Deirdre Breakenridge

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 traveled to Holland last week to present at the Coopr PR 2.0 launch event in Rotterdam.  It was an incredible trip and I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Ruud Bijl, the owner of Bijl PR and his PR team, and also spent time with @jodykoehler and @josgovaart who are driving force behind [...]

It’s no secret that we’re all being asked to do more with less. Efficiency is a regular part of our vocabulary — and a standard by which clients hold us accountable. The question is: Beyond just working faster, what can we do to be more efficient? There are lots of “right” answers, but if you ask me, collaboration tops the list. Lucky for us, there are lots of free or inexpensive tools available to help PR people collaborate with each other.

Recently, the FTC revised its guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. Effective on December 1, 2009, bloggers are required to disclose any material connections to brands in the content that they publish. Until today, there was no simple disclosure solution. DigComm (short for the Digital Communications Group), a company that specializes in development of digital communications tools for PR and social media agencies, has developed Cmp.ly, which could be an extremely valuable and easy solution for bloggers, marketers and content providers moving forward.

I have to admit I got caught up in the conversations on Twitter regarding Kim Kardashian and her new reality show about the world of public relations. The comments on Twitter ranged from “This is tragic for PR” to “Publicity does not equal public relations.” My immediate concern was that public relations would be portrayed the wrong way. Kim even stated in the People Magazine article, “It’s going to be really fun. It’ll show how there’s lots of drama and crisis in the PR world.” Crisis…yes, but we’d prefer to minimize the drama.

I just finished an interview with Angela Hernandez, the President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). I was very happy to interview with Angela because the topic, “Is PR Right for me?” is important for the growth of the public relations industry. We need to attract future PR leaders who are the best and the brightest. Garnering the experience of industry professionals and having them share perspective is a great way to motivate PR’s next generation of experts.