The Value of Public Relations

[hadrian]

...We hope you will be patient with our temporary lull in communications while we get our coherently decentralized PR act together...

...In the past we have happily enjoyed free-wheeling interactions with a broad audience at bitsharestalk.org...

...We are currently in discussions with representatives from many of these groups and hope to reach a consensus that will satisfy them all in the near future. We're glad to say that we're making progress in formulating a better approach than we have had in the past.  One that is  more fair to everyone...

It's nice to hear something about what's going on.

I hope at some point soon the void caused by the 'temporary lull in communications' will be filled with something of substance, for the sake of good PR!
This topic is a start!

I also hope that whatever's going on behind the scenes is constructive, and beneficial for BitShares...

[Stan]

The Value of Public Relations

Most seem to agree that BitShares needs better public relations.  We have all seen what happens when we do it wrong!  Nobody has ever done public relations for a decentralized company before, so we have to figure it out on the fly, just like all the other things we are doing for the first time in history.  We want to preserve the decentralized nature of BitShares while maintaining a coherent public message.  That is what we have been working to sort out in recent weeks.  We hope you will be patient with our temporary lull in communications while we get our coherently decentralized PR act together.

Wikipedia defines Public Relations in this way (emphasis added):

Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public.  ... The aim of public relations is to inform the public, prospective customers, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders and ultimately persuade them to maintain a certain view about the organization, its leadership, products, or of political decisions. ... Public relations specialists establish and maintain relationships with an organization's target audience, the media, and other opinion leaders.

Common activities include designing communications campaigns, writing news releases and other content for news and feature articles, working with the press, arranging interviews for company spokespeople, writing speeches for company leaders, acting as organization's spokesperson by speaking in public and public officials, preparing clients for press conferences, media interviews, and speeches, writing website and social media content, facilitating internal/employee communications, and managing company reputation and marketing activities like brand awareness and event management.  Success in the field of public relations requires a deep understanding of the interests and concerns of each of the client's many publics. The public relations professional must know how to effectively address those concerns...

Our goal is to correctly anticipate the needs and reactions
of all of our "many publics". 

These would include:

• Those who are interested in discussing/participating in the technical developments.
• Those who are interested in the economic and libertarian ideals behind BitShares.
• Those who want to invest in BitShares without dealing with frequent unsubstantiated rumors.
• Those who just want to enjoy BitShares products and services with the same level of clear information they would have with any other business, including BitAsset users and potential merchants.
• Potential partners whose own PR image may depend on ours.
• Regulatory authorities.
• Industry opinion makers.
• Competitors and sources of deliberate disinformation.

In the past we have happily enjoyed free-wheeling interactions with a broad audience at bitsharestalk.org.  This has often led to our casual forum statements being misunderstood, especially when translated into many languages around the globe or misrepresented by those seeking to cause trouble.  So we are actively reworking our communication strategy by developing a formal channel for releasing information to all parts of the world simultaneously with consideration of the different demographic groups and cultures that have an interest in BitShares.

What works best for each of these groups does not necessarily work well for the others, so a few compromises will be necessary.  But, we are trying to get better at meeting the needs of all.  We are currently in discussions with representatives from many of these groups and hope to reach a consensus that will satisfy them all in the near future. We're glad to say that we're making progress in formulating a better approach than we have had in the past.  One that is  more fair to everyone.

In the mean time, the developers are still working hard on development.

So, nothing has changed about what we believe or where we are going.  We are just becoming a bigger family and learning how to deal with the unique needs of all of its members.

Success will be achieved when we are able to give everybody open access to all information in a form that is clear, concise, complete, current, consistent, considerate and compatible with the needs of all BitShares stakeholders.