#PRstack: Help hack public relations workflow

#PRstack is a project that I've kicked off in a bid to characterise the public relations third-party tool market and map it against modern workflow. The team at Traackr recently undertook a similar exercise for the marketing business. Earlier in the year I shared a paper at the World PR Forum in Madrid and also at the PRSA International Conference in Washington called How to Modernise a Public Relations Agency or Communication Team.

The paper explores how our business is modernising from publicity to influencer relations; and then to communities and social business. I’ve since added branded or owned media as a discrete category.

The logical development of this work is to look at how you design and build workflow in each of these areas, and then how you transition or build teams.

Crowdsourcing #PRstack

Each agency or communications team will have a their own approach and favoured vendors. The issue is complicated by a burgeoning third-party tools market that is busting with feature rich products all looking for a problem to solve.

In the last week or so I’ve shared a Google Document via my networks on Facebook and Google+ in an effort to crowdsource popular tools against modern public relations workflow: sheet one is a growing list of 100+ third-party tool vendors mapped against workflow; and sheet two is of a list of tools in alphabetical order.

I'd like to characterise each of the tools by crowdsourcing the URL, price, and a 10 to 20 words description. If you're willing to help out please head to sheet two, the second tab in the Google Document and get cracking. Thank you in anticipation.

Why should you help out? Because it’s a community effort and it will help advance and promote our collective knowledge and understanding of the market. It might even put us in a stronger position when we're negotiating with vendors.

If that doesn’t motivate you I’ll share the full list via a blog as soon as it’s complete. You’ll get a link back and shout out if you contribute and add your details to the project via this Google form.

If this works I’ll build a #PRstack wiki and crowdsource template workflows as a next step. Andrew Smith, a thinker and doer that works at the intersection of public relations, search and social media has already volunteered some suggestions.

Let me know what you think, and please get involved.