Bob Pickard » thinking

18 lessons learned after 18 years in the PR world

Bob Pickard — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:00:41 +0000

Lately I wrote an article about 18 reflections after 18 months away from PR. Sticking with the ‘18′ theme, I am posting a PowerPoint presentation delivered to the staff of Edelman Japan in June 2008 that outlines the 18 lessons I’ve learned each year working in the PR world starting in 1990. I began using SlideShare recently and thought this would be a good first deck to upload.

View more presentations from Robert Pickard.

18 reflections after 18 months away from PR

Bob Pickard — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:00:52 +0000

Last year, when I elected to leave Edelman (where I served for six fiscal years, most recently as its North Asia President), it was time to come home to my native Canada and reconnect with friends and family after 13 years overseas.

I wasn’t sure whether I would ever return to the public relations business. Even with the exciting advent of social media and a plethora of stimulating industry sectors and consulting services from which to choose, PR can sometimes be a simple and repetitive occupation. I was feeling the need to hit the career ‘pause button’ and take stock of whether there’s enough meaning and fulfillment in the business where I’ve built a two decade career.

Early in 2010, I will be starting my next international PR adventure. I’ve been fortunate to build businesses living in four countries during the past two decades, but before we ship out for the fifth and hopefully foremost experience, I want to share some reflections after this, the third year-plus sabbatical of my career: 18 reflections after 18 months away from PR

Word cloud for this site

Bob Pickard — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:00:12 +0000

Thinking it might help visitors to this site decide whether to subscribe, I imported its text into Wordle, generating this word cloud of content:

Thinking about public relations

Bob Pickard — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:19:22 +0000

I watched this BBC documentary series over the weekend, and it got me thinking about the origins of public relations, including its connection to psychology and early practice as propaganda. I suspect that many fellow PR people would be interested to watch The Century of the Self:

In watching the series, it struck me how so many PR people seem to know little about their own industry’s often wartime roots, and made me feel proud about how far PR has progressed ethically and in terms of sophistication since its early crudely manipulative origins.

I also just wrote a rambling article on this topic, much too long for a regular blog post: Thinking about public relations.