ST. LOUIS - "We're good at beer, shoes and blues" in this city, said a jazz musician at the opening night reception of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference here last Sunday (Nov. 10).
Beer was plentiful at functions, and obvious in the Anheuser Busch signage showing that company's conference sponsorship.
There was nothing particularly noteworthy about shoes, although a comfortable set was needed to walk the quarter mile separating the two conference hotels at the annual gathering.
Blues, however, had to be the state of mind of PRSA's leadership after assembly delegates rallied to vote down a proposed $25 dues increase, and attendance at the conference did not meet expectations.
PRSA President Luis Morales said that he was "disappointed" about the dues defeat. "I thought that the tremendous progress we had made in the past two to three years would carry the day -- especially after not having an increase for eight years," he said.
A number of delegates who did not wish to be identified said that the leadership had done a poor job of outlining the reasons that an increase in dues was necessary. Nor, they said, did leadership adequately explain what the additional money would fund, or what would need to be cut if the dues increase was rejected. Morales said a dues increase is likely to be put before assembly delegates again next year.
Dues increase or not, the conference went forward as planned. The conference theme, "Telling the Truth: Building Credibility in an Incredible World," was addressed in keynote presentations as well as in a number of the individual workshops.
Telling the Truth
Especially illuminating for PR practitioners was the Nov. 11 presentation by Tom Miller, group senior vice president with public opinion research organization Roper Starch Worldwide, New York. Miller described a national research effort funded by PR firm Manning, Selvage & Lee, which showed that many U.S. workers perceive a high level of dishonesty in the workplace --with many themselves saying that telling the truth is not always necessary.
For example, Miller said that about three quarters of the 2,000 adults queried believe that the average worker will "hedge the truth" in certain circumstances. Showing that communicating messages through the media is even more perilous than many think, the Roper research showed that only one-third of workers believe top management of companies is truthful with the press.
Summing up his findings, Miller said the research shows that PR people's job is "much tougher," because of the high level of distrust and cynicism in society.
Given a "trust gap" that also exists within organizations, Miller suggested that PR execs should help management to overcome its "remoteness" from employees. "The average employee doesn't know management, or hear from management," he said.
A global view of the issue of trust and truthfulness was provided by Francis Fukuyama, a professor at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Va. He described how different societies around the world had formed business and social institutions according to historical patterns of trust.
For example, he said the tendency of Chinese adults to distrust those from different families has led to the prevelance of family-owned businesses in this culture. Americans historically have had a greater willingness to trust neighbors and institutions, but that trust is on the wane.
While PR people clearly are pivotal in building and maintaining the relationships that their organizations need with stakeholders, "the problem of declining trust [in the United States] is not something that can be solved by government or the corporate sector," he said.
Higher levels of trust can only come about when individuals are willing to forego some of their rights in order to create a "sense of community."
As usual, the conference covered an extremely wide range of topics, with literally dozens of sessions covering everything from writing a speech to developing crisis communication plans.
The Internet craze, which dominated the conference last year, was much less prominent on the conference program. Hallway conversations revealed that the topic has quickly moved into the mainstream, with most people having e-mail and many designing Web pages for their organization or for clients. (PRSA, 212/995-2230; Roper Starch, 212/599-0700; George Mason Univ., 703/993-2470)