Balance: Do vs. Show

"Justice must be seen to be done," but putting too much emphasis on showing may be missing the point. More generally, PR - public relations - are part of the activity of anybody interacting with the public. Sometimes PR is done explicitly, employing PR professionals. Sometimes it is more implicit: An entity interacting with the public may let public relations just happen - let the public find out about the entity's activity and make up its mind about what it (the public) thinks about the entity.

But this is theoretical and abstract. Let's bring it to more earthly terms. First, when we consider interaction with the "public," it refers to any public: At one extreme, the relevant public may be any person who might buy a cell-phone in the next 5 years. At the other extreme, the public may be your boss. (I wouldn't go into the normal but uncomfortable case of the public being your spouse.) How much should one concentrate on doing one's job well, and how much should one concentrate on making sure the boss knows how well the job is being done? Probably should find a balance. Same with making a good and/or inexpensive cell-phone, and then marketing it to let the world know about it. Making the cell phone is not enough. PRomoting it is not enough. Should find a balance.

And here is the payload of this entry: The question is how much work at school should be directed at doing well in teaching, education and whatever it is a school does, and how much work should be directed at showing the public what we do and how well we do it. Put more bluntly: Do we market the school? Many people consider this a very easy question. Some say it's simply heresy: Of course we don't market education - it's too precious, too serious an issue. Others say it's simply reality: Of course we market education - how else would we get students?

But this is not such a simple issue. On one hand, schools have a public. Several publics, actually: Students, parents, teachers, education establishment officials, politicians, and probably more. They all need to know about the school, and if the school doesn't take some responsibility to make sure they know, they may be underinformed, misinformed - by rumors, disinformed - by ill-wishers, and in general badly informed. That wouldn't be good for neither the school nor the public.

No need to worry, though. Every school I ever saw does take some responsibility for how the public sees it: There are pep talks to teachers and students; there is often an ongoing dialog with the parents through the PTA and directly; there is an ongoing discussion with the superintendents and other officials; there is often a school web-site describing what is going on in the school, and possibly stating the school's values. This counts as PR and as marketing. So in reality, schools do engage in something akin to marketing, and the question is not about whether or not they should be putting effort into marketing, but more specific questions. How much effort? What tools of marketing? And most importantly: How to make sure the focus on marketing doesn't compromise the precious and serious education activity?

Thinking about the answers is worthy of its own entry - another time.

One more thought: Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have said: "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." I haven't lived through the mid 19^th century, but in the context of mid 20^th to early 21^st, I can say he was clearly wrong: One must put a good marketing effort and at least start beating the path, before the world notices and does anything. Even if the mousetrap is really good.