Change can be a good thing, right? That’s what we’re told throughout our careers and at almost every seminal moment in our lives.

When it comes to change in public relations, most practitioners readily embrace new ideas and ways of doing things. We thrive by implementing new concepts — from social media to blogger outreach — and using those to their advantage.

That’s what undergirded the “Public Relations Defined” initiative, which culminated a little over a week ago with the announcement of a new, modern definition of public relations.

It’s safe to say that most PR professionals have had a chance to voice their opinion. From the hundreds of blog posts, tweets and other commentary, there is no shortage of opinion.

For the most part, the “change is good” mantra is the reaction PR practitioners seem to have in response to the new definition. The overriding sentiment is positive.

Sure, there are some who criticize. That’s fine. In fact, we expected a diversity of opinion, regarding the initiative itself and its outcome. Or, as Stuart Elliot wryly put it in his New York Times column announcing the new definition, there was no “small amount of sniping, snide commentary and second-guessing.”

It’s unfortunate, but he’s right.

At the same time, a plethora of industry luminaries, including Jim Grunig, Neville Hobson and Jeremiah Owyang (analyst at the Altimeter Group) have given their blessing to the new definition.

Grunig says he’s “reasonably happy” with the new definition. Hobson called it a “far more contemporary interpretation of how the profession practices its craft.” And Owyang tweeted that the modernization of the definition of public relations “makes sense in the two-way sense that social has changed.”

Those are three influencers that any PR practitioner would be thrilled to have on board for a client campaign. And each supports the new definition.

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Thanks for taking a moment to participate in the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)’s “Public Relations Defined” initiative.

While PRSA is leading the charge in developing a modern definition of public relations, the eventual outcome will not be exclusively “ours.”

One of the reasons our profession struggles with the question, “What is PR?” is that existing definitions tend to reflect the nuances of the professional or academic niche from which they originate, while giving short-shrift to the commonalities that bind us all. You can read some of the other challenges of achieving consensus on a “de-facto” definition here, and get a sense for the many different definitions that currently exist here.

Our goal is that the modern definition developed through this process will be owned by you and by countless other public relations professionals. And by our partners in allied associations, who participated in our “Definition Summit” in September. And by academics and text book authors. And by the media.

If you’d like to own part of the modern definition of public relations (and we hope you do), here’s how you can get involved.

Modernizing the Definition of Public Relations

You will find a submission form on this website, the idea for which originated at our summit meeting. Some of the “standard” definitions of marketing and advertising the group collectively liked had the following basic elements: they [DO WHAT] with/for [WHOM] to [DO WHAT] for [WHAT PURPOSE]. The group thought it best to adopt a similar approach for a modern definition of public relations.

Submit Your Definition of Public Relations Here

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