Public relations affects almost all who have contact with other human beings. All of us, in one way or another, practice public relations daily. For an organization, every phone call, every letter, every face-to-face encounter is a public relations event. How is it handled, effected, concluded is Strategic Communications, which Stern And Company practices as a superset which comprises corporate communications, crisis communications, financial or investor relations, change or employee communications and marketing communications, as well as public affairs and community relations.

For purposes of clarity, we will refer to Public Relations in this essay.

To be sure, public relations is not a profession like law, accounting, and medicine, in which practitioners are trained, licensed, and supervised. Nothing prevents someone with little or no formal training from hanging out a shingle as a public relations specialist.

Over the past two decades, public relations has steadily built its reputation, increased its prominence, and earned respect across a wide span of society. As today’s institutions strive to understand more clearly the forces of change, adapt their activities to new pressures and aspirations, and listen and communicate more effectively, public relations becomes more impor­tant. Institutions rely on their practitioners to help win public support and trust, without which they will be rendered powerless. Read the rest of this entry »