Earlier this week, I had the privilege to spend a day with a group of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide employees who had joined the Microsoft account team in the past year. I was thinking about this in context of my "Bad PR at Work" post on Tuesday and a reader's comment containing great skepticism that WE is any different. Of course, I beg to differ, and here is why.
One of the big challenges in communications is making sure that people understand context and history. For us to be successful as communicators in our work with Microsoft, we have to ensure that the people on the front lines are grounded in not just what we're saying/doing today, but what has brought us to this point. So we go out to the Microsoft Visitor Center and spend an hour and a half reviewing the company history, how it evolved and grew, what challenges it faced, what the key products had been and what role PR played in meeting those challenges. We spend time talking about how the company was perceived at various times in its history, and what communications strategies had to change in response. It's not inclusive, of course -- but what I tell the team is that in order to tell a current story, you need to be able to stand solidly on what has happened in previous chapters -- the world did not start with the latest release of a product. Then we spend the rest of the day in a deeper dive on what it means to work on the account -- best practices, lessons learned, highlights, lowlights, all the unwritten tips and tricks to staying successful on the account.
These days are always a highlight for me. Being communicators, the group is lively and quick with questions and observations. I learn a ton from the people in the room -- how they think, their view of the world, examples and insights gleaned from previous jobs (we usually have a range from intern to VP in attendance).
Having been in the industry for a bit, I've seen more than my fair share of the horror stories of PR, often accompanied by wailing and gnashing of teeth about the future of the profession. I have no such worries. As communicators, we live in an absolutely magical time. We have tools and resources and ways of telling stories on behalf of our clients like we've never had. (Check out some of the work we did for Microsoft's summer consumer event, for example.) It's a wild ride, sure -- but there's a great group of people riding along. And there's always room for a few more in our next training session...