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- Agency innovators challenge status quo - Innovation is essential for the PR industry as it continues its evolution. PRWeek profiles five agency executives whose ideas could have an effect far beyond the reach of their agencies. Defren envisions a PR industry that is willing to take risks - and perhaps make some mistakes - to get things right. "I'd like to see us experiment more," he adds. And the industry may not have a choice. As media grow increasingly sophisticated, Defren believes bad PR - e-mail blasts, unsolicited attachments, and uninformed press releases - will disappear. "It was easy to get away with that when it was just clicking the mouse and crossing your fingers," he says. "But now there's so much openness and transparency." And while everyone's new buzzword is "social network," Defren says the industry hasn't fully invested in this. "It's one thing to jump on every social network as it is announced," he says. "But if you're not participating on a daily basis with people who you are trying to influence, you're not truly part of their network." Last year, Defren debuted one of the first templates for a social media press release, but many in the industry worried the mainstream press wasn't ready for the change, he says. "To which I reply again and again - this is not just about them anymore," he points out. Yet while it's important for PR professionals to be aware of the changing media landscape, Defren warns that it's equally as important to not get too overeager with social networks. "Where disillusionment sets in on the other side of the table," he says, "is when [journalists] see this as yet another avenue for spam. Because while the PR industry is open to new avenues of communications, they haven't taken the time to do it correctly." Doing it right means maintaining relationships with the handful of online influencers in each industry, he advises. But that takes time and resources, and some are skeptical of it being a worthwhile investment. This is where the experimenting - and perhaps the screwing up - comes in. "I didn't say it wasn't hard," he adds. "If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be worth doing."
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