Institute for Public Relations

Sir Martin Sorrell touched on many things during his 50-minute Annual Distinguished Lecture to the Institute in November, including public relations in the Middle East. Valued at around $100 million, Sir Martin predicted it will grow by a whopping 200 percent in 2009. “Here’s a good example of the world being remade,” he said. On a trip wedged between the Muslim holiday Eid and Christmas, I traveled to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to meet the public relations community. I discovered that the emergence of public relations is bringing tremendous opportunities as well as new professional responsibilities to the Arabian Peninsula. The public ...

I was very pleased to have been brought out of mothballs by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) to pull together its latest Gold Paper “The Role of Public Relations and Communications supporting Collaboration in a Complex, Converging World.” IPRA President Bob Grupp and I presented this at the Public Relations World Congress in Beijing (attended by more than 600 people from about 40 countries, the first big meeting since the Olympics). No better place to present it than China, given its growing importance as an emerging global country with little history of public relations beyond propaganda and information dissemination, let ...