There’s a line in the movie “Molly’s Game” I think you’ll appreciate. As the young and future Olympic-level skier Molly Bloom was learning the sport from her father, he gave her this advice on the slopes: “If you look down, that’s where you go.” He probably should have also given the future "Poker Princess" advice to not get involved in illegal poker games, but I’ll stay focused on that poignant counsel of looking up, which will help us navigate the year ahead.
We are now in the thick of 2018 and it’s a good reminder to know your path, look up at all times and focus on the end point. As communicators you know you are as good as the last story told, the last campaign launched, the next initiative approved. The business world equivalent of moguls, black diamonds, avalanches – you’ll confront all these challenges this year if you are putting yourself out there. And if you are looking down, that is where you’ll go.
At PR News, we view this year as a turning point for communicators. Never have public relations professionals been more in the position to leverage their storytelling skills across so many platforms and with so much outstanding data to guide them. The role of the communicator is gaining significant ground within the C-suite, and while the lines have already blurred between Marketing and PR, the key difference we’ve seen is that PR pros are seeing more clearly that success requires them to be more proactive, vocal and collaborative.
This year, PR News is rolling out a slate of offerings to help you achieve better results with your stakeholders and to elevate the indisputably powerful practice of public relations. For nearly 70 decades, we’ve been advocating for public relations and communications. While this profession has come a long way, we recognize that as sure as the day is long that PR will need to step up its game and demand more recognition.
The PR News team is collectively a big fan of face-to-face events and we are sticklers about high-quality journalism. We are dedicated to benchmarking excellence and a bit insistent on giving communicators a voice. This year, based on demand from so many people in our community, we’ve extended all our conferences to be two days to allow for more peer-to-peer interaction, networking and deeper dives into the topics. The PR Measurement Conference in April, for example, usually a one-day event of high-intensity learning, is now designed to give you more time to talk data and analytics with hundreds of others just like you (yes, they’re out there!).
Our Feb. 22-23 DigiComm Summit is not coincidentally held at a beautiful resort in Huntington Beach, California. While we’re not that great at math, we know that great speakers + excellent content + smart attendees + sun + sand + beach = 1 outstanding conference. Join hundreds of your peers next month to redefine digital communications and calibrate your social campaigns to break through the noise. Communicators are lifelong learners and for those of you who’ve attended our PR News conferences, you know that not only do we attract outstanding speakers, but in the audience are practitioners who are sharing, teaching and learning from one another during our events. It’s a very rewarding part of our job here at PR News, and we hope you’ll join us this year for at least one of our conferences.
Our editorial mission at PR News is to provide you with real-world, advanced best practices in communications. To that end you’ll find our editorial staff probably calling or emailing you to include your case studies, hear your story ideas and deliver quick-to-read but high-impact information for you and your team. Connect with us and let us also get you connected with your peers.
Our many awards programs this year in areas ranging from the Top Women in PR to Social Media to the premier Platinum PR Awards are designed to showcase your contributions and those of your team and to benchmark for the industry not just the good stuff out there but the great stuff and the people behind it. While we are proponents of integrated communications and cross-channel marketing, we understand the hard work that you’re doing can sometimes go unnoticed or uncelebrated.
To everyone in our PR News community: thank you for supporting what we do and always keeping us on our toes. Our eyes are on your future and that of the communications profession. Hoping we'll be looking up together!
-- Diane Schwartz
PS: Take a look at PR News' upcoming conferences and awards programs.