I believe the key messages from this weeks readings were…that honesty is crucial to an organizations success. You can be a huge company with lots of money but unless your brand is trusted by its clients and publics there is no path to future success or growth. Community relations should also be foremost in a company’s priorities. Developed relationships with the community will ensure a strong company identity and one that is renowned as a community friendly company.
The key points in the readings could be applied to my groups work in that…one of the main issues we’re trying to work on is the Toastmasters’ brand identity and how they are viewed by the community. One of the things they supposedly pride themselves on is their internal employee relations, and we’re trying to use that as a key point to get across to the community…drawing on a “friends as well as teachers” kind of image, or “personalizing the corporate image” (Johnson and Zawawi, p298.).
The readings made me think more about PR theory and practice in that…it really is important to have strong relationships within the company if you’re going to be successful within the community as well. A company that the community sees as internally weak and falling apart or conflicting is hardly a company that someone would want to put their faith and business in.
The readings related to the other reading I've done in previous weeks in that…team work is an important factor in keeping a company internally strong and externally successful. Showing the community that the company actually does care about their thoughts and opinions is the first step to developing a trusting public.
Required reading for Week 5
- Sison, M. (2004) Internal and community relations. In J. Johnston & C. Zawawi (eds.), Public relations: theory and practice (pp. 287-313). Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
- PRIA Case Studies – distributed in class prior to Week 4
