I've unfortunately been too busy to post lately, what with exams and uni in general, but now it's all over I finally have some spare time to blog!
I've been wanting to post this for ages now; back in March, my university was lucky enough to have a visit from campaigner and political activist, Des Wilson, giving PR and politics students an insight into his admirable fifty year campaigning career.
To give a bit of background career information:
- Founder/chairman of Friends of the Earth, CITCOM, Parents Against Tobacco, Freedom of Information campaign, CLEAR (won campaign for lead-free petrol)
- Directed communications for Richard Branson lottery bid
- Devised campaign that led to the Sunday Trading Act
- Worldwide Vice Chairman for Public Affairs at Burson Marsteller
- Director of Corporate and Public Affairs for BAA plc.
- Columnist for The Observer
- President of the Liberal Democrats and Campaign Director of the 1987 General Election, resulting in winning PR Week’s award for outstanding individual of 1992
An admirable career to many if not to aspiring PR practitioners!
One of the university's PR lecturers interviewed Wilson, asking him questions about his career, his most memorable campaigns and his approaches to certain issues and crisis management. Whilst reflecting on his fifty year experience in the practice, he offered some inspiring quotes, one of my favourites being:
"Don't ever, ever, ever, ever let people tell you that you can't make a difference; rich, poor, old, young, you can"
He spoke in detail about CLEAR's winning campaign for lead-free petrol in April 1983, saying, "It never crossed my mind that we would lose - never campaign if the issue can be proved wrong. I even told my research team to look for evidence that proved us wrong. The spokesman against lead-free petrol said, 'If you can prove our petrol is affecting children, I'll listen to you' to which I replied, 'If you prove it's not affecting children, the whole world will listen to you'".
Amazing! And after listening to this inspiring man talk about his career and the efforts he has made to change our world, it made me realise how much we as a society take for granted. I think the whole auditorium were grateful to realise a man like Des Wilson has helped change the way we live today. A big thanks to him for sharing his experiences with us.
"You have to communicate from their point of view; how does it affect who you're trying to persuade? Get in the box with them" - Des Wilson
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