Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strange

I guess David Bowie had it right so many years ago. Change, so the saying goes, is inevitable in life. We change jobs, change clothes, and change hair styles. To me, though, it seems that I rarely hear about people who talk about how their profession has changed.

I’ve been in PR for over 20 years with almost all of that time focusing on the high tech industry. I remember the days of faxing information, waiting anxiously for the weekly hardcopy of InformationWeek to see if my client’s news had been covered, and watching the rise, fall, and rise again of Apple—I was at MacWorld ’97 when Steve Jobs returned. Needless to say, it’s been quite a ride but far from boring.

In fact, that’s one of the things I like most about working in the world of high tech PR. To a large extent technology dictates how we perform our jobs. The rise of social media in the past few years has had a  dramatic impact on how our industry functions. Mashable just published an interesting article about how technology, mostly social media, has changed many of the fundamental tools of our trade including press releases and the way we connect with members of the press and other influentials.

But what do these changes mean to your agency brand? Is your agency one to embrace change just to please a client or do you work in an environment that craves new ideas? I’ve had the good fortune to work both in-house on the corporate side and for a few agencies and I can honestly say that the places where technology and new ideas were adopted were the best places to be. Some people are resistant to change and sometimes waiting for the dust to settle is right move. But with it comes the risk getting marginalized and left behind.

The ability to learn, grow and develop is one of the things that gets me out of bed in the morning. What about you? What hooked you and keeps you in the PR world?

Rob Goodman

Author: Rob Goodman

Rob Goodman is a communications professional with more than 27 years of experience in public relations, marketing and content creation.