Policy Changes Have our Clients’ Best Interest in Mind

Policy Changes Have our Clients’ Best Interest in Mind

We pride ourselves on staying in-the-know and continuously updating our practices and policies to ensure our team is doing our best work for you. In the interest of full transparency and accountability, we want to keep you informed about a few policy changes that will help us to provide more streamlined service.

Ethics

Revisions

Artificial intelligence

Social Media and Passwords

Intellectual Property

If you should have any questions about our practices, do not hesitate to contact your account manager or Melanie to discuss them.

PRSA Professional Code of Ethics

The PRSA Code of Ethics applies to PRSA members. Shift•ology is a company owned and operated by a PRSA member and Accredited PR professional in good standing. As such, all employees are expected to abide by the PRSA Codes of Conduct. This document is designed to anticipate and accommodate, by precedent, ethical challenges that may arise.

Shift•ology Code of Conduct

Values

Kindness is our favorite brand.
Creativity and common sense are not mutually exclusive.
Communication is a science-based practice – the science of creating meaning.
We only win when our clients win.

Moral Obligations

Honesty
Transparency
Inclusivity
Giving back, doing good
Family first
Creativity
Open-mindedness
Easy to work with, responsive
Life-long learning
Measurable results
Data-driven decisions
No excuses
Do what we say we’ll do
Own and correct our mistakes

Revisions

Revisions can significantly impact completion timelines. We estimate turnaround times based on agency and client review and updates. We expect our team and partners to adhere to target completion and review dates; significant delays can impact the overall timeline, which will be updated and communicated accordingly. Drafts for review by our clients have been thoroughly vetted by our professional team for context, spelling, punctuation, grammar, design and Associated Press Style (AP Style). A typical communication item has been reviewed by the writer, designer and account manager before being presented to the client.

We recognize that each client organization may have multiple people who need to weigh in on communication materials, and we will work with you to outline an effective workflow in our kickoff meeting to solicit input from all parties while keeping revisions to a minimum. Co-creation of copy in Google docs do not count as a round of revisions. We recommend the RAPID decision making model to streamline this process.

In order to ensure a commitment to these best practices, we limit client revisions:

For print and brand materials, revisions are limited to 1 round for copy, 1 round for design and 1 round for final product.
For websites, revisions are limited to 1 round for wireframes (the layout of the website without color, images, etc.), 1 round for the mockup, and 1 round for “customer beta review” before the website is launched.
For videos, revisions are limited to 1 round for message and visual outline and 2 rounds for video.
For social media, revisions are limited to 1 round due to the expedient nature of these platforms.

After the final round of revisions, production copy changes will be charged at $150 per hour. Changes to layout, design or video productions will be charged at $175 per hour.

Artificial Intelligence

Transparency

Shift•ology will be transparent with clients about any decisions to use generative AI in our work products. Most of our contractual agreements require us to produce deliverables for the client as work-for-hire and to assign ownership of all intellectual property to the client, as well as take responsibility for those materials and indemnify for claims arising from their use. This is why we carry liability insurance, and we endeavor to avoid claims.

Terms and Conditions

AI platforms have their own terms and conditions. They may not permit commercial use and may restrict ownership rights to the generated output.

Insurability

Shift•ology’s insurance will not likely provide indemnities or liability coverages for employees who misuse AI in a way that infringes upon others.

Data Input Formulas

We may retain user input data to help train the AI and require a license back to use the user inputs and outputs for further training purposes, which could create confidentiality concerns. “In the style of…” – Style has not historically been protectable under copyright law. However, there is some risk if we name or identify elements of someone’s distinctive style.

Copyright, Trademark and Intellectual Property

AI presents risks to copyright protections for creative expressions. AI-generated works do not qualify for copyright protection and cannot be registered, as copyright protection does not extend to non-human authors. All Shift•ology employees should endeavor at all times to avoid infringing on a pre-existing copyright and trademarks for all materials.

Ethics

We have provided training for our employees on the do’s and don’ts of AI, and plan to continue this practice.

Job responsibilities may include managing or updating content on a clients’ social media pages or website. This comes with great responsibility and a requirement to adhere to the utmost ethics and best practices.

Employees will not knowingly publish false, misleading, harmful or threatening information on any social media platform or page. This applies to both personal pages and those managed for our clients and partners. Employees will not use access to these tools to harm Shift•ology, its employees or clients’ reputations or businesses. Employees will be prosecuted for illegal online activity or posts. Employees will be disciplined and/or terminated for unethical or unprofessional behavior on company and personal time that is not aligned with company values. Shift•ology’s business depends upon relationships and reputations. Be mindful of the high standards that are expected.

Employees will conduct best practices for social content and reviews to ensure accuracy, truthfulness, context and copyright. In addition, employees must follow the social media guidelines developed for each client to ensure posts follow strategies and goals. On occasions where mistakes are made and discovered, the employee will correct the mistake(s) and use best practices to revise and/or repost the incorrect information. Social media is only effective when used transparently as a forum for two-way communication.

All employees will be removed from the management of any and all Shift•ology and client social media accounts upon termination or resignation.

Intellectual property

Copyright and Trademark Protection

The practice of public relations involves creative, original work. Shift•ology is only as valuable as the work it produces, and therefore must protect our creative ideas and work. At the same time, we must not infringe upon the intellectual property of others.

Copyright

Copyright means protection of a creative work from unauthorized use. It does not protect ideas – only the specific ways those ideas are expressed. Materials, such as brochures, annual reports, social media posts, website content, creative concepts and videotapes, must be protected to prevent unauthorized use by competitors. It is our responsibility as PR counsel to ensure this protection for both Shift•ology and client publications. Protect documents with a copyright disclaimer as follows:

If the disclaimer is not included, it is not protected from copyright infringement. If you suspect copyright infringement of a publication owned by Shift•ology or one of our clients, please report it to a manager.

Some other things to know about copyright:

Registration of a copyright is required in order to enforce rights and sue for copyright infringement in court.
All Shift•ology employees should endeavor at all times to avoid infringing on a pre-existing copyright.
News releases are only successful if redistributed by the media and are often directly copied and pasted by media organizations. Shift•ology does not copyright news releases or fact sheets because the companies we work with to issue the information authorizes such publication.
Be aware that any information entered into artificial intelligence tools could be protected by copyright laws.

Trademark

Trademarks are best thought of as a type of consumer protection law: they help those seeking goods and services to efficiently differentiate one supplier from another. The term “trademark” includes any word, name, symbol, or device – or any combination of those – that is used by a person or entity to identify and distinguish their goods and services from those offered by others, and to indicate the source or origin of their goods and services. In the U.S., and in many other countries, it is not required to register a trademark with the government before claiming rights to the mark.

To claim rights to a mark, the organization must prove use by attaching the ™ to all uses of the mark. This can apply to a company, product or service name, logo, tagline, campaign or other creative claim. Using ™ says to the marketplace that you intend to use the original mark or concept. Once you have proven exclusive use of the mark, the protection symbol can be upgraded to a registered trademark through an act of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Once this is approved, the ® symbol would replace the ™ symbol.

Shift•ology employees should include trademark protection on all brand elements and discuss the process of trademarking and registering trademarks with clients. This is a legal process, and we are NOT attorneys. However, we can share our understanding of it as frequent participants in this legal process.

Due Diligence

Before providing concepts to a client for company name, product or service names, taglines and campaigns, account managers should do a trademark search to check availability through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search.

While we conduct due diligence for trademark and copyright searches, we make no guarantees for approval. It is incumbent upon the client to retain and attorney to conduct legal research and due diligence in this process. We make no guarantees that proposed concepts will be approved for trademark or copyright through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. We do not employ attorneys to conduct this work on behalf of the client; however, we can explain the process, and we recommend you seek the professional guidance of an attorney. We are NOT attorneys!

Data Protection and Cybersecurity

Shift•ology is committed to treat information of employees, customers, stakeholders and other interested parties with the utmost care and confidentiality. With this policy, we ensure that we gather, store and handle data fairly, transparently and with respect towards individual rights.

This policy refers to all parties (employees, job candidates, customers, suppliers etc.) who provide any amount of information to us. Employees of our company and its subsidiaries must follow this policy. Contractors, consultants, partners and any other external entity are also covered. Generally, our policy refers to anyone we collaborate with or acts on our behalf and may need occasional access to data.

Policy elements

As part of our operations, we need to obtain and process information. This information includes any offline or online data that makes a person identifiable such as names, addresses, usernames and passwords, digital footprints, photographs, social security numbers, financial data, etc. Our company collects this information in a transparent way and only with the full cooperation and knowledge of interested parties. Once this information is available to us, the following rules apply.

Our data will be:

Accurate and kept up-to-date
Collected fairly and for lawful purposes only
Processed by the company within its legal and moral boundaries
Protected against any unauthorized or illegal access by internal or external parties

Our data will not be:

Communicated informally
Stored for more than a specified amount of time
Transferred to organizations, states or countries that do not have adequate data protection policies
Distributed to any party other than the ones agreed upon by the data’s owner (exempting legitimate requests from law enforcement authorities)

In addition to ways of handling the data the company has direct obligations towards people to whom the data belongs. Specifically we must:

Let people know which of their data is collected
Inform people about how we’ll process their data
Inform people about who has access to their information
Have provisions in cases of lost, corrupted or compromised data
Modify, erase, reduce or correct data contained in our databases

Data will be handled through off-site systems, such as Stripe, Google and other third-party services that provide protection for our clients.

Actions

To exercise data protection we’re committed to:

Restrict and monitor access to sensitive data
Develop transparent data collection procedures
Train employees in online privacy and security measures
Build secure networks to protect online data from cyberattacks
Establish clear procedures for reporting privacy breaches or data misuse
Include contract clauses or communicate statements on how we handle data
Establish data protection practices (document shredding, secure locks, data encryption, frequent backups, access authorization etc.)

Our data protection provisions will appear on our website.

Disciplinary Consequences

All principles described in this policy must be strictly followed. A breach of data protection guidelines will invoke disciplinary and possibly legal action.