A PR lesson
The PRSA Conference organizers were approached late in the day by the IAOC to include a blogging workshop.
BL Ochman, blogger of note, stated that PRSA was asleep at the wheel and were ignoring a vital PR tool. They were not in touch with the new technology PR practitioners need to know.
This caused a flurry of posts in various weblogs about the PRSA Conference and blogging in general.
PRSA made a statement saying they had in fact included blogging in the agenda. And they are correct – they did have a workshop on blogging already scheduled – mine.
Now they have another one centered around this controversy running at the same time.
So in essence they supplanted what they already had in place for months, in accordance with all their conference policy, because a flap pushed them to do the extraordinary.
A perfect example of the power of blogging. The results may not be to your liking, but it can have tremendous influence on your organzation.
B L took Steve Rubel to task over his lack of fact checking – a little fact checking on her part into what PRSA was offering to members would have been in order.
I hope that conference attendees who are not swayed by theatrics and controversy will still come to the original workshop and learn how to use Internet strategies – not only blogs – as a PR tool.
I will also be blogging the conference on Monday and Tuesday.
See Also
- PRSA Issues Statement on Bloggergate
The official PRSA response - Bloggers Convince PRSA to Add Blogging Workshop to PRSA 2004 Conference
BL stirs the pot with PRSA - PRSA Caved on blogging
Comment on the spat that developed over the PRSA conference - Public Relations Society of America Conference Ignores Blogging
BL’s comment about PRSA ignoring blogging
