Tom Garrity

Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

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Out with the old…

In Education on May 20, 2011 at 11:51 am

Recently, the University of New Mexico announced it was eliminating its traditional Public Relations and Advertising track, creating a merged “Strategic Communication” degree program.  A UNM student, who was assigned to write a final paper on the topic asked for my thoughts on the creation of the new program.  Here is what I had to say:

Eliminating traditional advertising and public relation degrees only to fold them into a strategic communication degree really illustrates how out of touch the University leadership is regarding the public relations industry, needs the business community and employability of its graduates.  It is the equivalent of combining sociology and psychology or financial accounting and organizational management.  It might look really good on paper but those moves are really out of touch with the specific disciplines.

While I cannot speak for the advertising community, eliminating a public relations degree program creates a ripple effect of negativity.  For example, without a public relations degree program, the University of New Mexico no longer qualifies to host a Public Relations Student Society of America chapter.  Having PRSSA helps students to make connections for internships.  It also gets students out of textbooks and into reality, which makes them more employable.

What does “strategic communication” mean?  By its name, it infers that some communication is not strategic?  What it comes down to is how can the University of New Mexico prepare its students to help companies make connections with their target audiences?  You can go the paid (advertising) or earned (public relations) path.  Look at a television station, it has a sales department and a news department.  Where the two collide is called advertorial, which has little credibility when compared to the respective traditional advertising and traditional public relation entities.

As an employer, I look specifically for public relation education and experience.  Northwestern University, Syracuse, Pepperdine, University of Texas, University of Charleston and my alma mater Texas Christian University that have storied public relation programs. Those programs provide access to internships and real world experience.  Will the new University of New Mexico approach provide that same kind of access?  We will now be forced to wait and see.

I have no idea how prominent my comments were or even if the student passed his class.

Counselors Academy

In Education on May 31, 2009 at 11:03 am

Counselors%20AcademyToday’s Meet the Press provided a good backdrop for discussions that took place at the PRSA Counselors Academy in La Quinta California.

Back East, the “change” words that were prominent in the Meet The Press discussion from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange included investment, downsizing, competitiveness, opportunity and innovation.

Out here in the West, those words resonated throughout Steve McKee’s keynote address.  Reflecting on themes from his successful book When Growth Stalls, McKee drove home the point that understanding the causes of failure is the key to eventual success.  He identified ways to identify reasons why growth stalls, they include: Lack of Consensus, Loss of Focus, Loss of Nerve, and Lack of Consistency.  He finished by encouraging CEOs and business owners to take a confidential self-assessment at www.whengrowthstalls.com.  As a side note, The Garrity Group was (and still is) a proud sponsor of Steve McKee’s address to the Counselors Academy.

The last two “classroom sessions” of the day were in the form of roundtables.  The two roundtables I attended included Lean Public Relation and Revenue.com (a session on how to provide effective new media strategies. 

Lean PR was of particular interest because of my familiarity with Lean Manufacturing approaches through our client New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership.  Michael Greece APR of Padilla Speer Beardsley moderated a lively discussion.  While I was anticipating a few more ideas on how to streamline processes and eliminate waste (trademarks of Lean approaches), the discussion about developing a “War Room” approach to address new business and client opportunities was particularly interesting.  There was also a lot of great discussion about how to change client perceptions.  Specifically, PR firms send mixed messages when touting results-focused activities but invoicing by the hour.  PR firms are not about selling time, we are focused on generating specific outcomes.

The Revenue.com discussion was led by David Anderson of Off Madison Avenue and Jason Baer of Convince & Convert.  Expectedly there was a lot of Twitter traffic on this topic.  Here are some of the Tweets that were posted during the roundtable discussion:

@Scott_Farrell: Looking to get your CEO engaged with social media? There is no silver bullet. Start small and build from there. @mmcclennan
Other great social media insights from twitter during the first day include:

@Thornley: @mcclennan companies should listen to social media discussions and ACT on what they hear before joinng the conversation

@prsachicago: Soon everything PR will be digital and everything digital will be PR. Everyone in company needs to understand it.

@Thornley Making Websites is not a great business. Revenue fluctuates. Good developers are hard to find. @jaybaer says grow other services.

@PRSAChicago The first level of social media is monitoring the conversation – Google is not enough.

@thornley: “If you’re a PR firm principal and you believe soc media is the future why would you delegate it to a kid?” @Jaybaer

@Thornley “Eventually digital and public relations will be interchangeable. Digital will be baked into everything PR.” @jaybaer

@PRSAChicago “What’s our Twitter or Facebook strategy” is the wrong question. How do you use the technologies to have better relationships?

Next up, a reception and dinner… darn, started seven minutes ago… gotta go!

Ode to APS

In Education on February 15, 2009 at 1:41 pm
APS-Apple-logo_2Those of you who have known me for a while are aware that I took a leave of absence from my public relations practice several years ago to help lead the Albuquerque Public Schools as Chief of Staff/Superintendent of Advancement.
At the time, APS was 87,000 students and 14,700 employees strong. A revolving door of superintendents was documented through seven leadership transitions in 12 years. Lack of trust was reflected through the first defeat of a capital funding election in recent history.
After helping APS reconnect with the community, despite controversial leadership, we saw the passage of a needed capital funding election and the highest approval rating for the school district in recent memory.
But the time to celebrate the success was short lived. Five months after the successful election, the superintendent was killed in a motor vehicle accident. The person who was driving the superintendent’s car was drunk those who were not killed in the crash were all dead within three weeks… which coincidently, was the amount of time before the school year started.
The situation was a classic crisis communications case study. I’ve had a chance to share the 48 hours of the crisis response to the National School Public Relations Association, Council of Great City Schools and, tomorrow, the Texas School Public Relations Association. Lest anyone think I am making money off of this tragedy, I cover all of my expenses and never charge for this talk. In fact, I never do a soft sell for services.
I do this as my community service. Using the approach of “one beggar showing another beggar where to get food”, the talk is designed to refresh communicators minds, encouraging them to look into all aspects of building community trust before and during a crisis. Incidentally, tomorrow will be the last time that I’ll give the presentation. It is emotionally draining and, after five years, it is time to move on and let others share their examples.
So, why the blog post? I guess in part to encourage communicators to share their success stories. I saw in the newspaper today that colleague Joann Killeen provided pro bono services to the mother of the very controversial mother of the octuplets. While I have mixed feelings on the client and situation, I look forward to hearing from her about the unique challenges. If you have a success story, send it to me and I’ll post it up here… changing the names to protect the innocent!
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