Seasoned PR Pros: "If I had only Known Then, What I Know Now"

With three-quarters of century combined experience in PRSA, they gave the term "senior moment" a whole new meaning, March 16, 2005 at the Junior League of St. Louis. Instead of forgetting moments in their careers, four area "PR pros" shared highs and lows. Chuck Reitter, president elect and PRSA-St. Louis programs chair, served as moderator.

Seasoned Professionals:

(From left to right) - Panelists: Judy Taylor, Dixie Platt, Donna Vandiver and Glynn Young. Not pictured - Moderator: Chuck Reitter.

OPENING COMMENTS

Judy Taylor, Taylor’d Communications, Owner

• When your client goes ballistic, make "calm" work. Judy cited examples of a negative headline from a show tour at the St. Louis Convention Center. She reminded us to never pick a fight with folks who buy their ink by the barrel. Judy also reminisced about working with an attorney that she arranged to work with a reporter. Although she trained him, "he blew the reporter off." She learned not to put him in front of a reporter.
• When your CEO's media training doesn’t work, you have three (3) options:
    1) Get the CEOs colleague to pay attention and approach him.
    2) Never let your CEO near reporters. Either you be the spokesperson or you hire one.
    3) Do not make news.

Dixie Platt, SSM Health Care, Senior Vice-President

• Communications is not an innate ability. What makes sense to us, does not always make sense to them (internal or external client). Dixie encouraged "practice runs" to get your message across.
• It’s your job to speak up.
• Offer strategic counsel in order to get to the table in the first place. To represent your story, ask “What are the biggest challenges you face?” Know what worries your CEO.

Donna M. Vandiver, The Vandiver Group, Inc., President and CEO

• Trends: We are slow to pick up. Create educational and informational campaigns.
• Spokespeople: Identify what is right and what is wrong. Take a hard look at the value we bring to the client and our profession. Be outspoken.
Donna related a "horror story" of a client that came to a larger agency. When the same agency asked her agency to hire 6-8 models to act as reporters covering a story for the client’s event, Donna referred the larger agency to the PRSA code of ethics. Eventually, the larger agency was released by the client.

Glynn Young, APR Monsanto Company, Director Environmental Communications

• Audience & Message: Glynn referred to an overhead transparency; an "artifact" he had found. It asked the age old question, "Who is your real audience?” According to Glynn, the word "audience" is a Latin derivative meaning "to hear." If it were up to him, the words "audience" and "message" would be banned from the public relations vocabulary. They "don’t serve the client very well," he said, "as they force you to look in one direction only." Glynn suggested our role in a broadcast model is not as a part of an audience, but rather a community. A community is a lot more than a place, it is a mind set. Talk with people, versus to them or at them. He emphasized the importance of understanding how well the message was understood.

Following their opening comments, the panelists added a few additional words of wisdom they had learned over the years.

• TV Footage: Judy was glad to have worked at a TV station. At the time it was difficult to understand why they would shoot footage from car wreck that they knew they were not going to use. She learned it would later help the station to illustrate the story.
• Reporters: Glynn learned it was a disadvantage if you liked reporters; they are relentless. He likes helping them do their jobs.
• Deliverables: State them in your goal in the beginning and address them again in the executive summary at the end of the project.
• Education: In order to make yourself a better PR practitioner, consider a major outside of public relations. For example, major in English or Communications. It demonstrates you can think and understand outside of the field.
• PR for PR
1. Advise how things might look in advance! Today it is much more routine to be consulted ahead of time, than years ago.
2. "Mirror Neurons:" We anticipate what the crowd is thinking about our client. Watch and embrace this concept. Use it in a more strategic sense.
• Recommended Reading:
Robert R. Archibald, "A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community" (1999), and "The New Town Square: Museums and Communities in Transition" (2004) both by AltaMira Press. "The Tipping Point" (2000) by Malcolm Gladwell, and his follow-up book "Blink," (2005). The Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal.

Notes Reported by: Dawn DeBlaze, PRSA-St. Louis Board Director

For more background on our panelists go to: Seasoned PR Pros. The March 2005 luncheon was sponsored by Burrelle's/Luce.