My First Webinar

For my professional social media presentation, I decided to attend a webinar. Unfortunately, many PR webinars require advanced registration, membership, or a really high fee ($329?? Don't these people know I'm a college student?). Luckily, PRSA has a bunch of free webinars posted on their sites and the beauty of it is that you don't even have to wait for a particular time for it to start, you can watch past ones too. So I watched "Accelerate Your Career In Public Relations: Steps You Can Take Now to Prepare for Your Future" which was originally held on Thursday, April 28 at 3PM EDT. 


The webinar was moderated by Jenny Schade, a former therapist that specializes in guiding employees and organizations through changes (such as this awful economy). The Panel of speakers included Robert Hastings, a senior vice president of communications at Bell Helicopter, and Mary Henige, the director of social media & digital communications for GM. It was really interesting and surprising that the moderator for this webinar was not actually a PR professional but a therapist. 


I really learned a lot from the webinar, some really surprising things in fact. Apparently, Schade found that through her sessions with different organizations' employees, people are actually thriving in this economy. I guess all it took was a scary downward spiral toward economic depression to light a fire under people's asses. Schade gave a few tips based on what she observed on how to protect your career in a chaotic economy which I will definitely follow....if I can get a job. 


This webinar also reinforced the fact that after graduating college and maybe gaining some real world PR experience, I should get accredited in Public Relations. Both panelists discussed how important getting accreditation and how it helped advance both of their careers. Overall, I'm really glad that I attended this webinar and I can hopefully use the advice they've given in real practice.