Friday, June 24 10:00am
Think of CIPR as an English version of the Public Relations Society of America. CIPR was founded in 1948, just one year after PRSA, it started out only doing certification programs and training sessions. Now CIPR is the center of all public relations work for the United Kingdom and many other surrounding countries. There are over 30,000 members of the institute, the different types of membership levels include Fellow, Associate, Affiliate, Global Affiliate and Student. CIPR is in charge of putting out things like practice guides and case studies. Basically they are in charge of setting up the rules of public relations for the UK. Similarly, to PRSA, CIPR sets the standards of excellence and upholds the ethics for all of its members. --Kasey K
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When we are there we will be meeting with Matthew Hall, Head of Business Engagement. Matthew Hall has a background in account management at the Chartered Institute of Management Accounts, the institute teaches students how to combine accounting, finance, and management when running a business. He then went to work for the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment, he worked as a sort of go-between companies and the institute. --Kasey K
The group met with Matthew Hall at CIPR he had an extremely well thought out and professional presentation for us. CIPR has a royal charter from the Queen, and it is a learning facility for Public Relations and Hall educated our group quite a bit. The theme of the conversation was professionalism, and he wanted to make sure that our group knew the direct correlation professionalism had with a successful public relations campaign or crisis management. The three piers of professionalism are behavior, skill set and knowledge of the field, when all of those things are grouped together you have the perfect professional. He also discussed multiple public relations disasters and failures. He showed us how to learn from each of these case studies to further our knowledge of the field. For example, he went into depth about the BP oil spill and how the lack of the professionalism was part of the cause of how the public took the news. One of the biggest pieces of advice Matthew had for us was to always have a crisis plan because things change and you have to always keep yourself together for the sake of the company you represent.
Reflection After the Trip
