Lessons for Everyone from the PRSA Conference

I recently attended the 2008 Public Relations Society of American (PRSA) International Conference, where 3,000 PRSA and PRSSA members learned about the industry, networked with collegues and of course had some fun!

The thing about the PR profession is that everyone is really in the industry because we all do PR for ourselves - we all have our own personal brand, right? And we all want to portray that brand in the most positive light. How do you do that? There are plenty of sources out there that provide tips on personal branding. I recently started skimming the blog of Dan Schwaebel (a personal branding blogger). Penelope Trunk, author of the book and blog Brazen Careerist, has some good insight, too. Which brings me back to the PRSA conference.

Penelope Trunk was the keynote speaker at one of the luncheons during the conference and she shook things up! Penelope writes and gives career advice to the new generation of workers and gives such advice as job hop, take breaks in your career and have more sex. A summary of her speech is on the PRSA Web site. As I was sitting there - a 25 year-old who loved her laid back presentation style and resonated with her advice - surrounded by PR professionals, who many have 30+ years of "real world" experience, and I just took a look around and many were shivering in their seats. At that time, we all saw the generational differences of thinking at work. Even later, I attended the PRSA New Professionals dinner and we were discussing her speech, more postively than that of one of my collegeues who attended a dinner of those more seasoned PR professionals.

I write this because it is important for us new professionals to understand that it is OK for us to think differently than the baby boomers before us, but also because it is important for us to understand how those baby boomers think because right now, they are our bosses and will be for a few years and we should always respect and learn from them.

Take a look at Penelope's other tips (she gave 8) and I'd love to hear what others think!

At the conference we also heard from Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Bob Lutz (a GM executive), Mitch Album (talk show host and author of "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven"), and many others.