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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Ah, an authentic voice ... a difficult concept to grasp in a world of spin.

I just finished an 9 year tour of duty in PR, so it's been a while since I've spoken with an authentic voice. I feel free to talk now, but it's difficult and will take some time. Once there, though, I have a feeling that I'll experience, well, great relief! Lack of authenticity creates a big burden -- worry.

We are clearly entering a new paradigm of communications. A messy one, for sure, but one that empowers the individual. I like it. It's scary, but I like it nonetheless. Hell, even Bill Gates likes blogs now!

The examples that Simon cites above are excellent ... they demonstrate that it just doesn't pay to pretend. You're going to get caught. Corporate marketing and PR departments can learn from these examples. They will have to adjust eventually since they are on the front lines for anti-authenticity.

I've done 6 years in corporate PR and 3 years in university PR. The two experiences were polar opposites. I used to do PR at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton, Massachusetts. Back then, the "PR" department was staffed by former journalists, not PR people. We viewed our jobs as internal reporters ... we went out and found the coolest stories on campus and then called the press and sold the stories that sold themselves. Granted, we were fortunate to have a high quality, scientifically-oriented university to tap for stories, but the analogy still holds, I believe.

We did not engage PR agencies. We did not have message platforms. We did not "media train" our spokespeople. We did not have Q&As. We did not pitch stories that were clearly self-serving or just really dumb. What we did do, however, was exactly opposite. We did a version of Cluetrain before we knew what it was. We trusted our spokespeople (in this case doctors, veterinarians, biologists, students, professors, clients etc), and we encouraged them to simply tell their stories in their own voices. When reporters experienced this authenticity, they let their guard down (most of them, anyway), and a genuine professional relationship formed. That's pretty much it. The result? Lots of really interesting stories with juicy quotes from funky researchers doing fascinating things throughout the university. Every day I talked to top tier print and broadcast media from around the world, and I did it rather freely. We had to be protective on occasion due to obviously sensitive issues, but that was the exception, not the rule.

From that experience, I did 6 years of corporate PR at 3 different companies, and I was absolutely and totally unprepared. Everything was different. Everything was opposite. All conversation stopped and it stopped immediately. I repeatedly got into trouble for trying to do what I did at Tufts. Eventually, I gave up.

I'm not saying life at Tufts and that model was perfect. Far from it. I almost got my ass fired a few times for doing this, and I have some media stories from that experience that PR people find utterly outrageous. But if I had to do PR, I much prefer the "conversation model" at the university. It helped foster trust between PR people, spokespeople, and the press. It also generated a gallon of good stories, too. It can be done. Corporate PR and marketing has this model turned on its head. I don't know where they go from here. Should be interesting to watch, though.

Jim G.
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jimgris