Your Custom Text Here
Public relations doesn't just have the people in the field doing it. It has academics. But is it healthy that much of what happens in academia is impeneterable?
by GUEST EDITOR Sarah Williams 
I have just returned from the Euprera Annual Congress in Barcelona, where PR academics from across Europe and beyond met to discuss current research into issues pertinent to the public relations industry today, or are they?
Are you using social media in your comms? If so, why don't you get involved in a new piece of research taking place.
Are you using social media? Do you use social media platforms to engage local communities or hard to reach groups? If so, I want to hear from you.
Following on from my research into general social media trends and skills in PR, my latest quest is to find out how public sector organisations use social media to engage communities and I need volunteers from the sector – you! - to help me with my project.
What better way to test the pros and cons of working in the public sector, ahead of a talk with PR students in Manchester, than Twitter crowdsourcing what a bunch of industry professionals thought.
by Darren Caveney
I always enjoy talking to PR and comms students about careers. In my own way I like to think (rightly or wrongly) that I am able to give a little bit back and still remember those who helped me when I was starting out in the industry. And it's always an opportunity to learn from the students too.
We all need a leg up and access to others from time to time. Now, probably more than ever, actually.
So when Sarah Williams, senior PR lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University asked me to talk to final year PR students about in-house careers in the public sector I was very happy to help.
We may have gone back into recession but I was shocked to read last week that BAA was charging PR agencies to pitch for its business. It is most certainly exploitation, as Francis Ingham noted in his statement to PR Week, but it is also arrogant behaviour.
They may well incur overheads as a result of the pitching process but so do agencies.
