Today the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) has revealed superstar entrepreneur and one of my personal heroes, Biz Stone, has been awarded the CIPR President’s Medal.
Biz (pictured) has had a glittering career to date helping people communicate effectively. He’s the founder and CEO of Super.Me, co-founder of Twitter and also helped build Jelly, Medium, The Obvious Corporation, and Odeo – to name a few!
I read his excellent book, Things a Little Bird Told me: Confessions of the Creative Mind, and featured it in episode six of my podcast in April last year.
Biz @biz, was awarded the gong by Stephen Waddington Chart. PR FCIPR, Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum & CIPR Past President, @Wadds, and presented it by Rob Brown, @robbrown, CIPR President-Elect, at SxSW in Austin, Texas, a couple of days ago (pictured).
Writing on his blog, Stephen says: “Biz received the CIPR’s most prestigious accolade for his leadership as an entrepreneur at the forefront of developing new forms of media, networks and applications, modernising the business of public relations by enabling genuine two-way engagement between organisations and their publics.
“Twitter has become ubiquitous within the media and public relations. It is a critical network for breaking news, the go-to digital platform for real-time interaction, and the preeminent voice, eyes, and ears of every organisation and individual.
“Medium is also an innovation in communication, taking a disruptive approach to blogging and storytelling as a playground for creative communicators looking for new ways to associate their brands with great content.
“Both Twitter and Medium are cornerstones of modern public relations practice.”
The CIPR President’s Medal was first awarded in 1966 and is awarded at the President’s sole discretion to recognise the actions of an individual who has played a significant role in developing public relations’ ability to engage, communicate and to campaign, or whose actions have highlighted the role and benefit of public relations to society.
Previous winners include: Lord Coe in 2012, Sir Tim Berners Lee in 2009 and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2004.
Biz says: “We built Twitter to be readable and writable on every mobile phone on the planet because SMS is ubiquitous. Our goal was to provide the infrastructure to support the creativity and engagement that emerged. That ambition has meant that it has become a platform for public engagement and is part of the changing nature of communication between individuals and organisations.”
I think Biz is an excellent choice to receive the medal, congratulations to him and well chosen Stephen.
It’s unthinkable to imagine the world without Twitter, it’s become part of the way a lot of the world communicates. I found it fascinating to read about Twitter’s origins in Biz’s book, particularly the thinking behind it and how stepping back and watching it take off led to new developments over time.
Further reading
- Want to know more about Twitter? Read my guide for IC pros – first published in 2012 and constantly updated.
- Discover what being on Twitter for six years has taught me (published at five year milestone).
- How to use Twitter’s new emergency comms tool, Twitter Alerts – plus see my SlideShare below:
You can find me on Twitter @AllthingsIC and via @theICcrowd where you can discover thousands of other IC pros globally.
Thank you as ever for stopping by
Rachel.
Picture credits: CIPR
First published on All Things IC blog 16 March 2015.
