Recently, I posted an article on SMPR’s Facebook page about how the DETROIT NEWS (my hometown newspaper) seemingly threw its ethical codes out the window (not to mention selling its soul) and changed an article to soothe an advertiser’s wallet and ego.  Combined with the latest Groupon fiasco and its ad blunder (I wrote about this issue on A Sorry State), maybe it’s time to skin the cat differently.

So I thought it would be cool to share something that is cool about ethics, specifically talking about how our friends in the advertising industry are making efforts to bring more of an ethical position into their operations.

Check out the following article from ADVERTISING AGE on the industry’s attempt to get more ethical.  These are really good ideas; what do y’all think?

One of the great passions I have about this business is teaching junior people about the rigors of public relations, and (in turn) what people in my field have taught me.  I was talking with a friend who operates a great agency in Dallas; we were talking about what each of us has learned about running a business, as well as what we would have done differently if given the opportunity.

Speaking to the latter point, I would not have changed a single thing and have done anything differently. Running a business, you quickly learn how to take the good with the bad. If you cannot take lumps in this business, then you shouldn’t be in it. To be sure, I have built a much tougher and stronger skin than when I first embarked on my journey now almost eight years ago. I have seen people come and go; clients start with a bang but spend funds miserably and fail. I have seen the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. I have made incredible friends and have formed several meaningful relationships.

 
Still, I have learned a lot—more than any of my college studies could have prepared me for. Here are some thoughts.

 
Understand the power of “no.” It’s easy for business owners to take on things because the money is appealing or the allure of having a “name client” associated with you would add to your reputation. Saying ‘no’ is empowering, for it allows you to focus on what you truly want to do. “No” keeps your eyes on the prize of ultimate satisfaction.

 
The customer/client should not always be right. Logic tells me when presented with an array of options, I want to make as informed of a decision as possible; life is not one way or the highway. I also rely on my past experiences about what journalists want; I would expect both my peers and fellow colleagues would follow the same path.  As an agency, we are hired to bring an objective voice to our clients’ tables. Maybe it’s because I have more gray hairs than when I first started the business, but I take my role as a counselor more seriously than ever. I have learned to cement my position by proving it with smart research and positioning and not just do what a client thinks is the most ideal course of action. I would never go back to a client and tell him/her “I told you so…” but I would go back to what I know has worked for others–and could work for them if given the opportunity.

 
Hiring a business coach is a wise investment. It’s one thing to preach objectivity to your clients, but it is hard to obtain objectivity running an agency—especially when it is your agency. I have learned how to distinguish things between the SMPR brand and that of Michael Shmarak; I used to take things personally when something went wrong. But as many people have come to tell me, it’s just business. We need to remember that business should stay where it belongs. To that end…

 
…tell your spouse and kids that you love them as often as possible. I set up SMPR to represent beliefs I have that agencies need to be treated like families, that if a family member’s name is on the door, then the belief set should represent the person/people who you are honoring. I have tried to bring “family” into everything I do, inclusive of making sure that my team enjoys their lives outside of work. Understandably, my team means the world to me, and I try to communicate the value they bring as often as possible. But I would be nothing without my wife and three kids. Hugs from children are the best elixir for soothing a bad day at the office. Clients come and go; my wife and kids are always with me. It is up to me to make sure they know that.

 
Client love is the ultimate measurement tool. If a client merely likes its PR counsel, then the agency is not doing enough to foster the relationship. I know about my clients’ kids, their families, what they do outside of the office, et.al., to show that we (as people) are deeper than what a letter of agreement tells us we should be. Striving for client love does as much for what makes good clients awesome clients as any deliverable you can provide.

 
Know the right time to reinvent your business. When I started SMPR in 2003, social media was just beginning to hit the mainstream. There were several agencies that got on the bandwagon early, going as so far as to say they do it—and do it well.  Me?  I would rather wait and let other people make mistakes so I can learn from them.  In turn, I can then take this education and shape it in a way that best fits who I am as a professional, as well as what my team knows it does well. Claiming to be all things to all people deteriorates one’s focus. We should all strive to own something and be really good at it first. Do we do social media work? Of course, but we specialize in helping companies build their infrastructure so they are ready for what social media has to offer.

Above all else, I have been blessed to learn that my team’s work has impacted lives. We take it for granted that PR can help influence other people’s decision making processes. When you’re leading the charge for those decisions, there is an immense source of pride and accomplishment. There are so many examples of how we have enacted change I could go on all day.

Moving forward, I want to learn how to learn better.  I want to get smarter about more tricks of the trade.  I want to build deeper relationships and find work that drives satisfaction for all of us.

It starts today.

Guest post by Professor Kirk Hazlett from Curry College.

I’ve been asked to put some thoughts together on what I see, as a former public relations professional now turned public relations professor, lurking around the corner for the public relations profession itself through the now-emerging “next generation” of practitioners.

I would love to say I know exactly what lies ahead. But I don’t…no one really knows. But I can make some reasonably educated predictions based on my experiences teaching undergraduate communication courses at Curry College as well as graduate communication courses at Regis College.

Probably nothing I am going to say is going to stop you in your tracks with a “Holy Cow, I didn’t know that!” reaction. But maybe I can confirm some of your own beliefs or validate some of your greatest fears.

On the one hand, I see a wonderfully creative, quick-thinking, fast-moving profession. One of my favorite personal sayings is, “They don’t think outside the box…They don’t even know there’s a box there!”

I find, in working with my more engaged students, that they are always thinking ahead trying to answer the unasked questions and find solutions to the unidentified problems. I love it when someone either comes bouncing into my office to test an idea on me or Facebooks me with a question about the project he or she is working on.

I usually wind up getting all excited myself and getting way too wrapped up in the challenge du jour. But it’s what keeps me on my toes, and it reassures me that there is, indeed, a future for public relations.

Another positive that I see is an inherent grasp of the many levels of social media as a communication tool…something those of us more “senior” practitioners are having to learn from the ground up.

Not only are these future communicators fluent in social media use; they instinctively know, having used it from Day 1, how to communicate with their peers…emerging target markets…in their language. (Note: This fluency leads in some cases to a problem discussed below.)

One problem I see lying ahead, though, is a long, slogging march as we try to instill in this up-and-coming generation the need for patience, attention to detail, and basic traditional communication skills.

I don’t put the entire blame on these folks, though…I put it squarely where it belongs…on the shoulders of the school systems that are putting quantity ahead of quality in education.

When I get students who have never learned how to format and write a simple business (or any kind of) letter, I have to ask myself, “How are these kids going to function as communicators in the real world?…Who dropped the ball?

All too often, I get class assignments that are very nearly unreadable. Correct grammar? Ain’t gonna happen. Punctuation? Whats that. Spelling? There never going to get their with they’re current knowledge.

In addition, they know how to say words, but they don’t know how to communicate…a result of the “new and improved” methods of communication that enable people to exchange messages, unfortunately, not in the “two-way symmetric” mode that I teach to my public relations students at Curry.

What I preach is the need to listen and to formulate messages based on visual and verbal responses from a target audience. In today’s smartphone world, this is rapidly becoming a lost art.

So what does this mean for those of us who will be training these young diamonds in the rough?

For starters, we’re going to have to tap into a previously unneeded reservoir of patience. We’re going to have to remember that communication for them has been about text-messaging, not cursive writing.

And we’re going to have to learn to reward the “baby steps” that our young charges will be taking as they slip tentatively into the “deep end” of the public relations pool. I was fortunate as I was starting out oh-so-many-years-ago to have had supervisors or mentors who took the time to show me the correct way to write, to formulate thoughts, to express myself both in writing and in the spoken word.

That part hasn’t changed and won’t change regardless of which generation we’re talking about. Things will never be the “way they were,” so let’s get used to it and move on.

As the Gryphon said in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “That’s the reason they’re called lessons…because they lessen from day to day.”

Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA, is a veteran public relations professional with more than 35 years’ federal government and nonprofit organization PR experience followed by nearly 10 years’ undergraduate- and graduate-level college teaching experience. His public relations experience includes healthcare and member services organizations ranging from Blood Bank of Hawaii to Medical Area Service Corporation to Boston Harborfest, and he has provided consulting services for both the Manila and the Singapore Red Cross. He currently is Associate Professor of Communication at Curry College where he oversees the Public Relations concentration and serves as Faculty Adviser for the Curry College Public Relations Student Association, and Lecturer in Communications at Regis College where he teaches graduate communication courses.

I am going out on a limb here, but very few PR people would ever gain a lesson in ethics from their condo Board.

But in fact, I had the most unusual opportunity to gain insight thanks to outdoor seat cushions that the Board felt my wife and I didn’t keep in optimal condition.

One member of our Board has spent time going around the neighborhood to cite people for the littlest of worthless details (e.g.,another neighbor for having a Welcome mat that didn’t look so welcoming). In doing so, it has become as much a vendetta as doing her supposed job.

How many times do we have clients who ask us to advocate a special position, only to find out the position takes you away from the client’s core service?  This personal crusade becomes a dangerous path which moves client teams–and companies–away from core strategy.

The lesson here–both for clients and for my condo board–know when to say when.  Stick to what you know, and you’ll become known for it.  Stick to your crusade,however, and your entire team will be known for something you really don’t want.