Introduction

For a long time we held the view that if you had a particular skill – such as accountancy, trades, engineering, IT, management – all you needed to make a success of life was to learn some “soft skills”. These soft skills included communication, presenting and speaking, team building and so on.
Yet the continuing problem with this approach has been that despite lots of training, many people never actually improved their ability to communicate, get on with others, make good speeches or build teams.
Public relations professionals around the world must find the “flat world” message very encouraging. This message is telling corporations that in a flat world, the biggest differentiator is your people. How do people effectively differentiate? We differentiate ourselves by becoming better communicators. PR campaign skills can come to the forefront as organisations seek to thrive in this new world using a strategic planning approach.