Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Pity the PR Professional

Pity the PR professional.  It's hard enough to generate media and navigate "opportunities"  (read challenges) in the real world.  Now we have to consider the virtual one where Business Week's Robert Hof observes in a recent cover story,
"All this could prove risky. As companies provide real services inside virtual worlds, such as employment and investment opportunities, they could draw attention -- and regulation -- from real-world authorities like the courts and legislatures. And more than in any other medium, companies don't make the rules inside virtual worlds -- the participants do. Too much reality, especially the commercial kind, could scare away the very people that companies are trying to reach."

I am sure there are already several enterprising flacks or firms that have already put out their virtual shingle and begun providing companies, real individuals and yes avatars with PR advice and image consultation. 

As of this writing, I have more questions than answers.

 What should an individual's avatar look like? How should it or a company behave?   Virtual worlds intersect with real ones, and therefore are hybrid of rules, standards and expectations.  Should an online persona differ from his or her real world counterpart?    Make it too real and you lose the power of a virtual world with its permission to experiment and extend boundaries.  Make it too virtual and you risk harming your real world brand and reputation.

We are not just talking about technology, we are dealing potential changes in how we behave, both online and off.  We are born being ourselves, then we adopt a public persona and now we must create a real and virtual public selves.

Or as Aedhmar Hynes, CEO of Text 100 asserts in her Monday Morning blog, "there is a very real danger that change in communications we are currently witnessing is misunderstood as merely a manifestation of the proliferation of progressive technology or new forms of communications such as blogging and citizen journalism, when in actuality we’re witnessing a profound shift in social behavior enabled by more sophisticated technology and driven by digital natives who are growing up in a world different to our own (those digital immigrants among us!)."
Posted by Dan Greenfield at 22:57:42 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |
Comments
1 - (From Spain. Sorry for my English). Interesting, very, your view. I think we are, in essence, the same (real and virtual worlds). Every side has its rules. A person can change something (prefer to e-mail people, instead of meeting them, for instance). Is there any change? Yes there are. We try to know in a way (untill the begening of the Internet) how human beigns are , and from now, we do in another. But the second part (after the Internet) is just an adittion of different components (ones from the real world) and the others from the virtual. The first ones are the historic thinking (from kids till now)and the rest (enigmas, in one way and old behaviours, in other).

Benito Castro. (Comment this)

Written by: Benito Castro at 2006/05/15 - 11:13:14
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