Gift of Communication

Last week I attended the Gift of Communication organized by the IABC. It was one of the best experiences I have had in my world of public relations to date.

This was the first time that I have exercised my PR knowledge outside of the classroom.

I am currently starting my internship's soon so this was the first glance at PR in the real world that I have experienced.

I was paired up with another student from my class and we worked with the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton. The SPRS is a great organization. Although I never knew they existed before I decided to attend the Gift of Communication, I quickly came to realize that the SPRS does great work within the community.

The whole point of the event is to become part of a discussion with your chosen organization. Our discussion at my table was based on how the SPRS could communicate better through social media.

The discussion was excited, engaging and very educative. As many organizations struggle with maintaining and developing their social media presence, we discovered very quickly that the main importance is to understand the message you are trying to spread.

Knowing your message seems easy however, it is actually very difficult to pin point. This is what most of our discussion involved, understanding what exactly SPRS is and what they offer within the community and the business world. Next we talked about how they could spread this message and what way they should focus on.

I felt that our conversations could have lasted well beyond the time given which is a great feeling!

At the end of all of our discussions, we had to present those things that were discussed and discovered. Thankfully, I did not have to present as I get very nervous with public speaking especially with a room full of professionals!

The presentations were funny given that many tables talked about TWITTER! The world of social media is very new to many people and is something more businesses and organizations are learning to adapt to.