An interesting panel met last Thursday at the Council of Public Relations Concerns Critical Issues Forum to discuss issues around harnessing the power of developments such as blogs, wikis and podcasts as part of a media relations strategy.

The panel was moderated by Jonah Bloom, executive editor, Advertising Age, with panelists Stephen Baker, senior writer for
BusinessWeek and co-author of the Blogspotting blog; Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman Public Relations, Ross Mayfield, CEO of SocialText, and Shel Holtz, principal, Holtz Communication + Technology. The discussion has now been published in this podcast.

One striking element to come up was the importance of building internal concensus within a company before publishing in formats such as blogs or wikis. With a move away from what was described as ‘monologue’ advertising deemed vital, it was seen as important to give genuine ownership to key stakeholders, ensuring support for a new approach is based on full understanding from across the company.