SCG Founder Brings His PR Tools to School...It's a constant lament among senior PR managers: how to attract and retain quality PR executives to counteract the high level of
churn in the business and, perhaps more important, set a foundation for the future. Patrick Strother, founder of Strother Communications Group (Minn.), who for the last 22 years
has been teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, wants to shake things up in this department. So, he's
taking on a full-time position as a Visiting Associate Professor for the 2004-2005 academic year at the university. He's hoping to advance the practice of strategic communications
in the academic arena, which is sorely needed. PR NEWS recently caught up with Strother to talk about what's on his agenda as he gears up for the school year.
PRN: What are you going to be teaching that might better prepare students for a long-term career in public relations, considering that retention rates in the business are less
than inspiring?
Strother: I'll be teaching a very broad array of integrated communications techniques--advertising, PR - and the whole host of other elements of communications that could come
into play, such as direct marketing. If you have the passion for PR, it's a wonderful career. I think a lot of people maybe misstep into PR, thinking it's something other than it
is. To me, it's a very profound kind of business that can really change an organization's future and, because of that, I focus a lot on the imperative of really thinking through
an issue. I try and set [students'] sensibilities about what PR really is so that the class imitates the real world, whether it's the decision on Iraq or the upcoming
[presidential] election. I'll use real-life scenarios so they don't know what the answer is because that's really the way PR works.
PRN: You say that in your classes you want to deconstruct the "silo mentality" that has traditionally dominated ad and PR campaigns and cost countless millions of dollars. How
are you going to do that and why do you think - despite the clamor in corporate America for integrated marketing -- we still live in a universe of silos?
Strother: People cling to their discipline almost as though it were a physical entity. If you look at strategic communications as what you're doing it tends to automatically
break that silo mentality down.
You need to look at problems real objectively and not have a 'law of the instrument' kind of issue, where you have X amount of inventory in PR so you want to use that. It just
doesn't work that way. You have to build things from the bottom up to really have a plan that is seamless and integrated.
[But] you can't even have integrated marketing without PR. It's critically important, especially for brand work. Academia tends to focus on the big companies and the reality is
that most companies aren't big and that's where you can do an awful lot of good with integrated marketing. I like to look at companies that are more representative of the real
world-- a tool company that has an international presence, nobody has heard of it, it's not sexy but it makes a great product. I've had top executives of companies like that say
to me, 'We're betting the company' on your plan and it really sobers you up. Contact: Patrick Strother, [email protected]