The new PR brain changes in superficy, it updated but didn't change

The practice of Public Relations is one of which you constantly have to go with the flow. It could be the event you are setting up with your company, the social media backlash you got after one of the influencers you picked or simply an employee acted up. But going with the flow in PR is not only about learning how to deal with stress, unexpected outcomes and pressure. It also involves mastering new trends and new tools before newer, fresher digital-native blood comes to take the power from you. We are seeing influencers and celebrities gaining more power, the media losing power, and the artificial intelligence of social media taking over trends and becoming the new platform to prioritize.

While working for the London Fashion Week this year, being overly worried to "do good" I realized that I may be a little older than I imaged. Me, a millennial? I reluctantly accepted to use the iPhone my tech-savvy digital-obsessed older sister working in expert e-marketing pushed me to have. I subscribed to twitter in 2017 with a fear of "not knowing if I am using it right" therefore, not using it at all. I have been on and off Snapchat and I never got around to it. I am struggling with a hundred and eighty followers on Instagram for an account that is supposedly "professional" photography. What I really am is the sort of "millenial" that only ever uses Facebook (and whats app because the format is similar to msn messenger, and therefore understandable to my generational peers and myself). The thing is, I am not a digital-mastermind. I still carry the work culture and predispositions that my older sister and parents taught me to have: do the best you can do because you are new, you are a beginner and your employer need to find a reason to keep you.

So there I was, overthinking the press release I had to correct and send to my superior. But truly, what I failed to see, was that my superior was probably younger than me. And when I moved to another "department" to help with photography for the digital team, I was, I have to admit, shocked. My superior was twenty-one years old. And she was a master of social media and fast-pace working. She never shook, never blinked, she was an excellent team player and a beautiful manager (in the way that she knew exactly how to treat people, and that never had to involve being bossy, superior, commanding, cold or passive-aggressive). 

If the social media brain outlines a major change in how to practice public relations, a few skills remain the same in order to work in public relations; the practitioner needs to have qualities of patience, a fast-paced organization, and a smile to put on no matter what.

References

PRMoment. (2017, March 15). The evolving PR Brain. Retrieved April 13, 2017, from PRMoment: http://www.prmoment.com/category/pr-insight/the-evolving-pr-brain

How to address mental health as a result of a stressful work culture that needs to change

I have always found myself between two worlds;

The world in which I am an extrovert skilled in public speaking and languages;

And the world in which I used to find myself trying to cope with everything that I am feeling and thinking while trying to hide it as best as I can.

Hiding mental health is difficult, and it can be even more when we choose a career path addressing the very issues we want to overcome. I would say this comes to no surprise that I made the conscious choice of studying communications and public relations. I am looking for exposure and winning over this side of me. And I realise now, that I am constantly looking to fight battles and win wars of change. I want to contribute to making a change happen in the corporate world, for people suffering mental health to open up about it first, and get the necessary support they can aspire to have. The topic of public relations and mental health is therefore a core point of interest to me.

The way we talk about mental health, the way we promote the idea of opening up about it, is going to make a difference in the next five to ten years. I strongly believe now is finally the right time to talk about it. However, the practice of public relations is currently named as the sixth most stressful job in the world. It is a chicken or the egg causality dilemma: is public relations causing burnouts or are people affected with mental health attracted to hiding it with the very definition of exposure, by being spokespersons?

One of the problems that are raised by practitioners Is the absence of distinction between private and work life. The balance is weighing in favour of work, and boundaries keep getting blurry. So what could employees do when they struggle with a form of mental health? The first step to being acknowledged and to get help, is being able to ask for it. Speaking up for someone who is in total distress, may not be the right direct move, as the reaction in a workplace can be to move the sufferer to the backstage. Instead, knowing what you are suffering from, knowing how to deal with it, and being able to explain what exact measures you need to be able to keep working, works better. On the employer side, the things to implement are understanding and empathy, considering mental health days as actual and necessary sick days, and perhaps keep a record for the diagnosis. On a greater level, conferences and workshops about mental health can be very beneficial to the sufferers, their employers and co-workers, and even to their families. Quite often when I came out of the “mental health” closet, and explained what it is all about, the person I am talking with realise they may have or know someone that may have a mental health problem. Because it is much more present than we would like to admit it.

Now, the thing sufferers should avoid at all cost is hiding it. Mental health diseases strive on silence and self-denial. If a person is scared for their job position to the point where they don’t talk about it and hide it to their co-workers, employer and self, the likely result is that the disease gets the better of them and cause even more damage at work. Instead, they should be their own spokespersons and make mental health a public matter. As for me, I am going to try and work in PR, hoping that the knowledge in psychology I have, and the behaviour therapy I attended, will prevent me from giving up. But if I do feel like I have to give up, I will be strong enough to leave PR. In any case, I will speak out and try my best to help change regarding mental health happen in the workplace.

References
Smith, R. (2015, May 14). Mental health in PR – busting the myths. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from CIPR Influence: http://influence.cipr.co.uk/2015/05/14/mental-health-pr-busting-myths-2/

#FuturePRoof

April 2017, a case of change for public relations #1

In April 2017, Pepsi released an advertisement using a social protest to depict a bright, happy and polished outcome, had the police accepted a gesture of kindness from protesters. The advertising caused intense reactions from populations revealing that it is minimizing the “Black lives matters” social movement asking for police brutality acknowledgment.

The theory of internalized oppression explains how oppressed people should be the one explaining to oppressors what to do, what to say, and what to avoid doing and saying. A person of colour should therefore be the one defining what is racism to them, and a woman should be the one we listen to when she calls out on misogyny or sexism. An oppressor, as in a person with a race background of privileges, or a person being of a priviledged gender, should not explain, minimize, or shut down what the oppressed ones express on their experience (Williams, 2012). In the everyday life of every oppressed person, this theory is often not applicable yet. Hence the terms "mansplaining" or "reverse racism", that wrongly assume men can define if something is sexist towards women, and wrongly claims that racism towards white people (with priviledges they can tend to forget) is a thing. Change comes slowly. However, coming from Public Relations, Media or Advertising practitioners, known for being the “spin doctors”, known for running the platform that has the power to get the attention of a whole country when it is not the whole world, the "shutting down with half apologies without listening and understanding" seems to be a wrong way of practicing. It is our duty, as PR practitioners, to listen, understand, and remain quiet, when we are in the wrong.

The world of public relations was anciently based on manipulation and “taking the blame away from” the CEO, the company, the political characters, and so on. In 2017, perhaps Public Relations should redefine the profession and implement the high duty of defining change and leading ethical mass communications, instead of taking the blame for a company. For instance, Uber’s head of communications recently resigned. What does it really say when a spokesperson resigns? It usually happens in time of crisis, regardless of the efforts and quality of the PR practitioner’s role, as in their resignation would save the CEO or the company’s reputation. Maybe it is time that the spokespersons representing a company, do more than just diplomatically accept their responsibility. Maybe it is time they call out on the unethical ways of their company before a crisis emerges, maybe PR should not just talk about errors and responsibilities. Maybe PR should be in charge of responding with ethics and have the power to command change, because in the end, it is not the PR professional’s responsibility for the company’s mistakes—and it is not helping when they try to defend their company’s mistakes instead of taking the public side and acknowledging the oppression.

What works at a human level, should inspire a company level. Oppressed people do not want to hear apologies and justifications on the oppression they have to undergo in their existence. They want to be acknowledged as oppressed people, they want the world to acknowledge that some oppressors ways are wrong and are truly happening. The right way to respond would be the human way.

A possible response could have been in the vein of,

“Yes we did minimize the black lives matter and we are learning from it. This came from ignorance and will not happen again—because we learned from that experience. We learned that the right way of doing would have been to take the side of the oppressed, to highlight a cause that is asking for change. We heard. We will act on it.”

The actual response was,

"Clearly, we missed the mark, and we apologise. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologise for putting Kendall Jenner in this position."

References

Williams, T. K. (2012, September). Understanding Internalized Oppression: A Theoretical Conceptualization of Internalized Subordination. Retrieved April 10, 2017, from http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=open_access_dissertations