PRforum

The first forum dedicated to the local PR industry happened yesterday. I will write about it in episodes, I will try to present facts that are self-explanatory and to give answers to some self-administered questions.

Q1: Is a/this prforum needed?
Now, I start to develop a slight disbelief towards this type of "mass"-educative-hardly-specialized events. I've attended quite a few events that would at best serve for networking and meeting industry peers. However, this forum being a first, I decided to sneak in and feel the pulse of this rather troubled industry (reputation weaknesses, little acknowledgment for its consultancy capacity, lack of standardisation, measurability problems, adaptability to new media and market situation, poor specialization of PR professionals and difficulties in recruiting valuable, already-trained people), to see how PR people look like, what they find important to say when invited to take the floor, the questions raised, the answers given, the examples presented - if the case.

I liked Sorana Savu of Premium PR bringing about a very hot industry theme: PR Evaluation. Valuable questions raised. Personally, however, I hoped a lot more debate would be raised and more valuable conclusions be drawn (besides the classical "there are as many evaluation systems and criteria as clients"). Hurray for Consultancy, currently ranking 3 in the top of most requested PR services, as Sorana gladly announced. Of course, media relations is the most requested service, being accountable of 70% of a PR agency' s portfolio. Events organisation ranks 2nd, and this is how PR people often get to do more event implemmentation that concept and strategic advising.

Peter Imre's call to pragmatism was somewhat invigorating. ("We are all doing PR for the money!") It was honest and showed without doubt what a client (as PR litterate and reputed he may be) primarily expects from communication consultants. Maybe the speaker' s manner of speech wasn't exaclty appropiate. Sorry again that this "presentation" didn't lead to a constructive debate between PR professionals in the room.

to be continued....