Notes from Trieste
Heather Edwards, MCIPR, Head of Communications, Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust

According to the local newspaper of Trieste, Italy, the World Public Relations Festival held there in June 2005 attracted around 600 participants from 40 countries across all five continents. And, thanks to a bursary from the CIPR, I was fortunate enough to be one of those participants.

The conference had the theme of diversity, and indeed the workshops and lectures were in themselves wide ranging. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a conference of this nature, a large number of speakers were from academia and/or were researchers of one description or another. It was a privilege to hear both James and Larissa Grunig, (USA) Professors at the University of Maryland, speak and to find that they were as accessible as their core studies, which have underpinned the recent practice of public relations.

I found some of the most valuable workshops to be those that looked at familiar things in, to me, a new way. Imagining stakeholders as bubbles in a lava lamp [as expounded by Eric Koper, (Holland) Leader of the Division of Applied Communication at University of Central Lancashire (UK) and President of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association] – dynamic, merging, changing in ascendancy - is an image I know I'll return to. Other, sometimes shockingly different views of the familiar, were presented by Fabrica (creators of the memorable Benetton ads and of the festival's posters) and reinforced the power of images to send messages without language barriers.

For those of us immersed in the day to day practicalities of intense, but often very local communication issues, it was fascinating to hear from practitioners at national and international levels. In particular I was impressed by the speech given by Sej Motau, Chair Elect of the Global Alliance for Public Relations, who talked about his experiences of working in the communications industry in South Africa. Chris Skinner, (South Africa), Chairman of the Accreditation Council of the Public Relations Institute of South Africa, presented inspiring research demonstrating that, following ten years of regeneration, the percentage of South Africans who agreed that they were proud to be South African is now in the nineties.

There was no doubt from the talk given by Michael Morley, (USA) Deputy Chairman of Edelman, of the huge but unrecognised part public relations practitioners played in the aftermath of the tsunami in December 2004. This ranged from establishing communications in the early days of devastation, to helping to rebuild the tattered reputation of the local tourist industry. Morley led research on the PR profession's response to the disaster and as a result he is recommending the establishment of an international PR task force ready to lend expertise and experience at times of crisis to countries whose communications skills may not yet be well developed.

The conference once more clearly underlined the fact that public relations is a powerful tool that can bring real change for the better. It also made clear, however, that we are far too shy about saying so.

Useful links:
Tsunami report available at www.globalpr.org