Technology: Friend or Foe?

Hello everyone,

Lately I've been having a personal vendetta against technology, in particular, its involvement with work at my agency. Just to make things clear, I ran into a slight mishap in my third week involving client confidentiality and this blog (not mentioning a client but the venue of a product launch), and since then my personal vendetta has only seemed to skyrocket. Having never been Ms. tech-savvy, I ran into many mishaps with the printer, scanner, email and media monitoring/clipping software all in my first week! But to no avail, I am now able to do all of the above with ease :) . However, last week at an event we were running, I realized I may not have turned on the voice recorder before handing it over to my colleague (just before an interview with a guest of honor commenced). My only reaction? "OOPS, my bad". Luckily I was also recording the interview at the same time I was shadowing the same colleague, as she was teaching me how to facilitate an interview. But what would have happened if I wasn't there, or not recording? We would have no sound bite to disseminate to the media. Big oops, really, my bad.

It is hard to challenge the notion that technological change presents many significant advantages and implications for the structure, culture and management of organizations, especially from the point of view of public relations. I suppose among the most significant advantage is the opportunity to flatten the hierarchical nature of the organization, at least from the point of view of communication. This oppourtunity means that organizations can be more open and transparent, in turn facilitating better understanding with various stakeholders. Communication technology has the ablilty to transcend time and distance constraints, which is exactly why it is so attractive to use the PR industry.

As audiences have increased their use of the Internet and grown more savvy with digital media of all types, public relations has needed to evolve with them. Thus, PR practitioners have seen the need to become well versed in communication technology and its uses. As communication technology evolves, so has society's expectation for ever more rapid communications. This can be seen as both a boon and a bane. For PR, it means greater expectations for fast and efficient communications among organizations and their stakeholders.

So what does this mean for people like me? It has now become a prerequisite, for PR practitioners entering the workforce to be well versed in the basics of communication technology. So for everyone out there who is as 'technologically challenged' as I am, it is highly recommended to learn, practice and be familiar with communication technology!

Best regards
Nessa F.
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