Speeches

Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of Ketchum Estratégia

admin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:29:33 -0500

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Ketchum CEO and Senior Partner Ray Kotcher speaks on the challenges and opportunities of six major trends shaping today's media landscape, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Ketchum's Brazil office.

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Ray Kotcher, CEO and Senior Partner, Ketchum

Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of Ketchum Estratégia

São Paulo, Brazil

November 2007

I am honored to be here today for two reasons. First, because it is always a pleasure and a privilege to meet with Ketchum clients. Second, because what better time to meet with Ketchum Estratégia clients than as we are celebrating our 20th year of practicing public relations here in Brazil. Ketchum Estratégia is a strong and important member of the Ketchum network and we are proud of our success here and for the opportunity to partner with clients such as you who are here today. Thank you for that opportunity.

I’d like to use my time this afternoon to talk about some of the key trends and challenges in public relations, to discuss highlights of some recent research Ketchum has done, and then to briefly share a bit about Ketchum and our global network.

I will start out by stating something that most of you already are experiencing: The public relations industry is undergoing profound change. In fact, I believe that we’re at a tipping point, as many of the trends we are seeing will have a major impact on the way we practice PR.

To keep it brief, allow me to walk you through six major trends and the challenges and opportunities they present.

Trend number one: New media has changed the flow of mass communications. Public relations media strategies traditionally followed a fairly simple formula – professionals like all of us used television, radio or print media to send a company’s message en masse.

New media has begun to change that.

The reach of the Internet and the more recent explosive popularity of Web sites such as MySpace and YouTube have enabled consumers to communicate more broadly – not to mention, instantly – rather than just being communicated to. Millions of people are now communicating directly with companies, industries and government agencies. More importantly, they’re communicating directly with each other. Communication is no longer limited to major broadcasters and publishers conveying information to a passive audience. The audience is fully engaged. And any individual can easily send out his or her own messages to a mass audience, too.

What’s more, in our global world, communications is more global than ever before. This past June, YouTube announced the launch of in-language sites in France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the U.K. and Brazil. That’s powerful.

All of this means that businesses everywhere should understand that they must engage in two-way conversations with their consumers and constituents. The good news is that companies like yours no longer have to guess at what consumers want. Public relations is skilled at creating dialogue, and in the coming years, there will be more opportunity than ever before to develop public relations programs that truly connect consumers with your companies and your brands. And new media will be an important tool to help us do it.

In fact, the new-media trend is especially important here in Brazil. Ketchum conducts an annual survey of media usage in conjunction with the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center, and this year’s survey was expanded to include consumers in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Our data show that Brazilians are particularly attuned to the newer media channels such as blogs, search engines, mobile media, social networking sites and RSS feeds. The data also suggest that Brazilians consume media more frequently than their counterparts around the world and that they place a greater level of trust in the various media channels.

Yet consumers also continue to use traditional media, as well – newspapers, TV, radio. So they have more access to information than ever before.

Trend number two: Public relations has become a global business. Increasingly, corporations are positioning themselves as “global companies” – and they are, with employees and customers everywhere. And that moment has arrived for Brazil. With your rapidly growing manufacturing sector, traditionally strong agricultural base, trillion-dollar economy, booming Bovespa, strong Real, recently discovered Tupi oil field and the shrinking inequality among the “haves” and “have nots,” Brazil’s 180 million people and your institutions will be front and center on the world stage. You must be prepared to communicate globally, too.

The world has been evolving into an interconnected place for some time, and you or I probably could point to global public relations programs that took place prior to 2006. But the rate at which they are popping up today demonstrates that companies are realizing the great convergence of issues, challenges and opportunities. Public relations professionals are operating on a more global platform. Local impact is still important, but increasingly interests are shared across nations. Just some examples of assignments that our agency, Ketchum, handled this year: The global health initiatives of the World Economic Forum, Lenovo’s Olympic sponsorship, the worldwide launch of Nokia Siemens Networks, and ongoing work for the press office of the president of the Russian Federation, IBM, FedEx and Kodak.

Those are major, global engagements. But even on an everyday scale, Ketchum uses its network of PR professionals in more than 50 countries around the world to bring global perspectives to our clients. For you, that means that a Ketchum client in São Paulo who wants to make a statement that will have relevance for consumers or businesses in Dallas, Texas, can place just one phone call – or send one e-mail – to your contact here to gain access to our brightest PR professionals in the United States.

This leads to the third trend.

Trend number three: Corporate social responsibility and public relations are playing an increasingly critical role in addressing major issues around the world. Last summer, Ketchum partners from around the world met in Atlanta, Georgia, and were joined by the Director of Executive Education for the Center for Corporate Citizenship. The Center, which has more than 300 companies from around the world as its members, has compiled some interesting statistics. For one: Of the largest economies in the world, just 49 are countries; the other 51 are corporations. And the top 200 corporations around the globe have combined sales that are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the world’s 1.2 billion people living in severe poverty. What’s more, membership in international NGOs has been growing around the world, and Latin America has seen some of the strongest growth. Such realities have put the onus on corporations – rather than solely on government – to help address some of the world’s problems.

Clearly, for public relations this isn’t just about making sure business is saying the right thing. It’s also about outlining initiatives with measurable results. Successful global companies will be those that recognize that corporate social responsibility is not optional and that it also can provide great business results.

According to the very reputable Institute for the Future, by the end of this decade, we can expect these headlines:

Bio-disaster – natural or human-made – lurks on the horizon.
Extreme meteorological and geological events continue to threaten human life.
China’s rapid growth redraws global economic, political maps. This goes for Russia, Brazil and India, too.
Mega cities leave giant ecological footprints as they sprawl across the developed and developing world.
Tech innovations spur even greater fervor and zeal and a deep personalization.

While the world will be facing challenges tomorrow, public relations – and therefore business leaders – can begin to help shape and, perhaps in some cases prevent them, today. And here in Brazil the opportunity appears to be even greater. In Ketchum’s media usage survey – which was conducted in early October of this year – consumers in Brazil express the same level of trust for corporations and their leaders as for NGOs.

That confirms a Ketchum survey conducted just a month or two earlier in which we asked Brazilian consumers about their perceptions and expectations of corporations and their CEOs. That survey found that consumers here have high standards for corporations in the areas of honesty, ethics, employee compensation and environmental leadership – and more importantly, it also found that consumers consider Brazilian companies to be more or less on target with those high standards.

Consumers here also value the role of the CEO; three-in-four Brazilians who are considered influencers -- those who drive opinions -- said that they would want to be CEO of a large corporation. By comparison, in the U.S., most people wouldn’t want the job.

That gives Brazilian corporations an advantage over other nations where trust in corporations and CEOs is lower. But it also ups the ante. Influencers, in particular, hold Brazilian corporations accountable for addressing social problems and other issues and, unlike average consumers, they don’t view CEOs as being “on target” in terms of honesty, ethics, caring and championing employees. For companies that act openly, honestly and ethically, there is a great opportunity to differentiate.

That brings me to the fourth trend.

Trend number four: Within the past two years, companies around the world – though particularly in the U.S. – have begun focusing heavily on employees and employee engagement. Too often, companies neglect dialogue with their own people -- employees who can act as ambassadors for the brand and the corporate reputation. A happy or unhappy employee inside a company can easily spread word of his or her admiration or problems outside of the company. For public relations, that means employees must be engaged in any programs we devise for the public. They must actively be involved in helping develop and advocate for the programs. That means they must understand your business objectives and initiatives and actively buy into them. Ketchum’s change-management group, Stromberg Consulting, helps companies deal with building internal brand ambassadors all the time. There are many fresh, innovative ways to engage employees and engagement is what helps with both recruitment and retention.

Trend number five builds on that, and it’s just one word: talent. Recruiting and retaining top talent is an issue that faces all businesses today, including public relations. The PR industry has matured to the point where we need a more diverse skill set than ever before, and this is happening at a time when the war for talent has become increasingly intense. I believe we must take a number of different tacks.

First: We must recruit new talent with diverse and different skill sets.

Second: We have to work at retaining the best and brightest public relations professionals in our respective organizations so as to continue to deliver the richest thinking possible to our companies or through our agencies to our clients – and we can do that through the employee engagement programs I talked about earlier, coupled with strong HR programs.

Third: We have to work at retaining the best and brightest within our broader industry and that means continually underscoring and supporting the broad efforts by our professional organizations that articulate why PR is critical to the future.

And, finally, fourth: If an employee has left both our company and industry, we need to consider whether there is another role for him or her -- perhaps as a business partner or influencer. In today’s world, it is definitely time to think differently about talent.

Having said that, I will add that I am optimistic about attracting people to our industry. This is an extraordinarily exciting time for public relations. It strikes me as the best of times. That leads to the sixth trend and the final one that I will talk about today.

Trend Number 6: PR is measurable. One of the world’s largest marketing organizations, Procter & Gamble -- and a valued client of Ketchum right here in Brazil -- is telling us that PR delivers the best bang for the buck on an ROI basis. Tie this in with the fact that P&G has realized it no longer owns its brands but that consumers do, and you quickly realize that public relations is the best tool to help companies help consumers manage the company’s products. Recall Trend number one – new media has changed the flow of communications. Yes, it all ties together.

This reminds me of another key finding of the Ketchum-USC media usage survey: the human channel – namely word-of-mouth – is critical in helping companies engage consumers. In all of the markets that we surveyed, consumers place a very high value on advice from family and friends, information received through social networking sites, blogs and so on. In Brazil, social networking sites trumped the other sources of word-of-mouth channels, with 68% of general consumers and 71% of influencers reporting that they rely on them. Some 58% of consumers and 59% of influencers use video sharing – underscoring YouTube’s decision to launch an in-language site here.

All of the trends I’ve talked about in the past few minutes underscore the ways that PR is becoming more challenging. But I could just as easily talk about all the ways that PR is rising to meet those changes and challenges. PR professionals are helping clients around the world make greater use of the Internet, engage their employees, and devise and report on social responsibility initiatives. And we are doing that for Ketchum clients – with word-of-mouth, employee engagement and other increasingly important capabilities, as well as ongoing training to make sure our entire network is updated and able to deploy for our clients the latest PR strategies and tools.

Finally, that brings me back to Ketchum Estratégia. As one of the top 10 agencies in Brazil, we’re continuing to build on our 20 years of expertise with the recent launch of Ketchum Interactive Communications – which helps our clients develop and execute online PR programs and other communications. And I’m proud to say that we are growing strong elsewhere in Latin America as well. Before I came to São Paulo, I visited Argentina – where Ketchum is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. We have been blessed with talented PR professionals in both offices and I know that they are committed to delivering terrific results for clients.

Again, thank you for your relationship with Ketchum Estratégia, for your friendship and for your interest in public relations.

Public Relations, the Global Profession

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:29:38 -0600

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On Nov. 15, 2007, Ketchum Senior Counsel John Paluszek was the featured speaker at the 29 th annual Vernon C. Schranz Lectureship at Ball State University, where he addressed how public relations has arguably become a global profession because it functions in the public interest in virtually every part of the world.

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John Paluszek, Senior Counsel, Ketchum

The Vernon C. Schranz Lecture at Ball State University

Muncie, Indiana

November 15, 2007

Good evening, all. Thank you for coming together tonight for the 2007 Vernon C. Schranz Lecture. Actually, I hope that tonight we can make this the 2007 Vernon C. Schranz Dialogue a bit lateras you respond to my remarks.

I also hope that you’ll forgive another caveat here at the outset: You see, I intend to address my thoughts primarily to the students who are with us tonight. All others – faculty, administrators, civic leaders, families and friends – now that you are comfortably seated, you are, of course, invited to stay.

I’d like to engage primarily with the students because, frankly, I have so much I’d like to tell them about public relations. I can’t possibly cover it all in the next 30 minutes, so I hope we can have a lively exchange of ideas immediately afterward.

As you know, our topic tonight is “Public Relations, The Global Profession.” So here at the outset, let me offer the lead on this story. It is this: “Public relations, in its fullest, finest sense – developing and maintaining relationships – is arguably a global profession because it now functions in the public interest in virtually every part of our interconnected world.”

Before I try to support that lead, a short digression with a true confession: When Professor Pritchard first asked me what I might address tonight, I thought about offering this title:

“The Peripatetic Public Relations Professional: What I Saw and Heard in Russia, China, India, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland.”

Although that has a certain rhythm, even some alliteration at the outset, I’m sure you’ll agree that it would have been difficult to fit it on the promotional poster.

And yet, it would have been relevant, because I have visited all of those places recently on behalf of the Public Relations Society of America, the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, the United Nations Global Compact and my very patient and supportive employer, Ketchum.

I’ll return to the “Peripatetic Public Relations Professional” in a few moments. But first, I’d like to offer some necessary context. The context comes in two dimensions and it’s offered as an answer to the question, “How do we – meaning public relations professionals – fit into our fast-changing world?”

In the first dimension, we have to agree on what we mean by “public relations in its fullest, finest sense.”

James and Laura Grunig, the eminent public relations educators and authors, long ago articulated this better than I could. I’m sure that the public relations students with us tonight are familiar with the Grunigs’ concept of “Two Way Symmetrical Public Relations.”

In this articulation, “listening” to audiences – via substantial, ongoing research – feeds into an organization’s policy formation and performance, which is then subject to communication to target audiences. It’s two-way communication that helps build and maintain harmonious relationships. There is, indeed, symmetry here. And it illustrates how public relations can exist, and function at the interface of the organization and society.

Some would say that this is the “high-minded” description of public relations, but I disagree. Because “harmony,” as our mission, is scalable.

It can be pursued in the humble product news release seeking to promote, in the famous aphorism, a “commercial transaction between consulting adults.” And, at the other end of this spectrum, harmony is also the objective of the macro public relations commitment called “public diplomacy.”

In recent years, Karen Hughes in the U.S. State Department has been pursuing what has been called public diplomacy’s “mission impossible” – trying to offset the tremendous damage to our country’s reputation abroad due to foreign policy decisions.

In a parallel activity, and perhaps with greater potential for success, there are the efforts of public relations educators such as Ball State’s Mel Sharpe and Pritch Pritchard – as well as Dr. Judy Van Slyke of Virginia Commonwealth University and my Commission on Public Relations Education co-chair, Dr. Dean Kruckeberg of the University of Northern Iowa. These intrepid educators, to name only a few, have, for some time, been introducing public relations education – and the very concept of true public relations, at universities in regions as diverse as South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia..

To complete the first of the two dimensions of context, “public relations in its fullest, finest sense,“ a few words about the designation of public relations as aprofession. There is some controversy here.

Some would say that this is a stretch. They point out that we don’t have an entry credential such as that of law, medicine or accounting. This has driven the long-standing debate on whether public relations practitioners should be licensed. I believe, however, that the current emphasis on outcomes assessment at our colleges and universities may some day produce a consensus entry credential. Again, Professor Mel Sharpe has led the discussion of outcomes assessment for quite some time.

Moreover, I present to you the dictionary definition of a profession: “A vocation or occupation requiring advanced education and training and involving intellectual skills.”

And public relations can certainly demonstrate the three other standards for designation of a profession – an ethical code, ongoing social-science research and a body of knowledge – although the public relations body of knowledge is so broad, diverse and growing that it has defied codification.

Still, some will say, “but public relations practitioners are “advocates” – as if that was necessarily a pejorative. Doctors, lawyers and other professionals are advocates as well. The overriding criterion here is performing in the client’s (or patient’s) best interest as well as in the public interest, and within an ethical code.

The second contextual dimension relating to “how do public relations people fit into the world,” is a brief reflection on how the world is changing – the direction and velocity of such change, especially as it pertains to public relations.

I have to ask you students to trust me on this, but I believe that most folks here tonight over say, 40, will support much of what I’m about to tell you.

In the last two decades, the world has become so interconnected, and new international macro forces have become so powerful, that a fundamental reassessment of the status of our nation and our profession is critical.

In this regard, I’ll not even attempt to describe the importance, the impact, of the fast-evolving information technology which, in a sense, can link everyone around the world at any time. You students probably know more about that than I do; I’m not into Facebook, YouTube or MySpace. And I’m certainly not into Wikipedia.

Instead, a quick list of some of the other current – and future – global linkages:

Energy: Did you buy gasoline or heating oil this week? At what fast-escalating price? With our country importing about two-thirds of its needed crude oil, what happens in oil-producing countries – countries ranging from Iraq to Venezuela – affects us directly and viscerally. And did you know that about 80 percent of the world’s oil reserves are held by 13 foreign, government-owned companies – and that many of those governments are not friendly to the U.S.?

Environment: Surely a global issue. The United Nations, at its upcoming pan-national meeting in Bali, will attempt to build a consensus global commitment on addressing climate change. No easy task.

Immigration: Not just in this country, but the mass movements of people in many parts of the world seeking a better standard of living, more freedom or both.

Add to this list international tourism, trade and commerce, disease and health issues, capital flows – and, tragically – terrorism and the threat of war. It becomes unarguable that multipolar cooperation, in place of the unipolar policies of earlier decades, is critically important today.

There are, of course, no “power ratings” for countries as there are in, say, sports. If there were, the U.S., apart from its military strength, would surely have had to “sacrifice points” to other countries which in recent decades have recovered from the ravages of World War II, the Cold War, misguided political ad economic systems and colonialism. Yes, our economy is the largest in the world, but it is increasingly tied to other national economies. And, yes, the values of our country’s founders still inspire people around the world, but we must live those values not simply pontificate about them.

But perhaps I digress. Back to the “Peripatetic Public Relations Professional And What He Heard and Saw” around the world:

Before I do “John as Marco Polo,” I’d like to offer the conclusion drawn from these travels, a conclusion that I hope will resonate with you students. It is that what I learned represents both a dramatic opportunity and a distinct challenge for you.

The opportunity is this: Because public relations is now being practiced all over the world – yes, it varies by political and economic systems as well as culture and traditions – your generation has an unprecedented opportunity to work in any number of other countries. Perhaps not immediately upon entering the field, but certainly eventually.

But on the flip side, there is the challenge: I saw many hundreds of young people studying public relations in these countries. They are your potential competitors for these opportunities abroad, and, for that matter, for jobs even here in the United States.

Well, what did I see and hear in these countries?

In St. Petersburg, Russia, with the Grunigs, I attended the 10th anniversary of the introduction of public relations higher education in that country. Students and faculty came to the celebration from as far away as Vladivostok, six time zones away! And they came by railroad, traveling several days.

In China, visiting Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong with PRSA and Global Alliance colleagues, I visited six universities where hundreds of enthusiastic students were preparing for public relations careers, many hoping to work for China on the 2008 Olympics. And I was astounded to learn that one of the leading growth areas in public relations in China is investor relations -- counseling government-owned companies that are seeking listing on New York, London and other stock exchanges – listings that require much more transparency than those companies have ever had to provide.

In India, at the Global Alliance’s World Public Relations Festival, I heard speakers report on the success of win-win partnerships between companies and local officials. For example, Hindustan Lever has supported establishment of first-time entrepreneurs among women in hundreds of remote Indian villages.

In Argentina, I functioned as a preliminary examiner for the first PRSA university certification in South America. The institution is Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) in Buenos Aires and it, too, is educating hundreds of public relations majors enthusiastic to enter our field.

Another Global Alliance World Festival, this one in Brasilia, provided surprising insights into the application of public relations to social causes. And there, the GA issued its seminal “Letter from Brazil” which proclaimed “That the practice of Public Relations is an instrument for the development of people and nations in the construction of just nations.”

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, I witnessed an energetic chapter of PRSA prospering even in a depressed economy. And, once again, a vibrant public relations student cadre was not only present but actively engaged.

In Great Britain, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations – “chartered” being a very prestigious designation in that it represents royal endorsement – provided an opportunity for an in-depth discussion of corporate social responsibility at CIPR’s annual research conference.

Rome, Italy, about this time last year, hosted a World Bank global conference on the bank’s commitment called “Communication For Development”. Several hundred communications experts from around the world examined which communication efforts work most effectively in delivering World Bank services in less developed countries around the world.

And finally, just this past July, I attended the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, where again, public-private partnerships advancing corporate social responsibility were discussed. The summit’s “Geneva Declaration,” endorsed by both Secretary Ban Ki Moon and Coca-Cola CEO E. Neville Isdell, states that “through responsible business practices a more sustainable and inclusive economy can be realized.”

Back home, it was rewarding to help the Commission on Public Relations Education begin to translate its recently-published report, “The Professional Bond, Public Relations Education and the Practice” into five languages – Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese.

I realize, of course, that this travelogue may well sound like an ego trip on steroids. Frankly, I have risked that because first, I don’t think anything will help me advance my career any further; and second – much more importantly – because I truly believe that you students can benefit greatly from a global perspective on our profession.

Having reported on all of these recent developments, I’d like to conclude with just a few comments on the future.

At a recent meeting of PRSA’s International Section in New York City, we heard a seminal presentation on the macro issues of the future facing society and, therefore, public relations professionals.

Delivered by Erik Petersen, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., it’s called “The Seven Revolutions Initiative” and it forecasts projected trends through the year 2025. (You can get more details at the CSIS website – gsi.csis.org.)

The coming “revolutions” center on population growth, especially in the developing world; resource availability, especially water; technology; information; integration; conflict; and governance.

In his summation, Mr. Petersen asked: “Are we going to move to a better or more dangerous world?”

The answer, of course, is not solely in the hands of public relations professionals. But I believe it is fair – and critically important – to ask: “What can the public relations canon and portfolio, as they continue to evolve, contribute to a better society?”

I hope you agree that the answers to questions like that represent an exciting future for our profession. I, for one, feel that the future of public relations is so exciting that I wish I were starting all over again.

U.S “Propaganda” at Home and Abroad

admin — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:48:01 -0500

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On Aug. 9, 2007, Ketchum Senior Counsel John Paluszek shared his perspectives on the responsibility of the U.S. government to communicate ethically as part of a panel titled “U.S. ‘Propaganda’ at Home and Abroad: Competition and Conflict Among Government Officials, the News Media and Public Relations Professionals” at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Convention in Washington, D.C.

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John Paluszek, Senior Counsel, Ketchum

Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communications

Washington, D.C.

Aug. 9, 2007

I’d like to begin with a short prologue offering a few caveats:

What I’m about to say may seem offensive to some in our government, so please understand that these are completely my personal observations and do not, in any way, reflect the organizations with which I am associated (or, for that matter, some members of my family).
On the other hand, I readily acknowledge that it’s easy to be critical as an “outsider” without exposure to the many nuances of policy formation and its implementation.
I’ll offer these comments not as revelations but as reminders of some basic principles that should apply, and often do apply, not only in government communications but generally in the symbiotic field of journalism and public relations.
This subject is profound. In the time allowed, our comments will likely just skim its surface. We hope that you’ll extend the discussion in the Q&A period and, in fact, extend it further while you’re here in Washington and when you return home.
And, finally, I’m going to read these comments in the interest of saying, as precisely as possible, what’s on my mind.

The seminal question is, “How can our government communicate ethically and responsibly, especially with international audiences?”

I put it to you that this question has never been more important than it is today – even more important now than it was when the birth of the United States of America was announced some 250years ago with this proclamation:

“When in the course of human events . . . a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they [Americans] should declare the causes that impel them to the separation.”

In today’s multipolar world – need I cite international terrorism, immigration, regional poverty, transmittable diseases, the global environment, energy and natural resources, trade and capital flows? – the word “communicate” is clearly both multidirectional and multifunctional.

So, the U.S. Government – any government, for that matter, any institution – must (1) listen creatively to what is expected of it; (2) consider adjusting policy and performance to what it learns; and (3) then present its position, policy and action. It’s a circular, never-ending process based on, again, a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.”

Of course, you recognize this as Grunigs’ “two-way symmetrical public relations.” Professor Fitzpatrick can examine that more effectively than I.

But in that connection, it’s interesting to also recall Harold Burson’s compact description of the evolution of public relations. To paraphrase, Mr. Burson reminds us that we have developed from “deliverers of the message” to, quite often, advisers on policy and performance.

My remaining “outsider” remarks, grouped in four interrelated areas, are offered, with respect, mainly to our colleagues in U.S. government communications whatever titles they may bear – communications director, press secretary, public information officer, or public affairs officer.

Parenthetically, I must say that Geneva and Dante have already admirably addressed the other half of this equation – journalists – so I’ll not go there. But if you are interested in more input on this half, I suggest Helen Thomas’s recent book, Watchdogs of Democracy? and the Bill Moyers program, Buying the War which is airing on PBS this week.

So, on to unsolicited advice to government communicators:

1. Let’s be real. You are an advocate.

That in itself is OK as long as you are also acting in the public interest.

There is no inherent contradiction between being an advocate and ethically serving the public interest. After all, doctors, lawyers and teachers are also advocates. Still, public relations people bear an ethical trifecta – we are responsible to an employer, to the journalists we work with and to the public interest.

U.S. government public relations pros work primarily for the American people and only secondarily for the current administration, no matter how they have won their appointments.

To be sure, “the public interest” and “the public right to know “are sometimes hard to parse, identify or balance. For example, this is how Abba Eban, the Israeli statesman and diplomat, once described the tension that exists between diplomacy and journalism:

“We find the conflict of interest in full momentum in the dialogue between the media and the diplomats. Diplomats are entitled to feel that they celebrate a higher social ideal than journalists: the right of peace is more important than the right to know. If the right to know is carried to excess and peace is threatened, what has been gained?”

A troubling challenge.

On another, but related, plane, when as a government communicator, in your heart of hearts you disagree with a policy that is in formation or being implemented, you must speak truth to power (that’s not just the job of journalists).

Want examples? General George Marshall and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. Cyrus Vance and President Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis. And, closer to home, Jerry terHorst, who resigned as President Gerald Ford’s press secretary, over Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon.)

2. A second proposed dose of reality: Government policy and performance trump communications.

When he was Director of the United State Information Agency in the Kennedy Administration, Edward R. Murrow offered advice that still resonates. He said, “The skillful propagation of poor policy . . . merely intens[ifies] error.”

So Murrow, the journalist and government-communicator par excellence, always insisted that if he were to be invited to the “crash-landing,” he had to be invited to the take-off as well.

God bless Karen Hughes. She’s doing a lot of good, creative things in directing U.S. public diplomacy – many programs that the now all-but-invisible USIA conducted successfully for decades. These programs may very well help improve our international relationships in the long run.

But Sisiphus didn’t have a tougher assignment. Our foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, keeps rolling the boulder of international public opinion back downhill in many countries. So in the light of our current foreign entanglements, expectations of short-term progress in winning “hearts and minds” should be scaled back.

And here’s another concern: Last week, Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that China “has been using a new approach to expand its influence and global appeal. It’s an approach at which the United States once excelled. . . . Call it ‘soft power’ . . . a country’s ability to lead by example and get others to follow because they admire what you are.”

Ms. Rubin, summarizing the new book, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World, by Joshua Kurlantzick, tells us of “Beijing’s increasing skill at using diplomacy, trade incentives, and cultural and educational exchanges . . . to build an image of a benign world leader.”

China and “Soft Power”!

3. Although counsel on “crisis communications” has been virtually talked to death, government communicators would do well to remember its basics.

We’re still experiencing the fallout from the tragic story of Corporal Pat Tillman. As recently as last week, top Army officers, testifying with Donald Rumsfeld before a congressional committee, had to admit that “we screwed up” in telling the world that Corporal Tillman was a victim of enemy fire. Similarly, the fictional account of Private Jessica Lynch’s experience early in the Iraq War still reverberates.

Torie Clarke, the widely-respected communications consultant, had the unenviable task of running the Department of Defense communications operation during much of the Iraq War. She titled the book detailing this saga Lipstick on a Pig. Her advice in a crisis: “Deliver the bad news yourself, and when you screw up, say so – fast.”

4. And that leads to the final suggestion on communicating responsibly and ethically – and I might add, effectively: Candor and emotion can be disarming.

We’re all human. We make mistakes. And we have emotions.

New York Times columnist Judith Warner tells us of the emotional speech given by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the recent Marine Corps annual dinner:

“It was as shock to see Defense Secretary Gates battling tears as he spoke about Major Douglas Zembiec . . . who was killed in May after requesting a second tour of duty in Iraq. . . .

“Chocking, pausing, visibly suffering and clearly fighting off an onslaught of unwelcome emotion . . . Gates seemed, for a moment, to tap into national sentiment. . . .”

Of course, I’m not suggesting that the daily outflow of government communications can often approach that degree of emotion. But I do wonder if our communications with international, as well as domestic, audiences can – some day, perhaps not until February 2009, if ever – convey a sentiment presented by John Kenneth Galbraith at the conclusion of the Vietnam War. This is what he said:

“When before has a great country stopped in the middle of a war, assessed the wisdom of its participation, decided it was wrong, asserted the judgment against all the chauvinistic tendencies aroused by armed conflict, dismissed from power those responsible, and brought its participation to an end?

“The answer is never. . . . The country corrected the error of its leaders on Vietnam. It was not a defeat but a triumph of good sense. Surely our critics abroad might take more note of this achievement. Does it not say anything for democracy?

And then, with prophetic admonition, Galbraith concluded:

“However, let us not make the presence of this remedial power a license for any more such mistakes.”

That was 1975.

This, of course, is now.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Planning an Effective PR Strategy

admin — Mon, 28 May 2007 16:12:34 -0500

Short Description

At a March 2007 Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) conference in London, Ketchum London CEO David Gallagher and Ketchum London Planning Director Ruth Yearley examined the core components of a PR strategy, the do's and don'ts of formulating a strategy, and how to select the best people for the strategy process.

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David Gallagher, Partner and CEO, Ketchum London
Ruth Yearley, Planning Director, Ketchum London

Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) “Perfecting PR Strategy” conference, London

March 19, 2007

David Gallagher: Of course when we were asked by the CIPR to speak here today we took this very seriously -- and what might you expect from a planner and a CEO?

Ruth wanted to do some research. And I wanted to listen to people.

Ruth Yearley: So what we decided to do was give ourselves a couple of weeks and research and listen for all the different definitions and approaches we could find on strategy and planning a strategy.

We listened to the Prime Minister’s question time and News 24 for briefings from the Oval Office. We listened hard to see what Ken had to say about his strategy for London. And David went off to the Davos World Economic Forum and I had a surf through the various planning Web sites.

DG: And we were surprised at how little talk there was of strategy or planning strategy. But not to despair, because in our research and listening period we did learn a lot about different approaches to strategy.

First of all was that Ruth's mum and dad were moving house. They told the family that because they were downsizing, their strategy was to move as little as possible and to get rid of as much as they could before they moved. So they had to eat everything in the freezer and cupboards, and all of the children had to reclaim their schoolbooks, teenage diaries and photos -- as these were unlikely to make the cut!

RY: So, so far so good.

Then came David's neighbors. Over a chat in the park playground, they told David that after having looked at the local schools, they realized they couldn't afford private education and decided to try to get their 4-year-old into the local church school. Their strategy, they decided, was going to be to develop as much of a presence at the local church as possible in order to secure the vicar’s approval. They had already started going to church regularly but were also going to help out at Sunday school and her husband was going to help the vicar with his accounts.

DG: Well, we seemed to be doing OK -- strategy seemed to be alive and well.

The next time their ears pricked up was at a work party we both attended. Ruth's female friend shared with Ruth the big news that she had a huge crush on one of the guys in the office. Well, as you know, in PR a man is something of a rarity, so this was not a big news day as far as Ruth was concerned, but she was used to feigning interest on occasions like this. However, her attention really was grabbed when the friend started describing her strategy for attracting the man -- she had decided that her strategy or approach was going to be to just make herself incredibly desirable. She knew that the guy was incredibly competitive, so she was going to make herself the prize!

RY: Meanwhile, at the same party, across the other side of the room, David was having the same conversation but with a different woman. Same guy in question, different woman! (See -- told you there weren't many eligible guys in PR!) What was interesting was that she explained to David that she had really thought about the best way to get her man and she had a clear approach. Having been in this situation many a time before, she knew what it was like to have a work crush and all the attendant interest that came with it from all the other people in the company. So on this occasion she was going to play it differently. Her strategy was going to be to play hard to get -- to do nothing! To make no effort, to show no interest and use her aloofness to reel him in.

DG: So what did we learn from this? Strategic thinking and planning is alive and well; and we all do it every day – instinctively.

RY: So what else did we learn about how to do it? Well, before they decided on their strategy, all the people we heard from had objectives. They knew what they wanted to attain and in what time frame. The also wanted information, they knew the size of the new house or the entry criteria for the school or the guy's predispositions.

And of course you would expect us to say that. We all have these when we plan PR strategy -- we spend a lot of time setting smart communications goals and researching the business situation, competitive context, target audience, etc.

But they also had two other things that perhaps we underestimate or disregard in the workplace where we would not in real life. They also had experience, they had moved house before or had a hopeless crush before; and intuition (or as we like to call it in business, insight), they had a feel for what was going to work for them in the situation.

DG: So we really have to share with you here our favorite definition of strategy that we did not get from Ruth's mum and dad or from the girls at work, but believe it or not, from the Strategic Planning Society: “Strategic Planning: Devising intellectual justifications for other people's gut feelings.”

And while that is perhaps rather a facetious perspective, we do think it makes a point. Very often, strategy and planning a strategy are seen as impenetrable and challenging, even a bit scary. However, as we have seen, left to our own devices, we can all come up with a workable approach to most problems without too much grief. Sometimes, though, we find it hard to justify it and unpick how we came up with it and why it is the right one.

RY: So rather than thinking about strategy as intellectual justification as the quote mentions, we like to think of strategy as an intellectual explanation that helps the whole team and everyone involved in any PR project understand what they are all setting out to achieve and how they will achieve it. It is the touchstone for the whole project and where you should always keep coming back to check that you are still on track and understand why you are doing what you are doing.

And that is why a PR program without an overarching and driving strategy is an ineffective PR program. Because without this focus, this strategic vision, the PR plan is open to being buffeted by events and short-term distractions. (How many of us have not been called up and had a helpful suggestion of a collaboration or a sponsorship that just happens to be the client’s favorite pastime?)

Having a strategy that is shared and understood by the whole team means that the knee jerk is eliminated and these ideas can be considered and judged properly (and then rejected!).

However, that is not to say that strategy is inflexible and cast in stone. Strategy is an organic entity. Strategy changes as events and context change, new information appears, events and circumstances change, and consultation and feedback are taken on board.

DG: So hopefully having established that strategic planning is not as difficult as it might seem and how important it is for an effective PR campaign to be firmly grounded in strategy, we would like to take you through some thoughts on how to actually plan a great strategy.

So first of all, the who. Who should be involved in planning the strategy? The simple answer is everyone, or at least as many people as possible. We hope by now that we have made the point that strategic planning is not an exclusive domain and everyone on the PR team, at whatever level, needs to understand the strategy in order to be able to do their job effectively and work hard for the brand product or service they are servicing.

Therefore, those people who are responsible for delivering those tactics and bringing the strategy to life, need to understand the wider context, the why. The most effective way to get them to understand and buy in to that is to get them involved in the generation of it in the first place. The more you can involve them in the planning and development of it, the better.

At Ketchum we are lucky enough to have a dedicated strategic planner, but obviously even with that dedicated role, resources are limited. With this need in mind, for strategic planning to be owned by all, we developed the Ketchum Planning Process. This is a system available to everyone in the agency and helps them get involved in planning strategy. The Ketchum Planning Process gives everyone the capability to think like a planner and provides tools and breaks strategic planning down into critical thinking exercises.

RY: If you think of the two key components of strategy being the combination of knowledge and insight, it becomes easy to see that these are something that everyone is capable of contributing to. While there may be specialists, research teams, analysts, etc., who source and gather the knowledge or the intelligence, everyone needs to be cognizant of it. Then of course everyone is able to bring to it their own point of view, their own perspective, their own unique insight, and so contribute to the strategy development.

It can be easy to confuse knowledge with insight. Don’t. Knowledge is data, facts, points of reference and information. Insight is a glimpse into the heart, soul or mind. You need them both, but you can’t replace one with the other.

DG: Strategy is always a choice. Of course there is a temptation when a brief comes in for the most senior player or the planner or the person who has worked in that area for longest to just go away, immerse themselves in the brief, have a little think, frame the strategy, and deliver it fait accompli to the wider team for them to brainstorm tactics and develop media approaches, etc.

Yet you would rarely take this unilateral approach when it comes to brainstorming on tactics. In fact, on those occasions there is a general acknowledgment that the more different people involved, even people who have no expertise in the subject area, the better. We know that great different ideas come by mixing it up, involving people sharing the task.

RY: The reason we have a different approach to developing strategy, to developing tactics, is that we want a lot of tactics, but there is an abiding idea that there is only one approach to strategy.

And that’s the important thing to remember – there is not one “correct” strategic approach – the skill and the joy is not in thinking of an approach but choosing the right approach.

The best strategy is the one that will most effectively meet the business and communications goals; the one that is the most salient in terms of possible messages, relevant to the defined target audience, and most timely in terms of tapping into a wider social context; and the one that will work hardest for the subject you are servicing.

That’s why you need to understand the business goals, have the competitive context, and have insights into the target audiences. Not just to inform the development of the strategy – but to make sure you pick the most effective strategy from among all those available to you.

DG: We are going to hear later from other speakers about methodologies for gathering information about target audiences, optimum media channels, etc. But you all need to remember that this information is not just a tool for creating a strategy, but also for selecting among strategies.

Then once you have selected your strategy, you need to keep it at the heart of the business of the everyday work. We all know that once the day-to-day work kicks in, strategy is often invisible and silent. It is present and stated at the outset as it sets the direction for the whole campaign, but after that it is manifested through the tactics and the outcomes.

So to make sure it is always there informing the team of what we are doing, we pin up the Ketchum strategy statement:

Ketchum will target (whom)
To help them understand and believe (what)
By informing them of (key messages)
Through (engaging what influencers, channels or media)
This will result in (desired outcome).

RY: So, that’s it from us. Just to finish off, our top 10 strategic planning takeaways:

Strategic Planning is alive and well – we all do it every day.
Experience and instinct are important strategic planning tools.
Involve as many interested parties as possible -- strategic planning is not an ivory tower.
Strategy is always a choice – knowledge helps you make the best choice.
Strategy is not rigid and constraining, it is empowering – it protects us from being distracted.
Strategy is often invisible and silent – but don’t forget it is there.
Strategy is an organic and dynamic construct – don’t let it fester.
Sometimes doing nothing is actually a strategy!
You’ll need a strategy to pick a strategy.
If you cannot articulate your strategy clearly and quickly, you probably don’t have one.

PRSA Chicago Leadership Reception Honoring Ray Kotcher

admin — Tue, 29 May 2007 10:41:31 -0500

Short Description

At a Dec. 13, 2006, event in which he was honored by the Chicago PRSA Chapter as a “PR legend,” Ketchum Senior Partner and CEO Ray Kotcher outlined seven major public relations headlines from 2006.

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Casino Club, Chicago

Remarks by Ray Kotcher, Senior Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Ketchum

December 13, 2006

Thank you and good evening. I am very honored to be here today.

When Ron Culp and Bill Parks asked me to talk with you today, I jumped at the chance to address an audience of the public relations business leaders in Chicago. I also was flattered to be considered a PR legend. As I look around the room, there are many here tonight who certainly deserve this recognition well before I do. We all have in common one of my great passions – in addition to the Bears – and that, of course, is public relations – a profession and a business, for those of us on the agency side, that is undergoing profound change. I like to say we’re at a tipping point and I would like to use my time today to tell you why.

To keep it brief, allow me to walk you through seven headlines from 2006, as they tell the story well.

First, to put it plainly, in 2006, new media became a big deal. And with the advent of the new media, we in public relations have our best opportunity ever to produce content that is two-way and engenders conversations and dialogue – time-honored public relations skills. Even in declaring 2006 as the year new media became a big deal, I admit it sounds like very old news. But it wasn’t in January. As a matter of fact, it was only six months ago that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bought MySpace for more than half a billion dollars and only two months ago that Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. Why did these highly strategic companies buy these sites? Because they realize that user-generated content, two-way interaction, self expression, call it what you will, are the wave of the future. Personal media doesn’t just allow two-way interaction – they demand it – and this is the cornerstone of the new age of the creator. As the Institute for the Future puts it, this truly is a revolution without bystanders.

Second, 2006 is the year that saw the globalization of the public relations business. The world has been evolving into an interconnected place for some time, and while you could point to global public relations programs that took place before this year, the rate at which they are popping up today tells us that companies are realizing the great convergence of issues, challenges and opportunities. As a result, we in public relations are operating on a more global platform. Just three examples of assignments we handled this year emphatically make this point: the Global Health Initiative for the World Economic Forum, the launch of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Russian presidency of the G8. It doesn’t get more global than that. Today we live in an incredibly interconnected world. Everything spills into everything else. And this leads to the next headline of 2006.

Third, 2006 continued to underscore the immense volatility that exists and the critical role corporate social responsibility and public relations play. Last spring, I gave the commencement address to graduating seniors at Boston University’s College of Communication. I advised the graduates to “Join the Conversation.” Today I urge you to join it as well. Don’t be isolated within your particular company or firm but broaden your world and make a difference. Successful global companies will be those that recognize that corporate social responsibility is not optional. It is an essential driver of business success also referred to as purpose-driven organization. And in that spirit, I highly recommend the recent Michael Porter article in the Harvard Business Review on corporate social responsibility. Again, according to the Institute for the Future, by the end of this decade, we can expect these headlines:

Biodisaster – natural or human-made – lurks on the horizon.
Extreme meteorological and geological events continue to threaten human life.
China’s rapid growth redraws global economic, political maps.
Megacities leave giant ecological footprints as they sprawl across the developed and developing world.
Tech innovations spur even greater fervor and zeal and a deep personalization.

While we will be facing challenges tomorrow, we can begin to help shape and, perhaps in some cases, prevent them today.

Which prompts headline number four. In terms of any one audience group, 2006 was the year of the employee, or the year of employee engagement. The employee is the ambassador for the brand and for corporate reputation. Too often companies neglect their own people. Employees today must be engaged in the programs you devise. They must be actively involved in helping develop and cheerlead for the programs. Which means they must understand your objectives and initiatives and actively buy into them. Our change management group, Stromberg Consulting, helps clients deal with building internal brand ambassadors all the time. There are many fresh and innovative ways to engage your employees. Being open with employees, communicating swiftly, is what gets them engaged, and engagement is what helps with both recruitment and retention.

So to build on headline four, let’s look at the fifth headline, just one word, which strikes fear in any manager today – talent. The fifth headline faces all businesses today, not just public relations – recruiting and retaining top talent. But let’s focus on how and why this impacts public relations. Frankly, our industry has matured to the point where we need a more diverse skill set than ever before and this at a time when the war for talent has become increasingly intense. The flight of key talent to fresh challenges, the attraction of different geographies and the lure of a new industry often cause the best and brightest to leave a company. Perhaps today, it is unrealistic to think we will hold onto them. But we certainly want to! Regardless, I believe we must consider a few different options. Option one – we have to work at retaining the best and brightest public relations professionals within our own company first – and we do that through the employee-engagement program I talked about earlier coupled with strong HR programs and remembering we are all a part of HR. Option two – we have to work at retaining the best and brightest within our industry, continually underscoring why this industry is critical to the future. And finally, option three – if they have left both our company and our industry, we need to consider whether there is another role for them perhaps as a business partner or influencer. In today’s world, in which competitors band together in joint ventures, it definitely is time to think about talent differently. Having said that, I must admit I’m somewhat optimistic about attracting people to our industry. This is an extraordinarily exciting time for our particular industry. It strikes me it’s the best of times.

Headline six – PR is measurable. One of the largest marketing organizations, Procter & Gamble, is telling us in PR that we deliver the best bang for the buck on a return-on-investment basis. Tie this in with the fact that P&G has realized they no longer own their brands – consumers do – and you realize quickly that public relations is the best tool to help companies help consumers manage the company’s products. See headline one – new media became a big deal. Yes, it all ties together.

Which actually reminds me of the media study Ketchum just completed with the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. We termed it “Media Myths and Realities.” The main finding really shows that all media matter. For example, one of the findings indicated that nearly half of all women and 39% of all men rely on word of mouth from family and friends when gathering information to make a decision. Another showed that social networking sites like YouTube are used by 19.4% of women and 14.8% of men. And another found that nearly three-in-four consumers rely on their local TV news while nearly 70% depend on their local newspaper. Traditional media still remains very much in the mix.

And then there are influencers – those people who shape consumer views about what we purchase and how we think about products and services. They use media, traditional and new, at much higher levels than the typical consumer and thus serve as the public’s editors and multimedia “minders.” That makes this an extraordinarily exciting time for our particular industry.

Which brings me to my final headline from 2006. Our collective work has extraordinary relevance today. Here are just a few examples of projects Ketchum was involved in during 2006. In addition to working with the World Economic Forum and the Russian presidency of the G8, we supported an investor relations program for China Construction Bank following its historic IPO. We helped the Louisiana Recovery Authority start rebuilding New Orleans and, to show our commitment to that city, we brought our partner group to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago and donated more than 200 hours to help build houses in that city’s devastated Ninth Ward. We helped corporations rebrand themselves, including right here in Chicago where we helped Federated rebrand Marshall Field’s as Macy’s. But this headline isn’t about Ketchum. It underscores the bright future of the public relations industry. An industry growing in both size and stature. I’m glad to be in it with each of you.

And perhaps that is the best place to end. As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” I look forward to moving boldly into 2007 with a clear vision for our industry and working together to Join the Conversation that’s taking place in the world today.

Thank you.

Association of Management Consulting Firms Annual Meeting

admin — Tue, 29 May 2007 10:39:39 -0500

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At the 2006 annual meeting of the Association of Management Consulting Firms at the Harvard Club in New York City, Ketchum Senior Partner and CEO Ray Kotcher shared five lessons for helping companies address major change.

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The Harvard Club, New York City

Ray Kotcher

Senior Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Ketchum

Dec. 7, 2006

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be with you today. I must say, I keep getting feelings of déjà vu. Your annual meeting’s theme is “Reinventing the firm and maintaining excellence in an era of dramatic change.” One of our major industry associations, the Council of PR Firms, held a half-day seminar last month that paralleled that theme as we in public relations seek to achieve engagement in today’s far more fragmented media world.

Both of our sectors are undergoing dramatic growth and change.

Let’s take a look at my world for a moment, the world of public relations and the media. This world has become one in which today’s process is participatory in nature. It no longer is about top-down broadcasting of messages but bottom-up network effect and community dynamics – it is a dialogue, a conversation. And it is not as much about technology.

Yes, this change is enabled by technology but it is more about the dynamics of the media and the interaction of the traditional media and the new media and the alchemy of that interaction. It also is about social dynamics – today the ability of PR to manage perceptions and behavior has never been more powerful.

It really does fulfill the destiny that one of our industry’s forefathers, Edward Bernays, saw for PR so many years ago: The importance and power of communication in the management of social interaction and behaviors – the engineering of consent as he called it. And with the advent of the new media, we in public relations have our best opportunity ever to produce content that is two-way and engenders conversations and dialogue – time-honored public relations skills.

As Paul Saffo, the director of the Institute for the Future, says in Newsweek about the intersection of content creation and the new media’s two-way dialogue: “Loading photos on Flickr or videos on YouTube is creation . . . as is adding an entry to Wikipedia – just as the time clock symbolized a worker-centric economy and the credit card represented consumers, the computer mouse is the symbol of the new creators – personal media are very different from television with its one way message: Shut up and watch, then buy what you see. On the Web, one must always be clicking, selecting and browsing. Personal media don’t just allow two-way interaction – they demand it – and this is the cornerstone of the new age of the creator. This is truly a revolution without bystanders.”

So, just as you as consultants are trying to make sense of all that is happening in your sectors today so that you might better guide your clients through this kaleidoscope change, we in PR face a similar consulting challenge. In my brief remarks today, I would like to offer some counsel around communication, the type of counsel we at Ketchum well might give to one of your firms dealing with dramatic growth and change.

So let me offer five lessons that invariably apply in situations where a client is going through dramatic change, especially as it relates to major growth. Here are the five:

Lesson one: Recognize that the change you’re experiencing is the ticket to your success. And, if you agree with that, you might also agree on the opposite – that those consultancies that fail to change will fail to succeed.
Lesson Two: Swiftly embrace the growth and change within your consultancies.
Lesson Three: Understand what the forces of change and growth mean to your organization and its future.
Lesson Four: Think creatively in how you will communicate to your internal community about this period of growth and change.
Lesson Five: Join the conversation; ready yourself to face the challenges – good and bad – of tomorrow.
Five rather simple thoughts – recognizing, embracing, understanding, communicating and joining – now here is the detail.

Lesson one: Recognize that the change you’re experiencing is the ticket to your success. And, if you agree with that, you might also agree on the opposite – that those consultancies that fail to change will fail to succeed. You can take small steady steps or great long leaps and strides in dealing with this change – but you must move forward to set the stage for the other lessons.

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times “Foreign Affairs” columnist and author of The World Is Flat, coined the word “glocalization” to describe how outward a national or local or corporate culture is – how open it is to foreign ideas and influences. The other aspect of this is how “inward” the culture is – how strong its sense of identity is and how well its members collaborate with one another.

So I ask you to ready yourself for communicating change – are you and your firm’s colleagues truly a team? Is collaboration a given? Is everyone ready to tackle this new period of growth and change with a unified spirit? And you must acknowledge that this period, just like the one when times are really difficult, will affect everyone in your organization in some way, and not always beneficially.

Here’s what many of us in the public relations sector have decided – and it very well may apply to you. We must be versatile and flexible. And we must become as flexible externally as we are internally. What do I mean? I mean that we must organize ourselves to meet complicated clients’ needs with internal specialist skills.

At the same time, we must be able to work quickly and seamlessly with a host of other external agencies and consultancies and freelancers and internal staff. We at Ketchum work with agencies from within Omnicom – our parent company – as well as with those from other disciplines – such as yours – and even other public relations agencies. We are bent on showing how this “sleeping with the enemy” approach adds extra value from such cooperation and not mere tolerance.

We’ve gotten positive feedback from our clients by adopting this approach because they see us acting in this way rather than just talking about it – it demonstrates that we will do whatever it takes to help them meet their goals. While not a point today, just a reminder, actions do speak louder than words. So remember even if you aren’t saying something out loud, it may be what you are doing that is getting the attention.

So, as you recognize the change you are going through, remember it pays rich rewards to emphasize Collaboration, community and credibility – and to ensure it encompasses your employees as well as your clients and others.

Lesson Two: Move swiftly to embrace this recognition of growth and change within your consultancies. We have an offering at Ketchum for our clients’ new chief executive officers, and we are seeing more turnover in top management than ever before. It’s called “The First 100 Days.” Some of you may have similar offerings for new corporate leaders. Our mission in any such assignment is – through communication – to ensure that a new CEO gets a quick start in influencing key stakeholders inside and outside the organization, setting the stage for continued success.

Consider that you’re the master of your firm’s ship – and many of you are just that. As CEO – or as adviser to the chief – you should recognize that you have an enormous impact on your team’s psychology. And you also should understand that in today’s fast-changing business landscape, speed is both an expectation and a demand. So you must quickly communicate what this growth and change environment means to the entire organization.

Here are some of the internal challenges you must address:

Leveraging new technologies
Building significant depth of talent
Executing new business strategies, in particular, collaboration
Developing high-impact strategies for your brand
Evolving models for relationships with each other, your clients, your profession, etc.

What we advise is that you adopt a clear positioning so that everyone knows what the CEO – or in your case, the consultancy – stands for. We recommend a communication platform for taking that positioning out to your internal and external communities. We urge that you establish early priorities for dealing with growth and change – and that you also set a more detailed communication and leadership plan to take you through the post-100-day period.

You might hold a workshop where your leaders articulate their core beliefs and views about the firm’s direction, challenges and opportunities in this new era. We at Ketchum promote a “message-mapping” approach that dozens of our clients rely on for really grappling with the nub of a new organizational change. It often can take nearly a day to really capture the core message of the particular challenge, what we call the home base – and then also agreeing on the key elements or points in the next layer away from the central home base and the outlying proof points that back up the inner circles.

But being clear on your message is what helps the organization to begin to embrace change. It also helps the leadership of the firm to speak from the same page. First, the CEO comes out with clear communication around embracing change, and then the leadership follows. Remember, in the end, all communication is local. The CEO influences everyone from afar, but the local managers and direct supervisors are the ones who pull it through.

Lesson Three: And, frankly, I could have led with this one. You must really try to understand what the forces of change and growth mean to your organization and its future. As I mentioned at the beginning, we in public relations and media communication in general are in the midst of a profound change in our business.

Consumers today are in control of their communications – whether it embraces traditional media like newspapers and local TV, or new media like social-networking sites, blogs, and mobile media, or what’s most likely, a solid mix of those various media – the alchemy of that interaction.

But it’s not time for us to wring hands. The origins of public relations were in boom times and the boom of the time was a medium called newspapers. We’re in another boom time and the boom in our era is wired people, social networking, that kind of coactivity.

Consider this: In a media study Ketchum just completed with the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center, nearly half of all women and 39% of all men rely on word of mouth from family and friends when gathering information to make a decision. Social networking sites are used by 19.4% of women and 14.8% of men. And influencers – those people who shape consumer views about what we purchase and how we think about products and services – use media, traditional and new, at much higher levels than the typical consumer and thus serve as the public’s editors and multimedia “minders.”

That makes this an extraordinary exciting time for our particular industry. It strikes me it’s the best of times. One of the largest marketing organizations, Procter & Gamble is telling us in PR that we deliver the best bang for the buck on an ROI basis. Our firm and agencies such as ours are growing by double digits and, I would say, one of the reasons we are is that companies like P&G realize they no longer own their brands. Consumers do and public relations is the best tool to help companies help consumers manage the company products.

That details some of our realizations. What are yours? You must find them – and I’m sure you have many. Does everyone in your organization understand them?

Which brings me to Lesson Four: Think creatively in how you will communicate to your internal community in particular about this period of growth and change. Our change-management group, Stromberg Consulting, tackles these types of assignments for clients all the time. It has discarded the old term “internal communication” for a much broader descriptor: “employee engagement.”

Employee engagement entails much, much more. Employees today must be engaged in the programs you devise for dealing with growth and change. They must be ambassadors for it. They must be actively involved in helping develop and cheerlead for the programs. Which means they must understand your objectives and initiatives and actively buy into them.

You could establish what’s known as a wiki to help you and your employees work together. A wiki is the ability of a group or entire organization to define or articulate something – let’s say it’s your growth plan or your dealing-with-change plan – together online with each having the ability to make a suggestion to the document.

IBM adopted a wiki when it allowed its employees to establish a company policy for handling employee blogs. There’s nothing more satisfying, frankly, than knowing you had a part in setting goals or a plan, and that your organization considers your contributions vitally important to its success.

So, if your organization is scattered widely, perhaps between continents, a wiki might be beneficial to you.

Or perhaps you should launch an internal Web log, or blog, that would serve a similar purpose of engaging employees. Your managing partner or some other leader might establish an internal online blog that explores various issues confronting the firm, and employees can offer their views and suggestions online to each posting by the executive. Yes, it’s a bit like the anonymous suggestion box, but it’s much more engaging for employees – from the support staff to the IT team to the senior consultants themselves. And it isn’t anonymous at all – it requires employees to claim who they are and what they think.

There are many fresh and innovative ways today to engage your employees and your external constituencies, and this engagement is two-way and can prove invaluable. Be sure, however, to be transparent in your dealings with your organization and clients. And I assure you, what disgruntled employees can do today in our digital age to illuminate their frustrations with their organizations is frightening. But don’t allow the interaction to scare you, being open with employees, communicating swiftly, is what gets them engaged.

So on that note, let me give you Lesson Five. I gave the commencement address this past summer to graduating seniors at Boston University’s College of Communication. For many of us, it’s been quite a while since we attended our own college commencement. I found this commencement truly an exhilarating experience – and I hope I was just as energetic and eager to begin my career then as many of today’s graduates seemed to be.

I advised the graduates to “Join the Conversation” – which, for them, is a planetary conversation that is integrating people with people as never before and building dynamic new communities powered by fresh technologies.

You and your colleagues have your own conversation. And I urge you to join others and not to be isolated within your particular firm but to broaden your world – to make a difference. And in that spirit I highly recommend the Michael Porter article in the current Harvard Business Review on corporate social responsibility.

Lesson Five incorporates that message. But there’s a much bigger message to convey, which I said to those fledgling communicators at Boston University. I told them that while today may be a period of opportunity and personal growth, the outlook ahead suggests some very daunting challenges for us all. According to the very reputable Institute for the Future, by the end of this decade, we can expect these headlines:

Biodisaster – natural or human made – lurks on the horizon.
Extreme meteorological and geological events continue to threaten human life.
China’s rapid growth redraws global economic, political maps.
Megacities leave giant ecological footprints as they sprawl across the developed and developing world.
Tech innovations spur even greater fervor and zeal and a deep personalization.

I have no doubt that as management consultants hearing those challenges, you undoubtedly see opportunity for you and your firms to help clients deal with these gigantic issues. For that’s the real lesson of today. While you may face challenges today coping with what the forces of major growth and change mean for your own firms, you recognize there will be far different and perhaps “darker” challenges to face tomorrow. And hopefully as you face those challenges, you will remember the five lessons of communicating change.

As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” When you begin communicating change to your employees, remember this motto. Show employees that you recognize, embrace and understand change, that you are willing to communicate about it with a clear vision and that you are asking them to Join the Conversation.