Wiki...not only pedia

We all know what Wikipedia is. I guess a lot of us know that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, mostly…because it has some privacy policies. But did you know what a wiki is? Because Wikipedia is the largest wiki. I personally didn’t know what wiki was before I had to do a presentation related to this subject.

I found a definition, on Wikipedia, which says that wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. I have no idea what the last part means, so I thought of embedding this explanation in plain English…


Source: www.youtube.com


The first Wiki was developed by Ward Cunninghan in 1995, as he wanted to build a software for collective work where you can track changes.

Nowadays, wiki is a spread tool for internal communication. Companies are using wikis for project management, as a replacement of emails, phones, case in which you can easily forget where you took the information from and it takes you ages to find it again. There are a lot of advantages. A wiki can be adapted to suit your project, it reduces meetings time, you can track the changes made to the wiki by ‘watching’ – receiving email notifications when someone changes something, you can upload documents, photos, videos etc. Me and my classmate used a wiki to do our presentation. The only thing we couldn’t do online was the Powerpoint presentation. But who knows…there’s always room for improvement in ICTs.

Ok, so the use of wikis internally is huge, and from a public relations perspective, we can say that it contributes to the relationship with internal publics. But what happens when you want to go externally with your wiki…that is where the debate begins.

Some people suggest that wiki can be a very useful tool for in public relations, as it fits into the Grunigian paradigm of two-way symmetrical communication. And that it has the advantage of being trustworthy, as it can be edited by the publics. But what happens when people take advantage of this, as we are not all people who believe constructive collaboration. An example like this is the Los Angeles Times Wikitorial, a feature related to the withdrawal of troupes in Iraq. After three days they took it off, as the content was becoming more like porn website.

There are some controversial issues on which people are keen to express their anger, extreme opinions etc. Let’s take Coca-Cola, for example, which is a symbol of capitalism, corporatism and all the derived concepts. If we look at Coca-Cola’s page on Wikipedia, we can notice that is secured. Imagine if all the people could edit their page.

In general, companies are not using wikis for external communication, as they are afraid of vandalism. Sure, one can argue that you can control to some extent the content, like Wikipedia does with its privacy policy. But when it comes to companies, where is the argument of trustworthiness if they are controlling the content?

So, personally, I think an organization should think very carefully about the issues they want to expose to public debate, and after analyzing all the channels they can use for reaching the audience and what they imply, they might as well choose wiki as an alternative.

CSR + PR = ?

I’m doing my dissertation on the topic of CSR, trying to understand the controversial aspects related to the relationship between CSR and PR. I don’t remember exactly how I first heard about CSR, but I’m almost sure that it came from the PR point of view. After reading more, I found out that there are extreme views on CSR and its purposes. Some people say that CSR activity is used only for PR purposes, like reputation building etc. Others are saying that it’s not about PR, it’s about a way of doing business, sustainability (more recently), it’s a necessity in the context of the current degradation of society and environment, it helps the company be competitive (hmm, is there no relationship between competitiveness and PR???). I even found an aggressive motto on the blog of a CSR international conference which took place in Romania in 2009: “to those of you that think CSR is a PR or marketing tool, I recommend not to come to the conference or read more”. Personally, I would have said: “to those of you that think CSR is ONLY a PR or marketing tool, I recommend not to come to the conference or read more”. Because I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. CSR in not only a PR tool, it has more purposes and determining factors, but it has a PR side also. Then why did they invite to the conference as speakers ‘Head of External Relations’ or ‘Corporate Communication Leader’ or even more striking, ‘Head of Corporate Communication & Sustainable Development’. I don’t know what those people talked about, as I wasn’t at the conference, but the fact that they have been invited raised some questions in my head on the apparent non-relationship between CSR and PR.

And as an argument, I will talk about the most appreciated CSR activity in UK, Marks&Spencer’s Plan A. It started in 2007, when they decided to set out 100 commitments to be achieved in 5 years. Looking at this, and how the plan is working until now, and the fact that they even extended the plan until 2015 with another 80 commitments, we can say that indeed, it is a way of doing business. It represents their core value, which is sustainability. Until now, they achieved 46 commitments.



I found some interesting ideas in an article written by Marks & Spencer's Mike Barry and Lucy Calver. They say that the era of CSR is over and sustainability is the new CSR.

The first lesson is not unique to M&S. Many global businesses, including Nike, Unilever and Google, have recognised that the days of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are over. CSR was all about managing a few sensitive areas that had the potential to generate positive or negative headlines. To be a credible player today, however, you have to understand all the social and environmental issues that are relevant to your business.

Ok, so what they say is that before, CSR was all about PR, generating headlines. But what does ‘credible player’ mean? It means that CSR or sustainability still has its PR side, more specifically, reputation management, even though it’s not only about this anymore. And talking about reputation, I found another interesting part in an article:

The new report puts the environment front and center. Retailers, according to recent research from Covalence, have entered a new age of corporate citizenship in which not only working conditions but environmental impacts of production and products are playing a large role on reputation. M&S ranked at number one as the most reputable company in the eyes of British consumers in the UK rankings of the Global Reputation Pulse Study 2009 published by the Reputation Institute.

I believe the word ‘reputation’ has been used enough times in this quote to make us see the PR purpose.

Another interesting aspect is the following statement of the Marks&Spencer representatives: ‘Moreover, we believe that communication, even more than technology, is the key to building a sustainable future.’ Isn’t that PR? Communicating with suppliers, consumers, stakeholders in general to produce sustainability means PR. It means, in terms of theory, the symmetrical communication of Grunig.

From what I wrote here, we can learn two things:

1. PR is a tool used in the production of CSR;
2. CSR, among others, has PR purposes.

These two represent my assumptions in my dissertation. August will bring out the truth.

Urban readings – a needed Romanian campaign

Before coming to the small town of Stirling, I spent all my life in Bucharest, a big, crowded, noisy city. And travelling with the public transport to the place of interest was a real exercise of patience, as I used to lose two hours a day for this 'productive' activity. And because it was no use in 'admiring' the grey walls which I already knew, I used to listen to my music and stare into vacancy or read a book.

Which is why I really appreciated the campaign Urban Lectures developed in Bucharest by a romanian association involved in social projects, Civika.ro. The idea of the campaign is to encourage people to read while commuting, by choosing a day in each month, in which volunteers would read in the subway and offer free books to the travelers.



But this campaign is more than just a nice, original idea. It is actually well-grounded in the romanian context. A recent survey developed by GfK Romania, which revealed the reading habits of romanians, shows some alarming results. Romanians read only three times a month, and a third from the respondents never read. Also, only one from three persons bought books in 2009.

This is why I think this campaign is a good idea, because it managed to communicate that we actually have free time to read, the free time that everyone is complaining about.

Other campaigns on the same theme were Adevarul Library or Library for all, developed by two of the major newspapers in Romania, which sell once a week a book together with the newspaper.