Public Relations

pr in action // managing the spin

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Compiled by Andreas Karsten with contributions from Åsa Hagelstedt, Pontus Ekstam (Ungdomsstyrelsen), Veronika Remisova, Irene Handeland and Aris-tides Clades (all European Commission), and most importantly, the informa-tion officers of National Agencies of the European Union's "Youth in Action" Programme.

You can find the organisers – the SALTO Information Resource Centre – online at http://www.salto-youth.net. Get in touch with the author – Andreas Karsten of Frankly Speaking – at andreas@frankly-speaking.org.

All tagclouds created with http://www.wordle.net.

Photo credits – Creative common licences // Thanks goes to the flickr users mybloodyself, olivander, canonsnapper, thnuzzi, oberazzi, felix francis, shah-ram sharif, geishaboy500, meredith_farmer, xdjio, lotyloty, hans rivadeneira, thomas hawk, jenica26, and selva.

Berlin & Stockholm // December 2008

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Public Relations in ActionManaging the spin

Annual Staff Training 2008Information Officers

European Union«Youth in Action»

Programme

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“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.”

George Carlin

“I’m all in favour of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.  

Let’s start with typewriters.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

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07 Overture07 Context and setting of the staff training07 Expectations towards the staff training

09 Public Relations09 History of public relations10 Definitions of public relations

11 The European Youth Week11 The youth week – an example of intercultural PR

13 Dissemination and Exploitation of Results13 Strategy of the European Commission

14 Case studies

15 Public Relations Tools15 On how to make your voice heard

19 Intermezzo19 Five words to capture "Youth in Action"

23 External PR examples

25 Public Relations Skills & Practice25 From theory to practice

27 Finale

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“Publicity is the life of this culture and, at the same time, it's dream.”

John Berger

“People don't really care how much you know

until they knowhow much you care.”

Mike McNight

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OvertureContext and setting of the staff training

Expectations towards the staff training

The staff training of information officers is an annual meeting of colleagues at the various national agencies of the "Youth in Action" Programme who are – in part-time or full-time posi-tions, and with different strategies, approaches and priorities – responsible for information, public relations, and marketing. The specific functions and expectations projected on the role of an information officer vary greatly from agency to agency.

Since mid-2002, the information officers are supported by the SALTO Information Resource Centre – with SALTO standing for "Support, Advanced Learning and Training Opportunities" . The Centre was established to develop and facilitate internal communication, co-operation, and information between the different stakeholders and actors of the programme.

Valorisation, in European Commission terminology usually understood as dissemination and exploitation of results, is commonly part of the information portfolio.

Staff trainings have mostly served a trifold purpose: exchange among and networking be-tween colleagues, information from and feedback to the SALTO Information Resource Centre and the European Commission, and training on aspects related to information.

The 2008 edition of the staff training was expected to adequately accommodate these three needs, and to help evolve the training elements by making them more directly useful. These demands were formulated by the SALTO Information Resource Centre in response to the ex-periences and evaluations from previous meetings. To that end, a trainer was to be recruited who should have relevant experience in the field and could thus go beyond neutral facilitation to bring in expertise and – explicitely – provoke and challenge.

Furthermore, participating information officers were asked beforehand and upon arrival to formulate their main expectations. The responses highlighted the aspects of information, inspiration, and interaction – put differently, people were expecting to know what's going on in their field of work, including plans for the future; to get some new ideas and techniques use-ful for their work; to have sufficient time to exchange experiences, ideas and stories with their colleagues from all over Europe; and to, quite simply, have a good time.

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“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.”

Nikos Kazantzakis

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about

and that is not being talked about.”

Oscar Wilde

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Public RelationsHistory of public relations

The arts of information and campaigning are, to no surprise, as old as mankind; and so are their shadowy counterparts of misinformation, manipulation, and propaganda.

The first known PR-campaign of our times is associated with the Duchess of Devonshire Geor-giana Cavendish who, while campaigning for her coursin Charles James Fox during the 1784 elections for the House of Commons, traded one kiss for one vote. In 1897, the term 'Public Relations' appeared in writing for the first time, in the United States "Year Book of Railway Lit-erature". For many years to come, the vocation remained strongly linked to the railway busi-ness: the first press release, a case in point, was issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1906, aiming to inform the public in response to an accident.

From the beginning of the 20th century, the profession was most notably shaped by Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. In 1904, Lee co-founded the PR agency "Parker and Lee" and coined the motto «Accuracy Authenticity Interest» to promote the work of his firm. In 1906, he published the "Declaration of Principles", a first attempt to describe the moral values and ethical borders of the profession. Together with Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee served on the "Committee on Public Information", which was created in 1917 to influence public opinion during World War I. For this purpose, the committee developed the slogan «Make the world safe for democracy».

In the 1930s, Edward Bernays – nephew to Sigmund Freud – published two books named "Crys-tallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928). Bringing together psychoanalytics and crowd psychology, he argued that

"the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. … In this age of mass production, there must be a technique for the mass distibution of ideas, too."

In his books – which later were, not surprisingly, part of Goeb-bels extensive library – Bernays, "The Father of Spin", used hisunderstanding and interpretation of human behaviour to develop theories and methodologies for the manipulation of public opinion. His ideas exemplify a truth that is conve-niently overlooked these days: the history of public relations is also a history of the manipulation of public opinion.

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Public RelationsDefinitions of public relations

What is PR? is not exactly an unimportant question, certainly not for active professionals. Some different definitions shall display the variety of approaches over the course of time …

PR is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organiza-tion and its publics. Edward Bernays (1945)

Public relations helps an organization and its publics to adapt mutually to each other. Public Relations Society of America // PRSA (1988)

PR is a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures and interests of an organization... followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance. Edward Bernays (1990)

PR is applied social science advising clients on the social attitudes and actions they must take to appeal to the public on which they are dependent. Edward Bernays (1992)

PR involves the cultivation of favorable relations for organizations and products with its key publics through the use of a variety of communication channels and tools. Paul Christ, knowthis.com (1998)

PR is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organization’s ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually ben-eficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values. Robert Heath, Encyclopedia of PR (2005)

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The European Youth WeekThe youth week – an example of intercultural PR

The European Youth Week 2008, both a major contribution to the celebration of the 20th an-niversary of the EU Youth Programmes and to the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, served as an intriguing example for a project necessitating a transnational and intercultural approach to information and public relations.

The central event of the youth week offers young people the opportunity to debate with policy makers, ensuring that their conclusions become an essential part of the decision-making for the priorities of European youth policies in 2009. It is, at the same time, a powerful showcase for the potential of the "Youth in Action" Programme of the EU.

But does the PR approach fully unveil this potential?

The slogan of the youth week kindly aidedthis element of the discourse as a good example:

2003 Youth IN Action // INitiative – INtercultural dialogue – INclusion2005 Youth takes the floor // Dialogue – Debate – Democracy2007 Youth in Action! // Get involved! Get influence! Get active!2008 Be the Future. Be Europe. // 20th Programme Anniversary

The slogan of 2008 may have improved, compared to previous years, but it remains difficult to translate into many other languages – while it has the courageous ambition to appeal to all young Europeans. The same holds true for the images – but how European are they, after all?

It is, of course, easy to pinpoint these weaknesses… And incomparably more difficult to iden-tify solutions. But it should be tried nonetheless, and it should be attempted to involve infor-mation officers from early on – for the development of slogans and visuals as well as press material. So far this has not worked very well, to the disadvantage of the youth week.

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“The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

George Bernard Shaw

“Don't believe your own publicity. You can't; you'll start thinking

you're better than you are.”

Leif Garret

1 The European Commission makes a distinction between dissemination measures and exploi-tation measures: Dissemination – derived from the Latin for "abroad" (dis) and "seed" (semin), and simply meaning to "spread widely" – is defined as "a planned process of providing infor-mation on the quality, relevance and effectiveness of the results of programmes and initia-tives to key actors. It occurs as and when the results of programmes and initiatives become available." Exploitation – understood positively as "making use of and deriving benefit from (a resource)" – entails both mainstreaming and multiplication. Mainstreaming is "the planned process of transferring the successful results of programmes and initiatives to appropriate decision-makers in regulated local, regional, national or European systems". Multiplication, on the other hand, is "the planned process of convincing individual end-users to adopt and/or apply the results of programmes and initiatives."

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/valorisation/why_en.html.

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Dissemination & ExploitationStrategy of the European Commission

Dissemination and exploitation of results (DEOR) is the strategy of the European Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture cutting across all its programmes. It aims to optimise the value of a project, to strengthen its impact, to transfer it to other contexts, and to integrate it in a sustainable manner into the broader European context.1

In the youth field, the process of dissemination and exploitation involves promotion, aware-ness-raising, information, mainstreaming, and multiplication at various levels, ranging from micro (projects) and intermediate (structural measures) to macro (programme).

Initiatives to stimulate dissemination and exploitation include provisions for extra financial support to projects carrying out additional DEOR measures, the possibility to implement multi-measure projects, opportunities for thematic networks to be established and to receive funding, calls for large-scale projects encouraging quality and innovation, on– and offline showcases of project results, and the mainstreaming of recognition of nonformal learning through instruments such as Youthpass.

The regulatory framework for DEOR initiatives is provided through the legal basis of the "Youth in Action" Programme and is substantiated by the programme guide as well as targeted calls for proposals and the workplans of National Agencies and SALTO centres.

Tools being utilised for the dissemination and exploitation of results include the European Youth Portal, Youthlink, the Salto Toolbox, Youthnet, Youthpass and – upon its long-awaited completion – EVE, the e-platform for the dissemination and exploitation of results from pro-grammes and projects supported by DG Education and Culture.

The role of information officers in support of implementing the DEOR strategy entails the provision of guidance and advice to project organisers and promoters, the multiplication of project and programme results at national level, and the co-operation between agencies to facilitate the exchange of good practices.

The strategy for the dissemination and exploitation of results of the YiA Programme can be found at the European Commission website: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/focus/focus1230_en.htm.

Additional information and inspiration for dissemination and exploitation of project or pro-gramme results is available at http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/valorisation/.

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Dissemination & ExploitationCase studies

The following case studies from other programmes – such as Culture or Leonardo da Vinci – were briefly introduced at the staff training for inspiration and reference: Fantasy Design, Free2choose, Helios, Novalog, and Lingo.

http://www.fantasydesign.org http://tinyurl.com/free2choose http://www.education-observatories.net/helios http://www.novalog-project.org http://www.eurointeractions.com Additionally, participating information officers worked on case studies related to the "Youth in Action" Programme and its various actions and sub-actions. Depending on the case study, several DEOR measures were suggested, among them:

photo competitionsradio trailers and interviewsvideos for youtube and similar sites

thematically relevant and well-written blogsmake all results available online (conclusions, reports, but also photos, videos)cross-links on websites of partner organisations and agenciesnews item in several electronic newsletters

meetings with similar organisations and associations – network creationencouragement for partner organisations to run a similar or follow-up project

awards for best contributions

local intercultural event

project exhibition

small, attractive brochure or publication

outdoor activity with local celebrities (bungee-jumping)invite media to attend such an eventhand over declaration during such an event

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Public Relations ToolsOn how to make your voice heard

If PR is understood as the relations of an organisation with the outside world – media, custom-ers, politics, potential members, and others – and as spreading a picture of your organisation, the question arises how this picture can be influenced. How should PR be done well?

The most fundamental quality aspect of excellent public relations is to not begin with the tools. The first questions, preceding everything else, should always be asking for purpose and intention, for what and why. Leave the tools alone!

What do we want? Why do we want it? Who do we want to affect? Which image do we give?

These are the main questions that need answering before being able to make informed choices about tools and methods in response to the final question How should we go about it?, in reality (too) often the only question asked. But how are you supposed to pick and choose the best tool if there is no clarity on your purpose and intentions, your target group and ideal image?

The variety of tools is, after all, limitless, and each tool is multifaceted on top of it …

Purpose and intention come first

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Tools for making your voice heard

On press releases

Some key qualities of good press releases. They provide fresh and new information. They provide verifiable facts. They feature an attractive and short headline. They offer a short summary as the introduction. They present the most relevant information first. They con-tain a few concise and spicy quotes. They have a logo of your organisation at the top, and information about your organisation at the bottom. They provide contact details of one or two people who are actually available, both by phone and by email. They are sent in the morn-

ing to all media channels (print, radio, tv, online) on local and regional as well as national and internationel level, if appropriate. They are published simultaneously on your website.

On press conferences

Some key qualities of good press conferences. They are held only when there is something new to present. They were invited for on time, and held at times that are easy to attend (mostly, this means mornings). The news to be revealed has not been sent out with the invitation al-ready. They are organised in a welcoming atmosphere, with some drinks and snacks served. They respect the professionalism of the attending journalists.

On writing own articles

Some key qualities of good articles. Make an informed choice about the style and approach of your article – news articles are excellent for some purposes, feature articles for others. Do you wanna go for a column or an essay, a human interest story or an op-ed?

Pay attention to all parts of the article and their consistency: the headline and the lead, the body and the conclusion. Make sure to introduce your points and demands early on, as it's not unlikely that the paper will shorten your text. It's always a good idea to call editorial staff and check whether they are interested in an article – again, exclusiveness might be a convincing argument! Whichever form or style you opt for, make sure to not use any Euro-slang or spe-cific worlds from your professional context without explanation.

Writing together with another person or another organisation is often helpful. If you are a good writer and enjoy publishing, think about a weblog for yourself or your organisation!

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On gadgets

Some key qualities of cool gadgets. Everyone likes a free gift, but nobody will use them if they are useless or ugly. Make something beautiful and useful! Do something you would wear or use yourself. Don't repeat what others are doing. Have a clear message!

On print material

Some key qualities of good print material. Be consistent, use the same fonts, colours, logos, and visuals. Don't be too long. Opt for a clear message for each product, and be coherent across products, too. Use pictures and images. Provide all the information needed to understand what your message or request or invitation is. Always provide your web-address, and make sure that the topics and themes of your print material are reflected on the website.

On events and festivals

Some key qualities of good event strategies. Choose fairs, festivals and events that your target group attends. Make your showcase inviting. Offer opportunities to sit and talk in a relaxed atmosphere. Offer your visitors more than your words – have food and drinks ready. Don't always talk within the groups of people from your own organisation!

On demonstrations and manifestations

Some key qualities of good demonstrations. Do not think in numbers! Great manifestations and demonstrations can happen with 10 or with 10.000 people. Think in pictures, images, photos. What makes for a good story, for a capturing image? Coffins and candles, shoes and fish, cos-tumes and banners – all this and much more is good stuff for political rallies. Make sure to fulfil all legal requirements: registration, law-enforcement, insurance. And make sure to create some tension in advance, to skilfully tempt journalists …

On spreading the news

Some qualities of spreading the news. Make your own contacts with journalists. Offer exclusivity. Invite journalists to an event, but if the press can't attend, send informa-tion and provide photos after the event.

Tools for making your voice heard

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Tools for making your voice heard

On lobbying

Some key qualities of good lobbying. Respect that many policy-makers want to learn more about your areas of work. They may have full agendas, and employees who can't give you an appointment within the next couple of days rightaway, but … Lots of policy-makers and their staff are readily available on the phone and through email. Be clear what you want and expect, and enjoy re-ceiving open responses and honest interest!

On awards

Some key qualities of good awards. Awards should only be invented and given out at very spe-cial occasions to very special people – someone who has done extraordinary things in support of your cause. Make sure to have an audience before you invite anyone, including the media.

On surveys

Some key qualities of good surveys. Surveys must always hold up to scientific scrutiny. It's fine to interpret survey findings in a particular way, but it's not fine to base your argument on a bad piece of research! Use surveys to find out things you know – but can't yet prove.

On celebrities

Some key qualities of good celebrity support. Once in a while there might be a person who has been affiliated with your organisation or your cause, and is now famous. It's fine to try and re-engage such celebrities, but make sure to use them rarely, once in a long while …

On the online world

Some key qualities of good online pr. Using social networks such as Facebook, Bebo or Hi5 can only be successful when you are using them for yourself. Most users hate to see their networks be abused for promotional purposes only. Establish your own credibility by being there all the time. Check which networks are used by your target groups – http://tinyurl.com/snpop.

The same counts for blogs, youtube, vimeo and most web2.0 platforms: use them first for a purpose other than pure pr. Use them for yourself, and the rest will come!

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IntermezzoFive words to capture «Youth in Action»

In a small experiment in preparation of the staff training, we asked one short question to stakeholders of the "Youth in Action" Programme, from agency officers and organisers to us-ers and beneficiaries, namely:

Which five words capture, to your mind, the "youth in action" programme best?

We got some 80 responses,and in an experiment that is neither representative nor conclusive, were holding the five words of different programme stakeholders against the 40+ responses of the attending programme officers (as well as European Commission and Salto staff).

Through the experiment, we were trying to explore whether there is a difference between per-ceptions of the information officers – responsible for promoting the programme – and other programme stakeholders with diverse responsibilities in the management and implementa-tion of the programme.

The following images display the responses in relation to their frequency, i.e. how often they were mentioned. Following the principle of tagclouds, the words that were mentioned more often are bigger, and words that were mentioned less often are smaller.

While we hope you find this comparison informative, do keep in mind that it is neither repre-sentative nor conclusive. Just a small experiment to stimulate discussion …

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The most frequently mentioned word was youth. Looking at the top seven, the differences are more distinct. Information officers are on the right, other programme stakeholders left.

Five words to capture «Youth in Action»

On the following page you will then find the twenty most frequently mentioned words by pro-gramme officers, followed by the twenty most frequently associated words by all other pro-gramme stakeholders. The words are scaled correctly according to their occurence.

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Five words to capture «Youth in Action»

information officersprogramme stakeholders

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“It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper.”

Errol Flynn

“Reputation mattersbecause your behind

is always behind you.”

Happy Masina

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External PR examplesBroadening our perspective …

PR is not the most natural or common area of work in governmental structures or non-govern-mental organisations. Often enough, it is partly neglected, understaffed or underfinanced. And yet, good PR can happen with limited resources – and as an ongoing element of the staff train-ing, 14 examples of skilful public relations were briefly introduced at the beginning of different sessions, of which we picked 3 for this report to illustrate the idea. These examples were not meant to serve as an excuse for decision-makers to continue providing insufficient resources… They were meant as a tiny bit of motivation for the underfinanced pr-practitioners out there.

EU Media Programme

At the occasion of the Berlin Film Festival "Berlinale", five short clips were produced by film academy students, showcasing a wide range of movies supported by the Media Programme. The clips are accessible on the EU's youtube channel and via http://tinyurl.com/mediaclips.

Berlin's Sanitation Company

Following research indicating that Berlin's citizen were not aware of the scale and intensity of waste disposal in the city, the sanitation com-pany decided to develop a low-level campaign which puts the average employee at the centre of attention. Part of the campaign is an annual calendar showing sanitation staff throughout the city, which cannot be bought – it is available, for a few weeks only, from the crews of garbage trucks. A huge success! More at http://tinyurl.com/berlin-sanitation.

The Evolution of Dance

Judson Laipply is a college comedian and motivational speak-er in the US who came up with this incredible performance of six minutes, in which he performs (and mocks) more than 30 dance moves across styles, genres and times. The movie was recorded at one of his speaking engagements. Meanwhile, the video has been watched more than a hundred million times and is , to the day, the most viewed video on youtube. Enjoy the wildly funny video at http://tinyurl.com/laipply.

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“Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.”

Jim Rohn

“You have got to findsome way of saying it

without saying it.”

Duke Ellington

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PR Skills & PracticeFrom theory to practice

For an entire day, information officers worked in smaller teams on different aspects of public relations directly related to and useful for their own work. Some groups concentrated on the preparation of the 2008 edition of the youthweek, which is not documented here but will rath-er find a place in the youthweek's own reporting. Other teams addressed questions around spreading good practice, high quality applications, and support of information officers. Their findings and suggestions are briefly showcased here – do not hesitate to get in touch with the Salto Information team to learn more about how these discussions have continued and how they were translated into practice!

How to identify good practices? How to make them available for a broader audience?

Why would someone want to identify specific projects as good practice? Isn't there some good practice in every project? Yes, there undoubtedly is! And yet, pinpointing some examples of good practice should help to improve the overall quality of projects, to raise the status and recognition of the programme, to establish and strengthen the brand or label, to connect the programme with its larger European values and ideals, and – last but not least – it should help to inspire more people to use the programme.

Starting from these aims, any strategy on spreading good practice should be addressed to young people, youth leaders and youth organisations; to national agencies, the Salto network and ministries; and also to policy-makers and authorities on local, regional, national and Eu-ropean level.

Several ideas were developed in aid of identifying and spreading good practice, among them:

» The development and usage of technical resources facilitating transnational co-operation, for example through a section on youthnet specifically dedicated to the dissemination and exploitation of results, through the eve-database, and youthlink. Through such tools, good practices could be made available systematically, widely and across borders.

» The development of regular competitions relying on different media, including photo, vid-eo, poetry. Such competitions could showcase different projects very well.

» The development of a central and public platform for showcases, where project descrip-tions and reports could be available as well as photos, videos and radio-clips.

» The standard set of public relations tools of every information officer should also be util-ised for exhibiting and promoting good practice projects.

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From theory to practice

What could we do to receive more applications?

Several ideas were collected to increase quantity and quality of applications, among them:

Ideas for short-term action

» Sending text messages (sms) to beneficiaries shortly before the next deadline

» Sending postcards to well-known organisations as a reminder to hand in applications

» Sending a well-designed and clear pdf post-card to potential programme users

» Providing clearly visible and easily recognis-able information on agency website

» Feeding deadlines and other relevant info into national databases and websites

» Consulting with applying organisations about possible improvements to their bid

Ideas for long-term action

» Organising training sessions for local youth organisations with examples of projects » Offering training sessions on how to write good applications and bids » Running experiential learning activities to introduce the programme's philosophy » Organising a competition among applicants, such as for a free international training » Involving youth organisations through a competition for a new national motto » Offering free text messaging on the agency's website for a limited time » Introducing target-group and interest-based website navigation » Creating small-scale video-clip to promote the programme

» Producing a short radio-spot for usage on youth and campus radio stations

» Using the programme logo and links on other youth-relevant sites, too

» Promoting specific countries for actions, in partnership with specific agencies

» Establishing a youthtube channel on you- tube as a central video repository » and more …

“Public Relations fails when there is no integrity.”

Viv Segal

“What kills a skunkis the publicity

it gives itself.”

Abraham Lincoln