Most successful PR professional

Who is the most successful Canadian public relations professional? What makes you say this?

For me, the most successful Public Relations professional is Pat Park, Director of Media Relations for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I say this because this is my dream job. If I were to somehow attain this position in my lifetime I would consider my self a true success. He is also successful because of what he does for the organization. Despite having a losing team, the fans continue to show up and the team gets extreme media coverage.

Conversational patterns of PR

What kind of conversational patterns can you expect to encounter using social media as a PR professional? What will consumers of your content expect? How can you level these expectations?

The conversational patterns that we may encounter as PR professionals will vary depending on the size of the audience. As the audience grows in size it becomes more and more difficult for a writer to hold conversations with all of their readers. If we as PR professionals are to gain attention, we will be forced into a width-versus-depth trade-off. This means essentially the writer can either spend less time talking to everyone which gives the impression that the writer is shallow OR they can limit themselves to have deep conversations with less people giving the impression they are cliquish. As a PR professional I think we will encounter both types of conversations.

The consumer will generally expect us to have in depth conversations and dialogue with them. Unfortunately, if working for a large corporation this is not very likely. At any rate, PR professionals have to find balance when possible. One possible solution is to arrange the consumers into similar groups. This way the PR practitioner can give an in depth response to groups of consumers concerned with the same issues. Another solution may be to give in depth responses to those with the largest social networks and allow the information to flow through them.

Jamie Zawinski and software bloat

Who is Jamie Zawinski? How is the role he played & are design principals he helped spread important to you?


Jamie Zawinski was involved in the development of free software programs such as Mozilla Firefox. The major design principal he dealt with was ‘software bloat’. This was the idea that all successful applications tend to expand. For instance, Zawinski helped design Mozilla, but it was later redesigned to accommodate more users. He believed that applications would start off smaller and focus on more detailed tasks. At this stage the applications are more efficient. However, as these applications gain popularity they expand and start taking on new roles. He was under the belief that as these applications become larger, their functionality decreases.


A good example of this is Facebook. When it was first created, Facebook was primarily used for networking. As it grew in popularity, more and more applications were added to the site and as a result it has become less efficient. While it still has a lot of users, the initial purpose has been consumed by the newer additions. This is important because these applications essentially become difficult to use. With the loss of usability, sites become less relevant and we miss out on potential communication tools.

Writing history through social media

In Wikipedia: The Truth in Numbers the message seems to be: no longer do the victors write the history books, we do: you, me, and everyone else. How is social media (twitter, blogs) forwarding this idea? What gives someone authority to "write history" and why should we listen to them? Is there a hierarchy of authorities? ie. is what someone like Seth Godin says more important? What should be taken as canon?

Social media such as twitter forward the idea that we (you, me and everyone else) are writing the history books because anyone can post information on the internet. Anyone with the internet is given the authority to “write history” but not all of them are given the same level of attention. People will listen (or read) what others have to say for a number of reason. One of the major factors is the credentials that the poster has. For example, one is more likely to read an article on public relations if the author is a Public Relations professional. People are also more likely to listen to someone based on their following and their support network. If someone has a large following it gives the potential reader the feeling that the author may be saying something important.

To a certain degree there is a hierarchy of authorities. Once again this goes back to credibility. Someone like Seth Godin is more important because of the reputation that he has built. To gain this reputation one must start at the bottom and work their way up. They must gain the trust of users through honesty, consistency and authenticity. Without this type of ‘status’ or ‘reputation’ people are likely to take information as is. With all the information that is on the internet it can be difficult to decipher which information is legitimate. Users are likely to sift through information, pick their trusted sources and ignore those who are not yet established.

Four elements of McLuhan's medium model

McLuhan used a model with four elements surrounding the term MEDIUM. Touching on the four elements, describe how this model can help us in interpreting social media?

The four elements surrounding the term ‘Medium’ are retrieve, reverse, obsolete & enhance. In interpreting social media “retrieve” can be applied to ones ability to retrieve the individual voice. With social media, our personal opinions can be heard as we are able to add our own input, react to other peoples information and engage in conversations with these people. Reverse can be applied to the methods used in communication. With social media we can reverse traditional methods of communication and the flow of information. Social media has also made other more of communication obsolete. An example of this is ‘face-to-face” contact. Through social media we are able to communicate to others without ever having to meet with them in person. Finally, through social media we are able to enhance community and communication platforms. We can also enhance information outputs by allowing multiple venues to display, discuss and intake information.

PR and the advancement of technology

In Deirdre Breakenridge's article PR 2.0, Brian Cross discusses how changes in technology will change the function of PR practitioners. In what ways do you think public relations will change and what role will PR professional's play in these changes?

Public relations will change in a number of ways because of technology changes. The first major change is that companies or brands will be able to have conversations directly with the consumers. As technology advances, users are able to share an incredible amount of information. Consumer behaviour will also evolve as they are now able to decide what information they want to intake, allowing them to organize and share information to make better consumer choices. In turn, the consumer wants more from their brands as they desire direct communication to hear about new products and services while also being able to give feedback. PR professionals will play a huge role in this change as they will now be invited to participate in dialogue in places they were not invited before. It also allows companies to eliminate the ‘middle man’ and rely more so in internal pieces of the company to communicate with the consumer. The role of communicator then become more significant for those in PR as they are now expected to engage in the new wave of dialogue and information sharing while representing themselves and their brand(s). A final impact is on the way PR professionals must go about their business. PR was a lot about developing relationships and contacts more directly (face to face) where as now these relationships are much more accessible on the web and almost less personal than before.