INTERNAL RELATIONS COMMUNICATION ARE VITAL

Hi! Guys

I started works as in internship at a Cleaning and Hygiene company called MODITHITO in Botswana. It is a fairly large company that specializes in offering cleaning services for a quite large number of big companies, numerous government organizations the list extending to even big shopping malls. Modithito is now established and have branches in four different places in Botswana being the capital city Gaborone, Francistown that is another city and two other towns, Selebi-Phikwe and Palapye. Up to today, the company has grown to be an employer of close to 200 employees.

For the company strength, it now partners with other international companies in African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and others which they are still putting effort. I guess it helps the company to acquire any news and keep updated with whatsoever latest technology in the cleaning industry. Modithito offers a number of cleaning and hygiene services, the list includes office cleaning, high rise window cleaning, chemical suppliers, pest control, car wash etc. in most companies Modithito attach cleaners and then supply them with necessary equipment and chemicals at the same time managing and supervising them while attached to their area of operation

I got there at a very critical moment when the company was re-branding itself. They where getting new uniform for working stuff, changing their long served logo design giving it a brand new look. The company was also changing a few things on the operational system and management. It has been like that for a long period of time since its birth, since now they have grown to become one of the largest if not the largest in the country, it has become hard to manage this bigger scale the same way it was done when they first came. It wanted to create a system which a system which will facilitate effectiveness and productivity at the same time giving promised services with guaranteed customer satisfaction placed upfront. The company is going to start by working on organizing and improving internal relations with its employees emphasizing desired work ethics. After it is organized then it will start creating external relations with its publics, as well as strengthening the already existing relationship with its key publics.

However the company PR sector is still young and growing since it is only operates form the headquarters in Gaborone which makes it not an easy task to communicate directly with other branch leaders unless they have to travel to directly address them. Otherwise they rely on fax, phone and email to communicate as the company website is still under construction.

Here I witnessed the essential of communication in the public relation field. That without proper channels of communication you are doomed even from the slightest mistake you might take for granted. Employee relations or internal relations are vital for the company to succeed in the outside world because everything has to be organized. Sometimes you find that the company looses tenders because only one person knew about it then they were not available at the time or that one thinks the job is done while another did not know who is supposed to be doing the work.

Otsetswe Sedimo

LUCT (Malaysia)

Don't Get Fooled by Your Own PR!

What price are you willing to pay to succeed in your PR activity? What actually is success anyway?

Speaking in terms of PR, success I believe is achieving objectives. Then with whose ruler are we supposed to measure our achievements? The answer is that the executive in charge of the plan will draw some evaluation guideline and those parameters are the criteria. That means you plan, you execute and you evaluate from the beginning to the end, all by yourself & your organization. “Oh! Okay! I knew this, fine! So what’s the problem?”...Well, I would like to bring forward an ethical dilemma that would challenge the basis of this close system of ‘evaluating ourselves by ourselves’. The dilemma is a real case study of what I have observed in the non profit organization that I am working in.

But one quick reminder before I get into the story that at least in the non-profit world, there is a pervasive belief among decision-makers based of which overall performance of the organization is often rated as acceptable and sometimes outstanding.That is because the ‘not for profit’ is always on the tow. Now the story:

When food manufacturers clear out their stock out of the old cans, they hand over near-expired food cans to INGOs as donations. Then we as the non-profit organizations hand over them in a pack with combination of some other stuff to single mothers, poor and sometimes disabled communities of which we visit. This creates for the media the opportunity to make some ‘success stories’ out of our efforts and also it provides our handsome product sponsors! some socially responsible images and a clean stock!…Therefore media wins, non-profit body (we) wins, food manufacturers win but what about the poor and single mothers? Well they also win! They receive some near-expired/expired products! How lovely!

This routine does not only belong to this international body. All other humanitarian organizations WORLDWIDE, precisely, follow the same to donate the poor and in needs. Now…

Imagine yourself in the shoes of the receiver! When he receives ‘Mickey mouse’ stuff (BTW ask yourself who really wants our old shoes?) of worth nothing and yet he has to hold that pack -usually despite of his will- until media do all the photography and cameras shoot enough footage for tonight’s television news feed. Yeah…He is only a fish, a fish for us, for them and for everyone who can use him as a fish. He was not born as a fish; we- PR people- turned him into our fish in exchange of a promotion or a handful of money. His picture, then, gets published in magazines, bulletins, catalogues, papers and on television of people watch, as our ‘PR success story’, as our PR achievement. And we yet celebrate when the television shows his face, since that fishy face is a major ‘evaluation’ parameter now, a gauge to measure what is known in this kind of PR as ‘success’.

I, personally, don’t believe in achieving objectives with any price. It seems that without considering a solid moral and ethical structure, ‘success’ not only in communications but in any other kind of activity is not achievable. But with whose moral or ethical codes shall we proceed? Ours or our organizations? Neither of them of course.

Therefore for an authentic and real ‘success’ measurement, the presence of a comprehensible & objective third perspective is a necessity to undertake the measurement. Unfortunately western post-enlightenment philosophy does not have much to say in this regard, whereas Holy Scriptures already has provided us with detailed strategies in ‘social situations’ as mentioned above. Here is what Holy Quran cites in (2:267) a precise and exact solution to our ethical dilemma:

‘Do not donate something that you would never take it yourselves, except with closed eyes’

I emailed the same verse to my colleagues and asked them to encourage our product sponsors to donate fresh stuff, not near expired reduced cans.

But nobody took it seriously.

Best regards,
Ali (LUCT)

Media Misbehaviour on the High Street

Working in PR, its not just PR ethics that we encounter but media ethics as well. Bluntly speaking, the media can be an unprofessional lot.

In an ideal world, journalists and PR executives share a mutually-beneficial relationship. PR people, on behalf of their clients, help journalists find interesting angles and stories for their programmes and publications. Its a win-win situation - PR executives get their clients in the news and journalists have something interesting to write about.

But it should be said that PR people do much of the legwork for journalists. In writing a release, for example, we obtain the company's background, check the facts, verify the information with all stakeholders and even make sure the names and titles are correct. Once this is done, a journalist need only rewrite it - and sometimes they publish it word-for-word!

There was once near Christmas when an editor whom we had worked with asked if we knew any multiracial families that they could feature in their Christmas spread, and we did our best to help her out. Things are not always this rosy, however. Below are some rather hilarious examples of  media misconduct I've come across.

Case 1
During a press conference, Journalist A happily giggles away while chatting on MSN Messenger. At another event, the same reporter comes late - almost near the end. I wonder why she turned up at all.

Case 2
Just yesterday, I had to call up pressmen who attended our event to tell them our client had gifts for them. But guess what, more than half of them put down fake numbers in our registration list. Their loss.

Case 3
This takes the cake. We were at a restaurant for an event when two cameramen from a TV station shamelessly asked if they could have whiskey! It wasn't a cocktail party, not to mention that free lunch and drinks were already provided. If they wanted alcohol, they should pay for it themselves.

Like it or loathe it, the media and PR people are codependent. We need them to write about our clients, and they need us to generate content. While this post was dedicated to media misbehaviour, that's not saying PR people are faultless. Perhaps my next post will be about how PR executives stumble too.

Till next time,
John.

A Recipe for Failure: Absence of Professional Etiquette

Hello everybody. As I have mentioned before I work for this INGO in Malaysia and I had a remarkable week, since I learned a lot, but I will focus on one point here which is as follow:

"If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at YOURSELF and then make the change."

YES! I work in this remarkable ‘professional environment’ where colleagues don’t even bother to greet each other in any ways. That is to say, there neither is a simple ‘Hi’ nor a plain ‘Bye’ going on in the beginning or end of any day. And if you do so- I mean greet your colleagues-, they will stare at you like a dead soul really.

That’s not the end of story: Forgive me but burping openly in the public is not a matter of concern here and it is not uncommon in Malaysia to ‘burp’ in the middle of discussion with someone, even if that person is a representative of a famous media outlet chatting with you in the refreshment area of a media conference- personally observed BTW. Now thinking about other side of the story… imagine how much my colleagues are proud of themselves and their NGO’s CSR code in providing ‘us’ the chance to work in this ‘professional’ environment! The truth is that they are not aware of the impressions, the negativity and the bad memories which they can bring on for their international interns simply because most of these fellows are not even graduated in social science or anything even close to PR or any sort of these combinations and yet they are so confident doing it!

“You are a sensitive boy, Ali” someone may say after reading all this, but let me bring forward an excerpt of a book called Global business etiquette: a guide to international communication and customs to show the importance of the issue:

“Many international guests in united states find the question “how are you?” to be insincere. As one Israeli women observed “no matter if your children are on drugs, you spouse is leaving you, and you have just declared bankruptcy, you are expected to smile and say ‘everything is great!’ Why do Americans ask if they don’t really want to know?” Americans do not mean to be insincere. The question “how are you?” is simply a pleasantry and an example of the greeting rituals typical of people in the United States. (p.25)“

The truth of matter is, business etiquette is not a marginal issue in global communications. It is a crucial one indeed and it can turn communications into grave crises in a blink of an eye. I suggest you to check out this online book where you can find superb examples of wonderful opportunities that turned into nightmares, due to the lack of PR etiquette.

PR, like all communication activities, is a sensitive activity and etiquette is a part of PR’s ‘adaptation’ principle. In other words, etiquette is a gauge or I would call ‘a motif’ towards harmony between an organization and its internal or external publics and it shows how successful your organization has been in making hits. No global PR etiquette, no hit, no outcome. Above all etiquette is part of professionalism too.

This week’s experience proved to me that if Int’l organizations can’t establish effective communications with their own staff and their internal desks, they should not expect to see success in other aspects of their communication activities. And my future post would be a case study of such failure.

Best regards,

Ali (LUCT)

FATHER I'VE LIED!

(Courtesy of NBC News)

Hi everybody, my name is Ali and I have started my internship with this well-established branch of an international humanitarian relief NGO in Malaysia, which I am not intending to disclose its name here. So what did I really learn in my first week?

Upon the first day of my work, I was tasked to a list of assignments in which one of them is to organize a charity sale of some kind of menswear in Malaysian universities. Both the country manager & my supervisor told me that the actual cloths’ price of which they intend ‘to market’ is more than RM1000 and the NGO is happy to provide the public the chance of RM200 per piece as a gesture of a win-win fund raising event! That is to say, consumer/donor will buy branded cloths, NGO will raise some fund for the poor…and it looks good nah?

So get this:

I ‘myself’ looked at the samples from the stock and by the first glance, I realized that they are not genuine…They are Chinese stuff...But I had to prove it with strong evidence. Therefore, I started to check the manufacturer’s websites and they had nothing similar on their site! Then I found this:

An advertisement on a Malay e-shop in which the negotiable retail price of the exact products, in exact variety of colors! with precise size range! comes as RM300 only! Here are some facts:

Fact #1: Philanthropic donors do not like to be betrayed by their favorite charity organization. I had to inform my supervisor about my findings. This NGO can cause more damage to itself in promoting and selling fake products as branded stuff than to help the poor people. I mean people are not blind and they can easily distinguish the not real from the genuine one. I still wonder why they ‘lied to me’ about the origins of the materials and introduced it on the first day as “branded and worthy of thousand”!

Fact#2: As a future PR practitioner, I have to only suggest transparency in communicating the origins of the commodity. But is this NGO willing to tell the donors that these menswear are fake?? Imagine saying, “Would you buy some fake materials with a reasonable price for charity?!” Well, it sounds silly to me really.

Action: I emailed the advertisement link to my supervisor, to the gift/donation officer I am working with, and they both ‘noted’ it and guess what?

Reaction: A day after, the advertisement in that Malay website WAS BROUGHT DOWN!! Coincidence? Indeed! People look at me differently now! My supervisor said “But the price is still reasonable, isn’t it?” What she really meant by this, is that she was confessing on their insincerity regarding the menswear without bothering to fix it for the future matters even!

Lesson#1: Do not lie to your interns! Because it will only damage your organizational reputation (especially if you are doing charity and humanitarian relief on the world scale) and will create a bad memory that may linger on.

Lesson#2: Do not underestimate your interns! Nowadays very few secrets can remain in the closet, especially when the world is connected through all types of search engines and social networks as the image above also portrays!

Leson#3: Be honest and candid with your target public. It does not matter whether you want to do marketing or PR, transparency is the key to credibility and credibility leads to reputation. No transparency, no reputation.

What would you do, if you were in my position? Please share your views.

Ali.

LUCT.

Of a man named Ally

Like any average human being with emotional attachment; I have a crush on a TV star.

One of my tasks for my 1^st week at work consists of the dog-like work of sorting company contacts. A bit like combining Media Connections + the R&R assignment of an info bank.

It should be to no one’s surprise that I’d stumble across big names; producers, executives, etc. But to stumble across a TV crush? Now there’s a question of work ethics. Instinct, primordial lust, and illogical thought says “save that number, email, etc. and stalk the daylights out of that hot piece of meat.” But that would very much go against working ethics in general.

I would say it’s a bit like living in Hollywood, and knowing the address to Brad Pitt’s personal apartment. You COULD break in and steal his undergarments; but that would be unethical of you. Not to mention illegal, and uncouth.

So, needless to say…I will not stalk the incredibly adorable tv-presenter. I won’t even Facebook him (now that I know his full name). I typed his data down, and put his card away.

I did the right thing…right?

Fatiha
LUCT

Professionalism and ethical practice in PR

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all experiencing and learning a lot during your internship as much as I am. Before I start any discussion, I would like to apologize for the delay. This is my first post on the blog. But I have kept a record of all the tasks that I have done and all the insights I gained.

I am Youshrina Mungur from the Charles Telfair Campus in Mauritius and I am actually doing my internship at the Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), the leading banking institution in Mauritius. I have been placed in the Internal & Media Relations section. I would like to share with you my first press conference experience. On September 7, 2009, the MCB had its MCB Foundation press conference to announce the winner of the scholarship the bank offers each year to the best High School candidate in the field of economy. There are two main things that struck me on that day.

Firstly, the bank has a policy not to favour any media for good coverage, which is of course a good ethical principle. Everything was well coordinated so that each media outlet could interview the lucky winner and her parents. The bank usually allows newspaper outlets to conduct interviews first and then radio and TV. This is because newspapers usually take less time as they do not have to arrange any equipment or brief the interviewee in terms of posture and so on as would TV. But the national TV wanted to have the first interview at the conference and they even insisted on it. But they were refused this privilege and it went to newspaper outlets as per the policy. Is this ethical dealing? According to the bank, the national TV wanted to have a privilege but the bank does not favour any media. Well, in theory, we have learnt that as far as possible, we should never say no to journalists while maintaining ethical practice as well. But then, it seems to me that in real life, this is quite difficult to apply as companies do have their own ethical policies. According to me, both the bank and the national TV are right in their position. The bank wants to remain loyal to its policy and not favour any media. On the other hand, the media in question wants to get a privilege because it is the only TV network in the country and particularly the national TV.

Secondly, as part of my duty and participation in that event, I had to send invitation to all the media and to make sure that all of them get easy access from the security guys once they arrive for the conference. I did my part and I sent a list of attendees to the security. But the MCB has another policy regarding access. Whoever is external to the bank, unless if it is for transactions, has to line up and take the visiting card, even Ministers. Unfortunately, the media was a bit annoyed about this policy as they had to line up and wait to get a card, particularly when some of them were late for the conference. The journalists complained to me and asked for a “fast-track” for them. I went on recommending this to my department and they said they would consider it but do not guarantee that there would be actually any change. I explained to them that in every case, it is better not to say no to journalists and find a way to please them. I also expressed my view that considering a fast-track does not mean changing the policy as the fast-track will be meant for only the media. It also does not involve anything unethical as it would be only a way to facilitate the job of the journalists which is actually something that a communication department or PR person should do.

“Journalists want you to take care of them and their needs”, ever since I started my studies in PR, I have constantly heard or read this statement. But it is very difficult to apply theories in the real professional world. This situation has left me perplexed for quite a few days as it seems to be an issue arising from conflicting loyalties. Should the bank give more importance to the media and consider a fast-track for them or should it remain loyal to its policy?

Your reactions, please.

Thank you.