dear friends
The discussion on the functioning of the Indian PR bodies has generated lot of heat and dust. I should really appreciate Rashmi and other other young professionals for sharing their views frankly. Instead of finding fault with them for airing their views, we should be honest enough to appreciate their frankness. They have done a great job by bringing out their aspirations. In a family, if the sons and daughters want something, where they will go? They will fight only with their parents. We, as seniors, should take the views of our kids in right earnest, instead of defending ourselves or accusing them. Three Cheers to our youngsters. Let me share my views on this most important debate:
Indian PR bodies strength and weakness:
Indian PR professional movement was started 50 years back by great visionaries. They started Public Relations Society of India (PRSI). Even before the concept of PR and Corpcom were not popular, those visionaries spread the message across the country. They had chapters all over the country. They were even running PR educational courses and awarded degrees, even before many of the current Universities thought of this course. They had the National leadership and management by rotation (North, South, East and West). Till ten years back, everything went on very well.
Due to various problems, including ego issues and internal politics (as one member mentioned), PRSI got split and PRCI was formed with base at Bangalore. Presently only few chapters of PRSI and PRCI are functioning, due to the personal interest of some of the senior members. PRSI is functioning at Chennai, Hyderabad and Chandigarh. PRCI is presently functioning at Bangalore and Hyderabad.
I should make a mention about Hyderabad. They have GFPR, PRSI and PRCI. They have common members. Due to the leadership of seniors like Bobby, all the members get united. Chandigarh is active because of CJ Singh. PRSI at Chennai is active due to few seniors like Daniel and Dharan. Now at Chennai GFPR was recently formed with young team. To my knowledge no other chapters are active. I may be wrong. Still that is not an issue.
Now after hearing the aspirations of these young professionals, these organisations should interospect themselves, without finding fault with the youngsters. As I observe, the main hurdle is the leadership crisis. Oldies are not able to give way to younger generation, for their own personal reasons. After this debate started in our group, some of the seniors also called me and talked about the sorry state of affairs of the PR bodies in India. They did not want me to reveal their identity. One of them said that these bodies do not want fresh people, as the leaders may feel 'insecure'.
Indian PR bodies should look at the example of International bodies like CIPR, PRSA and IABC. Everyyear, they change the leadership and induct new board and encourage fresh ideas and concepts. In India, most of the leaders are not update with the latest developments in the world. The word is moving at fastest speed with technology growth. Twitter and Facebook are becoming the great tools. Neither they do not want to update themselves or encourage the updation. Even the official websites are not updated.
Today's yougnsters are highly 'impatient'. They face the competion 1000 times more than what seniors like us had faced 20 years back. They need to be prepared to meet the challenges at global level. We need global level exposure and accreditaiton. As CJ said, accreditation is not based on the decades of service. It is based on the current competency level of the candidate. We need to be prepared to test ourselves before a Global panel. We need global standards.
The debate has opened up the eyes of serniors like us. Unfortuantely, our PR Bodies have not yet targetted the young professionals. Every year, thousands of youngsters join the industry from colleges. There is no point in talking about past glories or talking about the great National or International Conferences that are being held. These Conferences have helped only for fellowships. The amount of money from sponsorship that are being spent in such Conferences could be used more fruitfully in updating the seniors and juniors together.
PR bodies should learn to attract the younger generation professionals. They should learn their language. They are impatient. They do not want seminars of lectures. They want to participate and share quickly. That is why, the concepts of UnConferences, social networking have to be understood.
It is time for the PR bodies to interospect themselves without getting irrtated and restore the past glories. They should not resort to 'self destruction' mode. We will be doing great injustice to the next generation.
A piece of advice or request to our younger generation
The world is moving fast. There may be differences in the views in the family between sons and parents. Still, we belong to the same family. Parents do not know your language. Most of the seniors are from pre-liberalisation era. You are all coming from new generation era. Please do not carry the impression that all seniors are 'useless'. They carry rich experience and wisdom. But may not be net savvy like you. It is diffiuclt for the seniors to become net savvy like you at this age.
I have seen many youngsters getting emotional. You should also learn to participate. Future belongs to youth. That is why Dr Abdul Kalam targets only youth population. Many times, I have personally experienced difficulties to gather youngsters for the important professional discussions. Even in this group, many youngsters are silent participants and do not share the views.
You should take the leadership and participate. At the same time, elders also will not mind giving up the leadership to youngsters and remain as patrons. Youngsters should make use of the industry stalwarts for their professional enrichment.
Few months back, when we announced Mentor - Mentoree concept, we had more number of Mentors (seniors) and less Mentorees (Juniors). I got frustrated and dropped that idea. If you take interest, many seniors are there to help you. After all, no father or mother will feel jealous of their children. They will feel proud.
Let the Seniors and Juniors in the profession understand each other's language and join together for the upliftment of the profession.
This prpoint forum, ezine and podcasts will continue to remain as an online tool to support all the offline activities of all the PR bodies.
I welcome ideas, how we can bridge the gap and make consturctive beginning, forgetting the past.
Srinivasan
Moderator
91766 50273
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