Last November, some of my PR buddies went to the PRSSA National Conference in Salt Lake City, UT. I didn’t go…and found I didn’t need to. I heard all about the conference in every class, at every PRSSA meeting, and every PRSSA event. Thanks girls for saving me the big bucks.
Big shot Richard Edelman spoke at the event and got to play ‘celebrity’ for a day. The girls were eager to ask about the Wal-Mart/Edelman scandal. Leave it to good old Kent State University to stir things up. PR student, Allison Tomei, asked, “You talked about transparency and disclosure–what do you think went wrong when your company created the fake Wal-mart blog?”
Though the girls were not impressed with his vague response to the Wal-Mart inquisition, they did bring home an important Edelman lesson about global PR.
A week after they returned, I heard the girls discussing how Edelman said it was imperative all PR professionals be proficient in at least one other language .
“That’s crazy… he’s insane.” Maybe he is.
Though I’m studying Spanish, I understand not everyone has the interest or the attention span to learn another language. But after doing some research, PR studs and studettes–Richard was right.
Fellow classmate and blogger, Heather Bing, was nice enough to point me to an article from The Strategist Online that interviewed Norman Mineta, vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton . Mineta also served as Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton adminstration and Secretary of Transportation in the current Bush administration. Important guy.
Mineta addresses the importance of making a global footprint regardless of a company’s size. ”Clients will continue to seek PR professionals who are able to recognize opportunites, cut through the messaging of diplomatic officialdom and help them achieve strategic business goals in markets around the world.”
A second language can only help PR professionals be more efficient and proficient in their practice.
Italian PR practitioner Italo Vignoli addresses the need to blog in various languages in his Sep. 19, 2005 entry, Growing a PR blog in a different language. “Blogging is mainly done in English, and PR [blogging is] not an exception.”
Vignoli continues to say that he would be missing an entire community of Italian Web surfers by blogging only in one language.
This is incredibly important as we comprehend the melting pot of the United States. Should we blog in various languages? I think so. Especially if our company pursues international partnerships.
Holly’s Daydream…
This takes me back to February 2005 in Mexico. There we were sitting on my bed looking at photo albums, clothes and make-up. What else do girls do? Megumi (Japanese), Ebu (Taiwanese) and I (American) all spoke different languages. Megumi and I communicated in our common language, broken Spanish (hey it was my second week), then I had to translate the Spanish into English for Ebu, though she only spoke ‘broken’ English. Sounds fun, huh? It was! And we all understood eachother.
The world of PR is changing into a multicultural, multilingual entity.
And yes, Richard Edelman, it will be important to know other languages. But before anything else, it is important to know the people.
March 3, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I’d like to focus on the last line of your post, I think it’s extremely significant: “But before anything else, it is important to know the people.” Communicating in the same language is a challenge in its own right, but when you get to know the person you also get to know how to speak with them. I think of when I’m talking to my close friends, often it only takes a look and they know my entire comment word-for-word. When you know your audience, same language or not, you know how to communicate better.
Language is just one step to communicating. I am an anthropology minor and more than anything I have learned that by understanding other cultures, I can relate to more people. Our world is becoming smaller in terms of communication, all it takes is a click of a button and this comment can be sent around the world; understanding how others live is a key element to communicating with them.
March 3, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Thanks, Callie, for your reply. I am glad you understand the point I was trying to make by the last line. Though most business partnerships are not going to be close friendships, it will be extremely important to empathize with and relate to other cultures. Body language and facial expressions tend to be the most dominant languages of all.