Public Relations professionals in the country have
been urged to be awakening to innovative ideas that could resolve issues
relating to the profession and their clients in order to attain the needed
growth required as well as respectable position among their counterparts.
This was the submission of the Chief Consultant of
TPT International, Adetokunbo Modupe, who was guest speaker at the December 2018
edition of the Lagos PR Clinic of the state chapter of the Nigerian Institute
of Public Relations (NIPR) under the theme: Ideapreneurship:
The Nature of Our Trade.
He postulated that PR practitioners are
ideapreneurs who should be driven by intellectual ideas that are well tailored
towards clients’ needs and their target publics for desired results, and not be
inundated with business gains in the manner of entrepreneurs.
Modupe, a Harvard-trained ideapreneur with over two
decades experience in PR, affirmed that since the profession is dynamic,
practitioners should re-examine their business modules as ideapreneurs, think and develop ideas that would
invariably translate to income generation.
“Don’t let the world drive you, drive the world
with your ideas. This keeps us in a more respectable position before our
clients who should not think that we are in the business just to make money. We
should not see ourselves as entrepreneurs but there is nothing wrong in
thinking about wealth” he explained.
Modupe described ideapreneurs as deep thinkers who
creates jobs, have a mind of their own; explore alternatives to the norms by
fostering ideas and are not motivated by pedestrian or temporary success but
enduring legacies.
He further stated that PR is about thinking and
managing thought processes for the benefit of other people’s reputation, and
likened it to innovation pentathlon, a structured process that removes the risk
of failure as ideas progress.
According to him, great men like Steve Jobs,
co-founder of Apple; Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of Tesla Motors; and
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon who have all made global impact in their various
endeavours were driven by creative ideas.
“It is time we sit down and say to ourselves, what
do we really do? If you do not know you are an ideapreneur, you will let yourself down. So let’s change the way we do our
business, as we need to conquer our fears,” Modupe challenges his fellow
practitioners.
He noted that the PR industry is hardly recognised,
and it is partly responsible for the way clients rate practitioners.
One of the reasons he identified as responsible for
this is the proliferation of quacks, which is fallout of the porous entry
barrier into the profession. “This has earned the profession a depressing image,”
he added.
The TPT boss however called on the NIPR to take
bold steps in checkmating the activities of these quacks in order to attain
development in the industry.
Modupe is also an alumnus of Lagos Business School
and that of St. John University in the United Kingdom, among other
world-renowned institutions.
He is the Founder of TPT International, a reputable
PR organisation which footprints in all the sectors of the economy. The agency
has been recognised with awards by professional and other bodies within and
outside Nigeria.
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