Neither of the candidates for CIPR President in 2015 covered themselves in glory during the CIPR TV debate earlier today. There was an air of defeatism to the debate between Miti Ampoma and Lionel Zetter, hosted by former CIPR President Kevin Taylor.

I’m afraid that I didn’t recognise the organisation that has reinvented itself in the last three years and is leading the public relations industry on Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and training, qualifications, modernisation and regional representation.

Watch the replay and judge for yourself.

The CIPR is a strong position; its finances are sound. It doesn’t need propping up by a merger, but greater cooperation with other communication and public relations organisations would make a lot of sense for the benefit of the industry. I wrote about this issue last week.

The CIPR doesn’t offer corporate membership either to in-house or agency teams. That would break the integrity of individual membership and the governance of the organisation.

The CIPR’s training department has had some discussions with agencies about rolling out its online CPD scheme. As both candidates acknowledged it should be the standard for learning and development in the industry.

Finally, I challenge anyone to counter that the CIPR is not leading the public relations industry in social and digital.

The CIPR Social Media Panel under the leadership of Rob Brown has developed the Social Summer series, Wikipedia guidance now adopted by industry organisations worldwide, Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals and, ironically, CIPR TV itself.