I have never been comfortable with the term ‘spin doctor’; nor for that matter with ‘flak’, ‘PR guy’ or ‘message manager’ – in fact the failure of this industry to come up with a name for what we do strikes me as a fundamental failure in our professionalism.
Today these labels are even less appropriate – as the traditional notions of a centralised media collapse and more and more organisations and individuals have the tools to tart their own conversations, what eve pretentions we have to managing communication flows have totally disappeared.
We are entering the post-spin era, where the trick is to actually be authentic and open up real conversations, genuine debates and encourage genuine not staged engagement.
This is not great news for big corporations or giant government departments or even political organisations that are not interested in listening to their members.
But if you like words and ideas and politics, then it’s a fantastic time to be around.
And for EMC, a company that has always worked with the underdogs to tell a story a little but different to the established truth, there is real potential to do incredible things.
In many ways it is all about letting go – sharing information, asking for feedback, even allowing for dissent.
It is in this spirit that EMC is launching the Unspun – it’s blog to engage staff, clients and the broader community in the debates around social media as it applies to politics and campaigning.
EMC staff from across the organisation will use this space to share ideas, highlight new campaigns, look at what other organisations are doing well – and sometimes badly.
We want this blog to reflect EMC’s internal culture – of sharing ideas, encouraging innovation, building communities – in order to make our world a better place.
The era of control is ending, as the established order begins to ‘Un-Spin’ we hope we can do our bit to create a more dynamic public landscape.
Peter Lewis, Director EMC