Final CPRS Toronto prez eblast message

For the last two years, I’ve been president of the board of CPRS Toronto, an organization I continue to support and believe in.  I’m coming to the end of my tenure and wanted to share my (almost) parting thoughts (originally published in the May eblast):

And now, the end is near… and so I face… OK – enough of that. I guess it’s my way of saying I can’t believe this is the last eblast I will be writing as CPRS Toronto president.   (more…)

The energi team is Aces

Wednesday was the annual CPRS Toronto ACE awards – celebrating the best PR programs of the 2010.  As president, I have the honour and pleasure of congratulating the recipients and handing out the awards. Special thanks to the committee for a wonderful and streamlined event, meaning I didn’t slow down the process posing for photos with all the winners. (Last year, it took me a week to wipe the silly grin off my face .)

This year’s gala had a double meaning for me.  I was excited to present energi PR with our first award – a gold for media relations for our client Astellas’ Pharma’s community, The Powder Room.   (more…)

More energi… on Inside PR

It was a funny feeling – announcing our merger, creating a whole new energi, so to speak, and then having to rush off to Hamilton for two days; 15 hours of lectures/instruction at McMaster to a group of smart, local business people who wanted to learn about social media.

And while I enjoyed the sessions, I felt a bit dislocated being away from the action after the initial burst of merger excitement.  This week, neither Gini Dietrich nor I were able to record Inside PR. (Gini was injured on her bike but is OK; and you know about me.)

So I want to thank Joe Thornley, the other member of our triumvirate, for zooming solo and interviewing my new partners, Esther Buchsbaum and Carol Levine and giving them a chance to talk about our new venture and plans!

You can read Joe’s post or listen to Inside PR.

You’ll hear my take in podcast 2.07.

CPRS Toronto gets connected

As many of you know, I’m the president of CPRS Toronto and, if you’re in the city, I’d encourage you to attend our first fall professional development event.

It’s a panel discussion on October 15 called ‘Get Connected: Building Virtual Relationships to Expand Communications’.

It features three savvy social media strategists, Michael O’Connor Clarke, Eden Spodek and William Young, talking about how we can use social media tools to engage and connect with our communities online and in real life.

I’ll be moderating the session.

If you’re interested, here’s some information on the event. Hope to see you there.

A tale of two conferences: Counselors Academy and CPRS

I don’t usually attend two conferences in two weeks – much less two PR conferences. However, that’s what happened early in June when I twice ventured west: first for Counselors Academy in Palm Springs and then for the Canadian Public Relations Society in Vancouver.

And I thought it’s worth noting some of the similarities and differences.

Both conferences focused on social media and its application to PR; both had knowledgeable presenters and tier one keynote speakers (including Robert Stephens, Steve McKee, Brian Solis and David Suzuki – to name a few); and both had PR students live-blogging/tweeting about the events.

I personally thought having the students actively involved added a fresh energy to the events.

However, and I don’t know if this is a U.S./Canada or an agency/client thing, but the general knowledge of and enthusiasm for social media seemed less prevalent at the CPRS event. Certainly there was interest, but not the same kind of passion I witnessed from agency heads (mostly from the U.S.). Or maybe Canadians are just a bit more resistant to change.

Now, there’s no doubt Counselors is all about the agency business and, if you’re an agency principal, there’s nothing that compares to it. And, as counselors, it’s incumbent on us to be up to be on top of trends in order to offer more intelligent counsel to our clients.

I don’t have the answer to this.
I did notice that there was a lot less live tweeting at the CPRS conference; a few people were active.

But maybe it’s the small number of agencies represented (from out East, I mean). And that could be due to the economy, but I think it’s a shame that there isn’t a bigger agency president at CPRS national and Toronto.

Which begs the question: why aren’t Canadian agencies more actively engaged in CPRS? I asked my friend Scott Farrell, president of PRSA Chicago and he said they were trying to get more clients to participate; they had lots of active agency members.

And, as the president of CPRS Toronto, I throw this question out to PR folks. What would it take to make agency people want to get more involved?