(Boston) The opening moments of PRSA’s International Conference Sunday seemed to encapsulate the mix of old and new that is PR, marketing, communications and PRSA.
A bit after noon ET, a traditional touch, a fife and drum corps, brought the audience to its feet with tunes, including the Star-Spangled Banner. While the group was traditional it was comprised of young boys, none out of their teens. There also was a surge of youth in the audience; PRSSA student members and faculty were well represented at the conference. More than that, PRSA outgoing chair Jane Dvorak noted that for the first time, it was using scanners to track attendance at breakout sessions.
Indeed technology vendors dominated the exhibit floor, with systems designed to help PR pros track social media as well as traditional media mentions seeming to proliferate. And behind the scenes an interview with incoming PRSA chair Anthony D’Angelo reveals that the organization has decided to boost its technology with a multi-year plan, he tells PR News. One of the payoffs of the update for members, he says, is that they’ll be able to network on social easier and they’ll have better access to “searchability services.”
D’Angelo’s goals for his PRSA tenure include fostering professional development. “We’re a learning organization,” he says. Yet the type of learning is important. To be effective communicators, he says, PRSA members must commit to “continuous learning” and be current with the latest technologies. But tools change at “warp speed…so more important,” D’Angelo adds, “is having a strategic mindset” so PRSA members can “manage strategic change.”
Another “absolutely critical” element for D’Angelo is for PRSA to continue its commitment to ethics. “If you breach that [ethical] trust [with media] your career is toast,” he says, adding, “With the ground shifting beneath our feet…it’s good to have touchstones that say fairness, truth and accuracy… remain important.”
After the young fife and drum corps departed, a traditional Irish fiddler and banjo player took over before the entrepreneurial filmmaker and storyteller Morgan Spurlock took the stage.
During an utterly entertaining 90-minute presentation, Spurlock highlighted his work in corporate storytelling and emphasized the point, made in these pages often, that brands need to throttle back on selling when they tell stories on platforms such as social video and podcasts. Sounding like a modern PR pro, Spurlock said, “I want to sell an idea, not a product.” A short Spurlock film, with funding from Paul Allen, took a comedic view of healthcare and offered a PR lesson: “If you can make someone laugh, you can make someone listen.”
In a breakout session, IBM’s social and influencer communications lead, Brandi Boatner, was discussing dark social, which is data on the net that’s not tracked, such as texts and emails. What can communicators do to counter this? “Become Google Analytics-certified” is one way, she said.