Digging out last week after my vacation, I came across a big news item I'd missed; a communicator posted it on Facebook. Sorry for the late notice.
A worldwide group of communicators finalized "The Stockholm Accord" June 15, a call to action to improve our reputations.
Boy. Nothing'll ever be the same.
A bit high and mighty? Sure. But at least somebody is attempting to make a statement to the world — not to communicators, who we would hope already have this basic understanding — about what this profession is all about and why it’s important.
That’s more than most of our professional associations have succeeded at doing.
It would help if people would do their research…it wasn’t “a worldwide group of communicators” who finalized The Stockholm Accords, it was at the World PR Forum, which is the bi-annual conference of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management. And the GA is the (truly international) umbrella organization linking public relations (and communication management) associations, worldwide.
As in the various (inter)national associations work together, to establish global standards.
What’s wrong with that?
Oh, and the Stockholm Accords project is not finished. It’s estimated there will be two years of input/amalgamation from the various stakeholder associations.
Judy, your harrumph doesn’t dissuade me from seeing this communication meetup as something less than the Yalta Conference and The Stockholm Accords as a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Have you read the document? I made it to about the third paragraph before I turned to drugs.
Yes I’ve read the document all of the way through. And I agree, the language is dry.
But I also believe, quite strongly, that if public relations/communication are truly to become “professions,” the body of knowledge needs to be codified.*
Do YOU similarly harrumph about the recen Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles? Or are you simply anti-Scandinavian efforts?
*You force me to pimp my old post, yet again: http://www.prconversations.com/index.php/2007/12/industry-trade-or-profession/
🙂
I have never heard of the Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles. And for that I am grateful.
Honestly, Judy, this whole “profession vs. craft” conversation bores me to tears.
Blame my communication mentor, Larry Ragan, who wrote circa 1975 that such discussions are good to have over a bottle on a winter’s night, but they don’t have much bearing on day-to-day reality of communication work.
The reality is this: Communications people will ALWAYS be almost wholly evaluated on their merits–their skills, their insights, emotional intelligence, their business savvy–rather than on any professional designation.
If our accountant screws up our taxes, we can get sympathy by saying, “I can’t believe it! He’s a CPA!”
Imagine a world where a PR guy blows it with a reporter and the CEO says, “How could this happen? Isn’t she an APR?!”
It’s not only far-fetched, it’s really preposterous.
Those merits are not only learned through college education and on-the-job training. Many of them are imparted by professional associations. I know in my case (I was a newspaper journalism major and a reporter before getting my first PR job), if it wasn’t for IABC I probably would have failed miserably and would not be in the profession today.
So before you dismiss the codification of professional standards, and even a common definition of what we do and how we do it, think where this profession would be if not for efforts similar to this.
I’m not saying I want to curl up with the Accords before turning in at night. And certainly the way they are presented is a bit haughty. But I think it’s pretty arrogant of you to dismiss them as “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
I’m not calling for an end to training or an end to associations or an end to professional standards.
I’m saying I don’t care for the debate between profession and craft, and I’m dismissing The Stockholm Accords, just as wise folks dismissed decades-long call for “PR for PR”–until proven wrong.
Robert, profess to care about professionalism in communication, yet, like me, you can’t bring yourself read these Accords. How can you call me arrogant for dismissing them in words, when you’re dismissing them in action?
I’m open to a manifesto; hell, I’ve written a few of them.
I just know an ineffectual document when I see one.
David:
“Draft of Stockholm Accords” MY ASS! Just exactly who do these pretentious time-wasting blowhards think they are? Delegates to the United Nation? Diplomats from the ranking world powers?
Bob Holland, you should know better. Whenever Bob talks about something he has personal knowledge of, such as an actual factory, and an actual production floor, and his efforts to communicate with factory workers, he talks uncommon good sense and occasionally rises to real wisdom.
When he writes about that worthless talking shop known as IABC, he becomes a bore and a sentimentalist in whom I don’t see the faintest trace of the Bob Holland who learned all his “communication” lessons the hard way, on the fly, under pressure, and by overcoming his own mistakes through sheer toughness and perseverance.
And yet I read this from his pen: “. . .if it wasn’t for IABC, I probably would have failed miserably and would not be in the profession today.” Bullshit, Bob.
To Judy Gombita: What is the Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles? It sounds like the result of one too many cocktails on the penultimate night of a failed PR conference.
Good God! Can you imagine the bores who thought such a thing necessary, or who thought they were the men and women for the job? I’ll bet it outdoes the Stockholm pseudo-pundits in re-stating the obvious in lifeless, wordy, abstract, pompous, illiterate jargon.
Bill Sweetland
Well, I never expected a character assassination due to my response. Oh, wait. It’s from Bill Sweetland, so I should have.
First, Bill, if you’re going to trash me personally for my opinions, at least have the common courtesy to call me by my name, which is Robert. Nobody calls me Bob and if you really knew me, you’d know that.
Also, if you knew me, you’d know my experience goes far beyond the factory floor.
Clearly, you don’t know me, Bill, so lay off the personal attacks.
I’m no apologist when it comes to IABC. Lord knows, in recent years I’ve criticized it more than comes to its defense. Talk about ineffectual.
But it is true that I would have been lost early in my career if not for what I learned from IABC, which at that time cared about members at the grassroots level and supported its chapters, and which enabled me to learn so much in such a short period of time.
I am not necessarily praising the Stockholm document itself. As I said early on, it comes off as high and mighty and it’s a heavy read. But I stand by my point that at least somebody out there is trying to establish global standards for our profession. I don’t believe such efforts should be dismissed so handily as David has done here. Hell, even the IABC and PRSA can’t agree on standards for accreditation, and they’re legitimate professional associations! At least for a while longer.