asia-Pacific.

I first met Steve in 2002, when he was the head of international public relations at Kia Motors Corporation (KMC) in Seoul, Korea. At that time, Kia was looking for its very first global PR agency, and as the brand new Managing Director of Edelman Korea, I was keen to put a few wins on the board.

For all the credit I’ve received in my career for building PR businesses in some very challenging circumstances, I always remind myself of the people who helped create the winning conditions along the way. It was Kia’s confidence in selecting my old firm — when the great Mark Juhn was KMC’s COO — that really jump-started the rise of “The New Edelman Korea,” and Steve was the best kind of client whose support and encouragement I will always well remember.

As my customer, Steve provided thoughtful and clear feedback and well educated the agency about his company’s business. He was the exemplar of excellence, a champion of quality, and a factory of new ideas. Better yet, he valued listening and thinking before just talking and doing.

Today international PR for the rising Asian multinationals is becoming an important part of our business, and Steve’s pioneering experience and track record in this area from his Kia years will help take our game to the next level.

I’ve blogged about the benefits of working with friends before, but in Steve’s case the new wrinkle is that while many people think of him as an Edelman guy, in fact he is a ‘Burson Person’ who is now returning to the consultancy where he first cut his teeth in the PR business.

Categories: friends
comments(1) Tags: asia, b-m, bowen, friends, PR

The multitasking myth

June 1st, 2010 / 6:00 pm

Don’t believe all that multitasking hype: studies have shown that the human mind is wired to pay attention to one thing at a time. What we can do well is rapidly shift between things, like clicking a remote control to change channels. If you’re interested in this area, read this article from The Huffington Post: People who are multitasking are often bad at it or this one from National Public Radio: Think you’re multitasking? Think again. This article from The Daily Mail says there are negative consequences and even has tips for multitasking “if you must:” Is multi-tasking bad for your brain? Experts reveal the hidden perils of juggling too many jobs. Of related interest is The benefits of distraction from New York magazine.

Categories: bulletin
comments(0) Tags: mind, psychology

PR videos in Australia + India

June 1st, 2010 / 12:00 am

I’ve been doing a lot of videos lately, so let me share a couple of recent ones shot this spring during my pan-Asia introduction travels.

Here I am speaking with Glen Frost of Australia’s The PR Report about Burson-Marsteller’s approach to Evidence-Based Communications:

A few weeks earlier at New Delhi, here I was interviewed by Ashwani Singla, the CEO of Genesis Burson-Marsteller, India’s premier public relations consultancy. Of particular interest to PR industry types is our tackling of the procurement trend in communications services.