Where the Fishermen Ain't -- Phil Gomes' Thoughts on PR, Social Media, and Online Communities

CREWE: Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement

For people who are serious about discussing the PR-and-Wikipedia-related matters covered in yesterday's posts, I've created a group on Facebook at the suggestion of John Cass. This was in the context of a discussion on Kevin Dugan's Facebook related to my original open letter. 

Owing to the name, I anticipate that the bulk of the members would be PR folks, but I strongly encourage people of all views to participate because, frankly, that's the only way we'll get closer to the goal.

And what is this goal? This will become clearer over time, but the core idea rests on four pillars:

1. Corporate communicators want to do the right thing.
2. Communicators engaged in ethical practice have a lot to contribute.
3. Current Wikipedia policy does not fully understand #1 and #2, owing to the activities of some bad actors and a general misunderstanding of public relations in general.
4. Accurate Wikipedia entries are in the public interest. 

The group is open. There's not much of a there there yet, but that's where you come in.

And, yes, I realize that there's some philosophy-shear in terms of using a proprietary resource to discuss matters related to an open-source one. This is trumped (if slightly) by the very "PR" consideration of going where most of the interested parties already are and integrating it into people's day-to-day online experience. 

Hoping people support this effort and take it up in the spirit it is intended. 

An Open Letter to Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia

Jimmy,

I’d like to take the opportunity to publicly address an important topic that is long overdue for discussion. I write this, not as a representative of my employer, but as a career communications professional focused on matters related to online communities.

Short version: A truly serious conversation needs to happen about how communications professionals and the Wikipedia community can/must work together. Since recent events have thrown this issue into sharp relief, I’d like us to have an open, constructive and fair discussion about the important issues where public relations and Wikipedia intersect.

As to the long version, consider:

• Wikipedia is on the first page of search results for nearly every company, brand, product, personality, captain-of-industry, etc. This shoulders Wikipedia with a great level of responsibility, whether asked for or otherwise.
• Many entries are derelict, even for important topics and well-known industry bellwethers. Financial data is often years old. Some companies are described as remaining in businesses long divested. A WikiProject for reviving abandoned articles, and a proposal for a similar effort, themselves both appear abandoned.
• You can imagine why a company might consider its entry to be a high priority (perhaps even to the point of distraction) and task its communications staff to "do something", especially if the entry is inaccurate.
• Entreaties on Talk pages—determined as the most appropriate place for a company representative to make his/her case—often go ignored for very long periods while inaccurate information persists. 
• The small concession to PR on the FAQ (that a company can "fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage, or fact", etc.) takes a lot for granted and helps neither a PR representative nor Wikipedia. For example, too often, a company representative will “go native” when it comes to separating matters of “fact” from matters upon which reasonable people might disagree. On the other hand, activists (hardly of a neutral point of view) appear to enjoy much more latitude. 

So, while I appreciate and support that Wikipedia must develop and enforce certain rules regarding neutrality and so on, the site is trying to have it both ways. In other words, it's clear that Wikipedia wants to be thought of as an accurate and available resource while 1) the volunteer maintenance of that resource—despite a strong level of dedication—is unable to keep up, and 2) the hands of ethical practitioners—those closest to data—are bound due to the activities of some bad actors.

This is a source of great tension between companies and Wikipedia and I’m not sure how the public is properly served by this state of affairs. Contrary to popular imagination, most corporate communications practitioners want to do the right thing. 

Some initial recommendations to help start discussion:

• When an entry is derelict (duration and definition TBD), a communications representative should be granted greater leeway in editing the entry. The entry can have a notification at the top indicating the derelict status, or even that a communications representative has had a hand in updating it. This will allow visitors to make their own judgments on how to evaluate the entry or even prioritize it in terms of how and when it gets evaluated and/or revised by a neutral party. The choice is between the certainty of an inaccurate entry or the possibility that the entry would not meet NPOV guidelines. Negative attention to bad behavior (or even to mediocre efforts) would mitigate the impact of the latter. 
• We could revive discussion about some guidance you gave in 2006, whereby a company could author a suggested entry, license it under the FDL, post it on its own site, and “notify Wikipedians who are totally independent.” This means less work for volunteers, since it’s almost always easier to react to something rather than write it from scratch. The best corporate communicators should be able to author something reasonably neutral, I'd imagine, with the Wikipedia community serving as an important check-and-balance. 

The next move is yours. I’d welcome further discussion on this topic, with the aim of fairly framing an open and constructive discussion about this matter. 

Thanks and regards,

/pmg

UPDATE 2012-01-04-1100 CT: In one of those "Great Minds Think Alike" type things, Stuart Bruce published his own thoughts about PR and Wikipedia, even referencing the same 2006 post from Jimmy Wales that I referenced above. He was inspired by MP Tom Watson's talk page on the topic. Clearly there's some pent-up discussion here and, I agree, that working with Wikipedia on improving the rules for corporate communications participation should be an international effort. 

UPDATE 2012-01-09-1300 CT: Mr. Wales responds. A lot to think about, so you'll see my reaction delivered in bits on this blog over the next few days. 

How PRSA's Crowdsourcing Experiment Could Go Horribly Wrong

The PRSA has managed to make quite a bit of noise around its crowdsourcing effort aimed at coming up with a new definition of "public relations." 

As with any such effort, there's always the risk that individuals or groups with zero, limited or even slanted knowledge of public relations will chime in. There will also likely be a number of agenda-driven folks aimed at unfairly smearing PR. 

Here are a few possibilities:

• Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI): "PR makes you really fat."
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): "PR requires a helmet, handrails, and skid-proof surfaces at all times."
• Food & Drug Administration (FDA): "This letter concerns PRSA's marketing of the "Public Relations...Defined" communications and marketing initiative. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed the label and labeling, including statements made on your website at the Internet addresses www.prsa.org and prsay.prsa.org. Based on claims made by PRSA for this product, PR is a drug under section 245(k)(7)(N) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (“FD&C Act”), [78 U.S.C. § 654 (k)(7)(N)], as it is intended for use in the influencing of public perceptions. As discussed below, this product is unapproved and your marketing of it violates the FD&C Act..."
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC): "As we are now re-classifying 'public relations' under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, PR is now defined as under the jurisdiction of this regulatory body."
• Office of the Surgeon General: "If you PR with someone, you PR with everyone that person has PR'ed with..."
• Coast to Coast AM: "The U.S. military used PR to cover up the Roswell landing and make us believe that the spacecraft from our extra-terrestrial visitors was a 'weather balloon.'"
• Paul Krugman: "As I've already said in a previous column, PR is something that was clearly George W. Bush's fault. Wait. What? Nobel committee on Line Two? Again? Wow! I should've thought of this years ago!"
• Media Research Center/Newsbusters: "PR is something that George Soros maybe uses occasionally, thereby proving without a doubt that PR is a vast and far-reaching conspiracy of the liberal media elite."
• Bill Maher: [Dud joke 1] [Dud joke 2] [Dud joke 3] "MICHELLE BACHMANN! SARAH PALIN!" [Applause] 
• World Net Daily: "PR is a tactic used by far-left-wing fifth-columnist sleeper cells led by an unholy union between Bill Ayers and the remnants of the Symbionese Liberation Army to lull you into a false sense of security and, before you know it, you'll be taxed at 95%, your home will be taken by eminent domain and razed to build an ACORN office, and your kids will spend 10 hours a day in public school indoctrination sessions wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and watching Hugo Chavez speeches. Just you watch!"
• University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit: "PR? Science? Meh... Tomato, toe-mah-toe..."
• The Budget Supercommittee: [Deadline extension requested from PRSA]
• Keith Olbermann: "PR is..." [It doesn't actually matter what comes next.]
• TechCrunch: "PR is something that will never, ever change our minds about the fact that RSS is Dead. Dead! DEAD, I TELL YOU!!1! (Although jumping on PR people is a good way to boost traffic, comments, likes and +1's every so often, FWIW LOL.)"
• Thomas Friedman: "PR is a strategic communications discipline whereby the hot, flat, crowded world can... Wow!!! China! Is! Just! So! AMAZING!"
• Media Matters for America: "Ummm... Uhhh... Err... FOX NEWS! BILL O'REILLY!!"
• Letter to The Economist: "SIR - With regard to public relations..."
• Charlie Sheen: "PR is a function of my rockstar ninja adonis-DNA amazingness #winning #tigerblood."
• Keith Olbermann: *sigh* "I said that PR is..."

You get the idea. Heck, even Wikipedia could get into the act:

"Wisdom in crowds", indeed.

Photo Credit: TopRankOnlineMarketing

A New Opportunity for PR: Media-Training Coaches and Sportscasters

In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise crew encountered a dumpy-looking race of scavengers called the Pakleds. As the episode progressed, you found out that the Pakleds were highly devious and intelligent beings even though they exhibited only mediocre speech skills. "We look for things," they often repeated as they attempted to articulate their mission. "We look for things that make us go." 

As I was watching the Packers stomp the Bears' Super Bowl dreams like a Snickers bar at a Biggest Loser reunion, I'm hoping that it's possible to similarly misjudge sports professionals. 

The Pakled comparison hit me when the sportscasters cut to the field reporter, who relayed a conversation she had with the Green Bay coach:

[The coach said that] "Offensively, we have to maximize our possessions. Defensively, we have to keep them out of the end-zone." Then he repeated it. "We have to keep them out of the end-zone. Period."

Wait... Let me get this straight, 'cause I want to make sure I don't miss anything. Do you meant to tell me that the point of a football team's defense is to keep the opponent from reaching the end-zone? (Evidently this isn't obvious, as the Green Bay coach allegedly repeated this salient point.)

And isn't "maximize our possessions" known to the rest of us schlubs as "scoring?" 

Sportscasters don't fare much better than coaches, giving us such gems as "This team came to win!" ("No, idiot," I often think. "The team came here to engage in highly expensive group therapy aimed at modulating excessive self-esteem and it backfired terribly.")

I don't imagine the coach's half-time pep-talk is something like, "Alright, team! Get out there and start sucking!"

Can't really blame sportscasters too much, though. My theory: As sportscasting moved from radio to television, the ability to describe the action intelligently, and fill the dead spots creatively, atrophied when TV introduced a visual crutch. When I used to watch sports semi-regularly, I would actually mute the TV and turn the radio on. Enterprise software types would call this a "best-of-breed" approach. Try it sometime. It rules. 

Dennis Miller's brief sportscasting career, unfortunately, swung the pendulum a bit too far in the other direction. I don't imagine that even a significant minority of sports fans would be able to unpack color commentary like "Defensive line? More like the Maginot Line!"

While sports marketing and sponsorship is familiar territory for communications firms, I'm wondering if a creative media trainer might devise a series of training tools that would help sports professionals, in particular, sound less... Pakledy.

Isn't it about time?