Communication Overtones Comments
Kami - I agree that accredidation is beneficial to people working in PR. but as long as people are not required to be accredited before they start working in PR it will remain a semi effcetive way of improving the profession as a whole.
Do you think it would ever be possible to implement a BAR system preventing people without degrees to handle PR?
I think not - mainly becuase the profession has no boundaries, but what do you think?
Rich; I think, as you say, that it would be hard to define pubic relations and its boundaries. And do we want a society in which you can't speak up about important issues without a license? Forget blogs, they could be labeled as public relations. therefore no one could publish without a license. And would that mean media would need accreditation too. I am anot a lawyer, but it seems it would be a massive First Ammendment Rights issue.
However, I know I prefer to work with people who are accredited, especially when they aren't a known quantity to me. But I know and respect the skills of many that aren't. So, it isn't an easy answer, I just think it is something that we should all do somewhere along the way.
I agree. Accreditation is useful because it reminds PR professionals that they are "professionals" and their service to clients should abide by right conduct and manner.
Hello Kami.
I found your post rather informative. It's interesting to learn that the question of "to accredit or not to accredit" falls across all career paths.
In the technology sector accreditation has classically been a boon to one's career and employment options. However over the past 10 years this has changed significantly. Individuals with demonstrable skills trump accredited individuals 9 times out of 10...in fact those who publicize their certifications tend to be held in suspicion as if they are trying to mask lack of experience with professional credits.
I suppose this is more a problem with the tech industry's over-abundance of questionable certification institutions then anything else.
I also have a question - Did the professionalism photo inspire this post or was it the other way around? 
Professional associations have, indeed, an important role to play, for example by accrediting its members and doing that in a serious and professional way. Unfortunately, there are quite a few (at least over here in Europe) "professional associations" that hand out labels to just about anybody who's is willing to pay the membership fee. There will, in other words, still be a great need for communication around which labels and associations are the professional ones, I guess.
You should have seen the looks on the faces of people when I told them I was a PR counselor by day and law school student by night. Ouch! (three years past)
I have posted about my APR experience. I will be taking the final exam in September. I agree that during this process I have become a professional, a couselor, in truth. While organizing my portfolio, I saw where I had gaps in past campaigns - this was a great lessons learned process. My readiness review was not a drilling, but more of a wisdom session.
Like you, Kami, I applied for my APR as soon as I qualified. Perhaps, because of the distrust in PR my APR is for personal satisfaction. Therein lies the problem, but I never bring an issue to the table without a solution. Unification by speaking out. I can't "save" the industry, but maybe with the help of other voices, restrictions will not be necessary.
Sorry, but I disagree with you, at least in part, on this one. The accreditation process can be a great and helpful professional development tool, but it's nothing more than that. There are other great professional development tools out there as well. In 20 years in this business, I've worked with the accredited and unaccredited alike, and believe me, there are great ones and bad ones in both camps. PR professionals have a reputation problem because many care more about "themselves and their profession" than they do about their clients and achieving real results. If we want to improve our reputation, then let's step it up across the board on our client's behalf and help deliver real value to their enterprises. I applaud the training and think the lessons learned from the accreditation process are valuable, but having more self-accredited" PR professionals in the world isn't going to improve our reputation. If we (as PR pros) were our own client, we would have fired us years ago.
I think accreditation is a good thing and needs to go further. With so many charlatans out there, we have a real opportunity to set and enforce meaningful standards for the profession. The challenge is to make the PRSA and its APR more central to the business; that means, for large agencies and others, giving up a certain amount of control, which I think is the ultimate issue. Some of the biggest sins (think Armstrong Williams) have been committed by some of the industry's largest firms. PR folks that work in fields such as politics and entertainment have a completely different rulebook as well. A lot of work to be done here.
Wow, so many great and thoughtful comments here. Thanks for adding your 2 cents on what I think is an important subject. Mary and Lauren, I think that professionalism and a commitment to learning are a big part of the APR.
First, let me say that I don't think accreditation is a silver bullet, but it does set a standard. And as Scott says, it is very important for the big agency to adopt the credentials as essential to business to really make it "catch on."
I expecially respect Leo's opinion on this since he specializes in client service. I think that is the absolute key. However, how can you give the client the best service if you have no idea where to start? In other words, if you are nothing more than a tactics machine, what do you really have to offer?
I agree with Serge that phony "purchased" credentials are worse than none at all. I can only speak for my experience with the APR, but it isn't an easy process. You really are challenged to know your stuff. In the end, that helps us all to become a better resource to our clients. The APR process helps candidates learn to focus tactics on goals and objectives that actually bring results. Oh, and to measure those results.
And all I can say to veo is thanks for having a photo on hand to illustrate my point. I love Flickr
I have to agree with Leo on this one. I think accreditation can be very useful for professional development, especially early in one's career, but at a certain point, the proof is in the pudding, not the initials next to your name.
I'll use myself as an example. My professional practice, both now as a consultant and in my most recent corporate jobs, spans at least four disciplines -- business development, sales, marketing and public relations. I've got more than 20 years on the job and an MBA as well. Do I really need to pass three, maybe 4 tests to justify my business counsel?
Sure hope not, because it ain't happening.
Susan; I appreciate that you don't need accreditation to make you better at what you do at this point in your career. I also agree that letters behind your name mean very little. However, I think that a movement toward a credential that stands for something, namely the ethical practice of public relations, would be beneficial to the profession, the professional, our clients and the public-at-large. Senior practitioners could get it just to make a point. However, we have to get some general consensus, which is what I am harping on here. Namely, professional standards that are upheld influential people and organizations. Which is what I think Scott was getting at.
Kami:
Many years ago, I began the process of getting accredited by IABC, but I changed my mind.
Why? I kept running into people who were accredited yet not very skilled. To me, it seemed like a waste of time ... I had a sense that the people who went through the process were perhaps not busy enough with real work.
The other issue was that the designation had no value outside of the corporate communications world.
Finally, I don't think that being accredited amounts to a hill of beans when it comes to acting appropriately or ethically. Those are often situational issues; the people involved know exactly what they are doing and would not be persuaded otherwise by having passed a test years before.
John; I am sorry you had a bad experience with accreditation and the process. I can't speak for the ABC with IABC, but I can speak for APR.
The process was one of the most important things I ever did to set me on a path to professionalism. And I was not as you say, "not busy enough with real work" at the time.
I was indeed VERY busy, as are the candiadates I am working with right now.
I realize that accreditation alone does not make the practice of PR ethical. People are people. However, I think that it is a good step in the process. It is a commitment to professionalism, learning and ethical practice. In PRSA you must ammass a certain number of points by giving service to the profession, getting continuing education and publishing in the firld (blogs count by the way).
There are plenty of ethical and professional people out there without accreditation, witness youself and Susan, for starters. So, I am not saying you have to have the credential to be a professional. I am addresssing the critics of accreditation and saying that the credential means something and is not worthless fluff.
Kami:
I am one of Robert French's PR students and found this posting interesting being that I am about to graduate and hopefully venture into a business that I feel can be misunderstood and criticized. Having practitioners pass an accreditation exam seems to be a good idea because it seems that it would bring an added credibility to the industry.
I am fortunate to be coming out of an outstanding public relations program at Auburn, but not everyone who wants to go into public relations has that luxury. Many universities offer nothing of the sort. An accreditation program could be a good way to teach recent grads about public relations and specifically about the ethics involved in public relations. It could also weed out a lot of people who see public relations as something different than it actually is. I do not see how an accreditation program would hurt the pr industry.
Mary; First of all, let me say welcome back to school.
Now to address your comment. It is a problem that there is inconsistent quality out there. However, it probably can't be made mandatory by the government due to First Ammendment concerns. However, employers could require, recommend and support it by putting their employees through the training. I really like that it requires contiuing service and education. PR, of all professions, really demands that we keep learning all the time.
Accreditation can't hurt a PR practitioner, and certainly it does set a benchmark for both the way practitioners work and the way organizations deploy the PR function.
What it is not, is a panacea for unethical or shoddy work. Practitioners still need to choose excellence - even when they have accreditation and face the risk of losing it.
Kami,
I certainly respect you opinion and have long been associated with PRSA in the San Francisco Bay Area and am the former President of the Bay Area Publicity Club.
I disagree with your assertion because over a 30-year public relations career I've come across a lot of people who were good at studying and getting their APR and were terrible communicators, inept as counselors. In fact, I've seen no correlation between competency and APR.
Last time I checked (which admittedly has been awhile) considerably less than 50% of PRSA's own membership was APR.
Certainly professional ethics is important for all practitioners to learn.
I'm not saying getting your APR will hurt you. But only once in my career did I come across a company (I believe it was Bank of America) that refused to hire anyone who wasn't APR -- primarily because the VP of Communications was APR and chair of the APR committee of SF PRSA.
APR does not equal competence. And, you will be hard pressed, I believe to convince most practitioners that their careers will be harmed by not obtaining APR status.
Bruce Lewis
Bruce; I appreciate your perspective. And I agree that not all people who take the APR are necessarily competent. However, my experience has been somewhat the opposite of yours. Maybe because I got my APR in Washington DC, which was APR land. Plus, we had great instructors. So, I don't say mine is the prevailing experience.
Still I think that education and a body of basic knowledge would really benefit the profession.
Who wants to pay for me to get accredited? My firm doesnt. They dont even pay for me to be part of PRSA...
Until it's free and not another money making scam, nothing should be a MUST in this industry..
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