Winter 2015 Vol. 47, Issue II www.prssa.org/FORUM
CONFERENCE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
PRSSA NATIONAL
PRESIDENT
Take
Your
Leadership to
the Next
Level
If you follow the tradition of
making New Year’s resolutions, I
encourage you to put one goal on
your list: become a better leader.
For Chapter presidents, National
Committee and general members
alike, 2015 is the year to take
your leadership to the next level
— and PRSSA has the tools to get
you there.
The PRSSA 2015 National
Assembly, which will be March
12–15 in Portland, Oregon, is
a premier event for emerging
leaders. Attendees will engage in
leadership workshops, have the
option to participate in the Day-of
Competition, and listen to keynote speakers among other things.
At this event, members will also
vote and run for the 2015–2016
National Committee and vote on
National Bylaw changes. Each
Chapter is encouraged to send
one delegate, who will receive a
complimentary registration and
hotel room from PRSSA. Those
who are not running for a position
or voting are still encouraged to
attend to listen to speakers and
participate in the workshops.
Even if you do not join us
in Portland, there are plenty of
opportunities to enhance your
leadership in 2015. Chapter leaders may access National resources
through the Chapters tab of our
website by clicking on “Tools for
Leaders.” All PRSSA members
may participate in Twitter chats,
run for Chapter leadership, volunteer at PRSA events and connect
with PRSA to receive leadership
advice and mentorship. If 2015 is
the year you graduate, then PRSA
has you covered with opportunities to continue your leadership
within PRSA by joining as an
Associate Member for just $60.
We all have the potential to
be outstanding leaders. Regardless of where you are in your
PRSSA journey, I hope you will
be inspired to enhance your
leadership as you advance in your
career.
Cheers to 2015 being a year
of both personal and Societal
growth. I wish you the best as
you take advantage of PRSSA’s
leadership opportunities.
more focused and targeted to a
specific industry or market,” said
David Watta, vice president of
Regional Conferences.
No matter which conference
you attend, you’re sure to do
some great networking, develop
professionally, prepare for your
career and learn things that you
can bring back to your Chapter.
Who knows, maybe attending a
Regional Conference will inspire
you to host one of your own.
“In my opinion, planning a
Regional Conference is where a
majority of the benefits lie,” Watta
said. “While live events management isn’t for everyone, I do
believe that every public relations
student can learn a whole lot
about this profession by participating in it.”
Chapters are chosen to host
based on the strength of their bid
and the region they belong to. The
decisions are made by the vice
president of Regional Conferences, the National President and
PRSSA Headquarters, who notify
the Chapters in early October.
If you’re interested in hosting
your own Regional Conference,
your Chapter can start planning
now so that you can submit a bid
form in the fall. If you don’t know
where to start, visit a conference
to gain ideas or go to the PRSSA
website for guidance.
Five Things to Ask For in Your Next Internship
BY RYAN MCSHANE TAYLOR STRATEGY
Taylor Strategy Account Superviser Ryan McShane explains five crucial industry skills that students should attempt to grow in when interning. Photo courtesy of Xenlife.
I officially welcome our new
interns each term the same way.
Over a cup of coffee in our office’s private living room area, I’ll
communicate expectations and
offer best practices that helped
previous interns — myself included — land a full-time position.
Lastly, I’ll outline five key areas
of practice that will serve as the
foundation of their time with us.
I explain that I will work
with them to ensure they come
away with experience in these
five areas. That way, our managers can accurately determine their
effectiveness as a potential candidate and they can add a variety
of experience to their resumes in
the event there are no openings
available. By diversifying their
workload, the interns can tailor
their résumés to fit any job posting
rather than be pigeonholed by an
overly narrow internship program.
RESEARCH
So much can be accomplished
through ongoing research. We
can intimately get to know our
targets — what makes them tick
and how to communicate to engage. Research can tell us the
effectiveness of executed pro-
grams, reveal a brand’s live pulse
through media coverage and social conversation s and help us
project trends to allow our teams
to plan and innovate. We also research our competitors’ activity,
as well as any factors adjacent
or related to our brands, including the sporting events we sponsor, pending regulations of consequence and key markets where
our brands’ products are sold.
Our interns start each morning pulling research from all of
the above topics and more, and
compile it in a report for the team
to reference and flag for the client. Because the daily monitoring report is shared with the entire account team, I encourage
interns to be especially acute,
as it is daily exposure to upper management in our agency.
WRITING
You simply cannot get away
from writing in public relations.
While press materials, including
releases, pitch notes and fact sheets,
make up an important part of this
category, these materials merely
skim the writing surface. Virtually everything we do incorporates
writing, from point-of-view state-
ments to whitepapers, program
recaps, deck content and more.
And don’t forget to mind your
internal written communication.
Inconsequential emails should
be treated as official client documents, as additional members of
your team — or your client —
may eventually be copied to an
ongoing chain with your tragic
faux pas smiling for all to see.
MEDIA RELATIONS
Interns play a pivotal role in
determining who we target for media outreach and how to best communicate with those on the list. If
the intern correctly does their job,
we know the appropriate person at
any given outlet to cover our story,
how they’ve covered the topic in
the past — whether positively or
negatively — and any other factor that will lead to an affirmative action, including lead times
and preferred method of contact.
We also give interns pitching assignments, and depending on their
tenacity, pitching assignments
will evolve to more contacts.
EVENT LOGISTICS
Don’t expect to earn flight
status during an internship, but
your work will follow your account team to every event on the
calendar. We rely on interns to
contribute to a sound run-of-show,
accounting for every minute and
detail of the big day. Examples of
this category include shipping materials in advance of the team’s arrival, working with event vendors
and facility managers and communicating significant changes with
attendees. Sometimes we’re tasked
to work miracles, and we take
note when an intern can exhibit
their skills as a logistical problem
solver who is cool under pressure.
DIGITAL
Many of our client scopes of
work these days revolve around
how to activate and grow their
social followings. Digital work is
integrated in nearly every activity
we execute, and interns contribute
to these activities through daily
content creation, flagging opportunities to respond or engage,
surprise and delight activations
and social influencer discovery
and coordination. Interns who
can learn the brand’s voice and
adapt that into compelling social
content can easily show the impact of their work in this space.
Ready to vote on next year’s leadership at
National Assembly? Register online at:
prssa.prsa.org/events/Assembly/Register/