Accreditation: How-To Stifle PR Industry’s Bright Future
I am a fan of Kami Huyse, so when she forms a strong opinion on something, I give it serious consideration (or more often, I’ll just blindly follow her lead; it is easier). Kami recently blogged about the benefits of accreditation for PR pros, and on this front I’ll politely disagree.
PLEASE NOTE that I have tons of respect for many, many folks who did go through the trouble of getting their APR credentials. I also want to say that I agree with Kami (and Scott Baradell, and Richard Edelman) that PR has a PR problem.
But I don’t think that accreditation will improve the perception of PR pros — does a law degree convince us that lawyers are honest? More importantly I think that:
- Accreditation only legitimizes one organization’s (the PRSA) view of what is entailed by "Public Relations." In this dawning era of new media, the PR person’s role is (thankfully!) more fluid and unknown than ever. This fluidity is an opportunity, one that would be quashed by force-fitting PR pros into the required learning & roles defined by a standards body. (I also think that the "institutional thinking" of the PRSA has made the organization woefully slow to consider the ramifications of the 2.0 phenomenon, but, that’s fodder for another post.)
- Mandatory accreditation would raise unnecessary barriers to young people interested in "trying out" the PR profession. Lots of new graduates are ambitious about their career path, but not necessarily eager to think about studying for a huge exam that will need to be taken 5 years later to prove that they "get it." We need to motivate more entrants, if anything: I’d rather grease the skids than raise unnecessary barriers. (Besides, anyone got any stats on how gaining your APR credential impacts your salary or employment prospects?)
I look across the landscape of my own agency, which employs 75-odd (truly odd) PR people nationwide, all of ‘em stars that I admire. None have "APR" affixed to their business cards, yet there’s not a single one whom I wouldn’t trust to give solid PR counsel to a client. I think it is up to each agency to train its people to show "competency in the knowledge, skills and abilities required to practice public relations effectively in today’s business arena."
Tags: public+relations, pr, prsa, kami+huyse
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The value of PR qualifications
This started as a brief comment to respond to Todd Defren’s thoughts on accreditation for PR practitioners, but it became rather lengthy for a comment so here it is as a longer post. I understand Todd’s points, but I’m not
The value of PR qualifications
This started as a brief comment to respond to Todd Defren’s thoughts on accreditation for PR practitioners, but it became rather lengthy for a comment so here it is as a longer post. I understand Todd’s points, but I’m not
Wow, I never would have guessed you felt that way about APR, Todd. You make some great points here, but I think I’m gonna have to side with Kami and Stuart on this one.
Just posted on this at Flackette if you want to take a look.
-Marie
Hey Todd — here’s my pair o’ pennies:
I was getting cranked up to study for accreditation, and already had a killer project (Branded RSS Reader) picked out to use for my portfolio.
I got that promotion, though, and that pretty well wiped out my time for prep.
That said — I lurk on the fringes of PR anyway. I’m not really cut out to be an agency guy — I do what I do very well. My interest in snagging an APR would have simply been a credential to sell my services. It seemed to be the sort of thing that would matter more to a high-level client than to me.
I also saw it as a way to keep some options open down the road, to be able to pick up a freelance project or two down the line when the seminars and consulting was slack.
In one sense, my new job experience will give me more credibility than an APR designation ever would. I may still reach back for accreditation a few years from now, but not because I think it will save PR.
Ike Pigott, RBS
(Retired Blogger Society)
I tend to agree w/ you, Todd. To tell you the truth, I don’t trust a professional organization in the comms industry to keep accreditation mechanisms current.
Again… Nothing against those who seem to have gotten value out of and apr or membership in iabc or prsa.
My *personal* experience with those orgs was terrible. I described my experience at one org to be akin to “getting stuck in an elevator w/ betty white.”
Anyway… I would encourage folks to make their comms careers richer by pursuing those interests that make them unique and provide them with a fresh perspective.
First time making comments using a blackberry…
Neat…
I was about to comment, but it turned into a post. I am ready to fight, like a refined lady, of course
This is my lazyman’s trackback as my link above connects directly to the post.
I think Phil’s comment best sums up my attitude (succinctly and with more humor, damn him).
Kami – I left my comment at your site; thanks for engaging with me – always fun.
Marie – Great post at Flackette. I would not dream of telling you to NOT go for the APR… it’s up to each person to gauge the value of that process. Since you are already savvy on blogging, etc., I’d be curious to hear how you reconcile the lessons of New Media with the more traditional stuff taught by PRSA’s accreditation prcedures.
Todd -
I agree with you on this one. You may have read the comment I left on Kami’s site, but here it is again for some of your loyal readers:
Sorry, but I disagree with you (Kami), at least in part, on this one. The accreditation process can be a great and helpful professional development tool, but it’s nothing more than that. There are other great professional development tools out there as well. In 20 years in this business, I’ve worked with the accredited and unaccredited alike, and believe me, there are great ones and bad ones in both camps. PR professionals have a reputation problem because many care more about “themselves and their profession” than they do about their clients and achieving real results. If we want to improve our reputation, then let’s step it up across the board on our client’s behalf and help deliver real value to their enterprises. I applaud the training and think the lessons learned from the accreditation process are valuable, but having more “self-accredited” PR professionals in the world isn’t going to improve our reputation. If we (as PR pros) were our own client, we would have fired us years ago.
Let me share one additional thought. In the martial art I teach, we have an outlook on advancement:
Once you act, think, and demonstrate the proficiency of a Novice, then you test and are recognized as such.
Once you act, think, and demonstrate the proficiency of a Student, then you test and are recognized as such.
Rather than the rank granting mystical powers, it is simply a recognition of a reality.
In reality, there are a lot of great PR practitioners that don’t have the label on their names. Most who do don’t really see a tangible benefit from the study, other than a confidence that their “big picture ability” is true and will be externally recognized.
Todd and Kami are in disagreement over how they see the terms:
Kami sees APR as a recognition of demonstrated ability, not a training course. And she is right.
Todd sees APR as an antiquated measure of skills, because it is not Open Source and is too slow to incorporate new PR. And he is right.
And I see no reason to cross-post this, because most of the smart people I know in the blogosphere read both Todd and Kami. And I am right.
Ike Pigott, RBS
Ike:
“Kami sees APR as a recognition of demonstrated ability, not a training course. And she is right.
Todd sees APR as an antiquated measure of skills, because it is not Open Source and is too slow to incorporate new PR. And he is right.”
Right on.