The thing I've always loved about PR is that at its core it's meant to be a two-way mode of communication. Marketing is a one-way mode... you develop a message and then you push that message out.
With PR you may develop a message, but you do so based on the on-going conversations you've had with your key stakeholders. What they think matters as much to you as what you think. It's that give-and-take that makes PR special because, in my opinion, it is ideal for bringing people together. Communication is what brings people together, failure to communicate is what drives people apart.
In recent years, politicians and many institutions have not been practicing good PR. In fact, the opposite, they've been practicing marketing and calling it PR - they tend to push out 'their' message and are completely tone-deaf as to what their stakeholders think of it.
One such message, which has been pushed for the past 10 years, is that increased security measures are required to keep society safe. While this was widely accepted after 9/11, it's causing more and more people to mistrust their government.
Two recent stories caught my attention and show what happens when you are tone-deaf to your stakeholders.
In Germany some folks have taken to destroying CCTV cameras that are placed throughout the country.
When people don't feel they are being heard, when their government doesn't reflect any of their values, and when their government is monitoring all their movements, you get this kind of reaction. People stop trying to have their voices heard and start taking action to fight back.
I'm not saying destroying property is a good thing, but this type of response is predictable when people's voices are not being heard.
In the US, Anonymous is going after the Justice Department in response to the death of Aaron Swartz. Operation Last Resort shut down the US Sentencing Commission Web site and as of today the site still won't load for me (so I'm assuming it is still down). Anonymous says they have classified files from the Department of Justice that they will be releasing to the media over the next month or so.
The thing about both these stories is that the people involved are not your typical criminals. Let's face it, typical criminals only care about one thing - usually money (or some item money can buy). Traditional criminals are generally not moved to correct social wrongs on behalf of society at large.
Both these stories are examples of responses by sections of society (often highly educated sections) who are responding to the fact that the 'system' is not communicating 'with' them, but rather 'at' them.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the governments of the world respond to more and more groups of people who spring up and start taking action against the system. It's a tricky situation to manage because outside of their forms of protests, these people do not engage in criminal behavior of any sort (generally speaking of course, because who really knows for sure).
When you shut down two-way communication and adopt a one-way model only of communication, at a societal level anyway, this is what starts to happen, people stop talking and start fighting back.
With PR you may develop a message, but you do so based on the on-going conversations you've had with your key stakeholders. What they think matters as much to you as what you think. It's that give-and-take that makes PR special because, in my opinion, it is ideal for bringing people together. Communication is what brings people together, failure to communicate is what drives people apart.
In recent years, politicians and many institutions have not been practicing good PR. In fact, the opposite, they've been practicing marketing and calling it PR - they tend to push out 'their' message and are completely tone-deaf as to what their stakeholders think of it.
One such message, which has been pushed for the past 10 years, is that increased security measures are required to keep society safe. While this was widely accepted after 9/11, it's causing more and more people to mistrust their government.
Two recent stories caught my attention and show what happens when you are tone-deaf to your stakeholders.
In Germany some folks have taken to destroying CCTV cameras that are placed throughout the country.
When people don't feel they are being heard, when their government doesn't reflect any of their values, and when their government is monitoring all their movements, you get this kind of reaction. People stop trying to have their voices heard and start taking action to fight back.
I'm not saying destroying property is a good thing, but this type of response is predictable when people's voices are not being heard.
In the US, Anonymous is going after the Justice Department in response to the death of Aaron Swartz. Operation Last Resort shut down the US Sentencing Commission Web site and as of today the site still won't load for me (so I'm assuming it is still down). Anonymous says they have classified files from the Department of Justice that they will be releasing to the media over the next month or so.
The thing about both these stories is that the people involved are not your typical criminals. Let's face it, typical criminals only care about one thing - usually money (or some item money can buy). Traditional criminals are generally not moved to correct social wrongs on behalf of society at large.
Both these stories are examples of responses by sections of society (often highly educated sections) who are responding to the fact that the 'system' is not communicating 'with' them, but rather 'at' them.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the governments of the world respond to more and more groups of people who spring up and start taking action against the system. It's a tricky situation to manage because outside of their forms of protests, these people do not engage in criminal behavior of any sort (generally speaking of course, because who really knows for sure).
When you shut down two-way communication and adopt a one-way model only of communication, at a societal level anyway, this is what starts to happen, people stop talking and start fighting back.
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