From Shadow to Friend

By Rebecca Villarreal

Every year on the second Wednesday of February, high school seniors from across the nation participate in National Signing Day to sign with the college of their choice as an athlete. I am fortunate enough to have a job where I get to be these young student-athletes’ press agent for a day as a school public relations professional.

This year’s Shadow Days, sponsored by our PRSA chapter, were being held during this time. So I seized the opportunity to have a student “shadow” me on this particular day.

To my surprise, I was paired with a student who wants to go into public relations in the sports and entertainment industry. She was thrilled to see the humble beginnings of these young athletes and the “buzz” their early success created.  MORE

Business Case for Public Relations is Your Membership Dollars at Work

By Fran Stephenson

            Around the time of the International Conference, PRSA National launched an internal advocacy campaign, called the Business Case for Public Relations.  And just in time, too.  As technology expands the scope of our profession and the continued reputation of organizations continues to erode, now more than ever -- AS A PROFESSION—we need to demonstrate that we create value and care about the ethics which guide our actions.

But this is more just a bunch of words and an action plan. Already, the dedicated section on the PRSA Web site [http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/BusinessCase/] is filled with resources to assist professionals in addressing value, measurement and excellence in the field. 

Before you do any other reading in our field, go there and check out your new resources.  An entire section on value includes readings about the same.  Case studies are organized by subject matter and focus.  The resources are incredibly rich and this is just the beginning.  MORE...

By Katie Hornstrom

Sometimes revelations can happen at the most unexpected times in life. Last night, I was eating dinner at my sister’s house and it started raining. On a good day, it usually takes me a solid 45 minutes to get home, in the daylight. So imagine driving home at 9 p.m. on dark, winding country roads with deer around every curve… in the pouring rain.

I made an unhappy face at the prospect and my sister said, forcefully, “Hey! Don’t ever curse the rain!”

Suddenly, I was struck by how much the rain was like my job in Communications and like the PR profession in general.

Often in PR, we spend a lot of time preparing and waiting for events to happen, both good andpotentially bad, and they often seem to hit at the most inopportune times. Haven’t you ever found yourself thinking, “If I only had another (insert here: month, week, day, hour, minute) to get ready.” Or “If only that (insert here: event, incident, accident, situation) hadn’t happened today of all days.”

By Celine Thomasson

Either my husband or I go out to fetch the newspaper in the morning.  We spill the contents on the breakfast table and grab for our section.  Sports to my husband and Metro or Business to me.  Only now we toss out the contents of the plastic sack and both look in astonishment at our incredible shrinking newspaper. 

How do you split up a paper that has only two or three sections? I get the front page section and my husband says, “Read fast.”  

I believe in accreditation.

We’ve seen lots of opinions over the years in favor of and against public relations accreditation. One old argument is that “APR” doesn’t equal a bigger paycheck. That may be true. Nevertheless, the process helped me greatly increase my knowledge and expertise in the field.