Excellent points Mr. Edelman.

One thought to add to the mix: as "who you know, who you trust" online becomes a bigger component of non-early adopters' lives, what should we - both the technical and pr early adopters do to make more trust possible?

I'm speaking from the perspective of a micro-ISV (a self funded software startup), but what would you urge developers do?

Richard, Interesting findings. I wonder where PR professionals sit in this "trust" barometer. They are neither peers, or family, or friends. Yet they seek to recommend and influence media coverage, and viral messaging, etc.

There are too many PR people who know little to nothing about the companies they represent or their products. From my experience in covering the tech industry at the Financial Times, and elsewhere, some PR professionals don't even know if their client is a software or a hardware company.

Yet these are the people that say they can influence favorable coverage of their clients in the client's industry, and in the broader media.

I would say this study is a big wake up call. The PR industry had better start reinventing itself right now...and be quick about it, imho.

Fascinating.

Now we see where value can be created quite clearly. The "person like yourself or your peer" is where value is transferred. Effective Public Relations which influences the culture of "person like yourself or your peer" as part of a conversation taps into these conversations, not to deliver 'messages' but to engage the trusted messengers and their peers.

This means that PR has to work in both directions – from the organisation and into the organisation - as a conduit and driver for perpetual change in the process of levering wealth for both the organisation and the community.

Sometimes this is not easy (in the last year examples are Dell, iPod and the Radio 4 theme tune), but in the end the outcome is healthy for both company and consumer.

This goes further than "How can companies embrace this future of empowered stakeholders? Speak from the inside out, telling your employees and customers what is happening so they can spread the word for you. Be transparent, revealing what you know when you know it while committing to updating as you learn more," because it requires a capability to listen to the response of both internal and external communities.

How do we do this? We have to be better at monitoring and analysing the content of the 'long tail' and we have to be better at responding at the speed of mouse.

Monitoring and evaluation is the easy part, that only requires a capability to adapt technologies and that costs a few thousand dollars. Responding is harder because it means that public relations has to be part of the corporate DNA, and not just answering to the fading authority of the dominant coalition by working with the ever changing and morphing groups within the enterprise.

Are we seeing the role of Public Relations changing into a definition that adapts from Edward B. Tylor's definition of culture and into "that complex whole which creates cultural space for an organisation including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society to lever values though the creation of effective relationships."

We do know quite a few things about trust. For example, we know that trust comes not from blind faith, but from relationships and *repeated* interactions. If I've interacted with you many times I'll come to trust you when there's an issue to deal with. (Just like a marriage: if you only talk wehen the kids have been arrested, you'll deal with the issue but you wan't build trust or a relationship.) The implication for PR is that they must help their clients interact with their publics when they don't HAVE to, so they can can draw on that relationship capital when they need to.

We also know that trust isn't readily transferrable, and that we trust people not institutions. (We NEVER trust institutions, and the PR industry that has grown up to try and make this happen is a rip-off.)Exactly as The Cluetrain Manifesto said, the key to all this is to re-humanize by actually getting real people, not their hired representatives, to interact.

So, as has been suggested here, PR must do less trying to represent their clients, and be more like true counselors, trying to help their client executives do better public relations themselves. Any journalist will tell you that they ignore the phone calls of what they see as PR flacks, but will instantly return the calls of a CEO himself or herself. (But what does THAT do to the economics of the PR business if you can't leverage junior people churning out press releases?)

Tom Forenski's point above is absolutely correct. Professionals of all kinds pretend to know more about their clients' industries than they really do, and it hurts them badly. Now there's a PR and trust lesson for you: you can't be trusted if you're actually faking it.

David
This is why I want PR to have a seat at the table...and why PR people have to Live in Color...to be integral part of their communities within and outside of the company. They need to bring relationships from broad stakeholder world. Your Taylor quote is terrific.

You are going to gain trust if...
You listen
You make changes suggested by your interested community You acknowledge error You speak through multiple channels You allow dissonance and don't control Forget the message and embrace the conversation

I think that the PR business has to adapt, from a world of mass production to custom dialogue, from press releases and pitching to listening and counselling. It means more training and fewer but better people, a model more akin to consulting and law firms than the broad pyramid used in the past with worked pushed downward. But be clear that I don't just want experienced people working on my business--I want those who are steeped in their communities, who Live in Color by engaging in arts or NGOs or whatever.

Mr. Edelman,

I couldn't agree more. As a college student heavily involved with public relations it is reassuring to know that there is a bright, exciting future to the profession. I know my peers and I are ready to jump in. It's about time we started listening, building those relationships and converging. Your blogs make wonderful discussion topics in the classroom.

Richard -

I think you're argument is wonderfully eloquent and spot on. There was a study several years ago that pointed to internet audiences gravitating to user created content, at the time they referenced tools such as e-mail and instant messaging. Today, the tools have developed further and include rich media solutions such as audio and video podcasts, blogs, and RSS. With these new techniques, the dialogue has evolved and grown from peer-to-peer sharing of personal content to a much broader and engaged space on virtually any topic that includes corporations, non-profits, stakeholders, and individuals.

Clearly the rules of engagement for the communications community have been redefined.

Jason Cohen
President
CityCast Media, LLC.

This is truly exciting time for PR business. We have the opportunity to get involved in product creation, in employee activation and in bridging between companies and critics such as NGOs. Thanks for reading my blog.

This is a untrue time for PR business. Now you have the opportunity to show your moral standards and your communications skills, dealing with the shameful Edelman-WalMart disaster. Thanks for reading my comment.