Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Thirty years ago, communicators had built a “gargantua”; what do we have now?

01.06.2010 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

Studs Terkel called this the "United States of Alzheimer's," because we forget where we came from.

I always thought he was being kind.

More often, we don't even ask.

That's why, when IABC veteran Wilma Mathews told me over dinner recently about a long ago speech about the communication business that she still remembered, I asked her to fax it to me.

It was delivered on November 15, 1977, by Jacob Whittmer, then president of IABC, at a meeting of the association's District II, in Winston Salem, N.C.

The speech is dated in many ways—early on, he jokes that "the new definition of a ghostwriter … is a person who wrote an unsatisfactory speech for Idi Amin"—and comfortably current in others. Here's an excerpt, and then I'll share Wilma's remembered reaction to the speech:

All in all, I've been kicking around the communications business since 1935—that's a long time—when I served as editor of my high school newspaper back in Southern Indiana.

Frankly, I really wasn't much concerned with talk of "power centers" or even audience impact back in those days. In fact, I was a pretty naive country bumpkin.

My first exposure to the power syndrome business—if you can call it that—came a couple of years as a sophomore journalism/political science student at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I distinctly remember hearing the cocky law students going around singing their favorite ditty: "Oh there's power, power, wonder-working power in the law, in the law. Oh there's power, power, wonder-working power in the Indiana law."

Even then there were, of course, some journalism professors and newspaper publishers who talked about the "power of the press." But no one took them very seriously—at least not in the same frame of reference in which we think of media power today.

As for industrial editing or business and organizational communications, it was practically unknown, especially to the journalism profession. Where it did exist, it was primarily a paternalistic device written in gossip column style—usually by the boss's secretary to keep everyone up to date on social and personal goings on. …

Over the years a gradual evolution occurred to give us the gargantua we have today—a billion dollar multi-media giant that rivals in importance and influence the rest of the entire communications industry in North America.

For example, organizational publications alone have a per-issue circulation today of more than 300 million in the United States and Canada. By comparison, the 1,888 daily newspapers in the countries have a combined circulation of only 66 million. A recent survey by Syracuse University of just IABC members indicated they have a circulation of 228 million.

And what about media such as management newsletters, newsboard or bulletin board programs, employee meetings, letters to the home, payroll stuffers, booklets and brochures, complaint and grievances systems, videotape, film, closed circuit television, cassette tapes, computer printouts, special direct mail, and on and on. The scope and variety is almost mind-boggling. …

No doubt about it, a new "power center" has come into being as the need for communications has become more intense and complex. And we as the business and organizational communicators are at the controls. We are the professionals being looked to by managements for the leadership and know-how to win out in the mounting competition for attention.

With that leadership comes the responsibility to maintain the highest ideals of performance ….

We are professional communicators representing our audiences as well as our employers. Our job is to listen, to research, to study, to consider, to interpret, to explain, to educate, to inform. By so doing, we help people to know, to understand, to work better, to achieve their dreams and expectations. Lofty ideals and objectives—certainly they are. But to set our sights lower would be to betray ourselves, our fellow professionals, our employers and our audiences.

I asked Wilma to remember what she thought of the speech and she reminded me that at the time IABC, seven years after a merger of two predecessor organizations, had 4,000 members, as opposed to around 14,000 today.

"Jake told us what our jobs where and our careers could be," Mathews remembers. "He helped us put into perspective the field  of organizational communication and he guided us to professionalism. This was a time when the role of 'house organ editor' was taken away from Suzy the secretary and put in the hands of college-educated, professionally trained writers and communicators. It was a big deal!"

Readers, what was the last big-deal speech you heard (or article you read) about the communication business?

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // communication profession, house organ, IABC, Jacob Wittmer, newsletter, organizational press, Wilma Mathews

PR News invites me to take a moment to view and immerse myself

10.09.2009 by David Murray // 5 Comments

The silent conversation I had with an e-mail promotion I got from PR News:

Dear Friend,

Friend? What is this, a church bulletin?

I'd like to invite you to take a moment to view your complimentary special issue of PR News. 


You'd like to invite me to take a moment to view? Well, do it then!

I encourage you to immerse yourself in this special issue and take away all that PR News offers. 



Wait, I thought I was just s'posed to take a moment to view. Now I have to immerse myself in this, like it's some kind of professional development bubble bath?

Our goal at PR News is to provide information and knowledge that will help you handle any crisis or execute a communications program with the best tools and insights at hand.

Your "goal" is to teach me everything I know to handle any crisis or execute a brilliant communications program? And you're going to do this with a newsletter? Frankly, I'm skeptical.

PR News gives you strategic ideas, guidance and tactical examples to guide you as you execute your business plan and prepare for new campaigns.

Gee, I'm about to execute my business plan and prepare for my new campaign. I sure wish I had a few strategic ideas, some guidance and a handful of tactical examples. Quick, where's that eight-page newsletter!

And we touch on all the key areas of PR and communications that affect your business including:

media relations

crisis management

employee communications

CSR

measurement

internal communications

media training

brand marketing

risk management

integrated marketing communications

investor relations

When I read this list of communication categories, I feel like you're peering into my soul!

At this time, we are offering a special subscription rate. Subscribe now and you can get PR News for only $597, $200 off the regular rate. …

Read this blog for free, $999 off the regular rate.



On behalf of the entire team at PR News, thank you for your time. Enjoy your issue, and don’t forget to take advantage of this special opportunity to subscribe.

Why are you offering a special rate "at this time"? Why are you offering it to me? You've given me a free issue and offered me a special rate, so why are you and your "entire team" thanking me? And finally, I'm right in the middle of the letter; at this point, just how senile would I have to be to "forget" to subscribe?

Sincerely, 

Courtney Barnes 
Editor, PR News 
110 Williams St, 11th Floor 
New York, NY 10038

I believe your name is Courtney Barnes, and that you are editor of PR News, and that you work where you say you work. But that's the only sincerity I can detect in this whole letter.



P.S. This is a limited-time special offer. Don't wait, subscribe right now.

Subscribe to what, again?

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // copy writing, direct mail, newsletter, PR News

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