WeThink: The Future of PR is Back in High School
Our new project, WeThink, is an effort to explore new ideas and promote solutions to the challenges that our society is facing. It is based on the idea that we need to re-think the way we create, support, and sustain ventures as well as how we innovate.
Rich Polt, who has spent more than fourteen years in the public relations business, thinks that PR needs to change – in a big way. No argument there. So we asked Rich to share some ideas on how to re-imagine the business of generating media coverage for issues and organizations. And what did he do? Rich looked back into his past and explained that the future of public relations is back in high school.
He writes:
Like the contemporary PR practitioner, hoping to influence audiences in a shifting cultural and technological landscape, high school students are thrust into a new world of social connections where opinions are formed virally and affecting one’s own reputation can be a Herculean labor. Is it surprising that the early adopters of social media were teenagers? It’s a medium that maps perfectly to the complex social dynamics already at play during that stage of life; a dynamic in which gossip, sensationalism, “cool” factors, and popularity are the laws of the land.
There is much, much more in the full article. Take a look and let us know what you think.
Brian is Managing Director of little m media which provides strategic guidance and support to organizations around the use of the internet and technology to facilitate communications, engagement, education, and mobilization.
