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So PRINZ held its monthly networking event last week. Only difference to every other month? A 40-strong waiting list. Why? We used the current buzzwords: Social Media.

The evening consisted of 5 social media ‘experts’ (though they are the first to point out that no one is a social media ‘expert’) discussing how they and their companies are using social media to their advantage. Tim Nichols from 2degrees opened the discussion with a brief overview of what 2degrees is trying to achieve by using social media as their main source of advertising, meaning they can personally engage with their audience. Without actually telling anyone about the launch of the ‘great New Zealand chinwag’ it took only 12 minutes for it to get tweeted about. 2degrees utilises Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – they prefer to concentrate the energy they put into social media where they feel appropriate, rather than spread themselves thinly across all facets.

Duncan Blair was the second speaker of the evening, telling tales of how he has resolved problems that customers of Orcon have had via social media. His words of advice? Take advantage of the free tools that are available, his favourites being Twitter Search, Google Alerts and Icerocket. He also suggests that companies conduct their own social media practices, rather than their PR person doing it for them – to keep the authenticity of their words. How do PR people feel about this?

Last to do a presentation was James Stewart from Made from New Zealand. Made from New Zealand has a vision of bringing all New Zealand businesses online and creating their own ‘social network’. They are building what seems like their own version of Facebook – to connect New Zealand businesses with one another. Very clever stuff, I thought. According to James, the aspects of social media imperative to building your business are a blog, Twitter, Facebook – and of course Made from New Zealand. James closed his presentation by telling us that companies – big or small – should get themselves on YouTube. James is a strong advocate for video marketing and says that even with a small handycam or built in webcam, anyone can break into the YouTube market. And according to him, this is an active one and getting in is well worth it.

All in all it was a very successful evening, bar the fact that one of the panel turned up at the wrong venue – but he did make it to the right one, without missing too much of the action. Delicious food, plenty of drinks, and some very interesting speakers – especially nice for the younger generation to have speakers we can relate to! The videos of the evening are also now available for those of you who didn’t make it at www.prinz.org.nz (free viewing for PRINZ members, for non-members to view there is a small charge – please contact the PRINZ office).

There’s been quite a bit of noise about the new marcoms sub-committee that has been established within CAANZ.

 I met with Rick Osborne to discuss this when I first got wind of it. This move offers an existing group of his stakeholders a voice that they have not had.

 PRINZ membership is composed of practitioners working in all facets of the public relations and communication management space – about 30% being consultants.

 A subset of those is integrated within larger advertising and full service agencies. They remain committed PRINZ members and PRINZ Fellow, Claudia Macdonald who is chairing the CANZ sub-committee says. “The new CAANZ marcoms sub-committee is committed to working collaboratively with PRINZ (and the newly formed Experiential Marketing Association EMANZ) on areas of mutual interest.  This could be anything from professional development courses to profile raising of the profession.  The activities will be complementary rather than competitive and the committee’s establishment is an indication that PR in all its forms is doing well.

 Rather than individual practitioners, the committee represents marcoms companies, through the heads of an agency or marcoms department within a larger agency group involved in marketing communications, ambient, experiential or events.”

 PRINZ has good relationships with a number of other membership organisations including FINZ (Fund raising), IAB (Internet Advertising), Marketing association as well as CAANZ. We have reciprocal rights for events with these groups, and are also talking with them about collaborating on events staged in places like Christchurch and some of the provincial centres.

This report is hot off the press from Statistics New Zealand. It is a sort of triple bottom line report for New Zealand as a country and provides a baseline for measuring national progress (ultimately hopefully towards agreed goals.)

I think it’s relevant for PR practitioners who help our organisations contribute to national discussions on improving our lot.

Our conference this year “Kiwi and Proud eh?” had the good intention of creating a national PR plan. In fact, PRINZ members in the public, private and not for profit sectors all work on individual PR plans to progress their respective organisation’s goals - which hopefully are pretty much in line with where the country as a whole wants to head.

This report provides an overarching framework for measuring national progress in a range of areas. It also fits nicely with PRINZ’s sustainability project. For this progress to occur naturally requires communication and stakeholder engagement.

Could this report provide a spark for the national PR plan discussion PRINZ had hoped to ignite at the conference? Would you PRINZ members be interested in a presentation of this report by Statistics NZ either at divisional events or in a webinar?

Communication is key to resolving the world’s problems says British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a presentation to the TED conference in Oxford.

Brown says the use of powerful new web-based communication tools, when combined with people’s basic desire to help each other, create a unique opportunity to address poverty, security, climate change and economic challenges.

If you ever doubted the relevance of communications, or simply need a little confidence boost when critics query the value of the communications function perhaps you could direct them to this compelling presentation.

In June PRINZ hosted a very well attended event in Auckland called The Changing Media Landscape. Mark Jennings from TV3, Nevil Gibson from National Business Review (NBR) and Bernard Hickey from www.interest.co.nz gave their views on the future business models for the news media.

Now NBR proprietor Barry Colman has introduced a website subscription model as his approach to making his publication pay.

His move has attracted a lot of flak in comments on the NBR website, a bit of support from Digital Publishing Forum director (and former Magazine Publishers Association president) Martin Taylor and a very detailed analysis from Bernard Hickey.

NBR’s initiative and the responses create a fascinating follow-up for attendees of PRINZ’s The Changing Media Landscape event and other observers of the business challenges facing the news media.

This morning’s front page lead in the New Zealand Herald headed “Spin doctor jobs on line as Govt orders cuts” begs for a blog post.

My first thoughts are on measurable productivity. If Government PR and communications people are making a measurable difference then why would any rational person want to get rid of them?

Key words in the above paragraph are “if” and “rational”. Let’s deal with if first: In my experience PR and communications activities are often not well measured, usually because organisations want to dedicate limited budgets to activities and insufficient or none to measuring the success of these activities. This is shortsighted but unfortunately it is the PR people who face the axe if they can’t demonstrate the success of their programmes. As individuals and as an industry we need to battle for budgets to measure the success of our activities. By the way, it’s not good enough for PR practitioners to say PRINZ should do something about this. PRINZ is doing a lot about it – including running courses and making measurement resources available - but it needs the wholehearted personal support of PR practitioners to do more.

Re “rational”: There does seem to be an hysterical public and journalistic dislike/scorn of PR that manifests itself in the use of derogatory terms like spin doctor. Conversely we know that capable PR practitioners are among the most highly valued and trusted advisers of the leaders of private, public and not for profit organisations – although unfortunately this does not often hit the news headlines. Personally my counter to irrationality is to present the facts – see paragraph above about measurable productivity.

My second thought on this issue is communication. First measure your productivity, then communicate that to the powers that be and the public who vote them in. Ironically it is well recognised within the industry that PR and communications management professionals have not done a good enough job of communicating our successes. Again, a major part of the solution to that problem lies in having a universally well supported and funded industry body that can collate and tell our stories. That’s not to suggest that individuals shouldn’t chime in and advocate for PR – they absolutely should. But I am convinced the key to this is institutional strength.

The tone of this blog post may have led you to believe that I think all PR and communications activity is worthwhile and that we just need to prove that. Well of course it’s not. There are clearly some activities that are excessive or unnecessary. Our reputation as an ethical occupation will be enhanced when we use our professional judgment to say “No” to our clients’ and bosses’ ill-conceived PR schemes even if they might benefit us financially in the short term. In that sense I support the Government’s scrutiny of its operations.

So here’s my plea/advice to Tony Ryall: Sure, scrutinise PR and communications programmes and get rid of the excessive, the unessential and the low priority. But then, for your own benefit, ask your departmental heads to put in place MEASURABLE strategic PR and communications programmes so you can see what’s working and what’s not. Also, stop denigrating PR professionals as “spin doctors”, it’s unbecoming. PR and communications programmes are necessary and the best people to formulate and execute those are ethical and expert PR and communications professionals supported by an excellent professional body.

I hear in an interview with Kathryn Ryan on National Radio that PRINZ’s friend John Burrows (formerly PRINZ’s Ethics Panel chair) is leading the Law Commission’s review of privacy laws.

Privacy rights are an issue for PR practitioners, particularly those who work with celebrities including stars of the sports, music and acting worlds and high profile politicians. Privacy laws are also relevant to media advisers of people who are thrust into the media spotlight like British couple Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of Madeleine who went missing in Portugal.

A big chunk of PRINZ’s Code of Ethics is concerned with balancing the privacy rights of individuals and organisations with the public’s right to information and a commitment to open communication.

In his radio interview John Burrows says “galloping technology” such as the increasingly widespread use of surveillance devices like closed circuit television has highlighted anomalies in the law. And a news release on the privacy law review asks: Should the media be subject to any greater or lesser legal restrictions concerning privacy intrusions than any other members of the public?

John Burrows is calling for as many high quality submissions as possible for the privacy law review. Submissions close on 29 May 2009. So if your experience is that privacy law is an ass, or just a bit behind, now is your chance to influence change!

You have to ask yourself how could ISPs actually have enforced it given that for years people have downloaded images, music and videos?

No doubt many will be pleased with the government’s decision to rewrite Section 92 but it still asks the question what can be done about protecting  copyright in an electronic environment?