Month in the PR events: November

PR events
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October has been great!

November has been an incredible month when it comes to the events I attended. I managed to get inspired at the Creative Group event, as well as get some useful tips on the future career at the Careers Fair, both hosted by my favourite PRCA. I also managed to attend the evening talk, organised by The Media Society, with the legendary broadcaster Steve Hewlett.

PRCA Member DrinksWednesday, 2 Nov @PRCA

It's always great to start the month with networking over some drinks. And there's no better way to meet industry professionals than the monthly PRCA event.

PRCA Careers FairTuesday, 11 Nov @Nelson Bostock

One of my favourite events this year! PRCA, and especially Mary Davoudi, have done a phenomenal job for this year's fair. We could attend some fabulous and constructive workshops. I attended a seminar about digital transformation, as well as personal branding. Among many stands, we also had a chance to speak with practitioners from top communications agencies, including M&C Saatchi PR, Weber Shandwick, Hotwire, Instinctif Partners, and many more.  

Not forgetting, the lineup of speakers was really impressive. We heard from Golin's Orla Moran on what working in PR goes with. BuzzFeed's European head of communications, Peter Heneghan, has also shared some insights with us. In the first panel of the day we heard from Kate Sloan of Weber Shandwick, Lottie Whyte from Instinctif Partners, BruceMcLachlan of Fever, as well as MD of Hotwire, Matt Cross, and leading communications for Twitter in the UK, Sam Hodges. 

In the second panel we gained invaluable advice from the young professionals -- Olivia Milizia from Cohn&Wolfe, Will Darby of Golin and Chris Birt from Instinctif Partners.

In both panels we were advised how should we approach job hunting for a communications job, how to network and what traits every young practitioner should have. Among many great tips, I found those about being self-aware and curious the most crucial. I also enjoyed the piece of advice of not being in a rush to get to the top as fast.

PRCA Digital and Creative Group IgniteTuesday, 15 Nov

Digital and Creative group got together in a very unusual form of the event. Each speaker (or speakers) had only fifteen seconds to talk about each slide and inspire the audience. They all inspired, indeed!

Among presenters, we could hear from Allison Adams and Kev O'Sullivan from FleishmanHillard Fishburn, who questioned whether creativity can be really measured.

Ruth Shulver (Head of Corporate Communications at Surrey Police) has given us a great, response to crisis comms, in a unique way. Helen Lawrence from Twitter, using the analogy to Strictly Come Dancing, showed us how social media strategy should be executed.

Social media consultant Paul Sutton gave us some case studies of campaigns, mainly executed in the social space. I really enjoyed presentation of the H+K's Emma Wright, who used examples of cinematic hits to emphasise how important storytelling is. We heard bunch of other shrewd talks from industry professionals like Rowly Bourne of Rezonence, Ali Hanan from Creative Equals, Laura Citron of WPP, and a journalist Gemma Milne.

The Media Show's Evening with Steve HewlettFriday, 25 Nov @BBC

For the final event of this month, I attended the talk with one of my favourite broadcasters, Steve Hewlett. The event was organised by The Media Society. Steve is a former editor of Panorama and has his weekly Radio 4 programme, The Media Show (one of my favourite broadcasts out there!).

During the night I learned a lot about journalists' job and gained many interesting insights into this profession. The audience was also entertained by many incredible anecdotes from Steve, including the one about the interview with Princess Diana that Panorama did back in the day. Hewlett was also asked where does self-confidence come from and how important it is in this profession. On the top of that, the broadcaster was questioned about his regrets in career.

The Media Show and BBC Academy have also done a write-up of this event. Available here and here.

***

Month in the PR events is a monthly series on the blog, where I make a write-up of the industry events I’ve attended in the past weeks. Originally initiated on my LinkedIn.

Make sure you also follow PRCA on Twitter, visit their website and check the membership options. If you’re a student, strongly consider Student Membership.

The Media Show also offers a student membership that you can purchase for just £5 a year! Check their website and follow them on Twitter.

If you have any suggestions, would like to guest post or give me a feedback, feel free to email me at kl.marcel [at] gmail.com, tweet me @marcelkl or connect with me on LinkedIn. Thanks for stopping by, have a splendid day!

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