Chartered public relations: blog to book

One of my goals as President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) this year has been to realign the organisation with its vision and purpose. I hope that the year will be characterised as a period when the CIPR reasserted a commitment to professionalism as set out by the founders of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) in 1948, and committed to statute through its Charter in 2005.

Journey towards professionalism

A key piece of this work is to clearly set out the member journey for members leading to Chartered PR Practitioner accreditation.

Chartered Public Relations Practitioner status is pitched by the CIPR as “a benchmark for professional excellence and a validation of your skills, qualifications and experience.” It represents the highest standard of knowledge, expertise, integrity and ethical practice.

I blogged about my own experience in 2012 and 2013.

In the first half of 2014 I published several interviews on my blog and the CIPR Conversation with people that have also achieved Chartered PR Practitioner status in a bid to shine a light on this important community.

I wanted to understand and share their motivation and perspective on the profession with the goal of broadening the appeal of the status for employers and practitioners.

In June we had a conversation with Kogan Page about creating an anthology of papers and publishing it as a book. It’s the model that we used for Share This and Share This Too.

The response from the community of Chartered PR Practitioners was fantastic and we quickly created a formal proposal. Professor Anne Gregory agreed to contribute a foreword.

Professor Gregory initiated the then IPR's application for Charter, worked to prepare our application and signed our submission to the Privy Council when she was President in 2004. She received the Charter from the Clerk to the Privy Council as Past President in 2005, and so that it’s entirely fitting and appropriate that she has kindly agreed to contribute the foreword to book.

Lessons from expert practitioners

We’ve spent the following months pulling the papers together, editing and readying the manuscript for publication.

The book tackles five critical areas of the development of public relations as it shifts to a more professional approach.

• The shift to the open organisation – the application of public relations within every area of a modern organisation
• Developing areas of practice – an exploration of the opportunity in developing areas of public relations
• The application of best practice – an analysis of the application of public relations in different markets
• International – the impact of the globalisation of markets on public relations
• Reflections – an examination of the fundamental theories of public relations and their application to modern practice

The book features contributions from public relations experts from organisations including Specsavers, Thomson Reuters, and the University of Cambridge.

The expert practitioners are Matt Appleby, Catherine Arrow, Hilary Berg, David Crundwell, Richard Flynn, Susan Fox, Jane Howard, Julie McCabe, Matt Mckay, Anne Moir, Paul Mylrea,Paul Noble, Clare Parker, Linda Rolf, Alan Smith, Sally Sykes, Martin Turner, Ben Verinder, Peter Walker, and myself.

I’ve just received copies of the page layouts from Kogan Page to proof. It looks fantastic.

Anniversary celebration

Chartered Public Relations: Lessons from Expert Practitioners will be published in February on the tenth anniversary of the CIPR’s Charter.

My objective as the book’s editor is to celebrate the work of Chartered PR Practitioners and create a substantive piece of work that can act as a showcase to encourage other practitioners to achieve Chartered status.

I also hope that the project will make a valuable contribution to the community of public relations practice, and the advancement of public relations thinking worldwide.

If you believe, as I do, that the public relations industry needs to make the shift from a craft to a profession then you should sign up to Continuous Professional Development (CPD) via the CIPR and start your own journey to Chartered Practitioner.

I hope that Chartered Public Relations: Lessons from Expert Practitioners will inspire you to start your journey to Chartered PR Practitioner accreditation.

The book is available for pre-order now from Kogan Page priced £29.99.