PRSSA goes 2.0 event.
This weekend I went to the event from PRSSA called PRSSA goes 2.0. I have to admit that at when i woke up on saturday I was thinking about going or staying at home. But at the end of the event I was so knowledgeable about new media and PR, That missing it would’ve been a really bad idea. Pam one of my classmates was there, she is very into new media. check out her post PRSSA goes 2.0 and does it well. I’m sure she explains it better than me.
when I first got there I took my name tag and then walked to the main lobby. Obviously I was planning to apply everything I learned from my PR classes. I was convinced that if there was one thing I had yet to learn from the PR practice, is how to approach people. Awful flaw! I know. -Is like being an astronaut that is afraid of heights- Apparently I can handle everything else, but walking to someone else and trying to sell myself (or product or brand) is very uncomfortable. I blush, I mispronounce some words, I say words in spanish…. it could not get worse (its like the nerdy guy trying to talk to the hot girl in high school). And I guess for the other person is equally as awkward, since they are the ones who have to pretend to understand me and be nice about it.
Ok enough about me being shy and back to the conference. Congratulations to the two universities who put the event together; Simmons College and Boston University. The event was amazing. The opening keynote speaker was David Merman Scott, I personally think he was perfect for the morning speech. David Scott has so much energy that the daily caffeine dose was unnecessary. I have heard him two times (he already talked in one of my classes) and both times I learn new things from his speech. I loved the comparison he did with his laptop as an available Ad space and the way traditional PR is handled today. I think there is no better or simpler way of explaining The New Rules of PR and Marketing.
After the opening speech, we had the chance to hear from more experts: Greg Peverill-Conti, Lisa Davis, Elicia Basoli, Jason Glashow, and Laurie Shulman. Unfortunately we only had the option of choosing 2 of the speakers. I chose Greg not only because he is the VP of Emerging Technology and social media at Weber Shandwick, but he likes Soy chai latte… and what are the odds of having so much in common with him? Anyways, he was great in his breakout session. For my second speaker I chose Laurie Shulman she was amazing. Of all the speakers, I thought she was the more relatable for me as a student going into the PR world.
Dusty S. Rhodes from Conventures prepared an activity related to event planning. At the beginning I was very skeptical because we were given specific animals and then separated into teams, of course my first thought was “Ohh no, now we will have to impersonate these animals…. good luck being a jellyfish” I was a penguin, so I was ready to handle the walking and whatever the noise was. At the end there was no impersonation -thank God, although it would have been funny- but we had an activity that taught me a lot, specially since I am very into event planning.
Rick Murray from Edelman was the afternoon keynote speaker. He did an excellent job at explaining how important my generation is for the new way of conducting PR. it was wonderful to see how things in the PR world have change since the emergence of new media. Even better, was to hear from Rick Murray how my generation has already an advantage in the new PR world, since we grew up in the digital world and some of the tools and techniques are already familiar to us.
Afterwards, a career fair was hosted by several PR companies. I obviously was to shy to have the initiative of approaching them, but after a while I noticed some of my friends shared the same feeling. And the PR representatives were very nice. Everyone was so approachable I almost overcome my fears -I’m still working on that, not everyone is as nice as the people in the PRSSA event- Anyways, at the end of the day I was so much more smarter, I can’t wait to see how next year’s event goes.
