week-seven

From the readings, I found Public relations practitioners are about understanding the big picture of the issue, see an issue from diverse perspectives, uncover problems, building relationships with key publics and audiences, confidence in the communication solutions and to help create and implement the communication solutions.

It is an active profession that benefits from creative thinking, specific targets and good understanding of the operating context and the factors required by an organisation.

Although public relation practitioners deal with diverse issues and different outside conditions and pressure in their operating environment, there are common elements that apply for all such as: the Standards that must be met in how the job is accomplished that makes PR as a profession, Theories – common understanding for conceptualising problems, Communication tools (websites, news release) that vary according the needs of the situation, Focusing on the goals with respect to audience, Contribution and Effectiveness in an environment, and Work On Matters of importance to the organisation.

Effectiveness – as in responsibility to the job, seek & give advice, optimise company’s image, capability of strategies (and executions), solid experience, High degree, build own knowledge, honest and ethical, contributing to goals, good reputation in industry and profession, protects reputation, and sets standards of public relation.

In doing our job, we are affected by our values. We do things according to what we value. We make judgement out of everything and that what makes us a standard that guided our actions. It, however, built through family, friends, and community where we grew in.

PR practitioners had to have adequate skills thats required to do their work,one of which is reporting community relations performance (in business, future, etc).

Challenges and pressures include: (1.) Maintain good relationship between you, organisations, stakeholders, and community. (2.) Maintain good records, (3.) Budget & Time management, (4.) Being proactive.( 5.) Good networks (6.) Adapt with changes.

Chapter 9

Further...As studied in week 3, planning a strategy is essential. It has to have methods and processes of intentional representation that needs to be done in a contested space and have intended meaning to achieve certain objectives.

Also look beyond ‘obvious competitors’. E.g: if you are promoting a car company, your competitor may seem another car company. In fact, the real competitors (the first problem that’ll decline the urge to buy more cars) are public transportation (bus, MRT, taxi). People will be arguing whether to buy a car at all when they can still take public transportation at affordable price. So here, we may want to find out more about the problem; not the solution.

Types of Tactics

“plan your strategies and tactics in ways that will result in your audience
constructing only your intended meaning, not other meanings.”

In developing tactics, one must consider how many people available to do the task &people we are engaging with. Also the amount of time we have. When dealing with large no. of people, we may want to use printed publications(flyers), media relations or special events. If dealing with small no. of people, meetings or presentations will do. Often use someone that is potentially attractive to certain community.

Tactics can sometimes constructed intentionally to represent organisation’s meaning, such as: usage of logos, buildings’ style, and uniforms.