Hi Communicators.
Congratulations to every PR practitioner around the globe on WPRD 2023.
On these celebrations, I was reflecting on my journey into public relations. I started my career after my journalism degree in 1979, as a trainee reporter with a daily, and later was pickedup by a state government’s public relations department to be the assistant editor of a monthly magazine, along with another senior journalist who stepped into the shoes of the editor of this magazine. Besides bringing out this publication I was slowly inducted into other PR activities by the department, and after my 18 months stint, I joined a German MNC in India to look after their public relations. And it was in 1987, that I decided to setup the region’s first public relations agency. There were just a handful of them in India at that time.
Over the years I am of the firm belief that PR requires a makeover. Though the western counterparts have aqccepted it as a professional practice, the developing countries are still struggling with and focusing primarily on media relations than getting the true holistic view of the profession.
PR is SCM i.e. Strategic Communication Management. We need to understand the key ingredients of this practice.
One, it is a management function.
Two, is the management of strategic communication either for an individual, or any organization…be it a non-government organization, corporate setup or the governments and countries.
Three, it is not a subset of any other profession, but the key management practice that over-arches all other sub-disciplines of advertising, publicity, promotions, and information systems.
Four, it is a discipline that deploys research, behavior psychology, human interaction, problem solving, based on critical and creative thinking.
Five, it is a specialized area that engages in marketing, human resource, production, finance and general management, as well as in handling crisis situations.
It is only when we understand the extent of its influence over human mind in every possible situation and field, that we can appreciate the power it wields in getting the right outcomes and the desired results through strategic communication management, we can harness it more effectively.
- CJ Singh
CJ Charanjit (CJ) Singh is an Adjunct Professor at the Shoolini University. He is also a PR Consultant at CorePR