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Alliance
Newsletter >
November
2002 Dear Global Alliance Member On behalf of your board, here is the latest update reflecting rapid progress in several areas 1. Our Manifesto You received the text of our Manifesto which is now in the public area of this website. You are invited to disseminate the text to all your members and to the media you believe might be interested in either publishing or summarizing it. You are also invited to actively promote your membership to the GA by organising discussions and debates which might involve not only your members but potential ones as well... to encourage the latter to join your association now that you have this valuable additional global benefit. 2. The Ethics Protocol The draft of this document has been posted on the private member area of our web site for some time and discussions are beginning to develop, both in and outside the web site. You are invited to read both Ann Gregory's early remarks, Jim Lukaszewski and my reactions, plus a short note on a public debate which was held Saturday 29 September in Rome, Italy at which some 100 professionals and academics intensely participated. Guido De Rossi del Lion Nero, today 84 and very active indeed, one of the five original authors of the 1961 IPRA Code of Athens, also participated and offered his comments. As you know, we intend to finalize a draft before the upcoming February Auckland (NZ) meeting of the GA and, if it is approved by members, we shall be asking you to adopt the Protocol and coherently adapt your existing code to its principles. I urge you to read it now (if you haven't yet had a chance to do it) and submit your comments and suggestions so that the final document takes into consideration all possible points of view of our members. Remember to enter MEMBER and EXECUPASS. Also, as we did in Rome, I urge to spread the document to your principal stakeholders as a draft and discuss it with them: an excellent means of reinforcing the identity of your association amongst your members and other relevant interlocutors. 3. The 'soft and hard' regulation study We are finalising a questionnaire and, in the next few days, you will be receiving a pressing request to duly compile the document so that we may complete a comparative analysis of 'soft' and' hard' regulations affecting our profession around the world. As we did some months ago with the ethics protocol, when you kindly sent us your own code so that we could compare it with others, we intend to come up, after the comparative analysis, with a draft advocacy platform concerning the regulation of public relations issues, so that you may give us your input before we actually begin to be proactive. Related to this (as well as to the code) is the 'protection of the profession' issue which was brought up by an association. In fact, you will realize that this issue is strictly related both to the ethics and to the regulation issues. If we estimate that some 3 million people in the world today exercise public relations as their dominant professional activity, we can also estimate that not more than 250 thousand of these belong to some sort of professional association (national, regional, international, practice specific, consultants, public sector, non profit, private sector etc..). This means that less than 10% of today's practitioners are aware of the need to cooperate and exchange knowledge and ideas with fellow practitioners in order to advance the profession as a whole. How can we possibly hope to 'make a difference' and enhance a coherent and positive public identity of our profession if we do not tackle, at the same time and in a socially responsible frame of mind, the ethics, the specific practice soft and hard regulation as well as the protection of the profession issues? Some believe in barrier to entry regulations, but if it is true that public relations is also, if not foremost, a legitimate means of expressing and enhancing legitimate individual or group rights in a democracy, this does not appear as a viable option as the well established experiences in both Brazil and Nigeria tend to demonstrate. One could possibly envisage an ideal situation in which professional associations such as ours, proactively advocate - in the context of a well positioned, entrenched and responsible ethics and professional accreditation and certification framework for their individual members- soft and hard regulations concerning specific practices of our profession which, more than others, actually impact on the general interest and on the public discourse. Such a scenario, although not impeding anyone to exercise the profession, would certainly privilege our individual members and therefore also serve as a highly forceful membership attraction. All these points need to be discussed, analysed and determined in the next months if we really wish the GA to become a fully worthwhile exercise for every individual member of our associations. So I again urge you to discuss, comment, actively participate: and the private member area of our web site is the easiest, quickest and most effective way to do this...please do not be shy..there are only equal opinions in the GA and we are all learning as we go along... 4. Membership and Marketing We have in these weeks discussed, taking as the basic starting point the principle of 'inclusivity', about who else, besides national associations of individual practitioners, should be invited to enter into the GA. We have been receiving enquiries from national speciality practice associations, from national consultants or national private and public sector associations as well as from regional and international associations of the same nature. We are thrilled and highly stimulated by such intense interest and we have attempted to define a policy which, again you may find in the private member area of our site. Please comment as soon as possible on this so that we may begin to proceed in the direction you would like us to. We are pleased to announce that CONFIARP (Confederation of South American Associations), representing some 14 associations from that region, has recently joined the Global Alliance. Global Alliance chair-elect 2004-2005, Jean Valin from Canada will be making a presentation at the PRSA International Conference being held in San Francisco from November 16 - 19, 2002, on the Global Alliance activities and benefits. 5. Finances Not unlike other new organisations, the financial situation of the GA has to be well managed. We now have exceptional news: Edelman Worldwide has agreed to give us a seed donation of US 10.000 dollars to support the GA as well as its comparative regulatory analysis. This is excellent news, not only because we have doubled our bank account, but much more so because Richard Edelman allows us (which means every one of you) to circulate this information so that other companies, foundations, individuals who you believe may feel encouraged to contribute to this fascinating professional adventure we have all embarked on, may do so knowing that the largest independent worldwide public relations consultancy has felt it worthwhile to support our activities. 6. Other working groups Many of our colleagues are working hard and materials will be appearing more and more frequently in the appropriate areas of the website. So keep looking and contributing. Friends, in conclusion - It's a strange feeling: so far we seem to have attracted more interest and attention when we promote the GA outside than when we urge you to actively cooperate. Some of you are very quiet! Are we doing things the wrong way? Should we do them differently or should we do different things or send this material to others within your association? How do you suggest we should be operating in order to ensure your attention? I repeat that we are all beginning to learn and that it is only you who can guide us on how to operate for your benefit, which is what we intend to do. So give us a hand... Very best regards, Toni Muzi
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