Overview by Ketchum CEO Ray Kotcher

Ketchum's Chief Innovation Officer, Karen Strauss, and co-founder of Chicago-based InnovateNow, Lance Pressl, discuss the innovation laboratory that is the Internet and the innovation challenge in a knowledge economy

Viewpoints

How organizations can better manage their innovation processes, and how new crowdsourcing tools can tap innovative insights from the masses

Innovation Stories

Ketchum’s animated comic strip on innovation, The Innovation Chronicles of Kaptain Clairvoyant, and thoughts from recognized innovators in healthcare, design, and education

Roundtable

Approaches to creativity and innovation from China, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Top 10 Communications Innovations of the Last Decade

The top 10 communications technologies since 1999, with a poll for readers to rank their top three

Street Smarts

New numbers on innovation's value

Introduction

When we first conceived the theme of this issue, "Demonstrating the Value of PR," our initial thinking centered on showing PR’s return on investment during tough economic times. But as we began reaching out to contributors, it soon became clear that we needed to cover more.

The value of PR is much bigger than ROI.

While the difficult economy has increased focus on cost, parallel factors have made authentic communication with the public more critical than ever before. There has never been a time of more skepticism about almost every institution, including those in the private sector. Various audiences are using social media to demand real-time, transparent conversations. Many of the conversations about brands, companies and other institutions are happening without the involvement of those institutions. And they’re happening in a wide range of media outlets, among participants who are spread around the world.

This issue of Perspectives looks at the ways PR can help develop earned and authentic communication and drive conversations, and features insights from experts within our agency and from outside, including Ketchum clients. Our "Voices of Influence" features Babson College President Leonard Schlesinger, who told a group of PR practitioners at the Council of PR Firm’s Critical Issues Forum last October that he believes PR can "shed light on the incredibly difficult situation" we face in the current environment. Here, he expounds on that idea. "Voices" also features Don Wright, professor of public relations at Boston University’s College of Communication. Don shares his thoughts on the need for PR to integrate with other marketing disciplines as well as other corporate functions.

In "Viewpoints," four PR practitioners who are helping to develop and execute new and innovative approaches to today’s communications challenges respond to critical questions about the value of PR. Among them: How can PR appropriately tap into online conversations? And how can multinational companies compare PR results across countries?

The "Roundtable" focuses specifically on how PR can prove its value in a tough economy, and as the economy recovers. Here, we have included thoughts from players in business as varied as food industry giant ConAgra Foods and financial services firm State Street, as well as from Council of PR Firms President Kathy Cripps and Ketchum and Ketchum Pleon counselors in the U.S. and Europe.

Finally, read "Street Smarts" to find some interesting stats on how PR will contribute to growth of the overall marketing and communications industries.

I sincerely believe you will find this issue of Perspectives useful as we all continue to wrestle with the challenges of the current environment. E-mail me at ray.kotcher@ketchum.com to let me know what you think.

Best regards,

Ray Kotcher
Senior Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Ketchum

Introduction

Perspectives Staff