Online Public Relations Thoughts

Sometimes the media are slow in picking up on things. This is the case with the following story on blog monitoring. The Guardian has discovered the obvious, I'm afraid.

Our agency has been monitoring Web sites and bulletin boards for more than four years now and we certainly weren't the first to be doing it. Blogs are simply an extension of monitoring that PR departments should have been doing since the Internet took off in 1990s. It was a scandal that PR got started so late, but it is odd that a major newspaper is only tipping to the fact at this late date.

If by any chance, your organization is not monitoring the Web, bulletin boards and blogs, shame on you. It is no longer an option, except for the smallest or most specialized of businesses or organizations. Monitoring is so easy to do that one cannot blame the technology for failing to get the job done. There are many sites that monitor blogs, for example, and you can find some of them right here.

You know this, but I am writing it again anyway. Many trends, ideas and insights show in blogs and bulletin boards first, then make their way to mainstream media. This has been true for years. To stay ahead of mainstream media, you have to read what the mainstream media read and they are scanning bulletin boards and blogs.

There are some events that are so large one has to stand back and think about them as communications challenges of a lifetime. This story examines the ongoing drought in the Western region of the United States. It is five years now, and there is no sign of a return to the rainfall amounts that had been prevalent since the 1920s.

Climatologists who compare tree rings to measure the weather of hundreds of years ago say the weather pattern of the last five years is closer to a long-term trend for the region and that the climate of the last 100 years was an aberration. If this is true, a dry region is going to to get drier and "water wars" that already plague the states of Arizona and California will become even more pitched.

Who will give way? The farmers? The suburbanites with swimming pools and nice green lawns? How can one communicate the need for long-term water conservation, or does one let the price of water rise to meet the market demand? And, will this kill the economy? How does one persuade people to stay when they are tired of water rationing? The issues go on and on and they are a lifetime of challenges for communicators in government and industry who will deal with them.

It is a challenge I would like to work on, and I hope before I retire years hence I will get the chance.

I have written before that online games are good PR tools, and I wonder why more PR departments have not used them. Hollywood has adapted to gaming brilliantly and constructs complex, multi-web-site games that hype a movie, for example. Game companies have shown similar skill as this story relates.

Perhaps the lack of PR involvement lies with a simple fact that there are few PR practitioners with any experience in this area. If so, that is a disappointment. We could at least come up with creative ideas and then contract with programmers to make them real. But, we don't appear to do much of that. It is an area that still seems beyond the capabilities of the PR business.

What could games be used for? For any kind of promotion and certainly for serious purposes, such as health education. I could see a game, for example, that teaches the importance of frequent blood-sugar monitoring for diabetics. The game would not focus on the testing, but it might give the hero diabetes and have him black out at the wrong moments if he or she has failed to test for blood sugar levels. It would add a touch of real life to a game.

Advertisers are getting involved in games and getting their messages or products into them. Why not PR?

Here is an interesting story. The owner of a PR firm in Minneapolis is also an anchorwoman on a local TV news program (KSTP-TV, channel 5). Doesn't that strike you as a dubious crossing of the line between PR and journalism? The anchorwoman says she is no longer active in the PR business, but she is apparently still the owner. How do you say "conflict?"

This is the first time of which I am aware where journalism and PR have mixed so closely. To be fair to the anchorwoman, she had begun as an anchor at the station, left to be a press secretary to a former governor, started her own firm and finally, returned to anchoring. Still, how does one handle stories about clients, or does she pretend that she doesn't know who her clients are?

The situation is dubious at best, and I wouldn't be surprised if local journalists are suspicious. They should be. There is a manifest conflict of interest that cannot be explained away except by leaving the anchor position or the PR business. It strikes at the one quality that both journalists and PR practitioners need -- credibility.

I believe PR practitioners should be close to the media. But, not that close.

Here is an interesting fact. Men are the largest body of readers of online news -- about 60 to 70 percent of online news consumers. Why? No one seems to know, but the male population is watching less TV and reading more online news -- so much so, that advertisers reaching for males are shifting ad budgets from TV to online news sites.

As an online PR practitioner, I find this baffling. Women caught up with men in Internet usage years ago, but they are not using the Internet for news -- at least not mainstream news. Maybe they are getting news from their own sites, or maybe they don't consider news important by comparison with other online information sources. This mystery needs investigation, especially by PR practitioners who want to reach women through online news sites.

Another mystery has to do with viral marketing. It might be me, but I swear much of viral marketing is targeted to males and saturated with sexual themes. When I look at sites that track viral work, it seems as if more than half is spicy. Why? I thought at first that young, horny, creative males are doing it, so they make something for other young, horny males. But, that isn't, or shouldn't be, the answer to viral marketing. Viral marketing is a fertile field for PR messages, and they shouldn't have to be folded into X-rated presentations to get passed around.

Both issues need research, and we need answers to better shape online PR campaigns.

This story explains in its horrible way why "spin" is so bad for PR. The article focuses on Campaign 2004 and how with half-truths and "bright, shining lies," each side is trying to keep the other off-balance. The author notes that "spin" and "counter-spin" are so fast and furious that reporters have no time to find the facts or to call either side on inaccuracies. Of course, this is what the candidates' flacks want. The author notes that newsrooms also are not set up to stop "spin" at this pace. Further, because reporters want to be fair, they do not attempt to point out when either side is stretching the case or lying. The net result is that voters are not served with information they can use, and the media become more cynical. This is no good for anyone.

It would be nice if the PR industry would stand and condemn "spin" then call for accuracy from both sides. But the PR industry won't do it. It's spineless, and worse, the people who do such "spin" are the ones paid the big bucks to become the lobbyists when the campaign is over. In other words, cynicism is institutionalized.

In fairness, "spin" and lying have been part of American campaigns since the beginning. The vitriol between the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians makes today's campaigning seem a cakewalk. But, it was damaging to the country then -- and now. George Washington was trapped between opposing forces and trying to keep peace. He failed. On the other hand, the country didn't collapse from such lying, so there is little reason to believe that it will fail now. Eventually facts emerge, if not the truth.

Still, I cannot bring myself to act like political carnivores. I like self-respect.

The essay on cynicism is posted in the white paper/essay section of online-pr.com. Sorry it took so long. I got busy and left it on the table.

Cynicism is a constant factor in PR and a challenge to communications. Many of us are cynical about what we do, but we rarely reflect on it. The question is whether cynicism distorts communications, and the answer is that it can because it closes options. Let me know what you think.

I missed this story last week, but if it is even remotely as the writer relates it, PR practitioners ought to be ashamed for the business. Techdirt is an insider's blog for high-tech. The author of the blog has made it clear how he wants PR people to submit releases to him.

The practitioner whom he leaves nameless to protect the guilty not only violated his request, but he began to deluge the author with press releases all marked "URGENT." Even worse, the fellow hides his e-mail address, which is against everything we are supposed to do as PR practitioners.

It's people like this who give PR a bad name and unfortunately, we have no way to get rid of them. We are in a First Amendment business: anyone can claim to do what we do for a living.

But it makes me angry to think such bozos are wandering around the business.

If there were only a way to police PR...

I'll count to 10, but for every idiot that pulls a stunt like this, it throws the business back a few steps.

And we wonder why no one likes us...

Terrorists know a thing or two about communication. Their destruction of the World Trade Towers was a statement that was understood by everyone. Their current threat against financial institutions based in New York City and Newark, NJ is another statement in the same vein. Like it or not, they are effective publicists for their point of view.

It is important to remember that anyone, good or bad, can use publicity techniques well. Hitler and Stalin were both effective communicators. Hitler mastered the art of public speaking through unrelenting work on his delivery. Both excelled in the art of the pageant to project power. Terrorists aren't nearly as elegant, but they are just as loud.

There is nothing more frightening to a company than to have a leader go down with illness when that leader stands for the firm. That is what has happened to Apple Computer. Steve Jobs has been the image and innovation of Apple since the beginning. He has no obvious successor. Although he states the type of cancer he has is completely curable, the survival rate of typical pancreatic cancer victims is low.

The communications task in a case like this is delicate. First of all, it is a material disclosure item. One has to inform shareholders the CEO is ill. The question is how and when. Second, the way one informs shareholders is ticklish. It is easy for shareholders to panic and dump the stock. (Don't be surprised if Apple's stock dives for a few days until Jobs' health is reappraised.) Third, employees can be spooked. One has to be careful how one tells them the news. Fourth, the Jobs' family cannot be ignored. An alarming turn of health is something a family has to adjust to but in this case it is being done in public under the gaze of millions.

Although I have only read the Reuters story, it appears Jobs was careful to give the news as completely as possible to forestall second-guessing and rumor. That was a smart for him to do, and he was lucky to be able to do it. There have been CEOs diagnosed with fatal conditions like brain cancer. It was a matter of time for them, and handling news like that is worse. One has to tell the fact but out of concern for the business, family, employees and customers, one doesn't want to tell the whole story -- i.e., it is only a matter of time. There is much tea leaf reading and head nodding in cases like this. The insiders know: The rest speculate.

Stay in PR long enough, and you will deal with a case of fatal or near-fatal illness in the senior executive ranks. It is no fun, but it is part of the job.

It has been a day and a half of glitches with the web page (online-pr.com) and the blog.  For some reason, beginning yesterday morning, I couldn't update the Web page.  The message was "server error."  So, I call Verio, the ISP that has been handling online-pr.com since the beginning in 1997 and got the usual "voice mail hell."  The technician was nice enough, but then he put me on hold for 10 minutes, leading me to believe I was shunted.  But no, he returned and said the extensions to the Web site had been corrupted.  He didn't why or how but he had fixed them, and we were live again.

Last night, I went to make an entry into this blog and couldn't reach it.  I got a "page unavailable" notice that continued through the evening into early this morning when it finally popped through about five minutes ago.

The dirty secret of the technological age is that Internet media are great, except when they don't work.  Reliability is an issue, and dependence on others for keeping a system up will always be a concern.  Yet, the networks are too complex for PR practitioners, including myself, to be our own Internet Service Providers, Webmasters, etc. 

That has always been the case.  We have relied on designers, printers and mailers in PR since the beginning and the frustrations they create.  Even when we had these services in-house, they were frustrating.  In fact, they were more so in-house because service was indifferent. 

PR is a team effort and always will be.  (Now I hope I can get this posted.)

We've been handed two challenges that we have never done before.  These are fun problems because one has to learn a new field. 

The first challenge is with a specialized kind of services firm and the second has to do with a major problem on the Internet.  The question that both prospects asked is whether anything could be done.  The answer, of course, was yes -- yes, but.  We will have to dive deeply into the topics and work our way out to find keys for approaching them.  By diving deeply, I mean we will do as much secondary research as we can and then, interview clients at length and in detail to see if we can find common threads to merchandise to the media.  Sometimes themes stand out:  Sometimes they are buried deeply and are so uninteresting one has to invent another way to tackle the topic. 

In spite of what teachers may have told you, there are boring issues that few if any media cover.  Surprisingly, one that major business media avoid is accounting.  There are few good business journalists who understand and take pleasure in reporting accounting issues.  O, they like scandal, but they don't like the technical considerations that the Financial Accounting Standards Board tackles and that decide earnings of thousands of public companies.  This is why when I represented accounting firms (twice), I found difficult to get anyone to pay attention.

I hope neither of these two prospects prove to be deadly.  We'll see. 

Why bother with political conventions?  They are exercises in spin and have no value to citizens watching the process.  Everyone knows who the candidate for president and vice president are.  Everyone knows the convention will paint the candidate as the salvation of the republic, and everyone knows the party will savage the opposition.  Everyone knows, so no one bothers to watch.  The ratings for the first night of the Democratic convention were awful -- below summer reruns. 

So why spend millions of dollars to throw one of these throwbacks of communication?  Worse, why do TV networks and hundreds of reporters and bloggers bother to attend and cover the convention?  There isn't any news. 

Don't get me wrong.  There is need for a party meeting on a regular basis where delegates can talk to each other, imbibe a common  spirit and go home motivated to work for their candidate.  But that doesn't mean a party meeting should be inflicted on citizens who don't care for parties.  (The largest voting block in the US are independents who don't claim a party.)

So what should be done for the majority who avoid the sniping of politics and grenade-throwing that passes for debate?  What kind of public relations would work best for us?  I think Howard Dean found an answer before he self-destructed.  He used "meet-ups" successfully -- small gatherings where people could get together and talk.

We need to go back to relationships, to building face-to-face connections between me and you and common wishes and ideals.  The Democrats are trying that in key states like Ohio, and Republicans are not far behind.  It's nothing other than old-fashioned politics that ward-heelers used to practice in machine-controlled cities like Boston and Chicago.  I recall the only time anyone ever visited me and asked how I was doing was in Chicago where the Democratic machine sent someone around to every house in the neighborhood to check our feelings and our votes.  That was decades ago.

It's time to go back to the future.

The Democratic convention started tonight in Boston, and I've had but a glimpse of it.  However, that fleeting view raised a question for which there is no answer. 

How come politicians, for whom public speaking is a necessity, still cannot speak well? 

I saw a speaker, who shall remain nameless, step on applause lines, get lost in text and otherwise betray an unfamiliarity with a speech that this person must have practiced several times.  Puh-lease.  I might forgive a CEO for not speaking well, but a politician gets to office on an ability to connect with audiences. 

Where are speech trainers when you need them?

Public speaking is something every senior executive should be able to do, and it is sad how few can.  Of US CEOs I have heard recently, only one was compelling. That was Jeff Immelt of General Electric.  He said he knew one speech, but it's good, and he kept his audience. 

Other CEOs I have heard are earnest but unconvincing.  It might be something in the timbre of their voices, their speed, the topics they discuss or phrases they use, but they don't come off. 

Speaking shouldn't be that hard, but for many executives, it is.  I suspect few US executives were ever formally trained in speaking -- and it shows.

I saw a show repeated last night on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" that dealt with guerrilla marketing.  You know what this is.  You hire cool 20-somethings and send them into bars or onto the streets to promote drinks or cigarettes or something else without ever telling anyone they are in the employ of a company. 

The purveyors of such marketing say young people don't want to know they are being sold, but they appreciate the sales pitch.  Huh, what?  You can sell me as long as you don't tell me you are selling me?  I suppose that could be true, but I don't believe it.  Eventually, someone wises up and then, he or she is irritated and/or suspicious of anyone who tells them anything.  "You're selling me, right?" 

That is why in PR we call for transparency in who we are and what we do.  We believe credibility depends on truthfulness from the outset. From a purely selfish point of view, maintaining credibility with a customer is an essential element in keeping a long-term relationship with that customer.   

There have been and continue to be PR practitioners who masquerade, and they should be condemned.  I dislike especially those who enter chat rooms and talk up movies and other products without revealing who they are. 

It seems to me, however, that one can do this ethically without crossing a line.  For example, one can ask if anyone has seen the movie.  That, it seems to me, is not promotion.  It is trolling, which some find objectionable.  (For those who do not know trolling, it is a technique of asking questions or making statements to elicit comments.)  To me trolling done rightly is OK because one doesn't betray feelings or promote.  One simply raises a question and listens to comments.  One should be prepared to hear cutting remarks about a topic in which he or she is invested.  That's a chance one takes.  And, if one is asked whether he or she is in the employ of a company, the troller should answer truthfully.

But trolling is a niche of guerrilla marketing that for the most part is unethical.  My guess is that if guerrilla marketing grows to any size at all, there will be a legislative move to force marketers to divulge who they are and what they selling in all instances.  Of course, that would end guerrilla marketing as we know it.  As a PR practitioner, I would applaud that.

One of my favorite blogs is Rhetorica.  This site features commentary on "rhetoric, propaganda, and spin of journalism and politics, including analysis of presidential speeches and election campaigns" to quote the author, Andrew R. Cline, Ph.D.   Dr. Cline asks the kinds of questions that PR practitioners should be addressing to clients. 

An entry from July 21 struck me as illuminating at least one PR technique.  Dr. Cline was commenting on an entry at www.campaigndesk.org, another great site, about the "millionaire"tag that keeps being hung on John Kerry and John Edwards.  The point made was that Republicans are careful to keep that theme in front of the media, and the media are reporting it.  Dr. Cline's comment was "Take a memo...In other words, political reporters are a bunch of mindless stenographers."

Well, sometimes they are.  But, it is a key point for PR practitioners to remember.  If you hammer a theme long enough and the theme is tied to facts, the media will pick it up.  There is a value in persistence in selling a message, and the temptation to get bored is one to avoid.  Staying on message is not easy.  It becomes automatic and passionless.  One delivers messages by rote and not by mind.  But, like actors and actresses in a long-running play, one has to find ways to make the same words sound interesting and fresh to a new audience every night. 

There is nothing wrong with saying it loud and saying it often, if what you are saying is based on facts. 

I never thought the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was creative except in legal argumentation, but this little slide show demonstrates a side of the organization I didn't know. 

It is an example of what might happen if one orders a pizza in an era when companies have collected data on individuals.  The dialogue is long but funny,  and the arrow moving about the mock computer screen provides an air of verisimilitude.  Look too at some of the purchases the poor sap who is ordering pizza has made in the past.  Those are just as funny and embarrassing.

While the ACLU has made its point, it is also an example of spin and not good PR.  The data collection issue is far more complicated than the slide show would make it out to be.  I've had some experience with large databases, and they are hellish to assemble and to maintain.  The problem with the scenario as the ACLU shows it is that data is coming from multiple databases and multiple vendors.  That is never easy to do, and one won't have to worry for some time that it could happen.  The ACLU should have made a note of that.

On the other hand, complexity would have spoiled the point and the fun, so I understand why the ACLU made it look more frightening than it is or would be.

Still, it is an interesting job of spin, and one PR practitioners could take a tip or two from.

It wasn't long ago that California suffered a major electricity crisis.  The state ran short of power because it could not import any from areas that needed it for themselves.  The state vowed it would build more power plants and power lines to make sure the shortage would never happen again.
 
Oh? 
 
I picked up a story a day or two ago that shows "NOT-IN-MY-BACKYARD" is alive and well in California.  In spite of all the public relations, government regulation and persuasion, homeowners still don't want power lines near them. 
 
The complaint is bogus as far as science is concerned.  It is a claim that one can get sick from living in magnetic fields near power lines.  Homeowners are protesting a 230,000-volt line to be built near San Francisco.  But that is not all.  Homeowners on all routes for new power lines in Northern and Southern California are protesting angrily.  "Put them anywhere, but not near me."  The problem is that there aren't many other places to put them economically.
 
There is no public relations solution for this kind of fear and parochialism.  Appealing to greater good is lost completely on someone who has a power line soaring feet from his or her property.  The state has to do what it did.  It approved the lines over protest. 
 
There are limits to all communications.  Sometimes you have to act.
 
 

Each year before the Nobel prizes are awarded, there is a mock ceremony bestowing Ignoble prizes for dubious research.  I have a candidate for this year.  It comes from a New Scientist story, and it falls under the "Duh" category. 
 
Any PR practitioner could have told the scientist the answer he laboriously reached.  
 
Are you ready?  Here is the conclusion of recent research:
 
Computer glitches would be a lot less annoying if the machines were programmed to acknowledge errors gracefully when something goes wrong, instead of merely flashing up a brusque "you goofed" message. The trick, according to a researcher who has analyzed users' responses to their computers, is to make operating systems and software more "civilised"by saying sorry more often. That way people won't feel they are stupid or at fault, so they become less apprehensive about using computers, and perhaps more productive and creative.
 
Wow!  A Taiwanese scientist conducted a large user study to come to this conclusion.  What will scientists discover next --  if you maintain relationships with key publics you are likely to have a better organization overall?

I've just posted a new paper for your consideration in the white papers section of online-pr.com.  It is here.   The topic is uncontrollable crisis.  There are crises that one has everyday, and then, there are crises that are so sudden and severe a CEO has to worry about the future of the company.  In uncontrollable crisis, there is little or nothing one can do in communications.  It is a case of hanging on, doing the best one can and repairing damage when it is over -- if the organization survives. 
 
I got to thinking about this topic because a client recently suffered through such a disaster.  The client has come out OK, but no one would want to go through the experience again.   Take a look at the paper: Let me know what you think.
 
Along this line, I have been thinking about cynicism.  We are in a period culturally when altruism is held in suspicion, especially in the political world.  I am working on a paper focusing on sour attitude and what PR practitioners can do about it, if anything.  It may be that cynicism is healthy.  That is an open question.  I'll publish that paper soon, and you can have a crack at it too. 
 
I don't expect everyone, or even anyone, to agree with articles in the "white papers" section of online-pr.com.  It would be nice if the papers could spark arguments.  Along that line, Global PR Blog Week 1.0 was tremendously successful.   A hearty thank you to all who put it together.  It would be nice to have more get-togethers like it.  

Why is it the news media place allegations in banner headlines on front pages and corrections in little boxes inside a newspaper or magazine?  No one likes to fess up to an error, but if journalists want to maintain credibility, they need to state loudly and boldly where and when they have gone wrong. 
 
This rant is brought to you courtesy of an episode that afflicted a client recently.  The government investigated the client for something the client didn't do.  The client had proof of its innocence.  That made no difference: The government wanted to make an example of someone.  There were big stories with fat headlines that trumpeted the company was under investigation.   The company's stock tanked as investors fled.  Less than two months later the government sent the company a letter saying  it had no further interest in the case.  The government, of course, did not make the letter public, which it should have done.  The company had to send out a press release.  The resulting AP story was barely a paragraph buried deeply inside the paper.
 
Size matters in public relations.  Big headlines and lead TV stories crush individuals and companies.  When they are wrong, journalists owe it to people they hurt to correct the mistake prominently.  Of course, they don't.  One positive turn of events is beginning to rectify this situation.  Bloggers are prominently posting corrections then discussing them loudly to make sure everyone knows The New York Times or Washington Post erred.  I  hope they extend their truth hunting beyond the political world and into business were there are plenty of mistakes that never get acknowledged or corrected. 
 
Since I'm in a ranting mode, I will scream about one other thing.  Government agencies rarely give anyone a clean bill of health.  The agency that investigated the client said it had no further interest in the situation, but it had some concerns that it wanted answered.  That was a way for agency personnel to rescue some self-respect for an investigation that shouldn't have been done in the first place.  Whatever happened to a simple,   "You didn't do it, and we are completely satisfied?" Arse-covering is endemic and discouraging. 
 
On the other hand, that means work for PR practitioners to help clients dig out of holes the clients never created in the first place. 

This is posted in different location -- Global PR Blog Week 1.0. There is some mighty good reading there along with intelligent argument. Take a look and add your comments as well.

A friend of mine badgered me for months to help him with a TV show that he was doing on community cable. For those of you who don't know community cable, it is an access channel that a cable TV company has to provide a local community for the community to use -- broadcasting high school football games, city council meetings, public service shows, etc. My friend is devoted to reading and a member of a book club, so he started a show that focuses on books and authors. He wanted me to be the host because too many years ago I worked on local television.

The last thing I wanted to be was the host of a community cable show. But my friend is persistent, and he got me to agree to do one show -- just one show, only one show. Silly me. I did one show then another and now I'm on my fourth or fifth. I have forgotten the total.

But there was something I began to notice from hosting these shows. They are a great way to rehabilitate my on-air skills, which have grown rusty. Each show has presented a challenge that I had forgotten as a media trainer -- keeping the guest talking. As you might expect on a community show, we get guests who have never been on TV, are nervous and given to stopping in mid-sentence. There is a skill in relaxing them and keeping them going. That skill applies directly to my work in media training clients. Why the heck didn't I think of that before?

So now, it looks like I might be the permanent host for the show -- a position that I don't want but will take. Call it training.

Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is underway and has thought-provoking reading. But in the midst of skimming articles, a queasiness began to fill my stomach. Where had I seen rhetoric like this before? It came to me that I had seen it at least three times -- when PCs were introduced, with the rise of the Internet and now with blogging.

There is too much enthusiasm for what blogging can do. It is like discovering a new world and dreaming of what the land can be before one finds it has poisonous snakes and deadly spiders. Certainly there should be enthusiasm for blogging. It is a low-cost, widespread communications tool that gives millions an opportunity to express themselves. But it is not a revolution in communications. For one thing, if everyone is blogging, who is reading and listening? The noise would be deafening and good ideas potentially driven out by bad ones.

Ultimately, blogging needs an editorial process like journalism. It needs an objective eye overseeing it and asking if the story is complete and accurate, the opinion thought out and the grammar and spelling correct. I have never agreed with journalists who maintain that blogging frees them from editing. Their blogs should be edited right along with their copy because whether they like it or not, what they say in blogs reflects on journalism and the media they work for.

Please put down the stones and put away the faggots. You can burn me later for heresy.

I believe there is room for unedited opinion and reporting in blogging, but after the first few successful libel trials, there will be less.

Now you can light the fire...

The Senate report on intelligence failures in Iraq partially blamed "groupthink" for an inability to make correct assessments about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Over the years, I've written about groupthink. It was a topic in my first book 10 years ago and the case then was Kennedy White House failures while invading Cuba.

Groupthink should be of profound concern to PR practitioners. It is at the root of many poor and inappropriate communications.

Essentially, a group falls over time into an assumption pattern that dictates how it assesses events and makes decisions. Saddam Hussein had used WMD against the Kurds and once upon a time was known to be assembling equipment for nuclear weapons. Even though it was 10 years past, it was easy to believe he had not changed his stripes. Inspections proceeded on that assumption. When inspectors could not find weapons before the war, it was because Saddam was moving or hiding them. When CIA analysts talked to defectors, comments about WMD bolstered their estimates of the number Saddam had.

I am not trying to absolve the Bush Administration but nearly everyone in Congress, the Pentagon, the CIA, the White House and Western Europe believed Hussein possessed WMD. The question was how many and whether he posed an imminent threat. The idea that he might not have them was deemed incredible. In other words, the Western World fell into groupthink.

This can happen to companies too -- and does. I have been in situations where we knew the answer. There was no question. The problem was that it wasn't the answer. Psychologists have warned for years that someone in a group needs to question assumptions thoroughly. It cannot be just anyone. Secretary of State Colin Powell held out for several months before he subscribed to the WMD thesis. Colin Powell, however, did not have the president's ear on the issue of WMD. It was a matter of intelligence agencies and the White House convincing an obstinate holdout to get with the program.

So who should tell a CEO he might be dead wrong and his assumptions incorrect? In communications, PR counselors should have the courage to speak up and if they don't, they shouldn't be in the job. Even so, that doesn't mean that counselors will have the CEO's ear or that they can break through groupthink. The fact is that most of the time they don't and they can't. Still we should try.