There are a number of issues around the practice of Public Relations that seem to come around again and again and again.
Top of these issues is the ability, or lack of it, of PR practitioners to properly use the everyday tools of the profession. It never ceases to amaze me that a small number of practitioners in the year 2004 still don’t know how to use the most basic tools.
If you hire a plumber or a mechanic you expect them to be au fait with ratchets, spanners etc. Surely a client expects that their PR consultant is similarly familiar with the basic elements of Public Relations?
It seems not.
It seems incredible to me that there is still misunderstanding on using word processors, virus software and e-mail. I’m not even including relatively new inventions such as blogs, RSS and Instant Messaging.
Mike Manuel points to a post on TechDirt, which in the past has documented a wide number of PR mis-steps, concerning a press release sent to them by a PR, which included marked-up changes from the original Word document….
“This time, however, the PR person had taken a word document with an old press release and just dumped in the new stuff while thinking she had deleted the old. She then let Word “save as HTML” and sent out the press release as an email. Unfortunately for her, I don’t let my email client display HTML email, so what I got was nearly unreadable — but just readable enough to note that when Word saves in HTML, apparently it includes all the changes. So from what I could see, I have a “mash up” of two press releases, complete with random strike-throughs and insertions, showing all of the edits made on the existing press release. So, for example, I can see that whereas they originally described the company’s solution as “unique,” that was later crossed out. Not that I would be writing about this announcement anyway, but now I’m left wondering what happened that this company’s product is no longer ‘unique’.”
Oh my word (scuse the pun)….
Of course mistakes happen. That’s the same in every walk to life. But we work in the reputation business and while it’s hard to build a reputation it’s very easy to destroy it.
The Internet is an inforgiving medium. Once you press the “send” or “publish” button it’s live and it’s too late.
We need to understand the medium and understand the implications of sloppy practices. Put in place stringent quality control mechanisms, invest your time and money in understanding how to use these tools effectively and safely. If you don’t then do not be surprised or upset when your mistake comes back to haunt you.
As part of my contribution to helping reduce these errors, here are some useful links:
- Back in 2001, Alcatel was one of the earlier victims of Word “spam”.
- Microsoft has fallen foul of its own Word product in the past.
- A brief guide to using the correct tools for posting PR information online.
- Microsoft provides a free utility that removes all previous edits from Word files.
- Here’s some other observations regarding Microsoft Word.
- Avoiding E-mail-related crises.
Murphy's Law 