Deirdre Breakenridge

My trip to New Jersey was inspired by a bland class assignment for my public relations course at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan: job shadow a public relations professional for a day and write a five-page paper about the experience. Shortly after moderating #PRStudChat in January, I thought this could be a great opportunity to venture out of Michigan and connect with #PRStudChat co-founder and one of the greatest minds in the PR 2.0 movement, Deirdre Breakenridge. She was completely onboard with my proposal, going above and beyond my request: I got to spend not just a day just with Deirdre, but three.

There’s a little song I learned back in Girl Scouts (yes, I was a girl scout… rocked the cookie sales, horrid when it came to crafts!). Make new friends, but keep the old. One is sliver and the other gold.

This must be the week of great PR announcements. Here is another special announcement about our very first #PRStudChat Tweetup. I’m happy to announcement that #PRStudchat is hosting a casual/informal event on Wednesday, March 10th at Gary Vaynerchuk’s (@garyvee) Wine Library (@winelibrary) in Springfield, New Jersey from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Here’s a special video announcement on #Chatmixer that will take place on Tuesday, March 9th at 8:00 p.m. EST. Looking forward to chatting with all of the different Twitter chat communities!

I was really happy when Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) and Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) approached me to participate in Help a PR Person Out (#HAPPO). What a wonderful way to share information and to help PR professionals with the job search by organizing an upcoming Twitter event. The goal: to help PR job seekers locate the numerous PR jobs that are finally becoming available.

Back in June 2009, I interviewed Thom Brodeur, COO of HARO. At the time, he had just accepted the position and was on the fast track to take HARO to a new plateau. Thom was true to his word!

On Friday, January 8, 2010, I had the pleasure of participating in Syracuse University’s Newhouse School Masters in Communications Management program reunion. It was a great affair. I focused my presentation, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, on three parts that I felt would be beneficial to this group of seasoned PR professionals: Learning from the past, PR today and Public Relations in the future.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a huge fan of National Public Radio (NPR). I listen to “The Takeaway” and “Morning Edition” every day driving to work. NPR keeps me company as I sit in traffic for over an hour driving up the Garden State Parkway. I heard a great segment the other morning. A surgeon being interviewed discussed how a simple checklist in the ER and in the Operating Room could save a life. He told a story about a man who came into the hospital with what looked like a small stab wound about an inch long. Because the proper questions were not asked in the ER, the man simply stated that he was stabbed at a Halloween party. Within 10 minutes the surgeon said that the man “crashed.” Apparently, the doctors in the hospital were not informed that the stab wound was so deep it punctured his aorta. He was stabbed with a bayonet (it was a costume party).