Public Relations is. . .

I find I have to explain what I do to people a lot. When I worked for a company or non-profit where I was the sole PR person, it was a constant push-pull with my colleagues as to what I was supposed to do vs. what they were asking me to do.

Working for an agency, my co-workers clearly know what it is that I do because they do the same thing. It's kinda nice to be able to bounce ideas off of someone who gets it. The challenge now is making the client understand what it is that we do for them.

Honestly, my own family probably has a hard time really understanding what it is that I do with my work, so here is my short and sweet way of trying to explain it to the world.

Public Relations is:

• NEW: one of the only industries that has the word "disaster" or "nightmare" behind it when you hear about it in public. Like "Paula Deen is dealing with a Public Relations disaster." Or "The BP oil spill is STILL a PR nightmare."
• NEW: something you only hear about when it goes wrong. When it goes right, people think that you did nothing at all. 
• Working with the media to try and get your company/brand/product or your client's company/brand/product mentioned in a positive light on TV, the radio, in a newspaper story, online or via social media.
• being excruciatingly detailed in working plans for events.
• being able to toss out said plans at a moment's notice when stuff doesn't work out exactly as you had it drawn up.
• event planning.
• working hard for all reporters and having some of them hate you. 
• spending all day setting up an interview to have it called off because Justin Bieber got in a car accident. 
• working with mascots and crazy mascot rules, and the crazier people that abide by those rules on the daily.
• saying stuff like "unfortunately, we can't move the priceless work of art that weighs 2,000 lbs because it's in your eye line as you're giving an interview. Perhaps you can just ignore it or maybe move as you weigh less than the art?" with a straight face. 
• feeling elated when politicians cite a statistic you provided them with in a media interview or otherwise on the record.
• seeing your spokesperson and information correctly represented in a news story.
• having a speaker you prepped deliver everything exactly as you had told him or her to deliver it. 
• being an impromptu graphic designer when stuff has to get changed immediately and you have to pull a Tim Gunn.
• having a sense of gratification when you see a sizzle reel of all the work you did.
• knowing what a sizzle reel is.
• convincing people you work for that you can't just call up the major newspaper in your city and have them come out to cover a check presentation ceremony.
• reading a lot and writing a lot. 
• knowing you'll probably end up working with a lot of women. 
• becoming an expert in things you never knew you'd know like the difference between heart disease, stroke and cardiovascular disease or how to earn a Girl Scouts patch or why librarians are so disgruntled. 
• so much more than working with the media. 

Okay, PR friends, what else am I missing?

Frivolous PR

To be honest, I would totally do PR for him no matter what.

Back when I was just starting out in my career, I was frankly against PR jobs. Let me rephrase that: Back BEFORE I had a career, I was against PR jobs. Mostly I thought that PR was just a way to control the media. Then again I was determined to be a part of the media until I learned that I could make more money working retail part time than in full time starting off writing positions at newspapers (which by the way were scarce jobs even back then). So my buying into a book I had in college called Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry met directly with my need to eat. Eating won.

After a brief stint with a HUGE multinational company that made me feeling icky, I decided that I would only do PR for the "betterment of mankind" or that was so ridiculous that no one could take it seriously. I thought at the time that that left me with non-profit, sports or entertainment. Seeing that I lived in Middle America, didn't have the balls at the time to move and there were only 3 professional sports teams within a 3 hour drive, I chose non-profit. And it worked out well. Hopefully for all parties involved.

Lately, I've been rethinking my stance. Clearly I do PR still and it's not for a place related to the three things I list above, but I actually like my job. I realize there are companies that pitch ridiculously false things to the media but honestly for the most part the media have a pretty good BS meter, so even the best written press release on a story with no substance won't get significant play. However, a poorly written release on a great material can kill a company--which is why companies and journalists to some extent need PR. But that's beside the point. I thought since now I'm doing different PR could I do PR for a sports team or celebrity? Not tactically, but PR is PR. If you can do it well, it's a pretty transferable skill. The level of aggressiveness changes with industry, but that's about it.

The question is now whether I'd want to do what I thought of as "frivilous PR" and now I think the answer is no. Mostly because I don't think people in the entertainment and sports fields think of it as frivolous. And I agree on one hand: those industries are BIG money so the PR is at a higher importance. But when I say "frivolous PR" I mean that the person receiving the information does not see it as essential in their daily lives. And that's where things seemed to have changed. I've seriously met people who view US Weekly as their own personal devotional books. People who can't name the current president, but can tell me the past 6 winners of Dancing With The Stars. . . in order of their receiving the disco ball trophy.

Maybe nothing at all has changed that much except my perception. But that's all I got.