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Barbecues, Booms and Blogs
Fifty Years of Public Relations in Calgary
ISBN number: 978-1-55059-363-1
Copy for inside front cover:
Public relations is "the
management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies
and procedures of an individual or organization with the public interest, and
plans and executes a program of action to earn understanding and
acceptance."
Canadian Public Relations Society
definition
Title: Barbeques, Booms and Blogs
Subtitle: Fifty Years of Public Relations in Calgary
ISBN: 978-1-55059-363-1
Format: 6x9, paperback; two colours throughout
Editors: Peter
McKenzie-Brown
Description: Fifteen (could be 17 if the
additional chapter is completed) authors examine various aspects of the
practice of public relations in Calgary over the period 1958-2008. Topics
range from the early days of PR in Calgary and the creation of the Calgary
chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society, to women in PR and the
growth and evolution of PR consulting. Other chapters examine the role of
public relations during such notable events as the National Energy Program,
the collapse of Dome Petroleum, and the XV Olympic Winter Games in Calgary.
All of the chapters reflect the changes that have occurred over the past 50
years in terms of how public relations is practiced and perceived.
Estimated length: 175 pages
Cover and book design by One Design,
Calgary
Printing by Sundog Printing, Calgary
By
Peter McKenzie-Brown and Jim Rennie
Chapter One: The Early Years
Chapter Two: Women in Public Relations
By
Cynthia Balfour and Beverly Reynolds
Chapter Three: Centre of a Storm
Chapter Four: Working for Big Oil
Chapter Five: Public Relations Consulting
Chapter Six: XV Olympic Winter Games
Chapter Seven: PR and Media
By
Tom Donoghue and Judi Gunter
Chapter Eight: Town Meets Gown
Chapter Nine: Working from Home
Chapter Ten: Breaking into Public
Relations
Chapter Eleven: Chairing a National
Conference
Chapter Twelve: The Road to Specialization
Chapter Thirteen: From Teletype to
Internet
By
Joe Vecsi and Larry Cardy
Appendix: CPRS Calgary Presidents
Prologue
This project began when Bev Reynolds casually asked
Peter McKenzie-Brown whether he would write a history of CPRS Calgary to
help celebrate the chapter’s 50th anniversary. No money was available, of
course, but just think of the recognition!
The curious thing is that Peter took the challenge
seriously. However, he proposed instead that a variety of experts from within
the public relations society each write a chapter. Then, taking a deep
breath, he agreed to coordinate such a project.
Working with Henry Stevens’ 50th Anniversary Celebration
Committee, he found support and enthusiasm for the project from many talented
individuals. Soon a committee consisting of Don Boynton, Jodi Currie, Jim
Rennie and Peter got down to work. Jim agreed to co-chair what we called
the Roots Project. Soon after, Leanne Leblanc joined the group.
Although neither of the co-chairs is a CPRS member (both
left the society a quarter century ago), each has served as chapter president
and both are accredited. For all the members of the committee, the
significance of this book is that it has captured a history of public
relations in this city, and in so doing has captured the history of CPRS
Calgary. Its chapters frequently refer to the wisdom, creativity and lives of
many men and women from this profession. Some were our colleagues; many were
(and are) our friends. Their names are in the index.
As we reviewed and edited these chapters, we found the
depth of public relations practice in this city – even in the early years –
quite striking. We believe the book you are holding in your hands will be
instructive for the next generation of PR practitioners.
We hope one particular lesson they will take away is that
they are part of a professional community whose roots are not short and
shallow, but long and deep. History always involves interplay between flux
and continuity, and the story of our profession is no different. In public
relations, much has changed, but much more has not.
Co-Chairs, The Roots Project
I have been extremely fortunate in my
public relations career in that I have benefited from access to some of the
best minds in the public relations field – individuals who have willingly
shared their knowledge with me, and with others. It’s worth noting that,
frequently, these individuals also share a strong, and often lifelong,
commitment to CPRS.
It’s not surprising, then, to see many of
these individuals represented in the pages of this book, and to see others
actively engaged in other aspects of CPRS Calgary’s 50th anniversary
activities. They have tracked down writers or reviewed individual chapters
and made useful suggestions and edits to this book. They have rounded up
useful art and artefacts for use in 50th anniversary activities.
They have planned and prepared the gala celebration. And they have used
networks to find former members and current sponsors. All their contributions
are real, valuable and greatly appreciated.
The graphic design and production
contributions of David Stahl and Fraser Monaghan of One Design, the
quality printing provided by Sundog Printing, the distribution and marketing
talents of publisher Ted Giles at Detselig, and the financial support of
our sponsor [insert name] must also be acknowledged.
Aided by this collective effort, the
editors and the other members of what became referred to as the “Roots
Project” committee have done an outstanding job of collecting the experiences
and perspectives of past, present and future leaders of CPRS and binding
them to paper.
The names in the stories and by-lines on
these pages are a who’s who of people who have helped shape and continue to
shape CPRS and the practice of public relations here in Calgary and further
abroad. This book is a reminder of where we began. It also looks ahead to
where we’re going and is a very tangible reminder of the importance of CPRS
to the development of the field of public relations.
NATIONAL Public Relations
Chair, CPRS Calgary 50th Anniversary
Committee
Memories of
backyard barbecues
One of my first memories of arriving in
Calgary in 1954 with my parents was being invited with them to a Grey Cup
party at the home of Tommy Steele. Dad was a member of the Imperial
Oil public relations team, which meant he had done short stints in Edmonton,
then Toronto and then Vancouver, before being transferred to Calgary. For an
eight-year-old, that meant the angst of starting over making new friends and
getting to know a new city.
That was pretty easy for Dad, since he
was always an outgoing sort who made friends easily. It was also easy back
then because the city was still pretty small – only about 150,000 people –
and the public relations community in Calgary was pretty small (about two
dozen) and tended to socialize with each other a lot. They worked for a
variety of organizations – government, the agriculture sector, the railway –
but the bulk of the public relations community was made up of former
newspaper and radio reporters who had been recruited post-Leduc to staff
the new public relations positions that were being created by the numerous
oil and natural gas companies that were setting up shop in Calgary.
Dad was one such person. Tommy
Steele was another – like Dad, he was a former Edmonton
Journal reporter who had been hired by an oil company (Hudson’s Bay Oil
and Gas) as their public relations representative. And like Dad, Tommy was an
outgoing guy who made friends everywhere he went.
I remember coming away from that Grey Cup
day at the Steele household thinking Dad had some fine friends, who were
also pretty good to eight-year-olds. I don’t remember what the score was that
year, but as I recall the Edmonton Eskimos won the cup, and I came away with
the proceeds of the modest Grey Cup pool that the members of the Steele and
Rennie families had contributed to. A fine introduction to Calgary, to
be sure.
At the time, of course, I really wasn’t
all that interested in what my father did for a living – in fact, it wasn’t
until years later, when I, too, had entered the public relations field, that
I finally started to get a glimmer of what he and his colleagues had been
doing.
I hadn’t been aware, either, that
beginning in 1956 he and his colleagues had begun discussing the formation of
a professional association – a Canadian Public Relations Society chapter.
Indeed, it wasn’t until recently, after reading a handwritten report in the
Glenbow Archives about the formation of the society, written by an anonymous
CPRSmember who had been a part of the planning process, that I really started
to fully appreciate those early members as hard-working, visionary
professionals.
I knew, of course, that these people all
worked with my father. However, I really got to know them only on a very
personal level. They were my father’s peers, but they were also his friends,
and many also became my friends. Then some years later, when I joined their
ranks professionally, some of them became my colleagues and mentors.
While growing up, a normal day for me
would be to come home from school and find Jack and Iris Fleming visiting
my parents – Jack was the PR representative for Canadian Western Natural Gas.
Or it would be Ken Ford, who was with the City of Calgary. Or I’d be invited
with my parents to Jack Balfour’s home and end up playing goalie (because I
couldn’t skate) with Jack’s sons on their backyard hockey rink – Jack was a
PR representative with Home Oil. Or I’d be “loaned” to David Wood to
spend the weekend up at Lake Kananaskis to help him with a cabin he was
building – David was with Mannix and went on to create the Public
Affairs Bureau for the Alberta Government. Or I’d be invited to go
sailing on Glenmore Reservoir with John Thorburn because I was a bit
chunky at the time and provided good ballast in a heavy wind – John was with
the TransCanada PipeLines PR department.
All of these men played a role in the
formation of CPRS Calgary, and all but one served a term as society
President. And there were others – Reg Hammond of Royalite, Jim
Gray of Home Oil, Bill Ross of Calgary Power and Lorne Frame of
Mobil Oil, to name just a few more – who all deserve recognition for their
early work with CPRS.
There were also a few, such as John
Francis, Calgary’s longest serving and much-respected public relations
consultant, and Brock Hammond, the PR representative with British American
Oil (later Gulf), both of whom I knew while I was growing up, and whom I
had the privilege of working for and with a few decades later. They were
unusual in that, unlike most of their contemporaries who combined a basic
formal education with a news media background, they had impressive academic
credentials. John had a Master of Science degree in public relations from
Boston University, and Brock had both a Master of Arts in psychology and an
MBA from the University of Western Ontario.
One or more university degrees is pretty
much a given for entry into public relations today, so in a sense John and
Brock were really ahead of their time. But then pretty much everything in the
PR toolbox today can trace its roots back to the early days of the society,
and those early, enterprising PR practitioners.
One of my strongest memories of those
early days is of Dad’s backyard barbecues. Dad loved nothing more than
inviting friends over for a barbecue, and those friends were as often as not
PR people and their families. By the time I was grown and off to university,
I knew pretty much the whole Calgary public relations community, without ever
really knowing what they did or why they did it. I just knew that they loved
barbecues, good steaks, and, whenever Dad was involved, the occasional gin.
I didn’t know, for example, that Tommy
Steele was, as the previously noted anonymous historian put it, “as much
the ‘father’ of Calgary CPRS as anyone.” The author was describing a number
of gatherings of Calgary PR people in 1956 and 1957 to discuss the creation
of a public relations association in the city.
That led to the first formal meeting on
April 8, 1957, which saw the election of the first executive, discussion of
whether or not to affiliate with the CPRS National Society (which in 1957
included only Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa and B.C.), and the setting of dues.
The decision was to join the national body, which required incorporation of
the Calgary society, and dues were set at $10 for the local society and $5
for National. Monthly luncheons for the new society were set at $2.25 per
person, including one drink, on the last Thursday of the month, at the
Palliser Hotel.
Fittingly, Tommy Steele’s peers elected
him the first President; my father – Jim Rennie, Sr. – and Ken Ford were
Vice-Presidents; Bob Wells, of Canadian Husky Oil, was Secretary; and
Bill Speerstra, of Shell, was Treasurer. One of the first items of business
for the executive was to get the chapter incorporated under The Societies Act
of Alberta, and an application dated January 7, 1958, was registered with The
Registrar of Joint Stock Companies for the Province of Alberta.
The application was signed by Messrs.
Steele, Rennie, Ford, Speerstra and Bill Ross of Calgary Power
– the charter members of CPRS Calgary.
The society received its Certificate of
Incorporation, No. 3006, dated October 16, 1958, and the Calgary chapter of
CPRS was in business. Actually, for the first few years it was The
Canadian Public Relations Society (Alberta), since the group included a
few members from Edmonton.
In the words of our anonymous historian
again, the event was noted by a visit from officials from the National
Society, which had provided written support for the Calgary application for
incorporation. “Jack Brockie was CPRS National President,” wrote
our historian. “He, and some others, came to Calgary where we held a fine
soirée at the Palliser Hotel. We were given our charter, and CPRS Alberta was
launched.”
When Edmonton moved to form its own
society, a quick name change was made, effective February 22, 1962, and The
Canadian Public Relations Society, Calgary became an all-Calgary venture.
Women today make up a majority of the
membership of CPRSCalgary, and of the total body of practitioners and PR
students. But there was really only a handful of skilled and talented women
in public relations in Canada 50 years ago, and in Calgary, for the first
full year of CPRS operations (1959/60), the society showed a membership
roster of 26, all of them men. That, of course, simply reflected the
demographics of the business at that time, and soon changed (for the better).
By the mid-to-late-1960s, Frances McNab, who ran a consulting business that
pre-dated the society, Mary Stemp, Carlotta Blue and Georgia
Souter were all members, and running for office in the society. Cynthia
Balfour became the local society’s first woman President in 1974, and
since then, 17 more women have served as President of CPRS Calgary
CPRSCalgary has always had a social side
to it – even professional development events invariably include time to meet,
mix and mingle with colleagues. However, I have often thought that my father
and his peers probably had more fun doing what they did than subsequent
generations of PR people. That isn’t to say the first members weren’t
professionals – they just knew how to work hard and party just as hard. But
they were extremely competent and innovative communications practitioners
who, in many respects, set the stage for pretty much all of the professional
developments that practitioners today take for granted.
Right off the bat the members of
CPRSCalgary created a strong formal structure, detailed (14 pages) bylaws,
and a clear sense of purpose. That purpose was the bringing together of those
directly engaged in the field of public relations with specific objectives:
- “to advance the art and science of
public relations;
- “to maintain high standards in the
practice of public relations;
- “to promote and foster discussion on
all phases of public relations;
- “to provide a clearing house for ideas
and experiences in public relations; and
- “to advance the knowledge, skill and
status of those engaged in public relations.”
They knew what needed to be done to be a “professional”
organization, and they moved quickly to make it happen.
A members’ newsletter began appearing
regularly in 1961. Relations with the University of Calgary and Mount
Royal College were established as early as 1962, as the society began
what has been an ongoing objective of CPRS Calgary to assist in the
development and delivery of educational programs relating to PR and
communications. Also in 1962, a National Education Survey undertaken by CPRS
Calgary – initiated and organized by John Francis – was incorporated
into the National CPRS report at the annual conference. PR for PR became a
working theme for the society. And in 1966 the Calgary chapter strongly
endorsed the national plan for member accreditation. Local CPRS programs
became less theoretical and more professional-oriented, with guest speakers
and resource people – in 1962/63, there was even a Speakers’ Bureau, which
was the responsibility of Board member Joe Marks of Brown & Root.
On the latter point, I can remember my
father telling me about gently chiding another member for suggesting more
professional development was needed at the monthly luncheons. Dad, like the
other members of the group, was fully aware of the need for all of them to
learn and grow professionally. He just wasn’t sure it needed to be at the
expense of some good drinking time at lunchtime meetings.
The chapter was also keen to make its
mark within the national organization, and began campaigning as early as 1960
to hold a National Conference in Calgary. A number of proposals were turned
down, and it wasn’t until 1968 that Calgary was able to act as host of the
first of the four CPRS National Conferences that have been held here.
As part of its ongoing efforts to win the
right to host a National Conference, in June 1962 John Thorburn was put
in charge of the “On to Vancouver” committee, to lead a Calgary delegation to
the Vancouver conference held in May 1963 and make a pitch for the next
conference. In true Calgary fashion, of course, the conference and the pitch
became part of one big party, one that saw a Calgary delegation, and spouses,
travel to the conference all together on a train. John Francis remembers
it as being “in the true tradition of the Stampede.” There was much partying,
with a Western flavour, and a young musician who played guitar and sang on
the train, and who may or may not have been paid at the end of the trip. Dad
recalled someone passing the hat for a young Will Millar, who went on to
considerable success with the Irish Rovers. John isn’t so sure anyone did
remember to pay him.
Although the pitch didn’t work out, it
was by all accounts a terrific party, and a good conference. And when Calgary
finally did get to host a National Conference, in 1968, it was appropriate
that John Thorburn should chair it. It was a very successful conference
(it set an attendance record and recorded a profit of $4,000), and it was
appropriate, I think, that a key social event was a barbecue dinner at the
Rafter Six Ranch.
One more CPRS barbecue played an
important part in my life. After graduating from university, and marrying the
University of Alberta student newspaper editor (Lorraine, the love of my
life for more than 40 years), I did a stint at The Calgary Herald. Sort of
following in my father’s footsteps, but still not really knowing what he did
for a living.
So when it was time to leave The Herald,
in the early 1970s, and look for something else, I was invited to one more
CPRS Calgary barbecue, to meet some more good people and maybe learn a bit
about PR. The party was at Gene Zadvorny’s home, Gene being the PR
representative at Canadian Western Natural Gas. I had a great time, met some
old friends and met some newer CPRS members such as Gene and David Annesley.
I also remember the evening as incorporating what looked to me to be every
gas company barbecue in southern Alberta. But it wasn’t really “educational”
in terms of charting my future career moves.
As luck would have it, though, I decided
to give PR a try, and landed my first public relations job shortly
thereafter. I went to work with Canadian Arctic Gas, the first Mackenzie
Valley natural gas pipeline proposal. That gave me the opportunity to
work with many of the CPRS people I had known for years. The contacts
from the barbecue did help get me to join CPRS Calgary and then got me
nominated to run for office with the society (done, as was typical of the
day, without me knowing about it until I saw my name on the ballot) and to
eventually serve my own term, in 1979/80 as chapter President.
Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity
to work with my father. He retired in 1973 just months before I started. But
I did get the opportunity to work with people like John Thorburn, and David
Wood, and Brock Hammond, and others, most of whom, sad to say, are no longer
with us.
And I very much believe that if they are
to be remembered appropriately now, it should be for setting the tone and the
standard for the 50 years of achievement and growth that CPRSCalgary is now
celebrating. They should be remembered as a fun-loving group of individuals
who came together to grow public relations. They were hard-working as well as
hard-partying. And they sowed the roots of pretty much every aspect of public
relations specialization that we know today.
Most of them started out primarily doing
media relations – and they did it well. Since many of them had media backgrounds,
they knew what the media needed and they delivered it professionally and
without trying to play games. They worked with their own senior management,
briefed them and prepared them for media interviews, years before media
training became a specialty. They also developed the concept of media tours –
taking working media into the field to see and learn about operations, such
as drilling wells in permafrost and building pipelines, and to talk with
operations people.
But they also found themselves doing
much, much more than just media relations.
Community relations/consultation is an
essential regulatory requirement of energy projects today. It got its start
50 years ago with the construction of the first big pipelines and other oil
and natural gas projects. It wasn’t always pretty or smooth sailing: my
father was seconded to Interprovincial Pipe Line when it was built in
1950, and was responsible for keeping communities advised as to what was
happening. On one occasion he visited a small community in southern
Saskatchewan only to be warmly greeted and then quizzed as to why he was
there – the pipeline, after all, had come through three weeks before.
Embarrassing experiences like that were part of the learning curve back then,
and within a few years Dad and others were effectively establishing and
maintaining solid working relationships with key community leaders throughout
Western Canada and the North.
Developing good working relationships
with local elected officials was part of the process, too, even if government
relations wasn’t as big a factor as it is today.
The first CPRSCalgary members also
volunteered their time and talents for community endeavours such as the
Calgary Stampede (Flare Square was just one example) and other civic
events. They also helped their employers make worthwhile charitable donation
decisions, long before community investment became a specialty.
Financial communications were not as
sophisticated as they are now, in the post-Enron era of strict disclosure
rules and regulations. But the early society members learned as they went
along in this area, too, producing short but necessary annual reports for
their companies, and setting down some of the roots that grew into today’s
investor relations.
In fact, CPRS Calgary was organizing and
holding seminars on media relations, government relations and financial
relations 30-plus years ago. And even such current growth areas as corporate
social responsibility aren’t all that new. CPRS Calgary held a CSR conference
28 years ago.
All of us who make or have made our
living in public relations owe a very large debt of gratitude to those first
members of CPRS Calgary. They may not have had the benefit of computers,
email or websites, but they made do with typewriters, telephones, “street
smarts” and effective face-to-face communications. They really did sow the
seeds for those of us who followed in their footsteps. And if CPRS’s roots
are strong today – and they are – that is a testimonial to their efforts,
their vision – and yes, to their barbecues. They made public relations
respectable, professional, and fun.
May the next 50 years be as rewarding.
Jim Rennie, APR, is a native Albertan who came to Calgary in 1954. After
graduating with a B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Alberta he
worked for five years at The Calgary Herald. He then began a 35-year career
in public relations, most of it in the energy sector. He worked for Canadian
Arctic Gas, the Canadian Petroleum Association, Bralorne Resources,
Gulf Canada and FWJ, and retired from Enbridge in December 2007, as
Senior Manager, Corporate Communications. He was President of CPRS Calgary
in 1979/80.
A story of
challenge and change
By Cynthia Balfour
As I am writing this far from Canada, and
years after I was actually involved with women in public relations in
Calgary, with no records to fall back on, I find my memory is not as good as
I had hoped. It is hard to believe it is 24 years since I left Calgary to
return to New Zealand and 36 years since I became a member of the Calgary
chapter of CPRS
The Calgary chapter had been operating
for 14 years when I joined in 1972 and at the time there were very few women
actually practicing PR in the city. Women’s roles in PR have changed
immensely as have the numbers of women in the profession since then.
I had arrived in Calgary in 1967 and Pat
McVean hired me as a copywriter in a very small ad agency. We also did
some PR for her clients and I remember organizing some photo shoots at the
top of the Calgary Tower (then the Husky Tower), which at the time was
under construction. Although Pat would not have regarded herself as a PR
person, it was part of her agency service for clients.
After two years with her, I applied for,
and got, a job with Francis, Williams & Johnson, the largest PR and advertising
agency in Alberta at the time. John Francis, the senior partner, was no
chauvinist and was not averse to hiring women as writers and then encouraging
them to achieve and progress in their jobs.
As I remember, my title was Industrial
Editor. As such, I wrote mainly in-house employee newsletters. At the time,
the Calgary Stampede was one of FWJ’s main clients and I edited a
newsletter called “Saddlebag” for them. My immediate boss, Bill Payne, a CPRS
member, entered it in the yearly CPRS competitions and it won first prize in
the newsletter section. I suppose this was my first success with CPRS,
although I was not a member at the time, and it was satisfying.
I joined the Canadian Industrial Editors
Association, which later became Corporate Communicators Canada. There were
more women in this organization than in CPRS, since, in most cases, being an
“industrial editor” did not include management functions as much as the
public relations practitioners’ roles did. It seems that, at the time, women
joined Corporate Communicators (which became the International Association of
Business Communicators) while the guys joined CPRS. However, we did share
seminars at times so we all knew each other quite well and were on good terms
with them.
At the time, it was pretty much a given
that men were better paid than women. In my case, while I was senior to the
young, less-experienced man in the next office and was getting $400 a month,
he was getting $600, but that was just the way it was. As time went on,
women’s salaries across the board became more in line with their male
counterparts and by the time I retired I was earning an excellent salary and
I suspect the other women, particularly in the oil industry, were as well.
In 1972, after about three years with
FWJ and with increasing responsibilities including PR activities, and
with John’s encouragement, I joined CPRS. The company paid our membership
fees, which was a help. From the start I enjoyed the professional contacts
with people like David McAsey, Leo van Vugt, David Wood and Gene
Zadvorny, soon to be joined by Jan Goodwin, Bev Reynolds and Hope Smith,
to name just a few. I also enjoyed the meetings, seminars, friendships and
social activities that were all part of being an active member. Once I became
a member I quickly moved up the achievement ladder, first passing my
accreditation in 1973, and later becoming an examiner myself.
I remember being quite terrified by the
thought of sitting an examination, not having done so for at least 25 years!
One of the examiners was Sister Ella Zink, APR – a remarkable woman who
believed that CPRS accreditation was up to a BA standard, and who
was recognized by the National Society for her contributions to public relations
by being named the 1976 recipient of the CPRS Award of Attainment. There were
two examiners at my accreditation – both impressed me and, what is more, they
passed me. For the first time in my life, and in my late 40s, I had academic
letters after my name. I’m still proud of that achievement.
In the years that followed, my
association with the Calgary chapter, as well as the national organization of
which Calgary was a member, increased and I was fortunate to be able to spend
time at work on CPRSactivities. The first major event was being elected to
the Calgary Board of Directors. This led to my being elected President of the
Calgary chapter for three years, from 1974 through to 1976, and then being
elected President of a short-lived Alberta body comprising the Edmonton and
Calgary chapters. In due course I was elected Second Vice-President of the
national organization. In every case, I was the first woman to hold the
office.
I consider that getting many of the
younger Calgary practitioners, both male and female, interested in becoming
members of the society was something of an achievement as well. In 1978, I
worked on the CPRS National Conference with T.A.G. Watson, one of my
early recruits, who chaired the Calgary conference team.
Perhaps because of my own lack of a
formal education in this area I was particularly happy to do all I could to
encourage and support young women with their own PR careers. By the late
1970s and early 1980s, there were more PR and communication courses being
offered by the universities, community colleges and polytechs across Canada
and they were becoming very popular with young women.
I was working for Canterra at that
time, and I encouraged the company to give two of these women the opportunity
to do their work experience programs with us. I had two outstanding young
women, over two summers, one from a polytech in Saskatchewan, the other from
the recently introduced communications course at Mount Saint Vincent
University in Halifax. They were both excellent students, bright,
confident and enthusiastic girls who absorbed knowledge like sponges and
applied themselves so well to whatever was asked of them. Their colleges had
prepared them well and with a minimum of supervision I was able to let them
loose on some major projects, such as preparing a video for visitors at the
company’s sulphur production plant and developing celebratory activities
following the completion and opening of a new natural gas pipeline system.
Both received congratulations from the company President.
The travel that CPRS entailed included
attending board meetings in different cities, and going to national and
international Conferences. All of which allowed me to meet and get to know
other members across Canada and the U.S., as well as to see and get to know
more of my adopted country. As a Calgary member, I became involved with the
two Calgary colleges, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and
Mount Royal College. Along with other CPRS members, we were involved directly
with both the students and with curriculum development. This was before a
Communications degree program was introduced at the University of
Calgary and then at Mount Royal. While I was not involved in the latter
developments, some CPRS members made major contributions to their introduction.
As I recall, most of the first participants were women. Even before that
course was introduced, even more young women were looking at the prospects
offered in public relations and advertising as chosen careers, rather than as
an extension of journalism. At the same time, in the U.S. members were
getting worried that PR was becoming a women’s profession, that perhaps too
many women were breaking through the so-called “glass ceiling”.
My own career path had been developing
nicely during this time. Following my time with FWJ, I became a partner with
Fraser Perry, who had left the world of journalism as Senior Oil Editor of
The Calgary Herald for the world of public relations, in Resources
Communications, a two-person PR firm specializing in resource public
relations, principally for the Calgary oilpatch. This was my introduction to
a fascinating business area, one that would consume my interest for the next
12 years.
The oil industry was growing very fast
with more discoveries of oil and natural gas both locally and worldwide.
Calgary was growing with large influxes of professionals from Eastern Canada
and overseas, with new oil companies popping up all over the city. It was an
exciting time to be involved, but it also exposed me to gender discrimination
on a much greater level, this industry being one of the most chauvinistic, as
I was quick to find out. For example, the CEO of one of Calgary major oil
companies told my partner not to bother sending me to see him as he would
“not deal with a woman.” Although I did some work for that company, I never
did work directly with him. That was not the general client reaction,
thankfully. I developed good working relations with many very senior oilmen.
On the whole, I was treated with courtesy and respect, but some middle
management men in the last company for which I worked were a bit slower to
come round to coping with a woman at their level. Perhaps they felt
threatened by a woman!
After the consulting partnership had come
to an end, I went to Canadian Arctic Gas and joined a small but talented
PR group under Earle Gray, previously Editor of Oilweek. The group included
Jim Rennie, Dave Smith, Michael Lewis and Tony Stikeman, the latter
three working in Toronto. I was fortunate in that I could continue with my
CPRS activities, but unfortunately the job did not last long as the
consortium was disbanded when it lost the bid to build the Arctic gas
pipeline.
My next challenge, both as a PR
professional and as a woman in the oilpatch, was interesting because for the
first time I really faced sexual discrimination. I was the first PR
professional that Aquitaine Canada, a medium-sized French/Canadian oil
company had employed and a woman at that. I quickly got the impression that
women were few and far between in management in French companies – although
several other oil companies had women in their PR departments by this time
(1977/78). In the end, I think my professionalism won the day for me, but
also my Kiwi “can do” attitude for which we are well known. Particularly, use
of good old Kiwi expletives such as “How the bloody hell do you expect me to
do my job if you won’t tell me anything” helped. Gradually attitudes changed.
I remember going to my first middle
management monthly meeting when someone said, “Now we have a woman – she can
be the secretary”. My reply was I don’t mind being the chairman or anything
else, but I will not be the secretary. That was probably something of a
surprise to them. I had several similar experiences: once, when I wanted some
information on a land sale, the landman said, “You are doing your little
woman’s lib thing, aren’t you?” which also elicited a suitable comeback.
The last such incident was in 1984,
shortly before I retired to return to New Zealand. It is hard to believe that
women were still being subjected to this kind of discrimination at that time.
It was at the end of a meeting of several PR people, all men, representing
various affiliated out-of-town companies, being held at our office. Both my
boss and I attended and at the conclusion one of the men said directly to my
boss, Jock Osler, “Would you get ‘your girl’ to change our return tickets?”
My boss was so incensed by that snub that he later demanded they write and
apologize to me. I hope they felt duly chastened.
My involvement with public relations in
Calgary began with the Mount Royal College PR program in the early
1970s. There were 20 students in the class, 60 per cent of them male. Only
two grads got jobs – both were guys. So I took a job as a secretary in an
advertising agency (the same agency where I became Public Relations
Vice-President some 13 years later).
I didn’t think of this as a
male-dominated work-world at the time. That’s just the way it was. I was just
happy to be working somewhere in the communications industry.
Then I got a job as an Information
Services Assistant with a Calgary corporation – TransCanada PipeLines. There
were lots of different titles for public relations/public
affairs/corporate/reputation management then, just as there are today. During
the mid-1970s, ex-journalists, all of them men, staffed corporate PR offices.
When I came along, the men were contemplating retirement in the next 10 or so
years so companies started looking at hiring additional – younger – staff.
The “new” breed came to the jobs with
different backgrounds. Many had associated degrees or diplomas but, again,
they were mostly young men. As a young woman, it was a great time to be a
member of CPRS
I was an oddity on the Airbus Monday
mornings and again on Friday afternoons as I climbed aboard with my
briefcase. I worked in Edmonton during sessions of the Alberta Legislature
and reported back to the corporation on discussions about natural gas
pricing.
As I noted, it was a terrific time to be
a woman in PR. I think I got a lot accomplished because I was often the only
woman in the meeting or in the complex. Men were courteous, if a little
perplexed. For example, while visiting a compressor station in rural
Saskatchewan to do a story for the company magazine I had to ask to use
the washroom. Of course there was only one washroom and it had only been used
by men. After an initial flurry of activity (clearing the washroom), my needs
were accommodated. We all laughed about it later.
In the 1980s, Baker
Lovick Advertisingmade me Public Relations Vice-President. In
celebration of this auspicious event, the President of the company flew from
Toronto to host a luncheon in my honour. The party of some 12 men (and me)
congregated at the Calgary Petroleum Club for lunch. Imagine the
surprise when we were told that I couldn’t come in! At that time, the Pete
Club did not allow women in the main dining room.
Again, a flurry of heated conversation
was followed by the “magic” appearance of partitions around the table. The
management of the club allowed me to “sneak” in to the table and join my
party!
In the early 1990s, I returned to Mount
Royal College after being appointed to the Board of Governors. During
the six-year term, I was fortunate to be part of the campaign to convince the
provincial government to allow the college to have degree-granting status.
One of the first applied degrees was in public relations and upon my
retirement from the Board I was awarded an honourary degree in Applied
Communications (Public Relations).
I am aware that not all women in PR were
greeted with open arms, and clearly there were incidents of discrimination.
But I had the benefit of strong role models, and in my formative years in
public relations it didn’t occur to us that our gender would make a
difference – and maybe that’s why it never held us back from doing what we
loved to do.
Cynthia Balfour, APR, was born in New Zealand and, in her words, “ended up in PR, not
exactly by accident, but by a long series of fortuitous incidents.” After
stints in advertising in London, and as a writer and editor in New Zealand,
she moved to Calgary in 1967 where she worked in public relations as a
consultant, and for a number of oil and natural gas companies. She was the
first woman to be elected President of CPRS Calgary, in 1974/76, and the
first woman on the National Executive, in 1981. She returned to New Zealand in
1984.
Beverly M. Reynolds, APR, has worked in public relations in Calgary since the mid-1970s,
after graduating from the Mount College public relations program. She
worked first in corporate PR with TransCanada PipeLines, and then as a
consultant with Baker Lovick Advertising. She continues to provide PR
consulting services, as well as community service with agencies such as Inn
from the Cold. She is a “Lifetime Member” of CPRS Calgary.
SIDEBAR: Run as a sidebar feature,
with illustration, for Chapter Two on Women in Public Relations:
And the present
Cynthia and Beverly were not, of course,
the first women in public relations in Calgary. Frances McNab ran her
own consulting business before CPRS Calgary was even formed, and although the
initial members of CPRS Calgary were all male, by the mid 1960s women such as
Carlotta Blue and Mary Stemp had joined.
And while Cynthia was the first woman
President of CPRS Calgary, she certainly wasn’t the last. In the 1980s,
Jean Flatt (Andryiszyn), Janet Willson and Jan Goodwin served as
President of the society. And after that? Since then, 14 different women have
served one or more terms as President, with Nancy Arab being the most
recent President of CPRS Calgary
Women have also moved into a definite leadership
position in the society. When Cynthia was President, in 1974/76, she was the
only woman on the Board. By 1982/83 there were six women Directors on the
Board. And in 2007/08, women accounted for eight of the Board members, and
all four of the student representatives.
As for membership, it didn’t take long
for the ranks of women in the society to increase, to the point where women
now significantly outnumber men in terms of society membership, the overall
PR workforce in Calgary, and the number of students in local PR and
communications programs.
Just to give you an idea of the change:
in 1959/60, the first full year of CPRS Calgary operations, there were no
women members. By the early 1980s there were more than 40 women members,
accounting for about one-third of the total membership. And as of June 2008,
women accounted for about 70 per cent of the total current and pending
members’ list.
Women’s roles in PR have also changed,
with more and more women taking senior leadership roles in their
organizations. Women like Sheila McIntosh, Executive Vice President for
Corporate Communications with EnCana Corporation; Jane Savidant, Vice
President and General Manager for Hill & Knowlton, Canada; in Alberta
Beth Diamond, the Managing Partner of NATIONAL Public Relations; and Pat
O’Reilly, Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs at
Suncor Energy. There are many others in senior leadership positions
throughout the oilpatch, in not-for-profits, in academia, and running their
own consulting firms.
As for the future, perhaps a look at the
June 2008 student membership list for CPRS Calgary gives an indication – of
the 66 student members, almost 86 per cent are women.
Women’s participation in PR in general
and in CPRS Calgary in particular has changed significantly over the
past 50 years. All signs point to it continuing to change, and strengthen, in
years to come.
The Canadian
Petroleum Association during the energy wars
The oil price shocks of 1973, 1979/80 and
1986 echoed and re-echoed around the world. Here at home, they aggravated the
conflicts that historians now call Canada’s energy wars. As the drums of
battle deafened public debate and affronted an industry whose allies were
few, federal and provincial partisans clashed for petroleum wealth.
Through the Canadian Petroleum
Association (CPA), oil and gas producers gradually developed a coherent
public voice and eventually played a role in policy reform. They also opened
their eyes to the critical importance of good environmental practice.
This chapter tells those stories.
The battles began with a shot from Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau. Inflation had become a national problem and oil
prices were rising, and on September 4, 1973, he asked the western provinces
to agree to a voluntary freeze on oil prices. Nine days later, his government
imposed a 40-cent tax on every barrel of exported Canadian oil. The tax
equalled the difference between domestic and international oil prices, and
the revenues were used to subsidize imports for eastern refiners. At a
stroke, Ottawa began subsidizing eastern consumers while reducing the
revenues available to producing provinces and the petroleum industry.
This outraged Alberta, which had fought
long and hard for control of its natural resources. Britain’s Privy Council
didn’t award resource ownership to the province until 1930, after a drawn-out
legal battle between Edmonton and Ottawa.
Premier Peter Lougheed soon
announced that his government would revise its royalty policy in favour of a
system linked to international oil prices. His timing was impeccable. Two
days later, on October 6, the Yom Kippur War broke out – a nail-biting affair
between Israel and the Arab states. OPEC used the conflict to double the
posted price for a barrel of Saudi Arabian light oil, to US$5.14. Saudi and
the other Arab states then imposed embargos on countries supporting Israel,
and oil prices rose quickly to $12.
These events aggravated tensions among
provincial, federal and industry leaders. The rest of the 1970s were marked
by rapid-fire, escalating moves and counter-moves by Ottawa, western
provinces and even Newfoundland. The atmosphere was one of urgency, alarm and
crisis, with global conflicts adding gravity to the federal-provincial
quarrelling.
Alberta, British Columbia and
Saskatchewan (the latter two headed by NDP governments) took steps to
increase their revenues from oil and natural gas production and to protect
provincial resource ownership from federal encroachment. The federal
government announced a series of national policies founded on the basic
notions of federal/provincial revenue sharing, made-in-Canada pricing,
increasing Canadian ownership of the industry and a quest for
self-sufficiency in oil through development of such non-conventional
resources as oilsands and the frontiers.[1]
The logical voice for the petroleum
industry was the Canadian Petroleum Association, a trade association mainly
reflecting the interests of large, foreign-owned companies that together
produced around 90 per cent of Canada’s oil and gas. Formed in 1952, the
association’s primary function was to compile technical data for the industry
– drilling statistics and reserves estimates, for example.
The CPA asserted itself as the industry’s
voice and quickly found itself in the centre of a storm. Its Executive
Director was John Poyen, a capable manager with a technical background.
According to Jack Gorman, who later became the association’s Director of
Public Affairs, “When the feds announced the export tax on oil, from his
chair in the CPA office Poyen made some fairly blunt comments, without any
reference to the CPA’s Board of Governors.”[2]
Hans Maciej – at that time the association’s
Technical Director and economist – recalled things differently. “John used to
call a spade a spade and the feds may not have appreciated his plain talk,
but the organisation continued to put the industry’s case forward.”[3]
Harold Millican soon took the top
job at the CPA, and Gorman joined him. “It was a happy arrangement,”
said Gorman. “Our focus at that time was to be conciliatory, especially
because of the way Poyen had shaken the beehive and got a lot of people
upset. So we developed our messages, and talked about how oil was getting
harder to find and told people about different approaches to the problem. Jim
Rennie joined us and we developed an educational approach, producing
booklets about the ABCs of the oilpatch.”
As an aside, the CPA library became an
important centre of PR learning for CPRS members, beginning with Rennie’s
brief tenure there. Monthly “Library Nights” featured bottles of port
and thoughtful discussion about every imaginable aspect of public relations
practice. Library Night thrived until 1983, when it reappeared as Shop
Talk at another venue. It soon disappeared from the historical record.
“With some difficulty,”
Gorman continued, “I was able to sell the CPA on a program of journalism
awards to get the media to take more interest in our industry. I thought it
was also important to hold seminars for reporters and separate seminars for
editorial writers. So we brought them into town and set up seminars hosted by
experts from the oil industry. It was a warm and credible way of working with
the media.”[4]
Perhaps, but it was powerless in the face
of the worsening political struggles. As Maciej put it, “When politics
entered the picture, PR people alone could not play the major role.”[5]
The National Energy Program
In 1979/80, further crises in the Middle
East led to panic-driven pricing. The Iranian Revolution came first. War
between that country and Iraq soon followed. Oil prices more than doubled, to
US$36 per barrel.
Such high prices multiplied the amount of
money at stake. Pierre Trudeau led the Liberals to electoral victory in
1980, promising vaguely to create a federal energy policy in response to
rising oil prices. The result was the National Energy Program, Canada’s most
controversial federal initiative in peacetime. It ended an era of great
prosperity in Alberta.
On October 28, 1980, I worked for
Gulf Canada, and that evening I sat glued to the television as the
budget speech described the federal government’s latest energy initiative. In
a beautifully produced book prepared for the occasion by the federal
government, Energy Minister Marc Lalonde said, “This is a set of
national decisions by the government of Canada. The decisions relate to
energy. They will impinge, however, on almost every sphere of Canadian
activity, on the fortunes of every Canadian and on the economic and social
structure of the nation for years to come.”[6]
Right he was, although no one could have
imagined the rancour that followed. A fuming Peter Lougheed compared
federal actions to those of a rude invader blundering into Albertans’ living
rooms. The province made plans to cut oil production by 15 per cent over
three months, threatened to withhold approval of new oilsands projects and
launched court actions. British Columbia and Saskatchewan mounted
furious protests of their own.[7]
The NEP pitted vital interests
against each other. Supported by eastern consumers, the federal
government took one corner of the ring. Supported by regional voters,
the western provinces took the other. The petroleum industry was a
spectator wishing it could score points against either combatant – or better,
both.
In the beginning, compromise seemed
impossible. After a year, however, the two levels of government did reach a
revenue-sharing agreement – memorialized in the press by photos of Peter
Lougheed and Marc Lalonde toasting the deal with Champagne.Left out
in the cold, the petroleum industry didn’t share in the celebrations.
Under the terms of the new deal, the sector could only realize additional revenue
if oil prices, which had already begun to erode, continued to rise.
Operating under new rules in a declining
oil price environment, corporate cash flows dropped precipitously. In
response to federal efforts to “Canadianize” the sector, foreign interests
sold their assets and headed home. The Canadian sector became mired in debt –
a development that contributed to the bankruptcy of once-mighty Dome
Petroleum. Drilling slid into a deep funk, and rigs began a highly publicized
exodus across the border. Confidence in the industry plummeted.
As the decade wore on, bankruptcies in
Alberta reached new highs and real estate prices crumbled. Although
exacerbated in 1982/83 by what was then the worst global slowdown since the
Great Depression, the severity of the decline was unique among the world’s
petroleum-based economies. Norway, for example, boomed throughout the
NEP years.
At the beginning of this period, in 1979,
the CPA’s leadership changed again. Ian Smyth became Executive Director.
Perhaps reflecting his civil service
background but with the active support of the CPA’s
Board, Smyth quickly began to enlarge the association. He
began by creating an office in Ottawa to supplement divisional offices in
Regina and Victoria. ‘Before long, the organization also had offices in St.
Johns, Halifax and Montréal. Smyth’s ambitions, and his plans, were vast.
“CPA staff often provided access to ministers in Ottawa and the provinces,
but we never lobbied in the sense that lobbying is a dirty word,” he said.
“We’d do show-and-tells. There would be half a dozen ministers around the
table, and we would say: ‘Here we are, the industry, and we want to tell you
what we’re doing. If you have any questions, Minister, we will be glad to
answer them.’”[8]
Gorman tells a story about this
period with a combination of humour and derision: “The next thing you know
they hired Allan Gregg, who had just founded Decima Research, to conduct a
nationwide survey to find out what Canadians think about the oilpatch. I said
to Ian, ‘I can tell you what the people of Canada think about the oilpatch.
They think it is run by a bunch of Yankee fat cats who are exploiting
Canadians and making high profits and sending most of the money back to the
U.S.’ So they launched their campaign and surveyed Canadians and that’s
exactly what they found out.
“Then they decided to let the research
drive a campaign to convince the Canadian people that this really wasn’t
true, that the oil industry was really working in the best interests of the
country. So they began this big, expensive advertising campaign, and I don’t
think it changed a single person’s mind.”[9]
Norm Elliott and I joined the CPA in
1981, just before the advertising campaign began. Norm was Director of Public
Affairs; I was his number two. Our day-to-day work consisted of analysing
news and planning communications; preparing news releases and backgrounders;
organizing news conferences; arranging publicity and media events (including
the National Journalism Awards); managing publications, including a monthly
magazine and the annual report; speechwriting; meeting and meeting some more.
Despite technological innovation and the evolution of new forms of media over
the last three decades, these functions are still the PR professional’s stock-in-trade.
They are less art than craft.
My role gave me a unique vantage point
from which to observe the industry’s response to the NEP. The balance of this
chapter describes how the CPA led the charge.
Ian Smyth was a big, wall-eyed man
with a large ego, a superb mind and, when he turned it on, a huge amount of
charm. Few people were able to dominate a social occasion, a meeting or an
organization as completely as he did. As Norm Elliott put it, “Ian was
the leader. He set the rules, he set the thinking and he knew what was going
on. I never saw a better mind than his. It was unbelievable to watch him, to
see how people responded to him. He came into Calgary not knowing a soul, and
within a year he was right on top of things.”
Smyth was a quick study, and his
commentary was continual grist for the media’s mill. “He could completely
take over an interview,” said Elliott. “The best media people in the country
took him on, but he always controlled the interview. No one could acquire
that talent. He was just born with it.”[10] Technical Director Hans Maciej continued to answer
questions about many economic and most technical matters. On matters of
policy, though, Smyth became the industry’s spokesman. The CPA was the
industry’s voice, and he was the CPA’s.
When I asked him to describe the
advertising campaign, Smyth began thus: “We set out to use opinion
polling to find out what concerned people. What we quickly found out was that
Canadians were not worried about Canada running out of oil. It was a period
of high unemployment and high inflation. People wanted to have a job a year
from now. That was their number one concern. As we worked through the
research, we realized that we had a theme. That theme was that when the
petroleum industry is at work and has the funds it needs to do what it
does, it provides jobs and employment right across the country. So we began
to run a series of TV commercials and print ads telling that story, and it
worked.”
He added, “That was the most researched
campaign in the history of advocacy advertising. It became a case study in
some MBA programs. We researched carefully everything we did. If something
didn’t work we junked it and if it did work we did more of it. And so we
gradually progressed to a stage where our campaign had a significant impact
on public opinion. Partly because of what we did, voters threw out the
Liberal Party in the next election.”[11]
Hans Maciej was skeptical about the
research, but supported Smyth’s conclusion that the campaign helped people
understand the damage caused by the NEP. “I always questioned the numbers we
were getting back from our advertising and polling people,” he said. “We
would hear that something in public opinion moved by 0.2 percentage points
and that was a major improvement. But Allan (Gregg) was an effective snake
oil salesman, and it was always interesting to listen to his
interpretations.”
“Anyway, I believe we were effective in
putting forward the other side while the NEP was collapsing under its
own weight,” Maciej maintained. “To their credit, the political
opposition (Mulroney’s Conservatives) saw what was happening. It took them a
long time to rectify all the wrongs of the National Energy Program, but they
eventually did it.”[12]
Just before the NEP died, the CPA
shifted its focus toward the natural environment. The emergence of
environmentalism as a public issue illustrates an important rule for the
petroleum industry: A crisis for one is often a crisis for many. Take the
cornerstone years of 1977 and 1982.
On June 9, 1977, Justice Thomas
Berger issued Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland[13]–
the report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and a surprise
bestseller. This document raised environmental and social rather than
technical objections to an industrial project. In so doing, it killed a
proposal to construct a natural gas pipeline from the Arctic. The industry
didn’t see this as part of a sea change, but responded with a cacophony of
complaints about the “left wingnuts” in Ottawa. Wingnuts or not, 30 years
later 1.7 billion barrels of oil and about 25 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas remain stranded in the far north.
Five years on, two calamities struck in a
single year. The Ocean Ranger disaster off Newfoundland and the
Lodgepole blowout in Alberta precipitated more than gripes and
grumbles. The Ocean Ranger tragedy involved a semi-submersible drilling rig
going down in a winter storm. She took 84 hands into the frigid sea, and none
survived. The Lodgepole catastrophe involved an Amoco-operated, high-pressure
sour gas well. Out of control for 68 days, it took the lives of two blowout
specialists and sent another 16 people to hospital. On days with strong
westerly winds, residents of Winnipeg (1,500 kilometres away) could smell the
rotten-egg odour of the gas.
Regulatory opprobrium and public anger
were intense. Inquiries went on for years, and the resulting new regulations
were as tough as nails. More importantly, in Canada’s national consciousness
these headliners reinforced budding concern about public health, industrial
safety and environmental integrity.
The CPA was the first trade association
to take action on these growing worries. According to Smyth, this, too, arose
from research. “We were continually out there taking the public’s pulse. We
had noticed from the beginning that the first few top-of-mind issues were
always economic – jobs, taxes, inflation and so on. But after a while,
people started volunteering the environment as a top-of-mind concern – the
only issue that wasn’t bread-and-butter. So I said to the CPA’s Board that we
should be, and be seen to be, the most environmentally responsible industry
in the country, and they said, ‘See what you can do.’ We began by developing
the first industrial environmental code of practice in the country, and soon
set up an environmental department.”[14]
As the CPA began its environmental
labours, the country’s energy wars were ending. Then oil prices collapsed – a
1986 market phenomenon known as the third oil price shock. The industry’s
core issue became survival in a world of lower energy prices.
Environmental policy remained a focus,
but big-budget ads were suddenly out of the question. The CPA responded with
its first and only community relations initiative. With the CBC and The
Calgary Herald as media sponsors, the association’s Share the Earth
Triathlon helped brand the CPA green. It was a sporting event with an
environmental theme – the first, perhaps, in Calgary.
Why triathlon? It was a new sport and the
city (gearing up for the Olympics) was sports mad. The demographics were
excellent: a mean age of 36 and surprisingly large cohorts of professionals.
Costs were minimal, and volunteers (led by volunteer Race Director Pete
Strychowskyj) took care of planning and race-day operations. This
early-season event quickly became the most popular in Alberta.
The CPA’s wisdom in championing the
environment became apparent as the Mulroney government began passing
tough new environmental legislation. This included million-dollar fines and
five-year jail terms for offending executives.
Smyth twice earned honours with The
Globe and Mail’s front-page “Quote of the Day.” On the first occasion he
said, “I have never seen a CEO who was prepared to trade five years in the
slam for a better bottom line.” On the other he said, “We have plenty of
environmental sticks. We need more carrots.” In large part because of the
CPA’s efforts, Ottawa nominated the petroleum industry for a prestigious
United Nations award.
In 1992, the CPA merged with its former
shadow – the much smaller Independent Petroleum Association of Canada – to
become the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). The new
organization axed the triathlon which, though still popular, had
outlived its usefulness.
The oil shocks left enduring legacies.
One was an increase in industry organizations focused on telling the industry
story. For example, the respected Centre for Energy is the successor to the
Petroleum Resources Communication Foundation, and the SEEDS (Society,
Energy, Environment and Development Studies) Foundation has been producing
energy information tools for Canadian schools for more than 30 years.
In addition, companies and trade associations
are now far more fluent in government and stakeholder relations than when the
CPA’s pioneering efforts began. The alphabet soup of industry associations
and organizations – CAPP, PSAC, CEPA, CAODC, SEPAC and the rest – are better
staffed with or have access to public affairs professionals. They share key
messages and backgrounders with their members, so all can respond quickly
with the same basic messages. As importantly, senior managers now receive
training in how to deal with public issues, and they understand that good
environmental performance is the only acceptable business practice.
These developments owe much to the
reverberations of the oil price shocks and, later, to the greening of Canada.
Peter McKenzie-Brown, BA, APR,
CERTEFL, has worked in the corporate,
consulting and academic worlds in Europe,
North America and Asia. He began his public relations career with
Gulf Canada and worked for the Canadian Petroleum Association prior
to developing a writing and consulting practice in the 1990s. He is the
author or co-author of four books – three of them on business history. He was
President of CPRSCalgary in 1982/83.
There has seldom been a dull moment in
the lives of people who have worked in PR for anything more than seven or
eight years. If nothing else, the technology changed sufficiently to keep one
on a learning curve. For those of us who are “experience over-achievers”,
(a.k.a. “old”), the changes have been simply astounding. In the 1960s, for
example, simultaneous disclosure for corporations was putting news releases
in the mail on the same day, regardless of their destination. That Calgary
news media got the release two or more days before the Toronto and other
eastern media got it was virtually unavoidable, since the technology did not
allow for simultaneous disclosure, as we know it today. This led the major
media to establish bureaus across Canada and/or to rely on the newspapers’
internal entity, Canadian Press, for coverage of stories that were of
interest to their readers, viewers or listeners.
For the most part, working in PR for Big
Oil companies was not a lot different from working in the same capacity in
almost any other organization, with a few notable exceptions that will be
discussed later in this epistle. We all had lots of work to do – media
relations, employee communications, speechwriting, special events, community
relations, etc. – and we faced similar, if not identical, issues such as
earning a place in the decision-making of our company/organization or
developing ourselves towards a profession through sharing experiences, and education
(covered in a chapter of this book by Elaine Dixson, who taught a generation
about the PR profession and their craft).
The Canadian Public Relations
Societyprovided a forum for a large number of those initiatives. Your scribe
joined CPRS Calgary in 1965 and quickly found an invaluable source of
knowledge and experience that could be tapped for the asking. (Public
relations was a male-dominated profession back then and I can only recall two
female members, in a total membership of about 40 or 50). Absent much in the
way of readily available PR education, a fair percentage of people working in
PR in those days were recruited from the media. That still occurs but to a
lesser degree, as employers today can hire people with degrees in public
relations.
Big Oil in Alberta did not exist until
Imperial Oil brought in its first Leduc well on February 13, 1947.
There had been previous oil and natural gas discoveries and local uses of
those products since the 1880s, when natural gas was discovered near Medicine
Hat. Later there were natural gas discoveries at Bow Island (Bow Island gas
was pipelined by Canadian Western Natural Gas Company Limited to Calgary
in 1912) and in Turner Valley in 1914. Oil was found at Norman Wells, in
the Northwest Territories, in 1919 and in the down-dip at Turner Valley in
1936. But the discovery that put Alberta on the world map in terms of energy
suppliers definitely was the 1947 Imperial Oil discovery at Leduc.
The discovery enticed other big names to
Alberta some on return visits, many for the first time – Amoco, British
Petroleum, Gulf and, more locally, Dome Petroleum and Hudson’s Bay
Oil and Gas. They joined the firms who had been looking for oil in Alberta
for years – Bow Valley, Kaiser, Siebens and Home Oil, to name only a
few. These companies either became Big Oil directly, or by being absorbed by
others who were successful.
As much as we would like to think that
the Big Oil PR people were pretty sophisticated, we have to give the media
covering Big Oil an equal share of the credit. In fact, they were first off
the mark in setting up a forum that ultimately provided more coverage, and
more accurate coverage of Big Oil in their various publications and, by
extension through Canadian Press, to broadcast media. Their forum was the
Canadian Petroleum Writers Association, designed to allow the media to
continually upgrade their knowledge of the oil industry. They met every two
weeks – more frequently if they could line up oilpatch CEOs with greater
frequency. If they could, they worked through the PR person; if not, they
would go directly to the CEO.
Sessions involved lunch with the invited
executive, followed by an address or presentation and a question period, all
of which were entirely off the record (even The Globe and Mail agreed
that off-the-record meant that none of the discussion was reportable, even on
a non-attributed basis). Essentially the sessions were to be treated as
backgrounders and were only to provide the media with greater perspective on
the oil industry. Should one of the association members wish to follow up
later with questions about the subject the executive had discussed, they
could, of course, but the executive had every right to simply refuse to
answer if that was a sensitive subject for his or her organization. There was
never an instance of breaching the off-the-record understanding in the years
the Canadian Petroleum Writers Association was active. Reporting
improved as well, as members of the association had a much greater
understanding of the oil and natural gas business. Relationships between the
media and Big Oil PR people were greatly enhanced as a result.[15]
Initiated by the public relations people
in oilpatch companies and affiliated industry and service organizations,
Friends of Friday gatherings are off-the-record as well, but are largely
social. They bring together the industry’s PR people and the media who cover
the oil and natural gas industry over beer and hors d’oeuvres, three or four
times each year. Not surprisingly, the group meets on Fridays.
Big Oil and the National Energy
Program
In another chapter in this book, Peter
McKenzie-Brown has described the major challenge facing Big Oil in the
industry’s history in Alberta and Canada. That was the much-hated
National Energy Program. Peter’s viewpoint as it was unfolding was that of
what was then the Canadian Petroleum Association, now the Canadian
Association of Petroleum Producers. The only thing to be added to his
description is that the oil companies were conducting government affairs
initiatives on their own behalf in addition to the efforts the industry
association.
Dome Petroleum Limited, for example,
took its reaction to dazzling heights and with even more dazzling speed.
Canada’s National Energy Program was revealed in the federal budget
speech of October 28, 1980. According to author/journalist Peter Foster, “It
was one of the most far-reaching and revolutionary policies ever to have
emerged from a Canadian government. It featured hefty new taxes,
expropriation of frontier lands, a discriminatory system of grants based on a
company’s degree of Canadian ownership, and a firm commitment to nationalize
a number of foreign-controlled oil companies. It was designed to siphon
revenue from Alberta, financially hobble foreign-owned companies and greatly
extend government intervention.”[16]
A system of Petroleum Incentive Payments
(PIP grants) was to be introduced, “direct subsidies for exploration and
development depending on the degree of the recipient’s’ Canadian ownership
and depending on where the recipient companies were operating, with much
higher grants for those operating on federal lands than Alberta lands.”[17]
Having established Petro-Canada as a
Crown Corporation in 1976, to serve as the federal government’s “window to
the oil industry” and a force towards more Canadianization of the industry,
the government strengthened their presence by awarding Petro-Canada the right
to a 25 per cent “back in” on all federal lands, and naming it as the instrument
for the acquisition of foreign oil companies. To help fund these initiatives,
the federal government added a Canadian Ownership Charge on all gasoline
sales, with the proceeds going to Petro-Canada.
Gathered in a boardroom to watch the
budget speech, Dome’s executives were horrified by what they heard. Not only
would they be badly hit by the new taxes, but, since their Canadian ownership
was less than 50 per cent, they received only the lowest level of PIP grants.
To cap it all, Petro-Canada would be able to walk into 25 per cent of
their enormous frontier acreage.”[18]
Within days, Dome President Bill
Richards came up with a plan to create a new company. It would be
controlled by Dome Petroleum but would have the level of Canadian ownership
required to qualify for the highest level of PIP grants.
That new company was Dome Canada Limited,
to be owned 48 per cent by Dome Petroleum and 52 per cent by Canadian
investors through a public offering, which was successfully completed and
closed on March 19, 1981. To fund its 48 per cent ownership, Dome put up half
of its 4 per cent ownership of TransCanada PipeLines plus a portion of a
loan from the Japanese National Oil Company, and paid cash for the number of
shares required to complete its ownership obligation.
At virtually the same time, Dome was
embarking on the acquisition of Hudson’s Bay Oil and Gas, paying more than $2
billion for the majority shareholding owned by Conoco in the U.S., all of it
borrowed money. As it turned out, the minority shareholders demanded that the
same per share offering be extended to them and a court agreed with them. At
the end of the day, Dome had to come up with an additional $2.2 billion,
again borrowed.
Sentiments of other oil companies cooled
towards Dome since the formation of Dome Canada was, to them, tacit approval
of the National Energy Program. If industry sentiment was “cool” towards
Dome, both the industry and public sentiment in Calgary was downright frigid
towards Petro-Canada, spawning the disparaging bumper sticker “I’d rather
push this thing a mile than buy gas from Petro-Canada.” (In 1987 and 1988,
Petro-Canada sponsored the Olympic Torch run in support of the Olympic
Winter Games in Canada. This was a masterstroke, both in terms of public
sentiment towards Petro-Canada and the fact that Petro-Canada became one of
the largest retailers of Olympic memorabilia in Canada, and the proceeds that
came from their retail success continue to help the Olympic movement.)
Unfortunately, times had changed in
Canada’s economy and Dome’s program of growth through acquisitions had
saddled the company with $6.3 billion of debt at a time when interest rates
were being pushed as high as 23 per cent.
The banks started to take a more active
interest in Dome’s affairs when they began to realize that they might not be
able to get the debts repaid, especially if oil prices weakened. In late 1982
they insisted that there had to be changes at the most senior levels (i.e.
Chairman and CEO Jack Gallagher and President Bill Richards). Further, the
Independent Board Committee responsible for recruiting Mr. Gallagher’s
successor had to get the approval of the banks before the final selection was
made.
By the time I arrived at Dome in late
August 1983, Mr. Gallagher had left the company, and one of my first duties
was to call the media conference at which the departure of Bill
Richards was announced. The recruitment team had earlier selected J.
Howard Macdonald to succeed Mr. Gallagher, recruiting him from his
position of Treasurer of Royal Dutch Shell to become Chairman and CEO of
Dome. He arrived on October 1, 1983.
Mr. Macdonald was a master in his
ability to delegate, and then let the person he had delegated to do a job, do
it. By the end of his first month at Dome, he had become accustomed to coming
down the hall to a candy bowl strategically positioned on the counter of a
secretarial station outside my office, for a sugar fix. To ensure his daily
attendance, I kept the bowl stocked with his favourite candy, wine gums.
Armed with a handful of wine gums, Mr. Macdonald would sit in my office and
we would chat until his sugar needs were satisfied. I am fairly sure I was
the only PR man at the time who had the opportunity to chat with the Chairman
and CEO of his organization daily.
One day in late October, Mr.
Macdonald asked if he might come to my office later in the day so he
could listen to the media calls that would inevitably come in following our
quarterly results news release, to be issued when the stock market closed
that afternoon. Naturally, I said “yes.” (What else do you say to your
Chairman and CEO?)
Mr. Macdonald had flown back from
London, England, overnight and had come directly to the office from the
airport. Thus I knew he was tired and I thought he would listen to an hour or
so of the questions, then leave. Being $6.3 billion in debt, we usually got
about 80 phone calls from all around the world whenever we issued a news
release, particularly a financial one. Because that number of calls means
hours on the phone, I used a speakerphone to avoid getting cauliflower ear.
When the calls started to come in, Mr. Macdonald was advised and settled into
a chair in the corner of my office. Shortly thereafter, I noticed his head
was bowed and his eyes were closed, which led me to the false assumption that
he had gone to sleep.
An hour and a half into the calls, Alan
Bayless, a fine reporter from The Financial Times of Canada, who knew
the company well, called and asked a number of astute questions, including
two to which I did not have adequate answers. I made note of his unanswered
questions and advised him I would call him back shortly. My call to the
finance department was answered by someone I knew, and I explained briefly
who the reporter was and how well he knew the company, then asked the
questions. The response was that “We do not give out information at that
level of detail.” Mr. Macdonald stirred and, addressing the finance
department person by his first name, said, “Hi Steve, this is Howard. You
know, you’re right. We do not give out information at that level of detail
normally, but I’ve been sitting here for the last 90 minutes, listening to
how media calls come in and how the answer to one question often gets a
follow-up question that gets down into the detail level fairly quickly. I
think we’re going to have to revisit our policy on what gets used in
answering media questions and, in the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you
would give David the answer to the questions Alan Bayless asked.” He then
left my office.
I was left to appease Steve, who I had
sandbagged, which cost me a very expensive lunch, but from that day forward I
could get virtually any information I needed from anywhere in the company.
And the next day, Mr. Macdonald told me that, to a large degree, I was
to be the decider of what was discussed in the media and that he felt it was
his responsibility to make sure that I was kept so in-the-loop that, if I did
make a mistake, it would be a one or two degree off-course error and not 90
degrees.
Stories like that are illustrative of the
growth in reliance on public relations to handle difficult, and
often-sensitive information on behalf of an organization. This was not
restricted to Big Oil, but clearly Big Oil was getting the message.
So the younger members of the profession
are not left dangling, let me briefly describe Dome’s final few years and its
ultimate fate. As already stated, Mr. Macdonald arrived at Dome on
October 1, 1983. Wanting to get the problem resolved quickly, he called a
meeting of the 54 principal lenders for December 1, 1983, in Calgary, at
which he outlined a debt rescheduling program that extended the pay-back
period but was doable under the then current $30-to-$35 oil price. The
lenders did not buy into the program unanimously, but he implemented the
program anyway and everything went smoothly until December 2005 and January
2006. During that period, oil prices slid from $36 to $10 per barrel, a
disaster for Dome’s cash flow. In May 2006, Dome was forced to announce that
it could not make interest payments on its debt.
The situation bumbled along for the rest
of the year, with only modest improvement in oil prices. Very quietly, Mr.
Macdonald started shopping the company around, hoping that a sale could
be arranged that accommodated the shareholders to the extent possible and
satisfied the lenders, none of who would be likely to get 100 cents on the
dollar. Bids came in from three parties and Amoco Corporation’s bid was
selected as the winner. The deal was signed on Good Friday, 2007, but the
final negotiations and court proceedings took another 17 months to complete.
The merger of Dome Petroleum into Amoco Canada Petroleum Company
Limited was closed at precisely noon on September 1, 1988, amid great fanfare.
It was a banner moment during an exciting period in our history.
David Annesley, APR, worked in the corporate, government and consulting arenas
during his 44 year career in public relations, all of it in Alberta. His
first PR job was with Canadian Western Natural Gas Company (now ATCO
Gas), which he joined in 1963, and has worked since in such organizations as
James Lovick Limited, Molson’s Western Breweries, the Alberta Public Affairs
Bureau, Alberta Energy and Natural Resources, Dome Petroleum and
TransCanada PipeLines, interspersed with consulting stints at Alberta &
Southern Gas and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, among others.
He was President of CPRS Calgary in 1987/88.
By John Francis
This is a review of public relations
consulting in Calgary, written from the experience of the author. It focuses
largely on the development of the public relations division of
FrancisWilliams & Johnson (later FWJ) through the 1950s, 1960s and
into the 1970s. I have also included a brief review of the consulting
environment in the later years, as seen from my own limited perspective.
This history is heavily biased by my own
experience. In the early days, my company was the only consultant in the
city. Later there were others, but I am unable to write about what they did.
Errors of fact, regrettable omissions, names overlooked and viewpoints
expressed are entirely my responsibility.
The early days: 1957 to 1967
The first public relations consultant in
Calgary was a lady named Frances McNab. I know nothing of her background. She
had established a business relationship with one or more Toronto public
relations firms in the 1950s. They engaged her to handle the Calgary work for
national campaigns that they were handling. Not too long after I started my
own business in 1958, she came to me and asked if I would like to take over
the work she was doing. I purchased a desk and filing cabinet from her for
$50, and she moved on into a different career. I still have the desk. Two of
the national clients that I took over from her were the Tea Council of Canada
and Canada Savings Bonds for the federal government. Amazingly, I still
looked after the CSB assignment well into the 1980s. And I remember (can’t
get out of my head) the name of the spokeswoman that I took on a media tour
for the Tea Council. She was from Ceylon and her name was Nirmalene
Dasanayake.
The national CSB account was handled for
the Bank of Canada by OEB International of Toronto. Lou Cahill was the
head of that firm and he had put together a network of PR firms across Canada
to handle national accounts. This was the beginning of a wonderful
relationship over almost 40 years. Members of the network, called Inside
Canada, not only provided services for each other’s clients. We also shared
experience. This was invaluable to a young upstart who knew virtually nothing
about running a consulting business.
Another outstanding Toronto consultant
who sent me business and shared experience at CPRSconferences was Charles
Tisdall. I fondly remember him taking me to his home in Toronto for dinner,
and meeting his twin daughters. Another mentor that I met through CPRS, and
who inspired me to believe in myself was Jack Yocom, who was
Gulf Canada’s corporate Public Relations Manager.
My first two clients after I had printed
letterhead – J.D. Francis & Associates, Public Relations Counsel –
were Western Decalta Petroleum and Canadian Export Gas & Oil. I
approached each to offer my services in writing and producing their annual
report. My fee was $5 per hour.
The relationship with Canadian Export Gas
& Oil lasted 21 annual reports and 63 quarterly reports. It ended
only when they were bought out. Together we won a first place prize awarded
by the New York-based Financial Times.
Western Decalta wanted weekly
invoices, I guess to keep tabs on me. (Lesson: Clients do not like
open-ended billing arrangements.) During the first week I took a
professional photographer to Turner Valley to photograph company
facilities. My invoice the first week included $30 for my time for this
six-hour task. I was called in and asked why it was necessary for me to go
along with the photographer. The relationship with Western Decalta lasted one
year, at which time they took the annual report in-house.
As the business developed, I was able to
increase the hourly rate. My profit and loss statement for the year 1961
shows gross income of $19,300, and net profit of $7,468.
When I was just starting out in business,
Frank Allison, a colleague of my father, Harry Francis at United Grain
Growers, called and asked if I would like to come to a meeting of the new
CPRS chapter in Calgary. Of course I was happy to attend and meet the
members. Shortly thereafter, my phone rang. It was Jim Rennie, Sr. Jim
handled public relations for Imperial Oil. I remember the exact words: he
barked, “Are you in business?” Jim was an ex-newspaperman, and sometimes
talked like one. After I said “yes”, he said that Imperial sponsored the
“Teen-Age Safe Driving Roadeo”, a competition in which teens drove cars
around an obstacle course and demonstrated safe driving skills. He said he
had other work on his plate, and would I like to handle the publicity? This
was my first publicity effort as a consultant, although I had some experience
at my previous job at Calgary Power. It went off successfully, and I earned a
fixed fee. I handled the project for a few years until it was discontinued.
I’ve always been grateful to Jim. He didn’t see me as a rival, but rather as
someone who could help out.
I had been working from home, and began
to feel I ought to have an office downtown. A friend had his law practice in
the Grain Exchange Building and he suggested I go to see the owner, Harry
Mann. He was semi-retired, and retained a marvellous secretary, Betty Nason,
who had some spare time. So I moved into a cubicle in his office space, and
Betty did my typing, charging $1.40 per hour. In those days, my drafts of
annual reports were typed on a manual typewriter using carbon paper to make
10 copies for every meeting with the client management group. This meant
every correction had to be erased on every page, and re-typed. Everyone who
has done drafts for annual reports knows how tedious this process was.
This office arrangement worked very well
from 1960 to 1963, when I decided to hire another professional, and a
full-time secretary. I moved into an old warehouse that had been converted to
office space – the Cockshutt Building at 12th Avenue and Centre Street South.
The new member of the firm was Douglas G.
Evans, a Calgarian who had taken a public relations degree, I believe at
Brigham Young in Provo, Utah. Doug had excellent promotional instincts. This
was timely, because I had an opportunity to launch the show homes for the new
Bel-Aire Estates on Elbow Drive for landowners Harry Cohen, Ted
Riback and Norman Green. We put on a major promotion, using old-English
branding, antique horse-drawn carriages, and traditional English costumes.
With Doug’s promotional and advertising skills, we drew 12,000 people at 50
cents each. And Bel-Aire still has a classy reputation 40 years later. Doug
went on to head the Alberta Government Travel Bureau, and more recently was
teaching at his alma mater.
The move into the Cockshutt Building
provided another lift for the firm. A young real estate agent, Gerald
Knowlton, looked after leasing space to us. Then he asked me to organize
publicity for his announcement that he was acting as agent for the sale of
two downtown hotels – the Wales and the Royal – which I did. Then he went out
on his own and formed Knowlton Realty, which I wrote the press announcement
for. (I also wrote the announcement when he sold the business 30 years
later.) Throughout those 30 years, our firm provided him with promotional and
public relations assistance on a large number of Calgary office and
commercial buildings.
That experience led to many other
projects for building owners, from downtown offices to retail malls, to
industrial properties.
When I started out, I met Keith Alexander,
a recent journalism graduate, who also became a prominent golfer. My
marketing brochure showed Keith as an associate of the firm, and it was both
of our intentions that he would continue in the business. But he received an
attractive offer to go into printing services and sales at The Calgary
Albertan, a business in which he had an excellent career. Later he
became an investment broker in Edmonton. Keith didn’t forget me, however.
Within that first year of our relationship he was asked to sit on the Calgary
Olympic Development Association, which was organizing Calgary’s bid for the
1968 Olympic Winter Games. He recommended me to provide services to the
committee, and for a while I functioned as their office. A sub-committee was
set up in 1959 to produce the “bid-book”, and I sat on that with Jay Joffe, a
Calgary ad man, and others. We worked as volunteers and produced a fine
product. Grenoble, however, was awarded the games. Undaunted, the
CODA re-started, and initiated a bid for the 1972 games. I was paid to
produce the bid book for this venture. A great effort by dozens of
volunteers, supported by a team of professionals, including Lithokraft Press,
whose designer, Bob Saunders, did an outstanding job, and writers Jim
Rennie and Carlotta Blue. But Sapporo got the games. (Lesson:
Political power will prevail.)
The toughest learning experience was
dealing with the loss of capable people, and the loss of clients. Many fine
people joined my company, and contributed greatly. I learned that the loss of
a good person wasn’t all bad – they were frequently replaced by people who
brought new capabilities to our clients. Client losses occurred when locally
based companies sold out to larger companies, when there were personnel
changes, and when we did bad work.
As the company grew, I became familiar
with an organization that provided psychological evaluation of candidates for
employment and promotion. Gordon Stephenson, a professionally trained
psychologist, utilized testing as a tool, and brilliant insights and communication
skills in giving me guidance. I was pretty naïve in my ability to read
people’s capabilities and motivations, and I began to use these services. As
a result, our company recruited a number of very capable public relations
people in the 1960s. Among them were Carlotta Blue, Owen Lackenbauer, Bill
Payne and Frances Dover.
Friends were always my best source of
business. In the summer of 1951, my dad got me a job as a timekeeper with
Standard Gravel. My supervisor was Bill Pratt, a young accountant from
Ottawa. We became friends. A few years later – about 1960 – he asked me if I
could handle a corporate brochure. He had the guts to sell my services to the
company’s owners, Messrs. Red Dutton and R.F. Jennings, at a time when I
was frankly an unknown quantity. I set about getting professional photographs
of the company’s projects, and writing text. A few months later a prototype
was completed, sufficient to show Mr. Jennings. He kept it in his drawer for
two years. I think he was waiting until certain projects could be completed
so they would look good in photographs. Anyway the brochure took an elapsed
time of three years to complete. It was, however, a good product. Later, I
was assigned to update it several times, until Standard Gravel became
Standard-General, and later part of BACM, and then Genstar. Genstar is long
gone, but you still see Standard-General trucks on Calgary streets. The logo
on those trucks was designed by Nelson Macdonald – still one of
Calgary’s most outstanding designers, under my direction. (Nels and I did a
lot of work together over the years.)
The Standard Gravel brochure was a good
work sample in extending my brochure services to other firms such as
consulting engineers, architects, and realtors, among others. Outsiders have
very little understanding of the complexity of making a corporate brochure.
Text must be interesting and persuasive while selecting suitable facts and
getting them right; watching the grammar and spelling; commissioning and
selecting photography, design and art work; printing, including selection of
paper, ink, colour, and binding; and ordering the best number of copies (make
as many as possible to bring down the unit cost, and make as few as possible
to avoid stale-dated leftovers).
That summer job, and Bill Pratt’s
confidence in me, also led to our organizing the grand opening of Heritage
Park (Pratt managed the construction of the park) including our Bill
Brownridge designing the “H’ logo (which disappeared in 2008 with a
change in direction at the park); serving the Calgary Stampede (we were
already their agency before Pratt went there as General Manager and after he
left, but he challenged and inspired us); and the Olympics, where he was
President (where we did some of the advance PR , but not the games
themselves). (Lesson: You can’t have everything.)
Another outgrowth of this relationship
was that we were engaged to work for Genstar’s companies on residential real
estate, construction materials and corporate branding.
Openings and other special events are
great business for multi-disciplinary firms. Billable tasks include building
the invitation list, estimating the attendance, choosing the location,
creating a theme, designing the invitation, news coverage, advertising, ordering
the catering, tours, chairs and tables, speakers and speeches, WEATHER,
ceremony, bar, entertainment, music. We opened Foothills Hospital, a gas
plant, a fertilizer plant, Heritage Park, Happy Valley, and countless office
buildings and real estate developments. We organized the Treaty Seven
Commemoration, attended by Prince Charles, hundreds of Mounties (for security
and colour) and news media from the world over.
(Lesson from organizing special
events: Attention to detail is primary.) One example will suffice. For
the Western Co-op Fertilizer plant opening, the guests were arriving,
and of course they felt like a cup of coffee before going on a tour of this
huge, magnificent facility. The caterer plugged in his coffee machine and
somehow shut down the electrical supply for the entire plant. It took two
hours to get the coffee.
Corporate brochures and special events
are two kinds of work that present a high risk of billing misunderstandings.
In an effort to meet all the client’s expectations, the consultant will incur
considerably more hours of service than the client expects to pay for.
Learning this lesson at an early stage, I developed a fee estimating system:
“Our fee will be on an hourly basis not
to exceed $___ for the listed service. Disbursements will be estimated
separately.”
If the client asks for additional
services not anticipated at the outset, either some services can be dropped,
or the fee increased, with full disclosure to the client. I never minded if
we overran our time estimate. We got our quoted fee, and inevitably we got
related assignments, and sometimes ongoing business.
Another service that became a mainstay of
our PR service was house organs. They provided income every month, or every
quarter, and the writing process helped our people become familiar with the
goals and needs of the client.
My academic background led me to become
an author of public relations master plans. I always wanted clients to be
familiar with all the options that a PR professional could deliver. So when
we were called in we frequently contracted to prepare a master plan based on
a thorough study of the organization and its goals. I persisted in getting
the client to identify the organization’s publics, and the ways in which each
were important. Then I addressed each public, recommending what forms of
communications would be most suitable. Quite often we used this process to
completely change what the organization was doing, or was considering doing.
We often saved them money, reduced their staffing load, and found
efficiencies that made their communications more effective.
In addition to the staff members I have
already named, we had some real public relations stalwarts who served the
firm’s clients for long periods of time, and who developed PR business for
FWJ. I can’t name them all – this would become a list rather than a “bite of
history”. Some have been introduced in other parts of this chapter.
I must remark on the contribution of Jean
Andryiszyn, who provided editorial and journalistic skills as editor of house
organs, brochures, and the Calgary Chamber magazine, Calgary Commerce.
She also developed her skills in news media relations. In latter years she
became a specialist in the environmental area, enabling FWJ to offer
this service to clients.
It takes a sense of style, coupled with
sensitivity to client wishes, to stage a successful special event. Lyn
Gilbert was that person at FWJ for many years. Among many
outstanding events, she assisted Frances Dover in staging the Treaty Seven
Commemoration on behalf of the Blackfoot at Gleichen.
In more recent years, Octavia
Malinowski managed special events for us, including a very interesting
task related to the ’88 Winter Olympics. Octavia and Judi Gunter organized
and ran a hospitality house for a New York bank. World famous guests came to
Calgary and stayed for one or two nights at a time, were fed by top chefs,
and their every need looked after by the team that FWJ people put
together. And the press never found out that these dignitaries were in town.
One of the toughest challenges we faced
in the 1950s and 1960s occurred in taking news items to Calgary’s most
important media organization, The Calgary Herald. The City Desk had an
attitude that if a story was brought in by anyone other than a reporter (or a
whistle blower), it was suspect. And they wouldn’t run it! It wasn’t just the
corporate world that faced these frustrations. While working as a volunteer
for community organizations, including the United Way and the Calgary
Philharmonic, the treatment was the same. One senior editor was heard to say,
“Let them buy ads”. They missed a lot of interesting news items.
Radio news, on the other hand, was a
great outlet for stories. Calgary had three radio stations (CFCN,
CFAC and CKXL) with full-time news departments. They were always
interested in what we brought them.
Good public relations practitioners
recognize that news organizations make their own decisions about what to say
and how to say it; good news organizations recognize that competent PR
people, and the organizations they represent, can be a good source of news
and features.
When television came along, I tried to
take advantage of the face-to-face opportunity that it presented. For our
client, the business administration division of Mount Royal College, I
invented a “case-method” television show called Decision. Each
week, business executives were invited to participate in a televised
round-table discussion of a single business case. The moderator was Chuck
Cook, who was Director of the Business Administration program at the
College. Decision ran on CHCT-TV (now Channel 7) for several
years, and Mount Royal College gained significant prestige for its
business development program.
Always trying to keep up with client
needs, we developed a “media training for executives program” in the 1970s,
under Jack Donoghue. Later this became a profit centre for our business when
Tom Donoghue, Jack’s son, joined us in the 1980s.
A big firm needs financial and
administrative stability. This is particularly true of firms that handle
large amounts of advertising dollars on behalf of clients. We were fortunate
in having Herdin Norgaard, who came to us with Nattall& Maloney, as our
chief accounting and financial officer. He was ably succeeded by Brad
Stevens, who ultimately became one of the people who bought me out, together
with Nancy Macquade Webb and Tom Donoghue. In the earlier years Joan
Maclagan played an important administrative role, as did Lizz Komar. And
Ruby Choi was a ‘rock of Gibraltar’, maintaining impeccable accounting
records for a very long period of time.
Very early, I formalized a number of
principles of ethical conduct that became integral to the operations of our
company, when it was a small PR firm, and later when it was a large
PR/advertising/research company. The first was that we would never offer
employment to an individual unless he or she contacted us first. The second
was that we would never actively solicit business from clients of other PR
and advertising companies, unless the prospective client had first asked us
for a proposal. When CPRS adopted a code of ethics we embraced it. We never
made claims to a client that our service would result in unrealistic benefits.
From my experience, other PR consultants
in Calgary followed these practices. Some advertising agencies, however, had
a different code. One in particular set out to take away all of our major
clients, by discrediting our work, and by offering to make free presentations
of creative ideas. In some cases they succeeded. We couldn’t retaliate
because we had our own code. (Lesson: Don’t assume that your own example
of good behaviour will be emulated by others. Most will, but not all.)
I was always looking for patterns of
experience that made the task of running the business more stable and
understandable. Over time I developed a couple of formulas, which I had our
staff use with clients.
Formula One: You can have any two of the
following – low cost, high quality, fast delivery.
a.If you want low cost and high quality,
your delivery will take longer.
b.If you want high quality and fast
delivery, you will have to pay more.
c. If you want low cost and fast
delivery, your quality will suffer.
Formula Two: If you are tendering a job
for competition, we are willing to offer any two of the following – we will
speculate (do it free), we will do creative work, we will compete with other
firms.
a. If you want it free we are
willing to show some creative ideas, as long as we are not competing.
b. If you will accept a presentation
of credentials, without creative ideas, we will compete without asking for a
fee.
c.If you want us to compete, and submit
creative ideas, you pay a fee to all competitors.
Other precepts that I lifted from wiser
philosophers than I, and preached to my staff, included:
a.If your project doesn’t go as well as
you hoped, or you lose the client due to bad work, or misunderstandings, or
corporate takeovers, it’s all right to be disappointed, but don’t get
discouraged. When one door closes behind you, another will open before you.
In consulting, which relies heavily on project work, it is pretty important
to have faith that that door will open.
b.Make check lists. Break every task up
into stages, steps and roles. Designate what the task is, who is to perform
it, and when it is to be completed. Use the checklist to monitor progress at
regular meetings.
c.Don’t try to do public relations from a
distance. PR needs the local knowledge of local professionals – knowledge of
the community power structure, the news media, and the culture.
d.Always make an agreement with the
client about fees, and disbursements, before you start. Don’t work open-ended
and assume you’ll be paid.
e.Know the rules of the business sector
of your client. If it’s medical, know about medical ethics. If it’s investor
relations, know the regulations of the stock market. If it’s community relations,
know the politics.
When CPRS began its
accreditation program, I felt obliged to immediately apply, and together
with David Wood, successfully completed the first examination process.
When the University of
Calgary started its Masters in Communication, Jack Donoghue and I
attempted to influence what we saw as a flawed direction. The designers of
the program chose a meaning for the word “communication” that we disagreed
with. They focused on the technology and laws relating to broadcasting, while
public relations focuses on the message, and selecting the appropriate tools
of communication. We were unsuccessful, because the department head came from
the other side. I’ve always thought that this was a lost opportunity for
Calgary. Fortunately Mount Royal College picked up the slack and
developed a fine program that graduated hundreds of students, most with
diplomas, but recently with a Bachelor of Communications degree. And the
university program has been broadened in recent times.
In 1964 I formed a limited company to own
the business. As part of the process a brief history was written, which
throws some light on the public relations consulting marketplace at the time.
To quote the document:
“The firm has a virtual monopoly on
many kinds of public relations services in Alberta. It has outlasted a number
of public relations services started by a former mayor, a former managing
editor of a daily newspaper, an office opened by a national PR firm, a
service offered by a former PR director of the Canadian Petroleum
Association, and others. The firm is the only one in Alberta that can
undertake opinion research. It handles virtually all local press coverage of
national figures who visit Calgary. Plans are being formulated for the
opening of an office in Edmonton. The firm has 5½ employees, and occupies
1,500 square feet in a downtown office building.”
It is important to note that the success
of the firm since its founding was not only due to the active owners and
employees. It was, and continued to be, also due to a circle of friends who
provided wise counsel and the benefit of their experience. Although not all
can be mentioned, I would be remiss in not identifying the people who gave me
very important help, both by sending me business, and by helping run the
company properly. They start with Lois Francis, who has given me continuing
support, made sacrifices, and provided helpful advice for 53 years. They
include Douglas Allen, economics and business professional; Fred Christensen,
investment entrepreneur; Graham Ross, oil services company owner; William
Geddes, Edmonton lawyer; William Tye, senior officer of oil and gas
companies; Bill and Joyce Detlefsen, both chartered accountants; Ken
Allison and Graham Bennett, both chartered accountants and business
executives; Sandy Heard, educator; Ken Manning, true friend; and, very
importantly, Jared Paisley, who ably ran our advertising division. I think
anyone intending to build a company from scratch is well advised to seek out
individuals who have broad business experience that will complement his or
her own experience, and who will not hesitate to give sometimes-unpopular
advice.
Middle period: late 1960s, 1970s and
1980s
Advertising is often a tool of
public relations. And this is where having both capabilities in a firm works
to the advantage of the client. The convergence occurs when the public
relations requirements call for the purchase of advertising space and airtime
– not to sell a brand or a product, but to deliver information and persuade
people to the company’s point of view. I have always called this “paid space”
to get around the idea that corporate people have about sinful and wasteful
advertising. Obviously, the word “advertising” has two meanings – the
purchase of space, and the delivery of marketing messages. It’s valuable to
make this distinction in talking to the corporate side. We created many
public relations campaigns, some national, that included paid space. Also, of
course, public relations is sometimes a servant of advertising, as happens
when new products are announced through news events and publicity.
In 1966, with support from some friends,
I purchased the Nattall & Maloney advertising agency, located in
Calgary and Edmonton, from Harry Nattall. As far as I know, this was the
first time in Canada that a PR firm and advertising agency, both well
established in their market, came together as equals. From that point on we
watched for opportunities to provide both services to clients. As a result, the
company grew rapidly throughout the 1970s.
Our growth into advertising meant that my
responsibilities were divided, and I spent less time on public relations. At
this time, David Wood referred Jack Donoghue to our company.
Jack was a career civil servant who had
been one of the most senior public relations officers for the federal
government. He retired and moved to Calgary, and I was fortunate to attract
him to our firm. He brought to us excellent public relations judgment,
maturity, and an understanding of government. He was an outstanding leader of
his PR team at our firm. Clients respected him. And I really appreciated many
administrative practices he brought to our run-and-gun company. Through his
training of staff, and clients, Jack made a difference to the Calgary public
relations profession.
While studying public relations at Boston
University I became aware of the ways that opinion/attitude research can
be utilized in formulating public relations strategy. With this knowledge, I
began conducting surveys in the early 1960s. Later I set up Opinion Research
Index as a separate division to conduct surveys. We established a “glass
curtain” to ensure that the integrity of the research division was not
influenced by the clients of the rest of the company. This division conducted
several hundred surveys over a 20-year period, many for clients that were
independent of the rest of the agency, and also, where appropriate, surveys
for agency clients.
The research division, too, contributed
to the growth of the company.
I always thought diversification was
good. Looking back, we often were glad we had an Edmonton office, when things
were tough in Calgary, and vice versa. We were often glad we had advertising
services when public relations was slack. Opinion research contributed a
steady flow of income to the pot.
And for a while there was the federal
government. In the 1980s we were successful in winning contracts for the
federal government, including multiculturalism, youth employment, free trade,
and the national census, all of which could just as easily be termed public
relations, although they relied on paid space to deliver the message. These
assignments were not only wonderfully challenging, and satisfying to
complete, but they helped see us through the decade.
We implemented a great many public
relations/advertising programs, including “Stamp Around Alberta”, which
encouraged Albertans to see their own province by getting passports stamped;
Alberta Dairymen’s Milk Moustache, a school-based promotion of milk-drinking
directed at teens; Calgary Airport Authority branding; the application
of A-Channel for licensing in Calgary and Edmonton; creation and editing of a
monthly business magazine for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce; the Petroleum
Resources Communication Foundation’s national campaign to inform Canadians
about the energy industry; and Save Canada, a campaign to fight the National
Energy Program.
We also contributed our professional time
to further the goals of a number of charitable and cultural institutions in
Calgary. Some of those where we “made a difference” include the Calgary
Philharmonic, AlbertaTheatre Projects and the Parks Foundation (all
of which I served as President), Strathcona Tweedsmuir School, Glenbow
Museum, Devonian Foundation, the United Way, the Calgary Winter
Festival and the World Figure Skating championships.
The consulting marketplace
We weren’t alone. More and more firms
came into the market starting in the 1970s and 1980s, and increasingly in the
1990s. Some of the people involved moved on to other things and some are
still active in the business. All of them advanced our profession through
their client work and through their contribution of skills and time to
worthwhile community organizations.
They include firms such as Public &
Industrial Relations, of Toronto; Baker Lovick Advertising and McVean
Advertising. And they include individuals such as Fraser Perry and
Cynthia Balfour, who partnered back in the early 1970s, Jock Osler, Jared
Joynt, Beverly Reynolds, Paul Clark, Ralph Brinsmead, Gordon McCann, Maureen
Payne, David McAsey and Pat and Sheridan McVean.
They also experienced the ups and downs
of doing business in Alberta, just as we did at Francis, Williams &
Johnson.
The 1970s had been a dynamic boom period
for the economy, and for our company and other consultants and marketing
communicators. We had big challenges and opportunities. Our greatest problem
was a shortage of trained people. As fast as we trained them, they moved on
to more senior positions in companies and government.
The 1980s were just as brutal as the
1970s were prosperous. We went through four devastating recessions. The first
was the Trudeau-Lalonde National Energy Program, which hammered our
economy, beginning in 1981. The immediate impact of the NEP was to force
all of us in the consulting business to lay off staff, renegotiate office
leases, and cut expenses in many other ways.
At the same time, governments on both
sides of the border instigated tight money to get inflation (interest
rates were 18 per cent) under control, which meant that clients reduced
spending.
In the mid-1980s came a
recession caused by low oil prices, with the result that many small
local energy clients were bought out by big companies.
And late in the 1980s came the
introduction of computer technology. This meant a decade-long downward
adjustment to staffing, and costly investments in technology for our firms.
We all had to adjust to computerized graphic design, and to word processing.
That period, which was capped off by the Alberta government slashing
communications budgets in the mid-1990s, lasted until the turn of the
century.
A number of fresh consultants
nevertheless ventured out on their own, perhaps for the same reason I did in
the 1950s (the economy was so flat that I couldn’t get a job in PR, even
though I had a newly minted master’s degree).
Some of them – including quite a few
FWJ alumni – did very well in the profession. People such as Tom
Donoghue, Beth Diamond, Judi Gunter, Jim Osborne, Glenna Cross, Jamie Huxley,
Gay Robinson and Lisa Homer.
The consulting business today is
certainly bigger than it was even a few decades ago, and it comes in a
variety of different sizes, shapes and configurations.
There are the big full-service firms,
most of them national or international, with a solid presence in Calgary.
This group includes NATIONAL Public Relations, Hill & Knowlton, Weber
Shandwick and Fleishman-Hillard
There are also a lot of smaller
consulting firms, most offering a variety of services but usually with a
major area of specialization, such as public consultation, investor relations
or government relations. This would include firms such as McVean
Communications, Brookline Public Relations, Cross Wise Communications,
Communica Public Affairs, Concentric Public Affairs and Henderson
Communications.
There are numerous one-person shops now,
too, many of which extend the range of their services by creating alliances
with others – and creating entities such as Donoghue & Associates (Tom
Donoghue has become one of North America’s leading specialists in media
training), Judi Gunter & Associates and Gerry Kruk &
Associates. This “associates” approach enables consultants today to provide a
wide range of services while keeping the overhead down – something all
consultants quickly learn is a necessity.
And finally, there is a relatively recent
development of freelance professionals who work alone and work from home.
Actually, freelancers have always existed in the consulting business, but
what is new is the proliferation of home-based consultants and the very
strong market in Calgary for their services. This group includes parents who
prefer working at home to be with their families; the growing number of
public relations professionals who are retiring but still want to keep their
hand in the game; and others who just prefer the home atmosphere to downtown
office work.
This growth in home-based consulting has
been made possible in large part by computerization, and the ability to keep
in touch with clients electronically on a 24/7 basis. To the extent that this
approach reduces the face-time in meetings with clients, I think it’s a
negative: I believe it is very difficult to assess the goals and the culture
of client organizations without considerable face-to-face contact.
I do, however, appreciate the speed and
efficiency that the computer affords, and as long as consultants are still
able to maintain sufficient personal contact with clients, I think the
home-based approach can be a welcome addition to consulting.
It is just another change in a business
that has already changed dramatically in the past 50 years, and will likely
continue to change. The only constant for success then and now is the need
for a strong consultant-client working relationship.
I have attempted in this chapter to
present a picture of public relations consulting in Calgary beginning in
1958, and running through a rather quiet period of learning and experience in
the 1960s, the boom of the 1970s, the bust of the 1980s, and
maturity and transition into new ways of doing business today.
Looking at a promotional brochure we
published in the mid-1970s, I ran across a paragraph that pretty much
epitomizes what we were about, and what I would hope still represents the
attitude of today’s consultants:
“Our job is to reach people. Through
honest, creative, factual advertising we reach people to tell your story or
sell your product. Through accurate, intelligent, well-planned public
relations programs we reach people to change or reinforce attitudes. In our
daily contact with clients, the media, the suppliers, the public, we reach
people on a friendly, honourable, businesslike basis”.
John Francis, APR, was born and educated in Calgary, and has lived his entire life
here. He earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Alberta in
1953, and then entered the public relations field as Assistant to the
Director of Public Relations at Calgary Power (now TransAlta). In
1956/58 he took a Master of Science program at Boston University, earning his
degree in public relations upon completion of a master’s thesis entitled
“Public Relations Problems of American Petroleum Companies in Canada”. In 1958
he founded what ultimately became FWJ Communications, a public
relations, advertising and research company with offices in Calgary and
Edmonton. He sold the company to senior staff in 1996. He continues to
provide professional advisory services, primarily through MKM, an
Edmonton-based marketing agency. He was President of CPRS Calgary in 1964.
SIDEBAR: Run as a sidebar feature,
with illustration, for Chapter Five on Consulting:
A case
study: Fish Creek Park public participation
In late 1973, Premier Peter
Lougheed appointed Calgary architect William Milne to chair a
committee to find out what kind of a park Calgarians wanted to create at Fish
Creek Provincial Park, on land recently acquired by the government. Milne’s
committee engaged John Francis and his company, Francis, Williams &
Johnson, to provide communications services.
The agency’s public relations people
helped the committee make media statements before, during and after. Its
advertising group used paid space to articulate, and repeat, the committee’s
requests for participation. John’s research company, Opinion Research Index,
also designed a survey, with carefully balanced questions, illustrated with
cartoons by Nelson Macdonald.
John recommended that the survey go to as
much of the population as possible, rather than the usual practice of taking
a random sample. A postage-paid, self-reply questionnaire was distributed to
the entire circulation (165,000) of The Calgary Herald and The Calgary
Albertan, to garner opinions and ideas for the design of what became
Alberta’s largest provincial park within the boundaries of a city.
John remembers assuring the committee
that they would get 5,000 to 10,000 replies – then praying that he was right.
They actually got 31,700. It was overwhelming. The committee completed its
report to the government, results were reported back to Calgarians using news
stories and full-page ads, and the end result was that the provincial
government received a clear political mandate for the design of the park.
Leading up to
the global limelight
In these few pages, I will attempt to
give you a taste of the public relations opportunities, challenges and
results we faced during the run-up to the Olympic Winter Games – particularly
during the three and a half years before the opening ceremonies held on
February 13, 1988. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded
Calgary the games in Baden-Baden, Germany in the fall of 1981. Bilingual (the
official languages of the IOC are French and English), the bid committee in
its transformation to the Organizing Committee Olympic Games (OCOG) wisely
adopted the bilingual acronym OCO ’88 – for “Olympiques Calgary
Olympics”.
The symbol of the Calgary games was
a stylized snowflake and a maple leaf; the designer deliberately made it
ambiguous. The body of this image consists of five sets of double Cs, for
“Calgary, Canada.” Hidden within the design are five pair of cowboy boots.
The design uses the red colour from the Canadian and Calgary flags. We always
combined this symbol with the five-ring logo of the IOC.
It would be impossible in the space
allotted to cover all the activities of the communications group (shown in
detail at the end of this chapter) as all activities have some PR
connotations. Instead, I will offer detail in three areas that affected us
during the pre-games period. These are media relations, the Calgary Olympic
Centre, and the Olympic Torch Relay.
OCO ’88 was probably the last
organizing committee to have almost total control of the games with tacit
approval from the IOC. We ran the torch relay fully, contracted all sponsors,
including the big guys, contracted the host broadcaster and wrote contracts
with national and international TV networks. Perhaps most importantly, we got
paid first, then sent IOC their share.
That is no longer the case. The host
broadcaster is now a Spanish company (odd that that is where former
IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch comes from). All the major
sponsors are now part of the TOP (Total Olympic Program), which is arranged by
the IOC, and all network TV licences are arranged by the IOC. In addition,
the IOC sold the rights to the Olympic Torch Relay to Coca-Cola, so who
knows who now has the ultimate authority on the route and other issues.
Although I’m obviously biased, I feel the
Calgary Olympics were “the best games ever,” as Mr. Samaranch said at
the time. The reason for this boast is that, to my knowledge – and with the
exception of Los Angeles in 1984 – no other games have shown a surplus large
enough to leave a legacy to maintain the facilities they required. The
Calgary Olympic Development Association is custodian to a number of OCO
funds. With the principal held in perpetuity, the endowment subsidizes Canada
Olympic Park, the University of Calgary Speed Skating Oval, the Canmore
Nordic Centre and many athletic programs. If you go through the history
of other games, you will find excessive over-expenditures and, in many cases,
grandiose facilities that are not used or have become white elephants.
Most of us think of the Olympic Games as
the foremost sporting event in the world of multi-sport events. Except for
the games themselves, however, the Olympics and the activities
surrounding them are about politics, pure and simple. Special interest
groups, opposition politicians, countries with international quarrels and
virtually anyone with a longstanding complaint with society or government –
all these groups and more use the Olympic Games as a wagon to carry their
message.
The most odious cases were the 1936 games,
which Hitler used to showcase “Arian supremacy,” and the Mexico City games of
1968, which were racked by political protest and government repression.
During this year’s Olympiad, the Tibetan issue and China’s human rights
record did not play out well for Beijing. Homelessness and eastside poverty
and other social issues are already in play for Vancouver in 2010.
Calgary ’88 had its own political
protest. The Lubicon Nation took the political limelight by arguing that
they had been trying to get a reserve for a century. They tried to sabotage
the “As the Spirit Sings” artefact display at the Glenbow Museum – an
important cultural event sponsored by Shell during our games. At
Prince’s Island Park, a supporter of the Lubicon threw a snowball at former premier
Peter Lougheed during the torch relay, and Peter promptly handed me the
torch. Other than that we had few problems.
The Olympic Games definitely helped
increase front-of-mind awareness of the city of Calgary, and it increased
tourism. However, in our travels of the northern hemisphere many people
already knew of Calgary through Banff, the Rocky Mountains and last but not
least the Calgary Stampede. They were also aware of our Western image, and
although some of our Calgary sophisticates thought wearing white cowboy hats,
Western-cut clothes and boots was hokey, visitors from Europe, Asia, Great
Britain and the Soviet Union sure didn’t feel that way! Also, our mascot
program was tremendously successful – polar bears Heidi and Howdy were the
last Olympic mascots that were huggable, fun and well understood by the
public.
Calgarians will discuss the legacy of the
games for many years to come. However, one factor that is not in dispute is
the tremendous support that Calgary, surrounding towns and villages and rural
areas offered.
The volunteer spirit at that time was a
showcase to the world of what people with passionate beliefs can achieve. We
had 10,000 registered volunteers working during the games and 9,000
unregistered volunteers took part in the opening and closing ceremonies. The
number of staff peaked at 501 a year before the games began, and we used 200
consultants and part-time advisors. Probably tens of thousands of volunteers
assisted Petro-Canada and OCO ’88 with the Olympic Torch Relay,
which used vehicles supplied by General Motors.
By the time the games were over, there
were no doubters about Calgary’s goodwill and “we’ll get it done with a hand
shake” attitude.
Calgary established many firsts. We
increased the length of the Winter Games to 16 days from 12. We had a covered
speed skating oval and the longest continual torch relay. We made extensive
use of volunteers, had the largest TV contract in history (ABC TV paid US$309
million), the highest Olympic flame on top of the Calgary Tower, permanent
Olympic flame cauldrons at all venues (still in use), and individual media
village bedrooms with phones. We even had an official licensed candlemaker,
who cashed in on the torch relay and closing ceremonies.
Had it not been for tremendous public
support and our great crew of volunteers, we might have suffered Denver’s
fate with the media negativity that surrounded us. OCO ’88 CEO Frank
King once said to me, “Jerry isn’t it great that everybody recognizes us
and waves? Do you suppose that once the games are over they will use all
their fingers?”
I believe we did everything possible to
work up front with the media and be accessible at all times, but one of the
media outlets had as their Olympic writer a journalist who had lived through
the Montréal Olympics and had a natural suspicion about everything we said.
Until about three months before the games started, we faced accusations of
overspending, incompetence and, after a ticket scandal, dishonesty.
During 1985 and 1986, every news
conference, every event – virtually everything we did – was under intense
public and media scrutiny, and almost always received negative coverage. The
absolute low came in October/November 1986. It started with a false high,
when on our first day of mail-in applications of ticket sales we received
54,000 requests – the largest first-day ticket request in Olympic history. It
was all downhill from there.
To begin with, the Lubicon band
nationally announced their intention to sabotage the efforts of the Glenbow
Museum to gathering artefacts from around the world for the “As the
World Sings” exhibit, which was a cornerstone of the Olympic Arts Festival.
Then the ethnic community went to Mayor Ralph Klein with the complaint
that they were not formally involved, particularly in the Arts Festival.
Shortly thereafter, the chiefs of the Treaty Six Nations in southern Alberta
demanded recognition of some sort in the Olympic Games. And then, in an
interview with The Globe and Mail, our Arts Festival Manager called the
Festival Committee’s Chair – a respected professional in the arts community –
a “volunteer housewife.”
Up to that point we had been feeding raw
hamburger to the media. Now we laid out sirloin steak. This took the form of
the arrest and subsequent charges for fraud of our Ticket Manager, Jim
McGregor. He had developed a ticket sales scam, perpetrated mainly in the
U.S. After the games he was found guilty and went to jail for two years, but
he caused almost irreparable damage to our reputation.
Those six weeks had me virtually afraid
to review newspaper, radio and TV coverage. I had to continually tell Frank
King, Bill Pratt and the rest of our gang not to read, watch or listen
to the media with high scrutiny, because the public doesn’t do that anyway. I
received four death threats by telephone at home. They came late at night –
fueled by liquid courage, I suspect. Our security force identified three of
the callers and paid visits to them. The fourth was never found.
The public could understand and even
accept without rancour media charges of incompetence. However, allegations of
dishonesty were outside the pale. It took us a long time and a change in game
plan to regain public confidence.
The change in game plan came early in
1987. We formed a Communications Review Committee with Frank King, who became
a full-time employee as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, serving the
role of spokesman. He met weekly with Mayor Ralph Klein, his assistant Rod
Love, Gary Arthur (Frank’s Executive Assistant) and Renée Smith, who
represented our Information Services Division. These meetings covered such
topics as public positioning.
At about the same time, our biggest nemesis
in the media got a new assignment. A young journalist who was far more prone
to give credit where it was due replaced him. This journalist stayed on the
Olympic file until well past the games. He is now a highly respected
columnist on the national scene.
The Calgary Olympic Centre
Negative public opinion was a major
headache for OCO ’88. It was evident through phone-in shows, letters to the
editor and forum-type meetings. The common criticisms were that we were
inaccessible, that we met behind closed doors like an old boys’ club, and
that our constituents (everyone) didn’t really interest us.
In 1984, under Fording Coal’s leadership,
the Canadian Pacific Enterprises companies came together with a proposal
to become a sponsor of the XV Olympic Winter Games. We negotiated their
sponsorship of the Calgary Olympic Centre, which would be located at the base
of the Calgary Tower. At the time, that building was CP property.
The COC, which opened in 1986, was
probably one of the best PR moves that we could have made. It had
interpretive exhibits in a display area for the public. It had a
board/meeting room for associated groups, a reception area for entertainment
of special guests and perhaps most importantly a 100-seat media/presentation
theatre. All OCO ’88 news conferences took place there. You would be
surprised how much more comfortable it is to have these events on your own
turf. From the time we opened the general public area – run by uniformed
volunteers and open 12 hours a day at no cost to OCO ’88 – negative comments
and letters to the editor dropped by 80 per cent. We finally had a
storefront.
The pubic interpretive centre consisted
of a 50-seat theatre, with an eight-minute, 35-projector slide show with
sound and music. This opened into an area where you could ask questions on
computer screens, go for a virtual bobsleigh ride, or ski jump or get
involved in a hockey game. That was more than 20 years ago: imagine what you
could do with today’s technology!
Both Frank King and I have suggested
to VANOC that they create an Olympic Centre like the one CP created at the
bottom of the tower. At this writing, they haven’t done it, and they are
being accused of being secretive and inaccessible. History seems to be
repeating itself.
Things really turned around about six
months before the games and continued until they were over. Our relationship
with the media had improved to the point we were almost buddies.
CTV was the official broadcaster,
the official host broadcaster (paid by us to supply the total signal to the
international broadcast centre) and the rights holder in Canada to broadcast
the games. As partners they were a little easier on us, but the competition
on who could be the most negative was tough due to the (low) standard set by
the aforementioned journalist.
In 1985, Ken King and Bob
Poole of The Calgary Sun, and Patrick O’Callahan and Kevin
Peterson of The Calgary Herald, approached us. Each wanted to become the
official newspaper. After much soul-searching and discussions with my
colleagues on the management team, we decided there would be no official
newspaper. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake: had we chosen The
Calgary Herald we could have neutered our old nemesis like a steer in the
back 40. Eventually we made the decision and agreed with long-time friend,
journalist and weekly newspaper publisher Jack Tennant and his group to
publish Calgary ’88. It was a monthly publication distributed to
all homes in Calgary and surrounding areas. We supplied story ideas but did
not do the writing. The sale of advertising paid for the activity, provided a
profit to the publisher and cost OCO ’88 nothing.
Vancouver does not face this problem, as
they are essentially a one-newspaper town. The Vancouver Sun is already a
partner with the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC), and a January 2008
story on the official opening of the sliding venue near Whistler deserves
mention. The headline read “State of the Art Sliding Venue Opens Early and On
Budget.” Yet in paragraph 15 the article briefly mentioned that the original
budget was $54 million while the actual cost was twice that amount. If such a
thing had happened here I can barely imagine what the headlines would have
been, and how many heads would have rolled in response to the resulting
political and public pressure.
In late 1985, two corporations approached
us about taking on sponsorship of the Olympic Torch Relay. They were
TransCanada Telephone System, which at that time consisted of the provincial
Crown Corporation telephone companies, and Petro-Canada, then a relative
newcomer to Calgary and the federal government’s Crown Corporation in the
petroleum industry.We entered into a contract with Petro-Canada primarily
because it meant we would be dealing with a single company headquartered in
Calgary but with operations throughout Canada.
During our negotiations with
Petro-Canada, we agreed that they would look after most of the organization
and staffing, including dedicating appropriate staff across the country to
coordinate activities. The responsibility of OCO ’88 was to supply an
active participant to their staff. We hired Jim Hunter – a noted Crazy
Canuck skier – to work with them. The approval process rested with my office.
A decision was made that more than 95 per
cent of the kilometres would be available through a lottery. This gave all
Canadians the possibility of participating in the torch relay. In February
1987, 10 million torchbearer application forms went out, reaching virtually
every Canadian household. This nationwide lottery helped spread the Olympic
spirit, generating countrywide enthusiasm for the Calgary games. From nearly
seven million entries, 6,520 Canadians were chosen and added to a special
selection list that included Olympians, mentally/physically challenged,
Aboriginal Canadians and a scattering of the good and the great.
The route began in St John’s,
Newfoundland, and the relay began on November 17, 1987. It travelled down
many secondary roads and through the capitals of every province plus
Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Inuvik. The total distance was 18 000 kilometres.
A convoy of 80 people and 40 support vehicles travelled with the torch at an
average of 125 kilometres a day. The route was within a two-hour drive of 90
per cent of the Canadian population.
Much more could be written on the torch
relay and has through various books. It would be reasonable to say that the
unique Olympic torch in the shape of the Calgary Tower and the torch
relay itself was an undertaking of national proportions with unequalled
enthusiastic public impact.
Ed Lakusta – at the time President
of Petro-Canada – said the relay was the finest thing his company had
ever done. Even sceptics began to believe Petro-Canada had a place in the
oilpatch, and its gasoline sales soared.
Compare our experience to the torch relay
for Beijing 2008. Yes, it was an amazing thing to take the flame up Mount
Everest, and the organizers did much else that should be acknowledged. But by
taking the flame to countries and places where the organizers could have no
control, the event became more than a PR disaster that tarnished the Beijing
games. It contaminated the spirit of the Olympic flame itself. That, perhaps,
represents a loss to us all.
I have offered only an overview of the
role PR played during this important moment in Calgary’s history. To give you
a better idea of how extensive our PR efforts were, I have summarized below
the public affairs functions of theXV Olympic Winter Games.
Culture: The
Olympic Arts Festival; opening and closing ceremonies; venue ceremonies;
native programs; Athletes’ Village entertainment; medals; Olympic Plaza
ceremonies; recognition ceremonies; visual arts; Mask; Olympax ’88;
billboard; Art Exhibition; Literary Arts; cauldron lighting ceremonies
Media: Media
relations (local, national and international); preparation of all information
materials in both official Olympic languages; translation services; on-venue
language services (24 languages); main press centre planning and operations;
Media Village liaison; coordination of logistics for media – transportation,
accreditation and so on; venue press centres; photo pools; and liaison
with host broadcaster and rights holders.
Public Relations: Olympic Torch Relay; Olympic school and youth programs;
production of Olympic materials for media; pageantry; production and
advertising; community relations; liaison with ethnic groups; mascot program;
speakers bureau; Olympians program; venue tours; promotions; public meetings;
Calgary Tower Olympic Flame; Calgary Olympic Centre; approval of Olympic
symbol use; official final report; and official film.
Jerry Joynt, APR, began his public relations career in 1960 in Regina, following
graduation from Luther College. He was President of CPRS Regina in the
early 1970s, at which time he also received his accreditation. Since moving
to Calgary in 1975 he has held senior communications/PR roles in the
corporate, agency, consultancy, and government sectors. An active volunteer,
he has also held senior PR positions in industry associations,
not-for-profits, and special event organizations. Jerry was a member of the
XV Olympic Winter Games Organizing Committee’s executive management team responsible
for the Culture, Media, and Public Relations Divisions. He was a member of
the International Olympic Committee Press Commission until 1991.
The love/hate
relationship – his and hers perspectives
Hacks and flacks
They’re a bunch of truth-distorting,
sensationalizing bastards who just want to sell papers and boost ratings.
They’re nothing but flacks, spin doctors
and liars who want free publicity for their companies.
We’ve all heard it before. It could have
been spoken in the 1950s, or yesterday, usually by non-PR people or
self-righteous journalists, but sometimes by skilled PR professionals and
knowledgeable journalists, but said with a smile and a twinkle in the eye.
Fifty years ago, the media appreciated
honest, timely information from PR people and PR people appreciated fair and
accurate reporting. The same is true today.
There are many examples of loose-cannon
reporters who don't deserve the time of day, but there are still far too many
PR people who think they can make the media do what they want, or who are
ready to stonewall and earn the contempt of good reporters.
The fact the annual standing-room-only
Hacks and Flacks Christmas party thrived for years in Calgary shows the media
and PR community can and do get along just fine. We each have a job to do and
if we respect the other’s needs we all win.
Fifty years ago the working relationship
was simpler because most PR people came from newsrooms. They had a better
first-hand understanding of what the reporters and editors needed. While
today’s PR person and the reporter are better educated, they often have more
theory than practical experience, or sometimes common sense.
Fifty years ago these two communities met
at the Calgary Press Club. Press Clubs were places where reporters and
editors could buy affordable beer and food because salaries were low. A
starting reporter in the late 1950s and 1960s might make $50 per week before
taxes. Restaurants and country clubs were out.
You had arrived if you made $10,000 a
year. Many reporters abandoned the newsroom for handsome PR salaries.
The Calgary Press Club was a somewhat
seedy spot to sit over a beer with local media. Cost of membership was cheap.
Drinks were cheap. Food was sometimes questionable, but Stampede Week was
fun.
Sometimes reporters would try to get
inside information about a company from PR sources, or PR people would work
at getting to know reporters better and build relationships.
The PR crowd had Petroleum
Club memberships. PR bought lunch and the drinks. The all-afternoon
“five-martini lunch" really did exist. In the 1970s and 1980s the media
became concerned about the optics and insisted they pay their own way.
Now, some senior media have Pete Club and
other memberships and take the PR crowd out, since fewer PR people now have
these perks.
The Press Club was the birthplace of the
Oilweek Annual Report Awards when the PR community and the media came
together and suggested its first terms of reference.
The Calgary Herald’smove from downtown to
Deerfoot Trail in the 1970s, plus escalating media salaries, marked the end
of the club.
In the 1970s, CBC radio and
television had a big news staff. When covering a major event, you could count
on reporters from CBC’s local, provincial, regional and national units to
show up, and that was just radio.
Television crews included reporters from
all four levels including a reporter and camera operator from each level.
Sometimes they’d have their own grips. If you were hoping CBC would
stick around, you needed LOTS of sandwiches.
Then came the shift in terminology from
“press” to “news”. A Calgary television news director refused to send crews
to news conferences if the errant PR person referred to a press release, or a
press conference.
He’d say you obviously only wanted print
media attending. We learned. Today it’s news releases and news conferences.
His point stuck.
There was a time when a certain reporter
for a national media outlet would do an interview and, if the story was
complex, the reporter would send the story to the PR person for checking. On
one occasion the PR type sent the story to his company President for
verification.
Unfortunately, rather than contacting his
corporate PR person about errors in the yet unpublished piece, the President
called the paper directly. The reporter didn’t lose his/her job, but it was
close. That relationship of trust was over.
Fifty years ago, free booze in media
rooms, or at events where media were invited, was normal. PR people became
bartenders and most media just sucked it back. The news stories may not have
improved, but it sure helped media attendance at events.
In the past 50 years, two earth-shaking
events fundamentally changed the nature and character of both the PR and news
media communities – Watergate and the Internet.
Before Watergate, journalists were
“ink-stained wretches” who made little money, lived in a nether underworld,
were driven by a higher calling to get the story, get it right, get it first,
get it out, to fight for the little guy and drink far too much alcohol doing
it.
With Watergate – one of English-language
journalism’s most extraordinary examples of relentless, digging, researching,
fact checking, source cultivating, in-the-trenches journalism – reporters
became celebrities. Salaries soared. Already inflated egos ballooned to
galactic proportions. Enrolment in journalism schools exploded.
Advocacy journalism replaced objective
journalism. Reporters became cause-driven crusaders. The public’s silent,
grudging admiration was replaced by increasingly deep suspicion, distrust and
distain that continue to this day.
For the PR community, the Internet transformed
the universe. Vast amounts of information could be made available and
distributed at the speed of light. Websites replaced media kits. Search
engines replaced phone calls and visits to the Herald’s and Sun’s morgues.
The Internet permanently altered the
way the PR community and the news media interact and serve the public.
Reporters use websites for information
and participate in online conference calls. But they still want to get the
interview with, and quote from, the CEO.
One now-retired PR guy tells the story of
a Calgary business reporter who would contact him via email while both
listened to the company earnings conference call. The reporter would email
questions while senior management spoke on the call and our colleague would fire
back answers.
When it was all over, the reporter would
call to set up a short one-on-one interview with the CEO; all very efficient.
The Internet has delivered a
downside. Young journalists and their slightly older editors are almost
illiterate. Despite the computer’s Spell Check, they still can't spell,
haven't the faintest idea about grammar and obviously don't bother to
proofread copy.
There is hardly a story that doesn't have
one or more grammatical and/or spelling errors, sometimes in the headline.
For the computer and text-messaging
generation it may not be important. But the public sees the sloppiness and
doesn’t take the story seriously. If reporters can't get the basics of their
craft correct, why should we have faith in the content and ideas in the
story?
Fifty years ago the copy might not have
been so colourful, or clever, but it was well written, well proofed and
therefore more believable. Editors were fanatical about grammar, spelling, CP
style, crystal-clear writing and linguistic detail, and enforced the rules
from the top of their lungs.
The volume of information now available
because of the Internet was unimaginable 50 years ago. We are connected
to the world and each other like never before.
The media is the message. Volume has
replaced substance. Tools are more important than content. Professionalism is
out. Amateurism is in.
The public used to get information about
the world and the community from trained, experienced, full-time professional
reporters and editors.
The Internet has delivered Citizen
Journalism where anyone with a computer can click and publish
stream-of-consciousness thoughts, blogs, photos, poems, opinions, shaky,
blurry, jerky, amateur video and what they had for breakfast and present it
as journalism.
There’s a lot of junk out there whose
content may be mildly entertaining, but is it reliable, accurate, provable,
valuable, useful and enlightening? The virtual journalism universe has become
“homemovies.com” making professionally trained and experienced reporters and
editors more valuable than ever.
In the virtual world, the importance of
the good old-fashioned relationship between the professional PR community and
the professional news is unchanged, but in many ways more valuable and
necessary.
As PR people we must still simplify
messages for our companies and clients and deliver open, honest, reliable,
accurate and publicly relevant information to the news media for their
consideration.
Just like 50 years ago, Calgary’s
reporters and editors know the idiots in their ranks. They still encounter PR
amateurs, manipulators, self-serving time wasters, annoying sycophants and
bullying executives.
But they also know Calgary’s true PR
professionals who understand deadlines, return phone calls, keep promises,
and give reliable, accurate, timely, publicly relevant information from their
companies and clients.
They also know when the PR professional
is caught in the middle, when some primitive-minded executive demands the
company sell the media a turkey, a non-story, a fluff piece of spin and empty
self-serving propaganda.
Just like 50 years ago, the PR
professional still gets a charge when contacting the cave dwelling executive
to say the “pitch” was met with a sneering voice at the end of the phone
saying, “Buy an ad.”
In 1984, the outspoken and often
controversial Calgary Herald columnist Catherine Ford spoke to
CPRS members about the relationship between PR and the media. Her topic?
“Since when does a free lunch warrant a full-page spread?”
Her talk was aimed at the publicists,
press agents and information officers among us who were expected to get “good
ink” for our organizations. Our bosses and clients assumed we could just pick
up the phone and get a story placed on the front page, call our friends in
the media or just “shop it around.” Catherine and her colleagues pejoratively
called us spin doctors and flacks.
While the people doing this job 25 years
later call their work “media relations” it’s quite possible that nothing
Catherine had to say then would be different today, except perhaps those free
lunches and other sorts of perquisites, junkets and gifts we once needed to
have in our toolbox are now anathema.
What has not changed over the years is
that to get a story placed we still need to “connect the dots” between what
matters to our audiences and how what we have to add to the public record is
relevant or interesting or compelling. And true. We still need to develop the
right angle and pitch it to the right reporter at the right time and in the
right way.
We still need to “facilitate” by
providing background and perspective on our industries and our organizations
to help media to ask the right questions. No thanks to voice mail and
telephone tag though! It’s still our job to make our experts ready, willing,
able and accessible to take their questions. We’re still challenged to
conjure up that picture that tells a thousand words.
Communications technology and the
Internet has also forced media relations practitioners to pick up their
pace. We used to hustle to meet media deadlines for tomorrow’s edition, the
top of the hour or the six o’clock news. Today’s deadlines are “right now”
since reporters need to get the story on the web immediately. The quicker we
can respond, the more control we can have over the message. Tomorrow is too
late.
Many of the PR practitioners who are
nudging retirement now came into the business from the media 30 or 40 years
ago. We are leaving the field with war stories and fond memories and shaking
our heads at how much the tools have changed. We remember the leap from
manual typewriters and carbon paper to Selectrics and whiteout, from walking
the news release over to putting it “on the wire”. Fax has come and gone and
the World Wide Web has spun off Web 2.0.
Most of us did get up to speed on the
“information highway” but we have less time and energy now to take the
high-speed learning curve into the brave new world of social media. We’re
giving way to the generation that blogs and podcasts and hobnobs with
reporters on Facebook.
The game is now being played on both the
media and PR sides by college- and university-trained professionals who
learned their craft – often side by side – in state-of-the-art facilities.
Armed with our respective codes of ethics, we should see ourselves as allies
in a war on web-based misinformation.
Thanks to media convergence, the trend is
towards PR enjoying an increasingly productive relationship with journalists
who gather and report the news across the media spectrum including radio, TV,
print and the web.
Could today’s media relations
professionals, serving up good stories in an electronic buffet of information
to feed the multi-media maw, fire back an answer to that question Catherine
posed a quarter century ago?
Tom Donoghue, APR, and Judi Gunter, APR, probably first
crossed trails in 1971 as “ink stained wretches” working at rival Winnipeg
dailies, the Tribune and the Free Press respectively. The first time they
remember meeting, though, they shared the Town Crier Award winners circle in
1984. In the late 1980s they worked together at FWJ Communications. They
married in 1993.
Tom has been President of Donoghue and
Associates Inc. since 2000 and is a partner in Worldcom Public Relations
Group and a member of the Public Relations Society of America. Judi has been
President of Judi Gunter and Associates since 1990 and is a member of
CPRS Calgary. She was President of CPRS Calgary in 1990/91 and
1999/2000
The role of
CPRS Calgary in public relations education
Do you realize how badly we public
relations people want to be real professionals? Just like
the doctors and lawyers to whom we continually compare ourselves? We’ve been
pining for recognition as a profession practically since the days of American
consultants Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee in the early decades of the
20th Century, roughly 70 or 75 years ago. No other goal has
captured our collective interest the way becoming a recognized profession
has. It endures as a topic of discussion at our conferences and professional
development events, and its pursuit also lies at the heart of how public
relations education has evolved in every country in the world. By virtue of
the type of institution in which educational programs reside, the way in
which they are designed, the content that is taught, and who teaches, all
represent an articulation of some aspect of the quest for professional
status, and that includes the three-four-five-six (count them!) very
different courses and programs that have developed at the Southern Alberta
Institute of Technology, Mount Royal College, and the University of
Calgary.
The quest for credentials
Particularly in the 1920s and 1930s,
Bernays and Lee advanced the role of the public relations counsellor who
worked directly with the senior leadership of an organization, and who
therefore was in a position of greatest influence. Their work demonstrated
the critical importance of being at the management table if
public relations were to be of maximum value to the organization and its
work. Naturally, the personal credibility of the practitioner at the
management table also had something to do with the leadership’s willingness
to accept his or her advice. Initially, sheer force of personality was
possibly enough of a qualification to earn the respect of management, but by
the mid-1930s and 1940s, public relations practitioners found themselves at
the management table with recent graduates from schools of engineering,
accounting, law, and the newly-recognized social sciences. These were the
days when public relations practice was largely focused around media
relations or promotions, where years spent at a typewriter as a reporter was
considered preparation enough.
Nevertheless, practitioners felt the
erosion of their credibility as advisors to management as those around them
professionalized. Their dilemma was that there were no public relations
programs available to them, although it is true that schools of journalism
were opening, few though these were. Interestingly, the perceived need to
hold a relevant credential of some kind in order to legitimize one’s position
at the management table is the reason why the newly-established Public
Relations Society of America (PRSA) developed its
accreditation program. The specific intention was to put in place a
professional industry-developed and managed credential that would effectively
level the boardroom playing field for practitioners counselling management.
When Canadian practitioners established the Canadian Public Relations
Society (CPRS) a few years later, as PRSA’s sister organization, we also
adopted the accreditation program as a way of quickly putting in place a
credentialing program to serve Canadian practitioners in the same way and for
the same purpose.
The quest for professionalization
Even as the accreditation programs
were being developed in the 1950s, only the most innocent of practitioners
could have believed that an accreditation credential would last as a
proxy for an academic degree, and so while the accreditation programs
continued to grow, individuals or small groups of practitioners, with or
without the support of CPRS chapters, sought to establish public
relations programs at their local post-secondary institutions.
Several things need to be said about the
context in which these efforts took place in order to appreciate why the
public relations educational landscape is what it is in Canada. The desire to
establish public relations education in academic institutions was in no way
intended to denigrate or undermine the value of the
accreditation program, although to be sure, there were those who
probably doubted the likelihood of the accreditation program surviving
if the professional credential had to compete with an academic degree. The
desire to establish public relations courses at academic institutions
actually was grounded in a growing desire for public relations to gain status
as a recognized profession.
Public relations was hardly the only
field interested in professionalizing. Particularly in the 1940s,
universities that had traditionally accepted their role in preparing
individuals for the professions such as medicine and law began opening
schools of architecture, education, business and even journalism – heretical
developments to traditional academics who did not view these as professions,
but merely as fields or occupations. As such, they had no business being
housed at universities. The arguments at the time generated a fairly active
discussion around the question of “What is a profession?”
One of the seminal responses to this
question is Peter Wright’s,[19] who in 1951 described a
profession as, “a self-selected, self-disciplined group of individuals who
hold themselves out to the public as possessing a special skill derived from
education and training and who are prepared to exercise that skill primarily
in the interests of others." This notion of exercising one’s skill in
the interests of others, or “in the public interest” as this idea has since
been reinterpreted, was a hallmark of the early principled practitioners such
as Bernays, Lee, and others. Because they had articulated that public
relations ought to be practiced in the public interest, this position was
accepted as proof for the argument that public relations had met one of the
tests for being recognized as a profession. The thinking was that if public
relations could conceivably meet this criterion of being a profession,
perhaps it could meet the others as well. Indeed, it came to be understood
that “self-selection” referred to “membership” in a professional organization
such as PRSA or CPRS, and such organizations were understood to be the
“self-disciplined groups” referred to, and which would assume the role and
responsibility for governing and regulating the practice of their
professional members.
The only thing left to work out, then,
was the issue of the “special skill derived from education and training”. The
accreditation process having been recognized as inadequate to meet this
test, we turned our attention to our local colleges and universities.
Establishing the first program
Where should public relations be taught?
In the 1950s and 1960s when the concerted effort to establish public
relations programs in Calgary began in earnest, the question was moot. The
Calgary branch of the University of Alberta began offering courses in
the 1940s, but did not have autonomy in decision-making until passage of the
Universities Act in 1966, the effect of which was to create the University of
Calgary. Meanwhile, Mount Royal College had been established since
1910, and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) since
1916. In other centres (in Western Canada in particular), the story was much
the same: community colleges or trade schools tended to predate universities,
so the fact of the matter was that they were the only game in town. In
Eastern Canada, a number of universities certainly had long and rich
histories by this time, but like their American counterparts, they also held
the entrenched view that training for “non-professions” did not necessarily
belong at universities.
It would take almost 20 years before the
question as to where public relations should be taught would become relevant
in the industry in Calgary. In the meantime, the Calgary chapter of CPRS
succeeded in negotiating the establishment of a part-time diploma program at
Mount Royal College in the mid-1960s. The program included courses
in writing, media relations, advertising and promotions, and yes, even ethics
was a topic in the curriculum. The instructors were some of Calgary’s best
working professionals whose day-to-day experiences provided
right-to-the-minute case examples for their courses.
Early program growth and development
One of the instructors at Mount
Royal was decidedly not the role model that so many of the others were,
and his penchant for becoming too familiar with female students eventually
escalated beyond his mere removal from the classroom to his membership in
CPRS being challenged by the local CPRS chapter on grounds that his behaviour
constituted a breach of the CPRS Code of Ethics. Disputes over Code of Ethics
violations were rare, and this case constituted a test of the code and of the
national organization that had members across the country watching with
interest. The case went to discovery in the offices of a Calgary legal firm,
with the chapter, CPRS National and the person being investigated represented
by counsel. Before the hearing could begin, the lawyer for the accused noted
that the national organization had only given his client 29 days’ notice,
rather than the 30 days called for in the CPRS by-laws. The hearing therefore
could not proceed, and the chapter was faced with the option of continuing
this expensive and time-consuming process or simply dropping the case. It
chose the latter. Several respected members of the public relations community
withdrew their own memberships from CPRS in protest.
There was a decidedly negative impact on
the credibility of the public relations program at Mount
Royal College as a result. This controversy had arisen and was
resolved in the 1970s, yet when I began to teach in the program in 1984 I
still felt the reverberations. I admit to having paid little attention to the
program before I joined the college. I was certainly aware of its existence,
but during those early years of my own career and relative newness as a
CPRS member, I had no particular cause to learn about it. However, when
I began to tell colleagues that I had accepted the teaching position in the
program, I was rather surprised to discover that the mention of the program
was greeted variously with blank stares, smirks of contempt, alarm, and
sometimes outright hostility. What can of worms had I just opened, I
wondered?
I am sometimes credited with having
started the public relations program at Mount Royal College. It isn’t
true. The program began as a series of part-time evening courses that then
became a part-time diploma, and then in 1980 a two-year full-time diploma
with a single full-time faculty member to teach the courses and co-ordinate
the administration of it. The first full-time faculty member left mid-way
through the first semester. The second full-time faculty member was Yvonne
Adam, APR, who had practiced at SAIT and at the Calgary Exhibition and
Stampede. In her three years with the program, she took the fledgling diploma
program and put it on track. She created a stable program that was gaining
support in a number of quarters in the professional community. I took it as
my responsibility to build on her work.
Who should teach public relations?
I have mentioned the college’s somewhat
calamitous experience with instructional staff in order to demonstrate the
relevance of what some treat as one of those tediously arcane questions that
are the purview of academics: who should teach public relations? This
question – along with the others I have used to structure this piece – is one
of the central themes explored in the public relations literature relating to
academic development in our field. Mount Royal College’s experience
shows just how very fragile our few programs are, how their success or
failure is utterly dependent on the skills, knowledge, and experience of
whoever leads them, and then, how very vulnerable they are to any limitations
of those qualities in the instructors.
Consider this fact: at the time I applied
for the position at Mount Royal College, I had eight years of public
relations experience, I possessed a Bachelor of Journalism degree, and had
begun the course work in the Master of Communications Studies program at the
University of Calgary. When I had been on the job for a year or so, I learned
from one of my colleagues in the Communications Department that my
“competition” for the position had included a used-car salesman from Brooks
who claimed he “knew everything about PR” and two local radio personalities
who had proposed to the College that they would share the teaching position
and do it part-time.
We just now are seeing the first
generation of academically trained practitioners proceed through their
careers, and with luck, some of them will soon choose to teach. All of us who
have gone before may well have had some academic training, but it will not
have been in public relations. The implications for what gets taught and how
are enormous.
What should be taught in a PR program?
There is a body of
knowledge that belongs to public relations. If it can be learned, it can be
taught. By virtue of how the professional practice of public relations arose
historically (as opposed to the history of our tools and techniques), much of
our body of knowledge has come from direct experience. It has been confirmed,
elaborated upon, explained, and enriched by the pieces we have borrowed from
academic disciplines such as psychology and sociology, marketing and
business. The fact that our body of knowledge includes contributions from
others is its strength, because this signature quality is actually a genuine
reflection of the nature of public relations practice itself. The slow march
towards formalizing education in public relations has been characterized by
persistent heel-dragging: on the one hand, by practitioners whose own
practices are grounded solely in experience and who view academics with a
measure of contempt; and on the other, academics who teach in public
relations programs but have never practiced, never will, view knowledge
gained experientially with contempt, and likewise, view the practicing
community whom they claim to serve with calculated indifference.
If people from either of these camps had
ultimately had their way – or are allowed to have their way, for they still
exist – public relations education would be very different. As it stands, the
courses and programs available in Calgary all recognize the value of both
experiential and theoretical knowledge, and our practice is the better for
it. And yet interestingly, the courses and programs themselves are all very
different.
The courses and programs in question
include the full-time now-Communications degree program at Mount
Royal College, the non-credit certificate program also offered at Mount
Royal, the public relations courses offered at SAIT in its Journalism
program, the undergraduate degree in Communications and the graduate degree
in Communications Studies at the University of Calgary, and the non-credit
Management Certificate program in public relations also offered at the
university. What is important to this discussion is that all of the programs
have been strongly influenced by several factors, some of which have been at
cross-purposes from time to time. Those factors include the politics of each
of the institutions; the motivations of the instructional faculty; the vision
of the individuals who served on the advisory committees for the programs at
each institution (some but not all of whom were practitioners); the
priorities of the Calgary chapters of CPRS and IABC; and from time to
time, even the interests of the students of these programs.
The “factors” I have just listed are, of
course, translated into the actions of individual people, and so the
professional perspectives, personalities and agendas of all of these players
are what have most strongly influenced the development of the educational
programs. Not the least of these were my own views while tenured at Mount
Royal College, and later while instructing at the University of Calgary.
They are probably the reason for my having been asked to write this chapter!
I have described how the program at Mount
Royal College came into being, and more needs to be said about its
development. However, at this juncture it is important to describe the
evolution of the others.
Courses in the SAIT journalism
program
The details as to when public relations
courses were introduced to the SAIT journalism program are apparently
lost to history, but it is certain that if Mount Royal College’s program
was not the first to offer public relations education, then SAIT certainly
was. It is also not known whether the impetus for introducing public relations
courses into the SAIT program came from industry or from CPRS Calgary
(having predated IABC as a presence in Calgary by nearly 20 years), or
some other source. In any event, SAIT has offered a few courses in public
relations in its journalism program for some 25 years at least.
It would not be surprising if it were
longer. If a person were to research all of the public relations programs in
North America in particular (because the oldest programs and courses in
public relations tend to be located here), the results would show that public
relations programs are variously attached to, or embedded within schools of
journalism, social sciences, marketing, or business. There are a few
oddballs: here and there, public relations may be taught within a psychology
department or a creative writing program, for example. Sometimes (though
rarely), as is the case with Mount Saint Vincent University’s public
relations degree program, it even stands alone.
Where a public relations program is
located is telling: it often reveals the age of the program, or it reveals
the prevailing definition of public relations at the institution itself, or
of the faculty members, or the local professional community. Its location
absolutely shapes the focus of the curriculum. Since the origins of public
relations in North America are historically seen as a media relations
response to the journalistic phenomenon of the Muckraking Era of the 1920s,
the oldest public relations programs are typically associated with
journalism, located in faculties of communication or journalism, and focus on
writing as opposed to strategic management of communications. If those
proposing a public relations program have come to understand public relations
as a marketing or promotional function, it will probably be associated with
marketing programs, sometimes within a business faculty, and usually with a
marketing support or advertising focus. On the other hand, if public
relations is seen primarily as a promotional function, it will probably not
be entertained as a serious course of studies at any post-secondary
institution.
In this context, it is possible that the
courses in the SAIT journalism program predated the program at Mount
Royal College, in which case the CPRS-sponsored proposal for the program
at the college was based on the view (and this I understand to be true) that
public relations practice encompassed more than media relations, and the
professional community wished to support a more fulsome program that would
train graduates for employment in the field. Nevertheless, over the years,
SAIT has never sustained an expansion of its course offerings, although there
were years when the public relations-related courses numbered more than two.
Individual faculty members had a strong desire to develop a stronger public
relations stream, but ultimately it did not develop.
Graduate and undergraduate programs:
the University of Calgary
The study of communications came
relatively late to the University of Calgary. The Mount
Royal College program was well enough established, despite the blow
to its credibility in the 1970s. But there were other issues. Because the
focus of the college’s program was to graduate entry-level prospects to the
industry, senior-level practitioners looking for intellectual and professional
challenge were left unserved. As well, the growing understanding in the field
that the appropriate place for public relations counsel was at the management
table fostered the view that public relations education needed to be offered
at the graduate level, and not the undergraduate level. The thinking was that
undergraduate training produced graduates suitable for entry-level roles, and
that public relations practitioners would never move from the level of the
tactician to the more strategic and higher level of the counsellor without a
higher level of education.
Some combination of these perspectives
motivated individual members of the Calgary public relations community as
well as CPRS Calgary to approach the University of Calgary with a
proposal for a graduate-level degree that would serve senior communicators in
Calgary. They partly got their wish. The Master of Communications Studies
degree was established in 1983, and Glenna Cross, ABC, was the program’s
first graduate just a year later in 1984. The curriculum was not narrowly a
“public relations” curriculum, but one that responded to the graduate-level
needs of a broader population of individuals working in communication-related
areas – or who wished to work in communications. Yet the program has always
been flexible enough that students could tailor their choice of courses and
their work within those courses to provide the professional development
experience they were looking for.
Within a few short years, the
undergraduate program was instituted, at least partly to create the full
foundational academic stream that would permit the U of C to offer a doctoral
degree. At the time, provincial regulations did not allow for the graduate
and post-graduate degrees to be in place without the preparatory
undergraduate degree as well.
I have always been critical of the
undergraduate degree program, which came into being as an afterthought, and
without (in my view) due consideration for how it would serve the community.
From the outset, the university’s calendar described the program as serving
students who wished to go into public relations, journalism, broadcasting,
the arts, business … the list seemed endless. And yet it always seemed to me
that this description was an affront to all of these fields on the basis that
each had its own discrete body of knowledge, and each deserved due respect.
An appropriate preparation for one was quite different than what would be
appropriate for the others – the very argument we in public relations were
making to justify not being part of journalism or marketing or creative
writing programs.
Non-credit programs: Mount
Royal College and the University of Calgary
Despite both the college’s and the
university’s best intentions of serving the public relations community with a
range of quality educational opportunities, the fact remained that both
institutions’ credit programs required students to attend full-time or
essentially so, and move in lock-step through the courses. For many working
professionals, or for people interested in exploring public relations as a
career, the credit programs required more commitment than they were able or
willing to give. As a result, Mount Royal College initiated a
series of five courses intended to provide volunteers who found themselves
doing public relations for non-profit organizations with some grounding in
our work. They received a certificate if they completed all five courses.
Regrettably many of those who took the courses had higher ambitions: they
took the courses and then, with a straight face, told employers they had
“taken the course at Mount Royal”, implying completion of the much more
rigorous diploma program. Employers seldom questioned them.
The need to serve working practitioners
with a part-time evening alternative remained, however. Several years after I
left Mount Royal College in 1995, I helped the University of
Calgary pilot an introductory course in public relations, and after a
few semesters and requests from students, the Calgary chapter of IABC, with
some participation from CPRS, worked closely with the university to develop a
Management Certificate in public relations. Although not a “training program”
per se, the courses nevertheless are taught by senior accredited members of
one of the two chapters. The program has struggled to find its feet, but not
for lack of support by the university. Instead, it is really the lack of
response on the part of practitioners themselves to avail themselves of this
professional development opportunity, for it remains true that most people
holding public relations positions at all levels, but especially the more
senior levels, do not have a formal grounding in the body of knowledge of
their field.
Mount Royal College’s public
relations program
The years I spent at Mount Royal College were
both the hardest of my life and the most rewarding of my career. Nothing I
had done before or have done since has come close to giving me satisfaction
the way teaching did. There is nothing that compares with seeing people
recognize their own potential, and then realize it by using and building upon
tools you have given them.
Given what I have said about the context
in which the program existed when I joined the college, my perspective was
that the program was well positioned within the institution in a business
faculty on equal footing with, but separate from, a journalism program. It
had a good practical foundation that, with the injection of some academic
elements, had the potential to compete with a degree program such as Mount
Saint Vincent’s Bachelor of Public Relations. After all, if you were to strip
the electives out of most communications degrees, what you would be left with
would be the equivalent of the then two-year diploma. Given the program’s
credibility issues both within and outside the college, the fact was that no
one was particularly paying attention as I went about the process of making
refinements. In this respect, being the sole instructor in the program gave
me the advantage of being able to treat the seven core courses as one entity
with seven parts. It took about three years to get it right. I received some
measure of external validation for what I had done when the program became
just the second ever to have been officially recognized by the Canadian
Public Relations Society.
In addition to redeveloping the
curriculum, I also had the advantage that the public relations program had
just 30 seats, and so in addition to gaining admission to the college through
its entrance criteria, which included a basic English skills assessment,
prospective students also had to apply to the program itself. They were
required to provide three writing samples and write a current events test.
They also had to attend a personal interview with me. The college’s English
skills tests produced results on a six-point scale where a three or four
indicated “college-level” skill, and a five or six “university-level” skill.
In the first years, it was difficult to find 30 applicants whose results fell
into these two categories, and so anyone whose skills were not at the college
level at a minimum slipped away quickly. Again, in those early years anyone
scoring a five or six automatically got an interview, and unless they did or
said something truly egregious, they were admitted to the program – even if they
told me their interest in working in public relations was that “they liked
people”. As the years passed and the number of applicants scoring in the five
or six range grew, I tended not to admit those who had no more insight into
public relations than that.
The diploma program had included a
practicum offering students an opportunity to work with a practitioner for
one day a week over 10 weeks. Depending on the type of organization
sponsoring the placement, and on the capacity of the practitioner to find something
meaningful for a student to do for a day, some of the practicum placements
were valuable, some even leading to paid employment for graduates. Other
placements were less so, and the value of the practicum was questioned both
within the college and in the community. In the mid-1980s, the college
entertained the prospect of introducing the relatively new concept of
co-operative education to some of its industry-based diploma programs, and I
jumped at this opportunity to replace the practicum placements with a much
more meaningful workplace experience.
Students integrated two four-month work
terms into their academic program, and significantly, they were paid for
their work. The idea that students would be paid received some push-back from
industry. A number of the employers who had faithfully taken practicum
students no longer supported the program. Others, though sceptical at first,
quickly revised their opinion when they realized the genuine value the
students brought to the workplace, and that the reality was that the students
were truly professional and deserved to be paid as such. That having been
said, some students were paid poorly, and others very well. Sometimes, it was
simply that the placement was an unbudgeted expense, but tantalizing work lay
ahead for a student who could afford to take it. Other times, employers in
the voluntary sector had only small grants available to them to pay staff,
but again, the project work was good. And yes, there were cases where student
work was simply undervalued.
The impact of the introduction of co-op
education on the program was profound, however. Almost simultaneously, as
employers realized the true capability of the students from Mount Royal, the
program’s reputation grew exponentially. Applications to the program rose
dramatically: in 1988, a record 297 applications were received for the 30
seats in the first-year program. Many of the applications came from
newly-graduated (or about-to-be-graduated) university students who were
unable to compete with the college’s graduates because the university
curriculum included no practical skill-based courses specifically in public
relations. They brought better writing skills to the program at entry, and
often significant work experience as well, so that the college’s students
were far more accomplished and experienced in the world of work than had
previously been the case. They also made it possible to introduce more
challenge into the curriculum, and so these graduates became hot properties
on the employment market. Several were actually hired by their co-op
education employers and given leave to return to the college to complete
their diplomas.
Over the next five or six years, the
program’s reputation was firmly established on the strength of the graduates
whose performance continued to impress employers, and whose employability
record also kept the application rate at, or near the top of the list of
programs most in demand at the college. This performance record is also what
positioned the public relations program for readiness when the province of
Alberta indicated cautious willingness to consider degree-granting status for
colleges. The context was that the province was under extreme pressure to
expand the capacity at Alberta’s post-secondary institutions, and Mount Royal
College was at the forefront of the lobbying effort, having provided
university transfer courses for many years. If the college could offer
university-quality instruction at far less cost than the universities, why
could it not offer degrees?
If you consider what I have said earlier
about the historical developments in the practice of public relations – the
gravitation away from our journalistic roots, the aspirations towards
professionalization, the emergence of a distinctive body of knowledge – you
may perhaps appreciate why I remain convinced that for the public relations
program to truly respond to the needs of the industry and its practitioners,
it needed to stand alone as a Bachelor of Public Relations degree, and as
such, serve as a Western counterpart to the Mount Saint Vincent program
in Halifax. It also deserved to stand alone, having become one of the
strongest and most successful programs the college then had to offer.
However, the same forces that I identified earlier as being critically
influential in the establishment of our public relations education programs
were also brought to bear on the decision relating to degree-granting status.
As other colleges in the province scrambled to pull together proposals so
that they could mount pilot projects, the clear signal from government was
that the number of pilots would be very few, and that no single institution
would get more than two or three. This announcement intensified the political
jockeying that had taken over life at the college. The initial nine
contenders were winnowed down to three or four, one of which was a proposal
for a Bachelor of Applied Communications under which there would be three
streams: technical writing (from the Faculty of Arts), journalism, and public
relations. This proposal was ultimately accepted by the province as one of
the pilots approved for Mount Royal College, and implemented by the
college.
I did not participate in this work. My
view was that by locating public relations with journalism and writing programs,
the optics alone took our field back 50 years. I had spent too many years
trying to carry the program forward, and had staked my own reputation on
doing so. I chose this moment to leave the college.
In some ways, the Calgary market remains
unique if not remarkable for the fact that we have three post-secondary
institutions all offering programs intended to serve employers wanting to
hire communicators. Do they serve those needs well? Do they serve our
industry well? Those questions, gentle reader, I leave to you to answer. But
I would conclude with this observation: in recent years, both
CPRS Calgary and IABC Calgary have seen stable if not steadily
increasing levels of membership. The number of accredited practitioners in
Calgary is higher than in many other markets, especially on a percentage
basis. Our practitioners are increasingly taking top honours in professional
awards programs. I’m convinced that the presence of educational opportunities
here is partly behind these trends. I’m convinced education truly is the
cornerstone of a profession and that public relations has every potential for
reaching that goal. But it will take the collective will and the vision of
practitioners to make it so.
Elaine Dixson, APR, ABC, is President of Key Concepts Ltd. She taught the public
relations program at Mount Royal College from 1984 to 1995, during which
time the program evolved from a two-year diploma program to degree-readiness,
and one of the college’s first co-operative education programs. Prior to
joining Mount Royal College, she worked in several public and private
organizations, and now consults to a range of organizations in public,
private, and non-profit sectors. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism,
a Master’s degree in Communications Studies, and a Master’s degree in
Continuing Education. She is accredited by the Canadian Public Relations
Society (and holds membership in the Public Relations Society of
America) and by the International Association of Business Communicators. She
was honoured with IABC’s Master Communicator Award in 2004. She served as
Chief Examiner (English) with the CPRS Accreditation Council from 1995
to 2000.
Back in the 1950s, when CPRS Calgary
was just getting started, “PR men” from industry and government would meet
for lunch to share their public relations experiences over 35-cent drinks at
the Palliser Hotel. But what about consultants? In fact, some of the
society’s earliest documents, on yellowing paper at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum Archives,
reveal that there was one public relations consultant working from a
home-based office, and he was an active participant in the society almost
from the beginning.
THEN: Consulting in Calgary in the
1960s
In the inaugural bylaws, dated 1958,
independent consultants were a recognized category for membership in CPRS.
The bylaws identified “persons who spend a major part of their time as public
relations counsellors in independent practice,” as well as salaried staff of
an established organization and instructors in a course on public relations.
Although the first few years of elected
CPRS Calgary executives hailed mainly from corporations and government –
organizations such Hudson’s Bay Oil and Gas, Imperial Oil, Calgary Power,
Mannix, Calgary Power and the City of Calgary – it wasn’t long before a
home-based PR consultant was represented in the society membership and on the
CPRS Board of Directors.
The 1959/60 membership roster lists one
lone consultant among the 26 Alberta members: John D. Francis. John was
soon elected to the CPRS Calgary Board of Directors, sending out the
1961 notice for the society’s annual meeting and elections.
After working in the corporate sector for
a number of years, John Francis, APR, FCPRS (H), began consulting in 1958 and
for the first couple of years was working from home. He and his wife Lois and
daughter Susan lived in Spruce Cliff apartments. “For a while I rode the bus
downtown to visit clients, bringing my notes home and typing them,
including carbon copies, on a portable,” says John. “Riding the bus
wasn't a total waste – I got chatting with a Herald reporter, Merv
Anderson, who took an interest in what I was doing. A few years later Merv
became City Editor. It was helpful to have a personal contact of this
nature.”
As is still the case today, networking was critical to
building a solid client base in the early years. “One of my ways of
networking was I joined the Junior Chamber of Commerce,” explains John. “The
Jaycees were very active at the time – every member was expected to work on a
committee. I met lots of young guys who were trying to get ahead. Some became
clients, and many became life-long friends.”
One of the committees John chaired was to persuade
Calgarians to vote in favour of fluoridation on a citywide plebiscite. “It
was a close vote, and City Council didn't give the go-ahead right away, but
after a few years we got fluoridation,” says John. “This was good experience
for a young consultant – writing a pamphlet, giving news releases to the
media, and responding to opponents of fluoridation.”
NOW: Consulting in Calgary in the new millennium
As a 10-year public relations “veteran,”
I hadn’t considered consulting in my career path. Although, I guess I
shouldn’t have been surprised, since PR hadn’t been on my radar either. I
moved to Calgary from Winnipeg with a bachelor degree in interior design from
the University of Manitoba. After an unsatisfying stint at a small
architectural firm, a door opened to a communications position in a growing
company.
After working in corporate communications
for nearly 10 years, I was down-sized from an oilfield equipment manufacturer
in the industry downturn after 9/11. It seemed like the perfect opportunity
to change direction – I sent out a letter to my network re-introducing myself
as a consultant.
Advances in technology from the days of
the typewriter made it quick, easy and inexpensive to set up a home office.
Working from home was a refreshing change from a corporate culture that
expected everyone to be in the office by 7 a.m. Home-based consulting allowed
me to schedule my work when I was most creative and, for me, that often meant
evenings. It also meant I could be home to take care of my 15-year-old dog –
I’m pretty sure Luci lived many years longer with me at home than she would
have spending long and lonely days on her own.
THEN: Staying connected in the 1970s
and 80s
One of the challenges of home-based
consulting is staying connected – benefiting from the synergy that comes from
interacting and brainstorming with co-workers. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary
defines networking as “the exchange of information or services among
individuals, groups or institutions.” But for consultants, networking is so much
more – it is one of the critical cornerstones of a successful career.
As a consultant for most of his career,
long-time CPRS Calgary member Don Boynton, APR, remembers one way
consultants stayed connected. “I think that it is notable that during the
1970s and 1980s there was a national CPRS Consultants’ Institute. Members
were affiliated with the PRSA Counselors Academy and we had a
semi-active Calgary Consultants Section that, like Calgary’s current
Indy500 group, distinguished professional consultants from
less-than-professional people offering public relations services. In the
1980s, we cooperated in a CPRS consultants display ad in the Yellow Pages,”
recalls Don. “The ad was credited with generating new business for several of
us, too!”
The Consultants’ Section was just gaining
steam when a session entitled “Professionalism and Business: Working Together
through CPRS” was presented at the 1977 CPRS National Conference in
Halifax, Nova Scotia. The speaker was Peter G. Osgood, a member of the Public
Relations Society of America Counselors Academy.
Peter spoke about how he had benefitted
from his membership in the Counselors Academy. “I get new ideas. We tend to
share information about new services and methods more than one might
suspect.” He went on to explain that “another competitor has shown us how
they are profitably using a computer – for more than just financial
information and management reports. This, too, opens new avenues of
thinking.”
NOW: Staying connected in the 2000s
Keeping in touch has never been easier
than in this era of instant communications via the Internet, with email,
text-messaging and social media like YouTube and Facebook. However,
networking face-to-face with like-minded team members and others is
invaluable to testing ideas and problem solving. What’s a home-based
consultant to do?
Starting as an independent consultant in
2002, I found the element I most missed about corporate work was the direct
contact with my co-workers. Although I did have regular interaction with my
clients, I missed the synergy that comes from spontaneous brainstorming among
team members.
In late 2003, I put forward to the
CPRS Board the idea of a networking group of home-based consultants. The
goal of the Indy500 initiative was to help CPRS Calgary’s independents
accelerate their businesses through marketing opportunities, online
consultant directory and resources, business management support, networking
and problem-solving support.
The initial gathering of the Indy
500 in early 2005, appropriately located at a local independent coffee
house, attracted seven CPRS consultants. We all agreed that there was
value in meeting to build relationships with fellow consultants, learn each
other’s strengths, and discover what kind of work individuals prefer and would
like more of for referral purposes.
An email from long-time consultant and
Indy500 participant Judi Gunter, APR, validated our approach: “I think
for me the Indy500 is going to be a very neat solution to the need to get a
higher value from CPRS than I am getting now, stay connected with
like-minded independent practitioners, have access to occasional
opportunities, and experience a group as catalyst to get out there and hustle
in order to ensure there is always a little something billable on the go for
me at all times.”
The group continues to meet several times
a year to share ideas or learn from guest speakers. Recent events have
included a discussion with an intellectual property lawyer and an IT
specialist discussing technology options for home-based businesses. Rarely a
week goes by when the spirit of cooperation isn’t thriving among the group –
consulting opportunities are regularly emailed among members of the Indy500.
THEN: Evolution of public relations
consulting
Those who have never known a workplace
without computers will have difficulty imagining how one worked from home
without all the technological conveniences we take for granted today. Maureen
Payne, likely one of the first women in Calgary to start a home-based
consulting business, has been working primarily from home since 1981.
She recalls early on a “$1,000 writing
contract for the Queen’s visit while juggling two small kids, an elderly
father, and planting her petunias.” In the early 1980s, the tools of the
trade included a typewriter, the “most antiquated phone” and driving to
deliver scripts to her client for review. And while the personal situation of
children, parents and other commitments is the reason many consultants choose
to work from home, technology has certainly made the job much more efficient.
In addition to technology, another
element of consulting that has changed is the scope of work offered by
consultants. Judi Gunter, who has been consulting from a home office since
1995, has seen the big and small cycles. “For a while,” she says, “it was all
about big, integrated advertising/PR/marketing 'jack of all trades' agencies
because clients wanted that 'one-stop shop'. Then it gave way to the
independents and small boutique firms that focused on PR, which then hooked
up with advertising, marketing or research agencies or other specialists as
needed.”
In Judi’s experience, “Clients wanted the
personal service. They wanted to know that the person to whom they gave the
business was the person doing the work.”
While a great deal has changed, much has
remained the same. The reasons clients choose to work with independent
consultants are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago.
CPRS Calgary records include a copy of an undated booklet produced by
the CPRS Toronto Consultants’ Section, entitled “Public Relations Consulting
– What’s It All About?” One of the sections – Why use consultants? – answered
the question this way: “There is no long-range commitment by the client
company, no new employee overhead and benefits responsibilities, and the services
of highly skilled public relations people become immediately available to
deal with the organizations’ communication problem.”
In Alberta’s current red-hot economy, the
independent consultant has never been in greater demand. From filling term
positions or taking on one-time projects, to serving as the communications
strategist and tactician for small organizations or supplementing the
communications teams of large corporations, home-based consultants today are
enjoying challenging work in a robust economy.
In 1959/60, CPRS Calgary reported
having one consultant out of 26 members. In a December 1992, CPRS
Calgary membership survey, 8 per cent of respondents were listed as
consultants. Now, in 2008, CPRS Calgary has more than 20 per cent of members
categorized as consultants. (These last two statistics don’t differentiate
between independents and agency consultants. However, clearly much of the
growth has been in home-based consultants.)
The steady growth in numbers demonstrates
that consulting – agency and home-based – is on the rise as a legitimate
career aspiration for those public relations professionals with the
experience and education – not to mention a dynamic network of contacts – to
offer strategic PR counsel to their clients.
It will be fascinating to see how public
relations in general, and consulting in particular, continue to evolve. But
it’s a good bet that home-based PR consultants will continue to expand their
influence, and continue their 50-year tradition of active participation in
CPRS Calgary.
Monique Chenier spent 10 years in corporate communications, and has been a
sole proprietor in public relations consulting for the past six years. A
member of CPRS since 1998, Monique has held several CPRS
Calgary Board positions, most recently serving as Chair of the
successful 2005 CPRS National Conference. She also sits as Presiding Officer
of a newly-formed national committee providing guidance and leadership for
the annual CPRS conference. As the next logical step in her thriving
consulting career, Monique recently fused with two other consultants to open
their own agency.
How
CPRS Calgary members got their start
In the late 1950s, when CPRS Calgary
first found its roots in Calgary, there were no communications degree
programs in Canada. Many of the practitioners at that time, and still many
today, came to public relations through other avenues, usually from radio or
newspapers. Still, some came through rather obscure and unlikely channels.
Peter
McKenzie-Brown (CPRS Calgary member from 1977 to 1982) earned a
degree in philosophy from MacMurray College in the United States. After
migrating to Canada as an anti-war protestor and having a close encounter
with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, he began teaching Transcendental Meditation in
Toronto. He enjoyed the teaching but not the associated paycheque, and after
almost six years began looking for a change.
Peter moved to Calgary, staying in the
house of a friend named Vernon Barnes. Before he even began looking for a
job, the phone rang. It was a recruiter from Gulf Canada calling to talk
to Vernon. After a brief chat, Peter happily agreed to apply for a job in
public relations, working for Brock Hammond. That was the beginning of a
life-long career.
While Peter’s story is unconventional,
the majority of the early members of CPRS Calgary did come from the
traditional journalism background. Jim Rennie worked as a reporter for
The Edmonton Journal and The Edmonton Bulletin (no longer in
existence) prior to the Second World War. After a tour of duty as a navigator
in a Lancaster bomber, Jim stayed on to work as a war correspondent for
Southam in Europe. After the war, he returned to Edmonton ready to pick
up his newspaper career just as Imperial Oil struck black gold in Leduc.
They began to hire newspaper people to act as public relations
representatives and Jim began his new career in PR. He worked in Edmonton,
Toronto and Vancouver, and then was transferred to Calgary in 1954 where he
stayed until his retirement in 1973.
Jim was one of the founding members of
CPRS Calgary and his son, also Jim Rennie, continued his legacy years
later.
John Francis, founder of Francis, William
& Johnson Ltd. (FWJ) and an early member of CPRS Calgary, got his
start in public relations from his days as an ad salesman and eventual
director of the University of Alberta yearbook – the Evergreen and Gold.
John took his degree in Commerce at the U of A and advertising sales
commissions helped defray his costs. In 1950, university fees were $165 per
term and housing was $60 a month.
After returning to Calgary from an
eight-month European hitchhiking adventure, John was surprised to see his
experience publishing the yearbook had just as much impact on his future
potential employers as his degree. He was soon hired as the assistant to the
Director of Public Relations with Calgary Power (now TransAlta), with
his main assignment being editor of the company’s house organ, the Relay.
John had been thinking about earning a
law degree, however he liked the work he was doing and the positive
characteristics of public relations. He also realized he could get his
master’s within one or two years, and with a family it was important to get
busy earning a living as soon as possible.
At that time there were two universities
offering master’s programs in public relations – one was Boston
University and the other was New York University. With the help of
family and friends, John packed up his wife and new daughter Susan and moved
to Boston in September 1956. There were just 25 students in the B.U. program.
They came from across the U.S. and had diverse backgrounds, which enriched
the educational experience.
After one year of study, John was able to
move back to Calgary to complete his thesis – Public Relations Problems of
American Petroleum Companies in Canada. He researched his thesis by
interviewing oil company executives and newspaper editors – great contacts
for his future work.
In the end, thesis and degree – a Master
of Science degree in public relations – in hand, nobody offered John a job.
The year 1957 was a real downer for the petroleum industry and public
relations was looked on as a marginally beneficial service. “In fact I’m 76
and still waiting to be offered a job,” says John. So he started out on his
own as an independent PR practitioner. Thus began a firm that became one of
Alberta’s largest and most respected advertising and public relations
agencies – FWJ.
John has been a member of
CPRS Calgary since 1959. He attained his APR in the first year it was
offered. He won many CPRS awards including the CPRS Lamp of Service, CPRS
Award of Attainment, Honorary Fellow and Life Membership, and has won
numerous awards in CPRS creative competitions. He served as Calgary
President, and National President of the society.
Cynthia Balfour (CPRS Calgary member
from 1972 to 1984) began her career in public relations by a long series of
fortuitous events. Even as a child in New Zealand she wanted to be a writer
and complete the great New Zealand novel, but life and happenstance would
intervene and put Cynthia’s plans on hold for 26 years.
Going to university for journalism during
the war years was not an option so her dreams took a back seat as she settled
for nursing training. However, Cupid stepped in and before Cynthia finished
her training she was married to a young air force officer and soon found
herself a “farmer’s wife”.
In the early 1960s, Cynthia was living in
England and started a job with an advertising agency in London doing market
research – a new tool in advertising at the time. In 1964, and back in New
Zealand, her first job was managing a stand for one of New Zealand’s largest
building companies, followed by a position in a large advertising agency.
Next was a writing job for a ski magazine then an editorial assistant for a
weekly financial publication. Unfortunately this last position only lasted
six months before the publication folded.
By now though, Cynthia was getting
interested in more aspects of the publishing business and turned her
attention to printing. She got a job in a very small publishing business and
spent the first couple of days in the print shop learning all she could.
However, her position was as a sales rep and Cynthia only lasted two weeks –
but she had learned a great deal about the business and soon she was hired by
a small publishing house. Now she was beginning to achieve some real success,
just in time for a move to Calgary in 1967.
She got a job with a small advertising
agency mainly writing copy for radio and going to client meetings. But the
highlight was being involved in the Husky Tower (now the Calgary Tower),
which was under construction. Cynthia would coordinate photographers for
publicity shots which entailed riding in the construction elevator on the
outside of the tower and then literally walking the plank to reach the
platform.
After about 18 months, Cynthia had become
acclimatized to the Calgary media scene and was ready to move on. She applied
for a job with FWJ but had been warned that John Francis would
never hire someone without some kind of tertiary degree. She proved them
wrong and is happy to say, in her experience, learning on the job had just as
many advantages as a degree.
Henry Stevens, Vice-President at NATIONAL
Public Relations in Calgary, really wanted to be an on-air radio host.
He worked at his school radio station and after graduation he attended the
B.C. Institute of Technology for its broadcast communications program.
After completing the degree in the early
1980s Henry fulfilled his dream, becoming the evening/overnight DJ at a radio
station in Castlegar, B.C. He soon realized the newsroom was a better “gig” –
better hours to start with. He made a switch to the news side and loved it.
He soon worked in newsrooms in Kelowna and Victoria.
In 1987, after returning from extensive
overseas traveling, Henry moved his family to Calgary. He worked in radio for
a while but was looking at other ways his journalism experience could work
for him. Why not PR?
Henry applied for, and was accepted into,
the public relations diploma program at Mount Royal College and
hasn’t looked back since.
In the 1970s, a handbook was typed up as
a primer for those interested in the public relations field. One chapter,
titled Breaking in Public Relations, states, “While there is
probably no clear-cut formula for getting a job in most lines of work, this
seems especially true for public relations. To date, the pattern generally
persists whereby entry is made after some experience has been obtained in
another occupation, usually some segment of journalism.”
Many years later and with a variety of
public relations degree and master’s programs to educate those interested in
a career in PR, we still find many are coming via alternate routes.
When Monique Chenier (CPRS Calgary
member since 1998) earned a bachelor’s degree in interior design in 1989 she
never thought it would lead to public relations. Her first job with an
architectural firm was a junior role including some administrative work like
typing proposals. When the Office Manager resigned, Monique was given her
role – as the only other woman in the office – which meant no hands-on design
work, so she left.
While looking for other work, Monique
took various temporary jobs, mostly administrative work, but her last
position was with a small company launching a new division. She worked with
their business development group to set up the launch event. They were so
impressed with her strong writing and organizational skills they offered her a
full-time job. To add to her skills she completed the Marketing Management
certificate at the University of Calgary and advanced through six
positions in seven years culminating in her role as Communications Services
Manager.
Monique says many people have commented
how she “wasted” her degree but she believes many of the basic skills she
learned in interior design are transferable to public relations. An interior
designer researches the users and uses for the space – how they work and live
within that space. She analyzes data to determine the most effective,
efficient and aesthetically pleasing way to meet their needs. She designs the
space and works with various contractors to ensure it is built to her
detailed specifications. And, she evaluates the results so that all the user
requirements have been met – all within strict timelines and budgets. It’s
really not that much different than what we do with the RACE formula, is it?
A special report celebrating the 60th
Anniversary of the Master of Science degree in public relations at Boston
University shows they are experiencing an increasing diversity in the
educational backgrounds of students applying to the program. “Graduate
students who have studied English or journalism are still most common, but
sociology, psychology and even engineering students are joining.”[20]
Brent Shervey, Managing Director of
Boyden, an executive search firm in Calgary, says there are way more people
who consider themselves communications professionals now than there used to
be. There are people with certificates, degrees (basic and master’s) and
accreditations who all claim to be communications professionals, and the
market can get confused.
With public relations gaining more
credibility and understanding over the past 50 years, employers are able to
focus exactly what their needs are to find the candidate(s) who meet their
specific requirements. Each company (client) is different but proven
experience is still an important asset – ideally experience in a similar
company in the same or related field (especially for intermediate and senior
level positions). Also, Brent says proven leadership experience supervising,
coaching and mentoring staff and an understanding of the business are
extremely important. He believes a good communications person should know
more about the client’s business than they do. Of course, bringing a
diversity of talent, experience and education to the table can help you
outshine your competition.
There are such a plethora of programs in
Calgary now, at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal College and
the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology – not to mention the online
programs through universities and colleges across North America and the U.K.
Many of the graduates in Calgary want to stay in the city and all come into
the market around the same time. Brent says it’s no wonder it’s tough for
many of them to find that first professional job.
Jamie Popadiuk (CPRS Calgary student
member since 2008) completed the SAIT journalism program and decided to
pursue her communications degree through Royal Roads’ online learning. She
felt earning a degree was important but she also hopes a combination of the
complementary programs and her degree will help her find a position she’s
attracted to and earn a higher salary in her career. One interesting
observation of young people joining the workforce is they are finding the
reality of public relations positions are not what they learned in school.
While the requirements for entrance at the basic level are pretty well
defined, public relations means different things to different organizations (i.e.:
media relations, marketing communications, events, and even social media
experts). And with the amount of specialization now compared to the past –
government relations, investor relations, fundraisers and more – it is not
possible, nor desirable, to offer a broad-based definition of public
relations which can be “dumbed down” for anyone.
Practitioners have worked hard to
establish ethical guidelines, develop standards of practice and earn the
reputation that public relations enjoys today. When a group of Calgary
practitioners got together to begin a Calgary chapter of CPRS in the
1950s, the practice of public relations was not well known and was largely
misunderstood. Many people then, and even in more recent years, “stumbled”
into the business, but public relations has experienced tremendous growth and
organizations have seen the value effective communications can have on their
business. Public relations no longer has to justify itself to management as
it did in its early years and in many corporations today the senior PR
officer is on the management or operating committee. Young professionals are
now making the conscious decision to practice public relations and are
working to earn the communications degrees they will need to hopefully land
that first job. However, you will still be able to find those who came to the
profession through alternative, and often seemingly unrelated, fields who
have and will achieve great success in their careers.
Jodi Currie received a diploma in Broadcasting from Mount Royal
College in 1999. After a number of years as a radio copywriter and
shooter and editor in television she began work with a local, small marketing
communications agency. She earned a certificate in basic public relations
through the Mount Royal College continuing education program. Jodi has been a
member of CPRS Calgary since 2005. She has been a part of the CPRS Calgary
website committee since 2005 and has served on the CPRS Calgary Board since
2007. She is the Manager, Communications for The Kidney Foundation of
Canada Southern Alberta Branch.
Focused on professional
development and value for money spent
When Don Boynton, then President of CPRS
Calgary, approached me to chair the organizing of the 1986 National
Conference, I deferred giving an answer. I wanted to talk to my good friend
and colleague, Jim Rennie, about sitting on the Organizing Committee, and I
wanted clearance from my employer. When I approached Jim, he, too, had a
condition; he wanted responsibility for the conference program and assurance
that he’d have control to do it without interference. That was fine with me.
My employer had some reluctance about my participation, but also agreed.
Twenty-three years later, when Jim asked
me to contribute my reminiscences on the National Conference of 1986, my
immediate response was: “Well, of course.” A more visceral reaction crept up
over the next few days along the lines of “What have I gotten myself into?”
I left the world of full-time public
relations three years after that National Conference to pursue my interest
and ultimately my “next” career in the wine business. Things like the
National Conference have not been exactly top-of-mind and have been overlain
by many subsequent events. My several moves of location and the associated
purges of possessions have left me zero files or memorabilia from a long-gone
era.
But time and events did not bury
everything.
The first and most vivid memory was of
another friend and colleague, Don Boynton, arriving like a proud father with
a grin that only he could muster to deliver the final conference program. His
pride was well placed – the program was lovely. That, and his demeanour,
softened the resolve of those who would have done him grievous bodily harm.
Don was arriving with the programs in a taxi as delegates were entering the
conference hotel and registering; there had been some anxiety about their
delivery.
Other memories began to emerge, some on
their own, and others were triggered by materials that Jim had kept or
discovered in his research: notes for a presentation that I prepared about
the conference, a final wrap-up report prepared by the Organizing Committee,
a list of volunteers, a typed copy of the final program. I’ve drawn heavily
on these materials for this report.
While I was the Conference Chair, I was
not the driving force. The collective effort of the Organizing Committee and
the individual leadership of its members caused it to happen and to be a
success.
The initial work to secure the National
Conference for Calgary, to establish the dates of June 25 to 27, and to book
conference facilities at the Westin Hotel, was done by others well in
advance.
Planning for the conference began in
earnest 16 months before the event with the first meeting of the Organizing
Committee. The discussion was largely conceptual – we deliberately stayed
away from details – as we sought to define what we wanted the conference to
accomplish. This led to a mission statement and six major goals for the
conference. These contributed to a common perspective for the committee and
volunteers.
Two concepts stood out: a commitment to
excellent professional development and a commitment to providing delegates
with value for their money.
And money stood out in another way – we
could not afford to lose any. The Calgary chapter did not have the resources
to cover a deficit and the National Society was depending on a surplus from
the conference to help fund its programming.
The planning quickly moved from the
conceptual stage to define the most important conference jobs and to organize
them into four major task areas. This was reflected in the Organizing
Committee – it had four Vice-Chairmen, one responsible for each major task
area, along with the Chair and two members at large. The structure evolved
and expanded by three as new needs were recognized.
One of the successes of the conference
was the committees and work teams that developed with 75 people
participating, many of them CPRS non-members. They were a cross-section of
the public relations community – from corporations, government, academia,
consultancies, and the not-for-profit sector. And they ranged from new
arrivals to senior executives. These many people and the jobs they did built
a solid conference.
And the heart of it was its program. Jim
and his Program Committee built the main attraction that would bring in the
delegates and deliver a rewarding experience. Its core was professional
development supported by exciting, lively social events and an interesting
partners program.
In the conference wrap-up report, Jim
noted the programs were initially developed as a group, with input from all
members; then individuals headed up sub-committees to attend to details for
specific areas.
“The basic approach was to develop a
top-quality professional development program, with some things of interest to
all ranges of public relations practitioners, but with a greater-than-usual
emphasis on items for the more-senior person (e.g. issues, management,
academic/research). Within the over-all Challenge and Change theme,
the committee also built on sub-themes of international public relations and
“new technology” in public relations.
“We wanted to attract a variety of
speakers, from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines (academic,
consulting, government, corporate), and from a variety of regions . . . We
wanted to force delegates to have to choose from an over-abundance of quality
speakers, not have too few. We also wanted a variety of formats to maintain
interest – panels and discussions involving the audience, seminars and
workshops that could involve hands-on demonstrations and case studies that
reviewed the basics of public relations in action.”
The basic program outline was developed a
year before the conference; it was reviewed with National, regional societies
and special sections, and their suggestions were incorporated into the
planning. The program was confirmed by March 1986 with 34 of the first 35
people contacted accepting the invitation to speak. Only two speakers bowed
out, and they were replaced within 48 hours. The conference agreed to cover
speaker costs, as necessary, but none received any fee or honorarium.
In fact, many of the speakers – such as
well-known U.S. communications academics James Grunig and Norman
Nager –were so interested in visiting Calgary (and Banff) that fees and
honorariums were never an issue.
The committee was also thorough in all
the details – including keeping contact with speakers, setting expectations
for sessions, finding moderators, and ensuring the setup for each session.
Speaker breakfasts each morning got moderators and panel members together;
one moderator failed to show, as discovered at breakfast, and a replacement
was quickly found.
The Program Chairman used a Calgary CPRS
Town Crier Awards bell to get people moving into sessions. It was hard
not to move when the bell clanged. And people wanted in to the sessions—there
was a good range of topics from management to issues to techniques. The
speakers had good content and their presentations were mostly excellent.
All events occurred on time, all speakers
showed up on time, and all audio-visual equipment was set up as per speakers’
requests. The professional development program received an overwhelmingly
favourable response in the exit survey of delegates. Attendance was
considered good at 250 delegates (although we had hoped for more) and the
numbers coming to individual sessions were generally consistent.
Also receiving good marks were the
partners program and evening social sessions, which followed a Western theme.
This theme was not embraced by all and generated lots of discussion. The
Program Committee reasoned that Western is what Calgary does well, is
emblematic of the city and is what visitors expect. The theme was confirmed –
and it worked. The first evening social event was dinner at Heritage
Park with entertainment, a ride on the paddlewheeler Moyie, and other
attractions at the park; the following night was the President’s Ball at the
hotel with western formal dress, a casino, auction and dance. All generated
good response and a high level of delegate participation.
Another key component of the conference
experience was the work of Yvonne Adam, Vice-Chair of Operations. Yvonne, an
independent consultant, and her committee were dedicated to doing a good job.
She noted in the wrap-up report: “Delegates ultimately judge the conference
by what they experience. Capture them by being on top of details . . . look
for and solve the little problems that can detract from delegate
satisfaction.”
Her team was responsible for facilities
and hotel liaison, including registration, catering, signage, interpretation,
audio-visual equipment/systems and transportation. She kept her committee
small, with each person taking a specific task area, and they kept current
with short, frequent meetings. The hotel contact was limited to two persons
and they stayed on top of facility changes as conference preparations
proceeded.
The registration function was highly
organized and it was open from 7 a.m. until the last daily event was under
way. The only glitch was a name-tag system, supplied at no cost by an
exhibitor; it did not work as well as expected, causing backlogs and
frustration.
Great success was achieved in the
catering area through good management and close liaison with the hotel. The
hotel need confirmed numbers for each meal and Yvonne’s job was to deal with
the uncertainty of how many delegates would want to be fed at any particular
meal. We didn’t want to waste, with one eye on our budget, and we didn’t want
to disappoint. The hotel was accommodating, ready with an extra table and
chairs as the room was about to overflow, and on one occasion a handful of
co-operating delegates modestly enjoyed the hotel dining room at conference
expense.
Audio taping of conference sessions and
simultaneous French-English interpretation provided a few challenges.
Ultimately, many of the audio tapes were not of sufficient quality to be
useful as a replay of a session. And interpretation services were used
consistently by only two or three delegates, and for some sessions were not
used at all.
Overall, it was a smooth operation and
Yvonne reported in the end that “the entire committee worked well together as
a single unit – we liked and respected each other even after it was all over
– and we had fun! What more could we ask for?”
The delegates had fun, too. And getting
them to Calgary and to the conference fell in large part to Don
Boynton who came forward a few months into the planning process when the
original Vice-Chair of Communications was unable to continue.
Don and his committee were responsible
for developing and executing a plan to market to all potential delegates,
including production of materials, mailings, advertising, airline
negotiations and media relations.
They were quick to come up with the theme
for the conference – Challenge and Change – and a logo-like
visual identity that could be used in print materials and any other
promotional materials. Using the conference program as their main selling
point, they set out to reach public relations professionals and related
disciplines.
They started with an inexpensive
flatsheet that was distributed at two Canadian IABC conferences in
September 1985 and the PRSA conference two months later. This was
followed by a detailed draft program in January, six months before the
conference, that was sent to professional media and national news media. An
updated draft program, and registration form, was published the next month in
the CPRS national newsletter.
The committee also researched and
developed a list of 500 non-members drawing from special interest groups and
related professions. This list, along with CPRS (and IABC) members,
received a fully designed preliminary program and registration form. It had
been professionally produced by a sponsor (Nova, an Alberta Corporation) and
mailed at little cost to the conference by Travel Alberta, a department of
the provincial government.
Canada NewsWire produced a video
news release (at no cost) about the upcoming conference, which was
distributed to all CPRS chapters for screening at luncheon meetings.
A sub-committee with volunteers in key
market chapters of Edmonton, Vancouver, and Toronto conducted a telephone
solicitation of members. A follow-up mailing was made to all CPRS members (at
no cost, by the Calgary Stampede) and a reminder flyer went in the last
national newsletter before the conference.
The fourth of the original task areas was
sponsorship and its importance reflected our concern about having a
financially-successful conference, particularly one that did not incur a
deficit.
Don Smith, Manager of Public Affairs at
Amoco Canada Petroleum, put together a blue-ribbon committee that
included several senior members – who would be recognized in many boardrooms
around the city.
His task would not be easy. Alberta did
not then have the robust economy that it enjoys now – the decrease in oil
prices following the run-up of the 1970s and the arrival of the National
Energy Program had put the province’s main industry into the doldrums,
and donation budgets were hard-pressed.
So the Sponsorship Committee started
early, a year before the conference, and used a direct mail approach to
solicit contributions. They developed a recognition program to ensure all
donors received appropriate recognition whether they provided gifts of money,
items or services. Sponsorship worked closely with those parts of conference
planning that used donated services, such as printing, typeset and
photocopying.
And they worked closely with the Scrounge
Committee – the brainchild of Ruth Ann Yardley, a friend and colleague from
the days we shared at Alberta Public Affairs. Her vision was that the
conference could use a myriad of items and services and that these might be
easier to get than financial support. Ruth Ann and her crew went looking for
everything from items for the give-away conference grab bag to word
processing services. Ultimately, the Scrounge Committee combined with the
Sponsorship Committee as the conference drew near.
One of the fund-raising activities was a
benefit auction for the conference. Although it raised only a bit of money,
$2,800, and it took some organizing work, the relatively small audience
participated with enthusiasm and bid aggressively. And it was real, tangible
activity that brought a real sense of achievement to the work that was being
done.
In the end, the sponsorship work was
worthwhile. It raised goods, services and cash totaling $21,709. Overall, the
conference showed total revenue of $93,181, expenses of $68,388 and total
earnings of $24,793.
At the outset, one of our goals was to
produce the “best CPRS conference ever.” What we got was not perfect – our
wrap-up report was half filled with “things that could be improved” and there
was about the same amount of “things we did right” – but it was excellent.
The program was well designed, the speakers were well chosen and well
received, the operations went smoothly, attendance was good, and more money
was returned to the National Society than from any previous conference. We
had included many PR professionals in the organization and we felt good about
what we had accomplished.
Joe Will, APR, B.Sc., grew up on a farm near Milo, Alberta, about 90 km southeast
of Calgary. While completing his degree at the University of Alberta, he
worked for the campus newspaper, The Gateway. This was followed by six years
at Canadian Press, seven years with the Alberta Government Public Affairs
Bureau and eight years as Director of Public Relations at
Trimac Limited. He left public relations in 1989 to pursue a career in
the wine industry. He has a graduate diploma in winemaking from the University
of Adelaide and now is winemaker and co-owner of Strewn Winery in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
Moving away from
being generalists
The number of public relations
practitioners and public relations practices in Calgary has grown
considerably over the past 50 years. Calgary has been at the forefront of a
number of developments as the Alberta resource economy demanded
communication solutions for many issues in business and government. Today,
Calgary boasts the second highest number of head offices of Fortune 500
companies in Canada, many demanding a variety of highly skilled public
relations professionals.
The traditional PR firm has grown from a
generalist practice to one that is now often integrated with the various
marketing and communication areas. Who will ever forget the age-old question
– Is advertising part of public relations? While we are all past the
advertising question (due in large part to the successful PR practice of John
Francis’ firm, which had a strong advertising arm), the PR firm now
integrates a broad range of specialties. Individual PR business boutiques
also evolved in a number of key areas, most notably investor relations,
marketing communication, issues management, government relations and more
recently shops which focus on the “social media”.
Greater knowledge of how to influence
your audiences and better understanding of the attitudes and opinions of each
stakeholder provided new areas of specialization for the public relations
practitioner.
The tactics and tools to deliver the
message also changed. No longer were communicators “channel planners”.
Communicators have become “stewards” of the message, according to Brendan
Hodgson, Vice-President, Digital at Hill & Knowlton. The advent of the
Internet, digital communication and the ongoing development of social media –
Facebook, YouTube and other Internet-based tools – have added another
dimension to PR. The result is a proliferation of new PR agencies (and new
specialties within existing agencies) dedicated to social and digital
communications.
A look at three of the major areas of
specialization which grew out of the early days of public relations include
the formal practice of government relations (GR), investor relations (IR),
and the newest – social media and digital communications.
Government relations is a relatively new
discipline going back about 30 to 35 years in Alberta and across Canada
generally. (Although one would be naïve to think that it is only in
the past 30 to 35 years that governments were lobbied!) Environmentalism and
greater awareness of the damages of industrialization were increasing;
investigative journalism was rampant; and TIME Magazine, The
Economist and other major publications explored the impact of
environmental damage (Bhopal, Love Canal) due to lax government regulations.
Even at home, in Alberta and Calgary, we
had environmental challenges. A former Imperial Oil refinery site in the
southeast of the city was the signature environmental issue of the 1970s, and
this same area continues to haunt Imperial as they continue to reclaim a
residential site which suffered as a result of seepage of contaminated
products. All of these incidents, south and north of the border, prompted
federal and provincial and state governments to increase their scrutiny of
industry, and influenced provincial and federal governments in Canada to act
on their environmental and industrial regulations. During the same period,
the oilsands were well under way, and oil and natural gas plays in the
Western Sedimentary Basin continued to add to production in Alberta. In order
to meet the business objectives of the growing energy industry, support from
the public relations/government relations ranks was required.
The proliferation of environmental
regulations made it essential for industry to have greater awareness and
understanding of the impact of the regulatory environment on their business
operations. The Lougheed government introduced a Department of the
Environment in 1971, and increased the number of environmental regulations,
while the former Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), founded in
Alberta in 1938, had its own conservation regulations in place.
For industry, the time was ripe for
government relations, regulatory and policy development expertise.
Environmental issues were not the only impetus
for the establishment of a more formal approach to government relations. The
1980s saw the emergence of a number of major transactions requiring
provincial or federal regulatory policy change. The privatization of Alberta
Government Telephones is an example of a major government-business
transaction that required the participation of many consultants, including
government relations and financial experts to steer the transaction. As a
result of the AGT transactions, a government relations consultancy – GPC
Canada (now Fleishman-Hillard) – was created in Alberta.
Jim Campbell, Executive Director of the
Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, a former GPC consultant and later
the government relations counsel for BP Canada, has a good vision of the strengths
and weaknesses of government relations in recent years. A 15-year GR veteran,
Campbell sees an increasing demand for government relations expertise.
“Corporations have to tell their story to
government,” says Campbell, “before specific interest groups get there first.
Interest groups and the proliferation of NGOs are media savvy; if industry
can get the facts to government in advance, companies have a better chance of
influencing decisions made on industry’s behalf.”
Campbell also views government relations
and public relations as corporate partners in an organization. The two areas
of practice “belong together in a corporation” and both sides can learn from
one another’s experience.
In the future, the government relations
business may be influenced by its own regulatory requirements. Alberta is
currently investigating a Lobbyist Act, whereby individuals working on behalf
of corporations and industry associations must register (e.g. the Lobby
Register) stating the nature of the business the lobbyist (or government
relations consultant) is working on for the client. “What lobbyists do
affects Albertans,” says Campbell. “It is a legitimate activity … with major
changes in the business environment, there is more acceptance of the
government relations profession.”
Over the years, post-secondary
institutions have responded to the demand for further education in public
policy training. Public policy faculties and schools popped up throughout
Canada and in Alberta. Mount Royal College introduced a public policy
program in the communications faculty in 2000, and many university political
science faculties also have areas of study focusing on government and policy
development. The University of Calgary raised the bar in 2008 when it
launched the creation of a centre of expertise that focuses on public policy,
headed by renowned economist Jack Mintz. The U of C program will become a
national centre of research, analysis and discourse, offering mentorship for
generations of bright young students. Future government relations consultants
now have a place to hone their skills.
As the first decade in the 21st Century
comes to a close, most of the major Alberta corporations and associations
have dedicated internal and external government relations resources in place.
Energy policy continues to create the greatest demand for government
relations support – both internal staff and external consulting expertise –
with the debate over climate change, carbon tax and royalties continuing to
be high-demand areas for government relations counsel.
Many GR professionals today have
government and public relations experience. Professionals such as Peter
Kinnear at CNRL, Cathy Cram at ConocoPhillips and Evan
Bahry with the Independent Power Producers of Alberta are currently
employed on the corporate or association side, having once served in GR
consultancies.
Other public relations professionals work
both sides of the business – PR and GR. Pat O’Reilly, Vice-President,
Communications and Public Affairs for Suncor Energy and a long-time
CPRS member, now spends much of her time dedicated to the complex
government issues around the oilsands industry. D’Arcy Levesque, another PR
veteran at Enbridge, also dedicates a great deal of his time to the business
of government and its impacts on the pipeline company.
Many companies have increased their
in-house GR resources, and move away from relying only on external
consultants. However, many individual practitioners, with national and local
government relations firms with in-depth policy expertise, still are in
demand in Alberta.
According to some observers, including
Jim Campbell, who has worked both sides of the fence, “Solo practitioners
have a great deal of policy expertise and should be relied upon for counsel”.
Names such as Rod Love and Gord Olsen, both long-time Klein government
aides, “understand how policy is made.” Others such as Ken
Boessenkool of Hill & Knowlton Lorraine Royer of
Global Public Affairs, and consultants with the larger PR/ GR firms are
highly knowledgeable and work in close harmony with their PR colleagues.
The more progressive public relations
strategies today incorporate digital and/or social media. The changes which
have occurred with Internet-based tools and tactics have had a profound
effect on public relations practices.
In Calgary, three public relations firms
that embrace social media as part of the integrated service offering include
two national firms and one regional firm – NATIONAL Public Relations, Hill
& Knowlton and Brookline Public Relations.
NATIONAL is taking an aggressive approach
to social marketing, according to Beth Diamond, Managing Director of the
Calgary office. NATIONAL’s Calgary office is the leader for the firm in Canada,
and the Calgary office is seeing more of their colleagues across the country
adopt approaches proposed for Alberta clients.
“We are learning a lot about social
marketing – how to strategically use it for message dissemination, how to
determine what others are saying about a corporate entity in a world of
electronic vastness, and how to determine how influential the social media
environment is on an organization,” says Diamond.
Shauna MacDonald, President and founder
of Brookline Public Relations, a leading integrated PR agency in Calgary,
says that social media bring significant opportunities to the PR industry.
She notes that while some would argue social media have risen too quickly,
companies of all sizes are reconsidering budgets for social media campaigns,
monitoring tools and discussing techniques for client/customer engagement.
And as much as some are worried about the
“loss of control”, MacDonald states that social media activities – when
appropriate – need to be built into strategies and plans from the beginning.
“Social media principles give companies the ability to customize their
communications strategies – giving audiences what they want, when they want
it,“ she says. Moreover, social media activities also provide companies with
the ability to adapt to a specific audience. With social media, engagement is
no longer about a product or brand. It is about the experience and the
ability to relate.
“On today’s digital and wireless
racetrack lined with Blackberrys, iPhones and voice communication devices,
companies need tools to compete with the ever-increasing market chatter.”
MacDonald sees nothing but upside for companies willing to embrace social
media as a key component to their communications and PR strategies.
In a July 2007 Forrester Research report
entitled B2B Marketers Dip a Toe into Emerging Tactics, Principal
Analyst Laura Ramos found that, as of the fourth quarter of 2006, only
37 per cent of B2B marketers surveyed used blogs, social networks or
user-generated content in their efforts. But, says the analyst, “Wikis,
forums and networks have the potential to deepen the conversation between
vendors and buyers.”
There is no right or wrong way to
incorporate the new media, but in today’s communication, digital is
essential. Blogosphere, reputation aggregators, e-communities and social
networks are part of the new media that public relations strategists must
incorporate in their planning. Leveraging conversational online buzz to
increase product anticipation and target a specific demographic is essential
for some PR programs.
Some agencies now specialize in digital
communication, while others believe in a more integrated approach to the
practice of digital communication. Integration of digital with traditional
forms of communication is prominent at Hill & Knowlton, NATIONAL and many
of the other larger multinationals.
Other niche firms are dedicated to
digital, and make it their core business. Frequently, these same firms also
provide traditional communication services including print, media relations,
and other marketing services.
Hill & Knowlton speaks to the
vitality of the social media as a crisis communication resource. “In keeping
an integrated approach, the H&K PR practitioners have a greater influence
on the their client’s business, as they have been introducing digital
communication as part of their client’s day-to-day communication plans, “
says Brendan Hodgson.
“When a crisis hits, or a large campaign
is introduced, it is more convenient to execute the digital portion of a
program because some of the digital and social media tactics and
communication methods are in place.” For example, introducing a “dark site”
on a company’s website in the event of a crisis provides a strong proactive
communication strategy for a company.
Crisis communication is a natural fit for
social media. For the last 10 years, the crisis communication industry has
been slowly embracing digital tools. However, not as effectively as they
could, says the H&K practice leader. “Social media is changing how we
communicate to our audiences during a crisis for two reasons – the
environment in which our messages are being delivered and how people are
using websites. With close to 75 per cent of Canadians under 40 frequenting
websites, it is no wonder that there is strong consideration for the use of digital
during a crisis.”
The ability to speak directly with the
public, customers, communities, media and other stakeholders, without a
“filter”, is paramount during a crisis. “The CEO speaks directly to clients,
customers, regulators and other stakeholders through blogs as well as
continually updating the media file. Short media updates on the website
provide ongoing and new information for the media without worrying about the
old fashioned deadline,” says the digital leader. To successfully execute a digital
crisis strategy does require the cooperation of the organization’s Legal and
IT departments, but “this has not been hard to do,” says Hodgson.
In June 2008, Alberta
Oilsands introduced a high-impact web-based strategy into their PR plan.
The site was launched to begin a dialogue that several senior executives said
is long overdue. Some oil industry senior statesmen will participate in the
website by responding directly to questions from the public within the site’s
discussion forum.
NATIONAL, the agency responsible for the
2008 Oilsands strategy, encouraged the industry to include social marketing,
which included messages to invite participants to dialogue on the website.
“Assessment of the relationship developed between the industry and
participants in the forum will form a part of the traditional research, which
will be evaluated in order to help influence opinion of the larger public
audiences,” says Beth Diamond.
John Larsen, Principal of Corpen Group, a
niche consultancy dedicated to issues management and crisis/risk
communication, agrees that social media are part of rapidly changing trends
in how companies can conduct more effective issues management and communicate
with greater impact during a crisis.
“With the proficient use of social media
by key stakeholders, issues get mobilized so much more quickly,” says Larsen.
“The challenge for organizations is not just to stay ahead of the emerging
issues, but to engage in the debate with timeliness, conviction, and truth.”
Larsen also points out that whether it is dealing with issue mitigation or
managing through crisis, the use of social media will force practitioners to
think broadly about how their communications process – information vetting,
approvals, production – “will need to stay ahead of the technology curve.”
Although he suggests that this may be a difficult adaptation for some
companies, it will ultimately prove beneficial.
Specific to social media and the
application for crisis communications, Larsen says that the emerging
communications tools provide PR specialists with tremendous opportunities for
instant messaging and audience feedback. “In crises, we tend to default to
thinking about the media, but we also need to think more consciously about
our core stakeholders and our employees, and this is where social networking
tools prove their worth,” says Larsen. “If people have electricity they can
stay connected to every development, capture new instructions, and even be
part of the story for media framing the crisis.” Larsen is adamant that when
it comes to crisis communications and the new uses of social media, it has
very literally become a paradigm shift. “We need to realize that now, to a
much larger degree, we take our direction from our audiences, who demand
unmediated and instant communications.”
Digital and traditional communication
tools work hand-in hand; it is unlikely that one would be used without the
other. Furthermore, digital PR practices are not just about social media. A
broad range of opportunities exist that have not been fully explored by the
PR industry, and need to be.
PR practitioners must learn to embrace
how a digital strategy can enhance a program. Having the ability to
articulate a digital strategy is a challenge, and for the over-40
practitioner it is even more of a challenge. While social media are quite
well developed, the practices are not yet instinctive.
How are PR colleges and universities
keeping pace with the demands of the digital communication world? While more
could be done, there is a culture shift happening. “Slowly schools are
embracing the technology and educating their students on how technology
enhances public relations. As many of the PR practitioners come from the
journalism ranks, there is also a need for the journalism schools to be more
advanced as well, says Hodgson.
Investor relations is another aligned
communications business with roots in strategic communications. While
investor relations practices have existed for some time, the integration of
communication and investor relations has become more common in recent years.
The major national consulting firms specialize in investor and financial
communications, while a number of smaller niche firms are also prominent in
Calgary.
A variety of agencies provide a broad
range of strategic services in investor and financial communications. The
firms integrate the disciplines of finance, communication and marketing
between a public company and the investment community, in order to enable
fair and effective capital markets.
In the past, the small niche firms
dedicated to investor relations provided a complete roster of services for
the small publicly traded company, and more specialized services for the
larger companies. The larger publicly traded firms generally have their own
in-house IR resources – generally a financial function, but one that works
closely with PR – but at times require additional support (e.g. writing and
producing the annual report, preparing for the annual meeting or drafting the
script for the investor road show).
Retired investor relations consultant Jim
Osborne provided investor and financial communication consulting from
1992 to 2002. The Internet provided the greatest change for Osborne
during his tenure as an IR consultant.
“The Internet had a huge impact,
increasing the internal corporate capacity for smaller companies,” he says.
No longer did the small company rely on the consultant for analyst
information as information was quickly obtained through Internet access.
Consultants continued to provide content and other substantive information
for business plans, annual reports, road shows and other stakeholder
communication needs.
Shauna MacDonald adds that investor
relations and financial communications are not just key communications
strategies for publicly traded companies. She advises clients that have an
interest in going public and even those that don’t but have an interest in
building credibility and awareness to act like a public company.
“Disclosing information on a timely
basis, building profile in the marketplace with media, industry analysts and
financial analysts are just a few actions to create mindshare within key
markets and with specific audiences,” she says.
Notable in the investor relations
business is Jane Savidant, founder and President of Result Communications.
Result celebrated 25 years as an independent agency primarily dedicated to
investor communications, including the writing and production of annual
reports, websites and investor research, as well as advising the oil and gas
community on other strategic investor related areas. She, too, leveraged her
success by merging with Hill & Knowlton in 2006. Today she manages
the general H&K practice as well as overseeing the investor relations
business.
Grant Howard, a former journalist and PR
consultant, carved a niche for his business in the mid-1990s and now serves a
broad range of energy clients on the investor side. With approximately 10
staff, including an investor analyst, writer, digital support and logistics
people for road show execution, the locally owned and operated agency is one
of a few Calgary boutiques dedicated to investor relations.
In summary, as the public relations
discipline expands and the breadth of knowledge increases, specialization
will very likely continue to increase. Communication professionals must have
a strong understanding of the basic principles of public relations –
research, analysis, communications and evaluation – but the move toward focusing
on a single area of expertise may well be the future for new entrants to the
business. Specialization undoubtedly will continue to grow.
Maureen Payne, APR, FCPRS, came to Alberta in 1972 following a short career in the
news media in Halifax. She was educated at the University of Prince Edward
Island (BA, 1970) and the University of Western Ontario (Diploma in
Journalism, 1971). As one of the first Public Affairs Officers for the
Alberta Public Affairs Bureau, she provided PR counsel and support to the
various government departments and the Premier’s Office in 1972/74. A move to
Edmonton with the Bureau provided a career in marketing communications with
Travel Alberta and the 75th Anniversary Commission. For
the past 25 years she has consulted in Edmonton and Calgary, first with her
own firm, and then later merging with GPC Canada. She is now an independent
consultant. Her expertise includes issues management, stakeholder
consultation and communication research. She was President of
CPRS Calgary in 1991/92. She is a Director of the Public Relations
Foundation.
The changing face of news
delivery
In the early days, the telegraph lines
that followed Canada’s long-distance railway tracks were the conduit for news
collection in Canada. The lines carried business and personal messages plus
national, imperial and world news and, in their way, were as busy as the
tracks themselves. From the beginning, the practice of gathering and selling
news could be a lucrative one.
In fact, in 1894 Canadian
Pacific Railway (CPR) received a monopoly franchise in Canada to
distribute the news of the mighty Associated Press (AP). CPR held the
exclusive distribution rights in Canada for 16 years until a hefty price
increase by the railway forced competition from Western Associated
Press (WAP). Made up of three dailies in Winnipeg, WAP challenged the
CPR monopoly and in 1910 won the rights to the AP feed, effectively knocking
CPR out of the picture.
From WAP and similar news co-operatives
in Central Canada and the Maritimes came the birth of Canadian
Press (CP) in 1917. To facilitate the exchange of news across a vast and
sparsely populated country, newspaper publishers created the Canadian Press
during the First World War when publishers were desperate to bring news of
Canadian troops in Europe to their readers. The Canadian Press began
generating its own news copy and its war coverage transformed it from
distributor of information to Canada’s national news reporting agency.
CP built a Canadian network by signing
member newspapers to support the news co-operative with membership fees. Part
of CP’s early financing was a $50,000 federal grant to pay for telegraph
lines that would link the country from coast to coast. That funding ended in
1924 by mutual agreement. CP’s founding publishers did not want to risk the
appearance of compromise by accepting government money. [21]
Meanwhile the concept of a non-editorial
newswire service was brewing. The service would provide full-text news
releases to the media from organizations with news to tell. So with a capital
investment of $30,000 and three on staff, Canada NewsWire (now CNW Group)
was born in 1960.
In the early years, CNW used
teletype to send out an average 20 news releases a day. However, newsrooms
were only beginning to adopt this revolutionary technology and CNW actually
had to market printers to editors in order to provide newswire service. In
some instances, CNW would rush couriers to businesses in order to
retrieve news releases for processing.
In 1982, the industry was revolutionized
when CNW transmitted the first news release from a computer to a
printer. The first transmission increased the speed from teletype speed of
100 words per minute to the blinding speed of 300 words per minute.[22]
Following the advent of the computer and
electronic printer, the next major advance in the delivery of news came with
satellite transmission in 1988. The speed of transmission and the ability to
serve remote locations was vastly improved, but huge costs were involved. The
industry invested millions of dollars into this technology and CNW alone
spent close to half a million dollars to put the required infrastructure in
place.
Sunspots were among the problems we
faced, and from time to time they would cause havoc – particularly when
companies needed to file earnings. Also known as solar flares, sunspots can
cause disruptions in electrical utilities, satellite-based communications and
cell phones and pagers. For companies who depend on sequential filing of
financial data, sunspots represented a major problem as they would interfere with
a satellite’s transmission and throw the news release distribution process
out of order. [23]
Although satellite technology proved
itself for more than a decade, a major paradigm shift occurred with the
advance of the Internet. For the first time, the public had direct access to
newswire feeds via the Internet. “There was an initial perception that the
Internet was a danger to the health of the newswire industry by opening the
real-time news feeds to the average consumer,” according to Melanie Kurzuk, a
Senior Vice-President at CNW. “However, the driving force was public demand
primarily with retail investors and corporate Canada.”
CNW first began posting news
releases in virtual real-time on its website in 1994. Internet users
could now access news releases or search for archived releases instantly,
free of charge. And the technology empowered organizations to take control of
their news distribution. “The Internet not only widened the range of
stakeholder groups a corporation can access, it allowed them to access these
groups directly,” said David Milliken, another CNW Senior
Vice-President.
The introduction of this new technology
also afforded the organization the opportunity to launch a range of new
products and services. Customers were desperately seeking a cost-effective,
one-stop solution for getting their photos to the desktops of editors. This
led to the launch of CNW Photo Services, which has distributed more than
2,500 images and booked more than 450 photo assignments across Canada. More
than 800 media outlets now access CNW’s photo archive.
Calgary public relations practitioner
Gordon McCann tells a story that illustrates how recent are the changes
in photographic technology that we now all take for granted. He was on the
quest for the perfect annual report shot. The year was 1998. “We were working
on an annual report for a company called Neutrino Resources Inc. located in
the building that housed the Alberta Stock Exchange (part of today’s TSX
Venture Exchange).
“My photographer, the artist and I wanted
to get a shot of the two principals of the company hard at work in the late
hours and in order to do this we decided to shoot from an adjacent building,
Calgary Place. In today’s high-tech world of photography this shot probably
could have been achieved through digital imaging or superimposing one shot
over another, but 10 years ago it required bribing several security guards
and physically darkening all other offices surrounding the shot.”
Calgary has always been at the forefront
of technology in Canada, as evidenced by the popularity of
webcasting and podcasting. Early adopters of webcasting in Calgary
include Petro-Canada, Suncor, Boardwalk Equities and Circa Enterprises.
These organizations found webcasting to be a very effective vehicle for broadcasting
annual general meetings and providing a forum for interactive dialogue on
quarterly earnings.
Podcasting started as a tool
primarily used within the online community, to share information and build
common groups of interest. It has now evolved into a widely adopted
communications tool used by a wide range of corporations and government
agencies. The CBC has been one of the most aggressive adopters of
podcasting and they have a majority of radio shows now available for
time-shifted download at the listener’s convenience. All CNW client
podcasts are posted in the iTunes Music Store and available on CNW’s
website.
So where is news delivery going? The
biggest trend by far is what is being labelled as “social media,” the ability
of organizations to influence the massive online community through blogs,
select news feeds and so on.
Most media experts agree that traditional
forms of news delivery such as the newswire will always be important but
smart organizations now understand the potential of social media and the
online community.
In the age of 24-hour news channels, new
media and consolidation, the way news is distributed continues to change
rapidly. So are the expectations of the organizations providing the news.
According to CNW’s Joe Freeman, “We need to act as an enabler, providing a
combination of traditional and non-traditional services which allow customers
to reach their stakeholders directly.”
In less than a century we have moved from
telegraph to teletype to Internet, and from the typewriter to the word
processor to the iPhone. One cannot imagine what will happen in the next 100
years.
Joe Vecsi is based in Toronto, where
he is Corporate Communications Manager for CNW Group, responsible for
strategic planning and event management. He has worked
for a variety of organizations including FedEx, Labatt, The Movie Network and
the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. He began his career working in
issues management and communications planning with the Ontario Government.
Run as a sidebar story with Chapter
13, From Teletype to Internet
The Calgary experience, by one who was here
I began working with Canada
NewsWire during a period in which there was a rapid transformation of
the technology used for news distribution. My career with CNW started in
Calgary in 1975. I moved to Vancouver to set up an office five years later.
The newswire technology of the day was
public telex and teletype. CNW’s private teletype network comprised
about 25 major newspapers and news-gathering agencies across the country.
This was supplemented by telex and courier delivery to other key national/local
news and financial media.
I was selected for the job at
CNW because of my telex/teletype experience and ability to read the
perforated, five-level, hole-punched tape that spewed out when you typed a
news release into a tape machine. The only way you could proof the news
release copy for errors was to read the holes in the paper tape – a skill I’d
picked up in the military.
When I joined CNW, many organizations,
including public companies, were still delivering their news releases via
mail and courier. CNW was still a young company and had only recently
established a presence in Alberta. In the beginning, it took a substantial
effort to convince these “old-school” PR people to move away from their
one-on-one telephone, mail and courier system to CNW’s state-of-the-art,
same-day delivery, news release wire service.
On average, a one-page news release would
take about one hour to type on to the “tape machine” and proof for errors
before it was fed through our tape reader on to the CNW teletype
network. We would than “dial-up” the other news outlets, one at a time,
through regular telephone and feed them copy on the three
telex machines. If the gods were with us and we had no mechanical
problems or busy telephone lines, we would get a one-page news release out to
key media in the blinding speed of one to two hours.
In 1977, CNW Calgary was one of the
few companies in Calgary to install a fax machine. This machine was the size
of a small fridge. A single-page news release was wrapped around a large
drum. You would then dial up the phone number of the receiving fax machine,
hear a connection and press the send button. The drum would start to turn
slowly and a “stylus” would slowly move down the page on the drum. If the
stars were aligned properly and the machine did not stop turning (which it
did frequently) and you kept your telephone connection, then your news
release would magically appear on the receiving fax machine in 20 to 30
minutes.
The biggest change at Canada NewsWire,
though, came when we “computerized” our networks in the early 1980s. This was
probably the most important event in the organization’s history. To run our
wire service software and save news release copy, we all received XT
computers. The latest technology, these little machines didn’t even have hard
drives. Instead, they had floppy drives, which used flexible (“floppy”) discs
with negligible storage capacity by today’s standards. Those discs quickly
accumulated, and filing them all presented challenges.
It was a major undertaking in 1980 to
approach the news media on our teletype network and replace the
60-word-per-minute teletype machines with 100-word-per-minute “dot matrix”
printers – at the time, an unheard-of speed.
In the mid-1970s, we had about 30 clients
in all of Western Canada, primarily Calgary-based oil companies. Our Prairie
Region business developed rapidly throughout the mid-to-late-1970s due to the
rapid growth of the oilpatch. The oil companies were rapidly accepting CNW’s
technology as the preferred methodology for prompt access to the media. In
addition, virtually all the oilpatch PR people were active members of the
CPRS Calgary chapter during my tenure from 1975 to 1980.
PR people who I remember that were active
in the oilpatch in the 1970s were folks like Tom Johnson of ATCO, Dave
McAsey, Dave Annesley and the two Jim Rennies, senior and junior. The
dominant PR firm in Calgary in the 1970s was Francis, Williams & Johnson,
and John Francis was a strong influence in the CPRS Calgary chapter,
which was one of the fastest-growing chapters during this time.
The oil industry takeover and merger
frenzy in the late 1970s resulted in many occasions when CNW was working
for two or three companies involved in a hostile takeover battle. It became
very tense and a major exercise in diplomacy when we would literally have two
or three PR people in our Calgary office at the same time wanting their
release to move on the wire before their competitors’ copy.
CNW Calgary grew rapidly during the
oil boom in the mid-to-late-1970s. Other industries, as well as unions,
associations and governments in the Prairie Region and British Columbia,
started to see the benefit of using CNW to deliver their news promptly
to the media and financial community. In five short years, the Calgary office
grew to a team of eight individuals with a client base made up of most of the
major oil industry companies and many non-corporate organizations. There were
several months in the late 1970s when revenue at the Calgary office – then a
city of less than half a million – surpassed that of CNW Toronto and
Montréal. Our business was also starting to build in other provinces as word
spread that CNW was the best way to get your news in front of the media.
Larry Cardy had a seven-year stint
in the communications branch of the Canadian Armed Forces (Air Force) before
joining Canada NewsWire in 1975. He managed the organization’s Western
operations out of Calgary from 1975 to 1980 before moving to Vancouver
to establish an office. He retired from CNW as Vice-President, Western
Canada in 2007.
May you live in interesting
times. This is thought to be a Chinese proverb, but has also been
described in some sources as a curse. I am not sure it really is a curse.
Public Relations is a business that thrives on “interesting times”. Whether
it’s crisis communications, media relations, internal communications, or any
facet of what we do every day, we really do live in interesting times.
Public relations, is said to have started
with Edward L. Bernays, the “Father of Public Relations”. Bernays was one of
the first practitioners to influence public perception, something we still do
today.
In 1991, I had the privilege of meeting
Bernays, who had reached the impressive age of 100, and spending some time
with him at the IPRA World Congress. Still sharp and focused on his life-long
profession, Bernays shared his insights and experiences. He certainly lived
through interesting times.
Over the course of his life (he died in
1995 at 103), he saw a shift in what we define as our tenets of the business,
and the work we did. He believed strongly in education and the professional
public relations practitioner. He spent much of his career trying to have
public relations licensed, which in his mind would elevate it from a vocation
to the level of a profession. In his address to the IPRA Congress, he again
reiterated his concern that, “Anyone can hang up a shingle and become a
legitimate public relations practitioner.”
CPRS has spent much of its 60-year
history in Canada, and certainly our 50-year history in Calgary, working
towards the same goal. CPRS has always been a resource and a place for people
practicing in public relations to share issues and challenges, and to share
ideas. Accreditation is now a key benefit of being a CPRS member; a way to
demonstrate your commitment to learning, the profession, and your own
development. And Calgary has 46 accredited members.
Over the past 100 years, we’ve seen
incredible advances in science and the development of countless new
inventions, to the point that we now use technology in our everyday lives.
The tools we use in our business have also changed. We’ve gone from
handwritten letters to telex to fax and now, email and Facebook. From
the introduction of the telephone to cell phones and text messaging. And all
these advances have changed the way we do our business.
The world we deal with is also different.
Media relations is now more complex. When CPRS was starting out in
Calgary, the media environment consisted of two newspapers, two television
stations, and three radio stations. These days, the media world is extremely
fragmented. Reporters specialize and work for specialty outlets. This makes
our jobs tougher. But it also makes for interesting times, because we need to
know who to target and what they focus on.
Internal communication has also changed
over the past 50 years. We’ve moved to a model that not only informs but also
educates and helps create and grow an organization’s culture. It’s no longer
just about the internal newsletter.
But some things are also still the same.
The benefit of the personal, one-to-one relationship is still key to building
trust and reputation. Truth, honesty, and ethics still remain an essential
part of our foundation, and our own reputations and standing as
professionals.
The next 50 years will likely see even
more changes and advances. But what will remain the same is how we represent
our profession and those we represent. Ethics will always be an important
part of how we act and react in the profession. Professionalism, whether
through accreditation, professional recognition that comes from local or
national awards, or education will remain an essential factor in the
reputation and further enhancement of our work and our own standing.
And most importantly, it’s the
contributions that we make ourselves to the profession that help it grow and
develop. When you volunteer with the society, attend a professional
development event, or become accredited, you are making a personal commitment
to the profession and your place in it.
I want to thank all of those who have
helped make this, our 50th year in Calgary, a great celebration and
recognition of our past 50 years. This book would not have been possible
without the commitment of each and every volunteer. The 50th Anniversary
Committee, chaired by Henry Stevens, APR, has done a wonderful job of giving
us great mementos (like this written collection of 50 years of memories) and
events to commemorate this year in our history.
As we move to our next 50 years, I
encourage you to look at where we’ve arrived as a profession. This book is
filled with insightful and interesting recollections from practitioners who
have built our profession in Calgary. People who have blazed a trail for the
rest of us to follow. People who have helped change and develop the business
as it is today. We’ve also read from and about the newer professionals −
people who will take us into the future.
And in using the new technology at our
disposal these days, the Internet and Wikipedia, I found that there may
be other proverbs or curses that come after “May you live in interesting
times“. I leave you with this last one: May you find what you are
looking for.
Nancy H. Arab, APR, ABC, FCPRS
1971/72: Brian
Somerville
1982/83: Peter
McKenzie-Brown
1989/90: Ruth
Ann Yardley
1993/94: Presidential
Coaching Team:
1994/95: Sherri
G. Dutton
1996/97: Janice
Robertson
2000/01 Colleen
Killingsworth
2006/07: Richard
Truscott
Chapter Three: Centre of a Storm
1 Peter McKenzie-Brown, Gordon Jaremko, David Finch, The Great Oil
Age: The
Petroleum Industry in Canada (Calgary: Detselig Publishers, 1993), pp. 136-141.
2 Interview
with Jack Gorman, May 23, 2008.
3 Interview
with Hans Maciej, June 3, 2008.
4 Interview
with Jack Gorman, May 23, 2008.
5 Interview
with Hans Maciej, June 3, 2008.
6 Department
of Energy, The National Energy Programme (Ottawa:
7 McKenzie-Brown
et al., op. cit., p. 140.
8 Interview
with Ian Smyth, June 3, 2008.
9 Interview
with Jack Gorman, op. cit.
10 Interview
with Norm Elliott, May 29, 2008.
11 Interview
with Ian Smyth, June 3, 2008.
12 Interview
with Hans Maciej, June 3, 2008.
13 Berger
et al., Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland (Ottawa:
Queen’s
14 Interview
with Ian Smyth, June 3, 2008.
Chapter Four: Working for Big Oil
1 Interview
with Frank Dabbs, June 9 2008.
2 Peter
Foster, Other People’s Money, p 91.
Chapter Eight: Town Meets Gown
1 Peter
Wright, "What is a Profession," 29 Canadian Bar Review 748,
752 (1951).
Chapter Ten: Breaking into Public
Relations
1 PR
Tactics, June 2008, p. 7.
Chapter Thirteen: From Teletype to
Internet
1 Melanie
Kurzuk, “100 years of Newswires in Canada,” Press Review.
Alberta, 28, 33, 36, 52, 80, 85, 86, 97,
98, 99, 106, 111
Alberta & Southern Gas, 37
Alberta Energy and Natural Resources, 37
Alberta Government Telephones, 99
Alberta Stock Exchange, 109
AlbertaTheatre Projects, 48
Amoco Canada, 28, 32, 36, 96
Andryiszyn, Jean, 20, 43, 117
Annesley, David, 11, 31, 112, 118
Arab, Nancy, 20, 116, 118
B.C. Institute of Technology, 87
Balfour, Cynthia, 9, 14, 19, 49, 86, 117
Berger, Justice Thomas, 27
Blue, Carlotta, 9, 20, 41
Boston University, 7, 48, 51, 86, 89
Boynton, Donald, 4, 81, 91, 95, 117
British Columbia, 23, 24, 112
Brookline Public Relations, 50, 101
Calgary Airport Authority, 48
Calgary Albertan,, 40, 52
Calgary Exhibition and Stampede, 71
Calgary Herald, 11, 13, 16, 28, 43, 52,
57, 62, 65
Calgary Olympic Centre, 53, 57, 60
Calgary Olympic Development Association,
40, 54
Calgary Petroleum Club, 19
Calgary Philharmonic, 44, 48
Calgary Power, 39, 51, 80, 86
Calgary Press Club, 61, 62
Calgary Speed Skating Oval, 54
Calgary Stampede, 12, 14, 42, 54, 95
Calgary Tower, 14, 55, 57, 59, 60, 87
Calgary Winter Festival, 48
Canada NewsWire, 95, 107, 111, 112, 113
Canadian Arctic Gas, 11, 13, 17
Canadian Association of Petroleum
Producers, 29, 33
Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, 37
Canadian Export Gas & Oil, 39
Canadian Pacific, 57, 107
Canadian Petroleum Association, 13, 22,
23, 30, 33, 46
Canadian Petroleum Writers Association,
32
Canadian Press, 31, 32, 97, 107
Canadian Public Relations Society, 2, 7,
8, 9, 69, 76, 79
Canadian Western Natural Gas, 7, 11, 31,
36
Canmore Nordic Centre, 54
Canada News Wire, 107, 108, 109, 110,
111, 112, 113
Communica Public Affairs, 50
Communications technology, 66
Concentric Public Affairs, 50
CPRS, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 21,
37, 39, 60, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85,
86, 90, 95, 101, 106, 112, 114, 115, 126
CPRS Calgary, 67, 71, 82, 84
CPRS National Conference, 15, 82, 84
Cross Wise Communications, 50
Dasanayake, Nirmalene, 38
Detlefsen, Bill and Joyce, 47
Diamond, Beth, 20, 50, 101, 103
Dome Petroleum, 25, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37
Donoghue, Jack, 44, 46, 47
Facebook, 66, 82, 98, 114
federal government, 23, 24, 25, 33, 38,
47, 48
Fish Creek Provincial Park, 52
Fleishman-Hillard, 50, 99
Fleming, Jack and Iris, 7
Francis, 38, 51, 52, 80, 85
Francis, John, 7, 10, 39, 87, 98, 112,
117
Francis, Williams & Johnson, 14, 52,
112
FrancisWilliams & Johnson, 38
FWJ, 13, 14, 15, 16, 38, 43, 50, 51, 67,
85, 86, 87
Glenbow Museum, 48, 54, 56, 80
Global Public Affairs, 101
Globe and Mail, 29, 32, 56
Goodwin, Jan, 15, 20, 118
Gulf Canada, 7, 13, 24, 30, 32, 39, 85
Gunter, Judi, 43, 50, 83, 118
Hammond, Brock, 7, 11, 85, 117
Henderson Communications, 50
Hill & Knowlton, 101, 102, 105, 126
Hill & Knowlton Canada, 126
Hodgson, Brendan, 98, 103
Hudson’s Bay Oil and Gas, 6, 32, 34, 80
Imperial Oil, 6, 31, 39, 80, 85, 99
Independent Power Producers of Alberta,
100
International Olympic Committee, 53
Internet, 3, 63, 64, 66, 82, 98, 101,
105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 116
Interprovincial Pipe Line, 12
Japanese National Oil Company, 34
Kidney Foundation of Canada, 90
Killingsworth, Colleen, 118
Knowlton, 40, 50, 98, 101
Krusel-Hyde, Darlene, 118
Kurzuk, Melanie, 107, 108
Lalonde, Marc, 24, 25, 49
Logo, Calgary Olympics, 53
Lougheed, Peter, 22, 24, 25, 52, 54, 99
Macdonald, J. Howard, 35, 36
Macdonald, Nelson, 41, 52
MacDonald, Shauna, 101, 105
Maciej, Hans, 23, 24, 26, 27
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 85
McAsey, David, 15, 49, 112, 117
McKenzie-Brown, Peter, 4, 22, 30, 33, 85,
117
McVean, Pat and Sheridan, 49
Mount Royal College, 10, 16, 18, 19, 44,
46, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 88, 89, 90, 100
Mount Saint Vincent University, 16, 73
National Energy Program, 24, 27, 33, 34,
48, 49, 96
NATIONAL Public Relations, 5, 20, 50, 87,
101
Nova, an Alberta Corporation, 95
of Calgary, 7, 8, 41, 54, 74, 80, 97, 113
Olympic Torch, 34, 53, 55, 58, 59
Olympics, 29, 42, 43, 53, 54
Payne, Maureen, 49, 83, 98, 106, 118
Petro-Canada, 33, 34, 55, 58, 59, 109
petroleum industry, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29,
86
Petroleum Resources Communication
Foundation, 29, 48
Public Affairs Bureau, 7, 37, 97, 106
Public Relations Society of America, 67,
69, 79, 82
Rennie, 6, 8, 13, 17, 23, 39, 85
Rennie, Jim, 4, 23, 41, 117
Rennie, Lorraine, 11, 101
Resources Communications, 16
Reynolds, Beverly, 18, 19, 49
SAIT, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 89
Samaranch, Juan Antonio, 53
Saskatchewan, 12, 16, 18, 23, 24
SEEDS (Society, Energy, Environment and
Development Studies) Foundation, 29
Smyth, Ian, 25, 26, 27, 29
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology,
16, 68, 70, 89
Stevens, Henry, 4, 5, 87, 115, 118
Strathcona Tweedsmuir School, 48
Thorburn, John, 7, 10, 11, 117
Tom Donoghue, 44, 50, 61, 67
TransCanada PipeLines, 7, 18, 19, 34, 37
TransCanada Telephone System, 58
Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 22, 24, 49
TSX Venture Exchange, 109
University of Adelaide, 97
University of Alberta, 11, 13
University of Calgary, 10, 16, 46, 54,
68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 88, 89, 100
University of Western Ontario, 7, 106
Western Associated Press, 107
Western Co-op Fertilizer, 42
Wood, David, 7, 11, 15, 46, 47, 117
World Figure Skating championships, 48
Yardley, Ruth Ann, 96, 118
Zadvorny, Gene, 11, 15, 117
CPRS Calgary, the
organizers of the 50th Anniversary Celebration Committee, and
the committee that put together this book would like to thank all of those
individuals and organizations that helped make this book a reality. Of
particular note are Hill & Knowlton Canada for their production
assistance, and our publisher, Ted Giles of Detselig Enterprises Ltd.
And a very special
thanks goes to the following, for their donations of time, talent and
production expertise. This book would not have been possible without their
generous assistance.
Our graphic
designers: David Stahl and Fraser Monaghan of One Design Inc.
Our printer: Sundog
Printing Ltd.
[1] McKenzie-Brown, Peter; Jaremko, Gordon; Finch, David, The
Great Oil Age: The Petroleum Industry in Canada (Calgary: Detselig
Publishers,1993), pp. 136-141
[2]Interview
with Jack Gorman, May 23, 2008.
[3]Interview
with Hans Maciej, June 3, 2008
[4]Interview
with Jack Gorman, May 23, 2008.
[5]Interview
with Hans Maciej, June 3, 2008
[6] Department of Energy, The National Energy
Programme (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1980)
[7] McKenzie-Brown et al., op. cit., p.
140
[8]Interview
with Ian Smyth, June 3, 2008
[9]Interview
with Jack Gorman, op. cit.
[10]Interview
with Norm Elliott, May 29, 2008
[11]Interview
with Ian Smyth, June 3, 2008
[12]Interview
with Hans Maciej, June 3, 2008
[13] Berger et. al., Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland (Ottawa:
Queen’s Printer, 1977)
[14]Interview
with Ian Smyth, June 3, 2008
[15] Interview with Frank Dabbs, June 9 2008
[16] Peter Foster, Other People’s Money, page 91
[19] Peter Wright, "What is a Profession," 29 Canadian
Bar Review 748, 752 (1951).
[20]Taken from PR Tactics, June 2008, page 7
[21]Melanie
Kurzuk, “100 years of Newswires in Canada,” Press Review.
[22]Melanie
Kurzuk, “100 years of Newswires in Canada,” Press Review.
[23]Melanie
Kurzuk, “100 years of Newswires in Canada,” Press Review.
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