A few weeks ago, Stephen Waddington asked his community for their favourite 50 PR media – 10 blogs, 10 books, 10 communities, 10 newsletters and 10 podcasts – to crowdsource a summer list blog post (awesome idea, right?).

Of course, I jumped in too and mentioned Trust Me, PR is Dead as my favourite PR book this summer. (My blog actually ended up making his list!)

The one thing that stuck in my mind the most while reading the book was the super strong link that Robert Phillips makes between PR and sustainability. Honestly, I haven’t seen a PR professional advocating conscious business so passionately before. This makes the book more a business book, rather than a PR read.

I myself had researched social media for sustainability, but never really focused that much on the PR practice for sustainability, although it makes perfect sense. It comes natural to me – first because of my passion for sustainability, and second because I am a digital native and I understand or better yet live by the seismic changes that are happening in our society and the economy as a result. But I guess that’s not the case for many others.

The March of Conscious Business

PR as we once knew it might be dead, but conscious business is not. Or shouldn’t be. And it should guide the PR practice of the future.

In June 1992, over 30,000 people and more than 100 heads of states gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the largest environmental conference that became known as the Earth Summit.

The goal was to respond to the pressing global environmental challenges and to agree on a plan for tackling issues such as biodiversity, climate change, pollution and unsustainable production, extinction of resources, forest management, population growth, consumption rates and poverty.

The result: a declaration of 27 principles for nations to commit to becoming more sustainable. These are still adhered to today and influence political and business decisions.

But how far have we come?

Call me a pessimist, but not as far as we could have.

Sustainability Agenda not on the Corporate Radar

A recent survey by GlobeScan/SustainAbility has tracked and analysed the evolution of the sustainability agenda and what progress the leaders and institutions most responsible for driving it forward have made since the Earth Summit.

The one thing that stuck in my mind after reviewing the infographic with the results (see below) is that corporates and businesses have not advanced enough.

I’m sure you’ve heard about PR, but how about inbound? Do you know what it is?

Don’t worry if you don’t because after reading this post you will, and you will also know how inbound and PR fit together quite nicely.

Let’s start with PR.  

As per definition, public relations is the communications process concerned with building relationships between an organisation and its publics.

Going back to a few decades ago, PR was mainly concerned with media relations, events, reputation and crisis management, and investor relations. In fact, for a very long time public relations and media relations were considered synonymous (some still think so).  

PR is not just media relations

But PR now is not and shouldn’t be just media relations. Because today, the arsenal of PR activities has increased enormously. Media relations can simply be one of those activities.

“Leadership is an action, not a position." said Donald McGannon – one of the biggest influencers and advocates of social responsibility in the broadcasting industry.

Hierarchy is the world of the past. Today’s organisations belong to the people who work in them (notice the word IN them, not FOR them). Each and every person, no matter levels, because today everyone is empowered and has the tools to speak up, be heard and drive change.

We’ve been seeing this happen more and more over the past few years, so it’s no surprise that this is one of the main findings of this year’s Leadership Communication Monitor by Ketchum –leadership no longer comes from CEOs only, but from everyone in the organisation.

This is the era of title-less, shared leadership.

Decline in mass media, significant loss in importance for advertising and media sponsorship, steady rise in strategic partnership and co-operations with media as well as co-produced content and joint services are some of the key findings of this year’s European Communication Monitor.

The results of the research were revealed the other day so I just couldn’t wait to check them out this weekend.

It’s a massive research that surveyed over 2,200 comms professionals from 41 countries and after reading through the deck, my biggest learning is that:

Communication departments and professionals are failing to use modern technology and software to keep up, stay relevant, be innovative and prove the economic results of their activities.

Don’t get me wrong – many good things are happening too, but I still don’t understand why comms people are still staying behind the curve? There are so many tools out there, many even free, to help with day-to-day activities, monitor conversations, do research, make informed decisions, measure results and prove ROI.

Check out this key finding: Comms pros have no issues with spreading the word, however monitoring and listening to what the audience has to say is still a huge challenge.