In his presentation Marin Nunn shared with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations investigation results, which illustrated following:
- Reputation influences virtually every business and purchasing decision we make…
- 49% of Fortune 500 company shares held in ‘private’ hands are traded purely on reputation.
- 81% of British senior management considers reputation to be as important as financial performance.
- In the UK today there are more university students studying communications than any other subject.
As a conclusion of the presentation Mr. Nunn mentioned, as an instance, the answer of Bill Gates to the question: "If you only had $100 left in your bank account what would you spend it on". Mr. Gates answered that … "on PR!"
Yaryna Klyuchkovska, Head of the UAPR, General Director of the Nords PR Ukraine, mentioned the need of the systematic professional education for PR-experts and complained on lack of such education in Ukraine. According to Ms. Klyuchkovska, the main problem of employers is that young specialists lack qualifications, and often obtain non-core higher education. Main parts of qualitative programs are developed not for students from higher educational institutions, but for practitioners, what is coming from sufficiently poor development of the Public Relations Market in our country.
In solidarity with Yaryna Klyuchkovska was Myroslaw Kohut, Full Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in London, foundation-member of the Ukrainian Association of Public Relations (UAPR), Managing Director Romyr & Associates Ukraine Ltd, who noticed that PR-sector is sufficiently young not only in Ukraine, but also abroad. First academic programs appeared in Great Britain only in the 80s of the last century. That’s why the questions "which subjects to teach", "how to teach" and "who has to teach future PR-experts" remains opened. Also Mr. Kohut mentioned the necessity to use the foreign colleagues’ experience, in particularly from CIPR, which plays the leading role in the sphere of education and trainings for the communication industry. Having more than 9500 members, representatives of all sectors of PR industry, CIPR is the largest PR-institute in Europe, founded in 1948.
Olga Karpova, Head of the Academic Programs Department at the International Institute of Business, told that at the moment CIPR Programs are delivered by IIB – the only accredited CIPR study centre in Ukraine. Also Ms. Karpova mentioned the necessity to separate higher education at the Institutions of Higher Education and programs aiming skills upgrading of the practicing PR-experts, in which not only theoretical component, but also practical experience of the famous western and homegrown experts. The value of such programs is that they help not only to systematize obtained knowledge, but also to learn how to think as a PR expert. And how fairly mentioned Ms. Klyuchkovska, it is the possibility to think "in a right way" is the key factor of the PR-expert’s success.
Mr. Kohut answering to the question of the student from PR Department of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts about the necessity to adapt western theory to Ukrainian realities noted that to some extent this is necessary, but basic PR principles and ethical codes of conduct are the same in the whole world as well as in other professions.
In its turn, Vitaliy Maksymov, PR-Director of the Publishing House "Economika" mentioned that unprofessional behavior of some PR-experts reflects on reputation of the sector in whole. Significant moment in the specialist establishing is the shaping of own image and also ability to "sell" yourself.
Participants were consistent in the opinion that PR-profession – is the way of life, which assume a continuous advancing of knowledge and skills in the PR sphere. Whereas the field is developing in a very dynamic way, good expert should not miss an opportunity to acquire new knowledge not only from books, but also to participate in different projects directed on development of practical skills of work in this field.
One of such projects was PR-Ukraine. Growth in PR Project, which was organized by the youthful organization called AIESEC. During the month 80 participants took part in 12 master-classes from the best PR-experts and also participated in case-competitions, winners of which received presents from sponsors and invitation for a 2-weeks paid internship in one of the leading Ukrainian PR-agency."
