Young Pr Pros

When was the last time you reminded your boss about a good project you ran? When was the last time you asked for constructive criticism on your writing? How often do you talk up your teammates and colleagues? This week, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent discuss mistakes young professionals might be making that are holding back their careers. Our inspiration this week comes from Fast Company's You're probably making these five mistakes at work. This is not to make you paranoid, in fact, you might not be doing anything wrong, but for peace of mind it is still important to periodically look back at our job and see what we are doing - or not doing - to improve our careers. Kristine and Julia discuss everything from handling upsets poorly, to the importance of asking questions, to walking the line between self-promotion and team work. Our hosts share their experiences and reveal what mistakes they were making at the beginning of their careers. We want to hear from you. Will you admit to making any of these mistak

This week, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent talk about corporate social responsibility or CSR. For those who are new to this term, CSR is the voluntary activities undertaken by a company to operate in an economic, social and environmentally sustainable manner. CSR not only does good for mother earth and our communities, it can be a great opportunity to emotionally connect with your audience - with the ultimate goal of increasing your bottom line. Julia kicks it off by sharing what her company does in the realm of corporate social responsibility. MHPM's CSR is not just a communications tactic, but contributes to their service offerings and corporate brand. We find out that the work they put in to CSR directly contributes to increasing their bottom line. Kristine then shares some examples of other organizations across the world that have embraced corporate social responsibility and have been recognized for their efforts through the 2014 CSR Awards at the National Press Club in Washington. The awards recognize

Customer service shouldn't be a foreign word to public relations and commuications professionals. Although we might not always be face to face with our organization's customers, their happiness often decides the fate of your communications department and organization. This week, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent explore the old saying "the customer is always right" and how it applies to PR and communications. We got our inspiration from one of our favourite podcasters, Terry O'Reilly, host of CBC's Under The Influence. On Under the Influence, Terry explores the critical shift from a century of overt one-way messaging to a new-world order of two-way dialogue. Most recently, Terry did an episode called Tales of Customer Service. He talked about an amusement park that delivered such superior customer service that other corporations asked for lessons, a shoe company you can order a pizza from and a store that actually accepted a returned product they didn't even sell just to keep their customer happy. Not only a

This week, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent share their experiences of good and bad meetings. Public relations and communications is a people industry, so get used to a lot of meetings in your careers. In this episode we concentrate on in-person meetings - conference calls are a whole other story. As a young professional you might not be the one calling the meeting, but there are certain things you can do to ensure the meetings you attend are efficient and productive. We pull some of our ideas and advice from an excellent article from lifehacker.com called How to Have a Meeting That Isn't a Complete Waste of Time. The author, Mihir Patkar, gives an extensive review of the good, the bad and the ugly of holding meetings, and offers concrete advice to hosting productive meetings. We want to here from you. Tell us your horror stories, what was the worst meeting you have ever attended? We also want to hear the good though, what was the best meeting you ever attended? Also, Young PR Pros will be in Ottawa, Canada

This week, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent review an article in Canadian Living by Jackie Middleton called 8 social media mistakes that could damage your career. Middleton writes: Social media has made information very accessible, and the worst kind of information can hurt you professionally. One expert shares etiquette tips when it comes to your social media streams. We explore all eight mistakes and give our own experience and opinion on each. Everything from the obvious rule of not posting nude pictures to the grey areas of adding colleagues on Facebook. We want to hear from you. Would you add to the list? Is there anything on this list you agree or disagree with? Share your comments below, or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or in our LinkedIn group, or on Pinterest, or send us an email at youngprpros@gmail.com, or send us a message on Twitter @youngprpros, @kristinedarbell or @kentjulia.

This week Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent continue their conversation with Tara Lapointe. Tara is a dynamic marketing and communications strategist with more than 15 years experience in the arts and entertainment industries. She is currently the Head of Marketing Communications at the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada's national arts funder, where she leads the public relations, brand and content strategy and translation team. Tara is also the recipient of the "40 Under 40" Award. She is wrapping up a year as VP, Marketing Communications of IABC Ottawa and has recently announced that she is accepting the role of incoming president for the Ottawa chapter. We asked Tara: What are your interview pet peeves? Tara's main pet peeves are: Disqualifying yourself even before the interview. No cover letter - no job. Not telling the hiring manager why you want to work for them. Mistakes in your cover letter. Not reaching out to the hiring manager after sending in your resume or job application. Not doing any res

This week on Young PR Pros, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent record face-to-face with our guest Tara Lapointe. Tara is a dynamic marketing and communications strategist with more than 15 years experience in the arts and entertainment industries. She is currently the Head of Marketing Communications at the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada's national arts funder, where she leads the public relations, brand and content strategy and translation team. Tara is the recipient of the "40 Under 40" Award. She is wrapping up a year as VP, Marketing Communications of IABC Ottawa and has recently announced that she is accepting the role of incoming president for the Ottawa chapter. Our question for Tara was: What are the benefits of being a PR generalists? Tara mentions three very important benefits: Being able to adapt to the next opportunity Being able to adapt and relate to a large communications team Being a specialist can limit you in the onset of your career Tara closed the episode with her advice for young

Young PR Pros host, Julia Kent, is a popular girl on the University of Carleton campus. For the fourth year in a row she has been invited to speak as part of a three-person panel at the School of Journalism alongside Lauren More, vice-president of communications with Ford Canada and Carrie Bendzsa, brand systems and external communications leader at IBM Canada. The hour-long panel is full of great tips and advice for young professionals who are currently studying journalism making the transition to public relation or communications. So much information, that Young PR Pros has announced a new four-episode series called From Journalism to PR. Over the next month keep your eyes out and your ears pealed for more tips and advice that we gathered from this excellent panel. In episode 3, we talk about the infamous PR title. We answer your most common question: what is in a PR title? The world of public relations, communications and marketing is mixing, melding and expanding. Today, a title is just that - a title. Fi

As our listeners heard a few weeks ago, host Kristine D'Arbelles got to attend the CPRS student event in Ottawa called Behind the PR Scenes – an evening with Jim Watson. She was lucky enough to get a few moments with the Mayor where she could ask him one question. She asked: Have you ever regretted sending a tweet? In this week's episode, we share the Mayor's answer, and like the good politician he is, he says there was no single tweet he regretted. However, he did mention he regretted getting in to long conversations with people who he knew wouldn't change their mind, conversations that belabor a point and don't help anyone. Kristine and Julia talk about our response to the Mayor's answer, the psychology of communicating and the questions you should ask when communicating with a non-respective audience. But we want to hear from you, have you ever regretted sending a tweet? How did you react? Did you delete the post? Apologize? Share your comments below, or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or i

For the eighth semester in a row, Young PR Pros host, Julia Kent, was invited to speak as part of a three-person panel at the University of Carleton School of Journalism alongside Lauren More, vice-president of communications with Ford Canada and Carrie Bendzsa, brand systems and external communications leader at IBM Canada. The hour-long panel is full of great tips and advice for young professionals who are currently studying journalism making the transition to public relation or communications. So much information, that Young PR Pros has announced a new four-episode series called From Journalism to PR. Over the next month keep your eyes out and your ears pealed for more tips and advice that we gathered from this excellent panel. In this week's episode, episode 2, we talk about the valued skills journalists bring to a PR role. Writing, writing, and writing Networking Video, audio and image editing skills These skills are all very important to be a successful journalist, but an even more successful PR or co

Young PR Pros host, Kristine D’Arbelles, gives listeners a recap of the CPRS student event in Ottawa called Behind the PR Scenes – an evening with Jim Watson. Strong community leaders, businesses, and associations need talented support teams who work behind the scenes to help develop strategies, engage audiences, and deliver key messages. In Ottawa, no one knows that better than our mayor. Mayor Jim Watson accepted CPRS’s invitation to bring three of his trusted advisors for an inside look at best practices and why our mayor is so successful using online and offline communications channels to tell the city’s story. The Mayor and his team sat on a panel moderated by none other than Joseph Thornley himself. Some of our listeners might know the iconic name. Joe Thornley is the co-founder of Thornley Fallis & 76design and host of Inside PR. Joining the Mayor on the panel was his Director of Community Relations, Danielle McGee, Press Secretary, Ryan Kennery – who our listeners probably recognize from our time

For the eighth semester in a row, Young PR Pros host, Julia Kent, was invited to speak as part of a three-person panel at the University of Carleton School of Journalism alongside Lauren More, vice-president of Communications with Ford Canada and Carrie Bendzsa, brand systems and external communications leader at IBM Canada. The hour-long panel is full of great tips and advice for young professionals who are currently studying journalism making the transition to public relation or communications. So much information, that Young PR Pros has announced a new five-episode series called the Carleton University Panel Series. Over the next month keep your eyes out and your ears pealed for more tips and advice that we gathered from this excellent panel. In this week's episode, episode 1, we highlight the beginnings of the careers of the panelists, where did they get their star? And how did they transition to the industry of public relations of communications. Be it accidental or on purpose, all three panelists agreed

This week, hosts Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent expand on a recent Spin Sucks article titled Kelly Blazek Proves Communicators Have One Chance to Get it Right by Gini Dietrich. The articles talks about how a senior communicator sent a very nasty reply to a young communicator looking to build a relationship. The email shocked Kristine and Julia, because Young PR Pros has been preaching the importance of building a strong network with all levels of communicators. The young professional happened to be moving to a new city and heard that the senior communicator, who also happens to an IABC communicator of the year, would make a great connection as she searched for a new job in a new city. The email response she got was not what any young professional would expect. The senior communicator called her invitation to connect inappropriate and tacky. Young PR Pros completely disagrees with the senior communicator. In this episode we share our reasons why this story should not deter young professionals from building

It will happen to the best of us, eventually we will all make mistakes in our career, be it a typo, a misinterpreted quote, etc. But we can all rise up from our mistakes by learning from them. Host, Julia Kent regales Kristine D'Arbelles with a story of how a typo caused a bit of a crisis in her office. She shares her experience and lessons learned on how she overcame her mistakes. The important lesson to take away from Julia's story, is that our superiors are very understanding if we own up to our mistakes and promise to fix them. We want to hear from you, did you ever make a big mistake in your career? What about a typo in a homework assignment? Did you fail? What are your lessons learned? Share your comments below, or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or in our LinkedIn group, or on Pinterest, or send us an email at youngprpros@gmail.com, or send us a message on Twitter @youngprpros, @kristinedarbell or @kentjulia.

Young PR Pros sponsored and attended Let's Grow Together 2014, hosted by the University of Ottawa Public Relations Association (uOPRA). The event encouraged students to learn about different industries within public relations and communications. Roving reporter Kristine D'Arbelles spoke with key speakers and asked them how young PR and communications professionals entering their career today can make our industry better tomorrow. We interviewed: Carrie Croft, National Communications Manager FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 Elizabeth Gray-Smith, Social Columnist at iPolitics Emily Scarlett, Communications and Press Manager of H&M Canada Mark Monahan, Executive and Artistic Director of Ottawa Bluesfest and Ottawa Folkfest Ryan Kennery, Jim Watson’s Press Secretary You can catch full interviews with all these speakers and more on Young PR Pros's YouTube page. We would love to hear from you. Share your comments below, or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or in our LinkedIn group, or on Pintere

Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent come back for a second episode this week. We talk about continuing formal education after graduation. It doesn't always have to be university or college courses, there are plenty of other ways to continue learning in a formal setting. Kristine and Julia share what they have done to keep up with trends in communications since their graduation. Julia, as the book club president, encourages young professionals to read. Kristine talks about professional development events and conferences. Speaking of conferences, Young PR Pros will be sponsoring the University of Ottawa Public Relations Association (uOPRA) conference Let’s Grow Together 2014 Conference. The event encourages students to learn about different industries within Public Relations and Communications, similar to the Take uOPRA to Work Day series. Our key speakers and their respective industries include: Ryan Kennery, Jim Watson’s Press Secretary discussing government relations Elizabeth Gray-Smith, Social Columnist at

This week Kristine D’Arbelles and Julia Kent talk about crisis communications. We concentrate on a recent crisis that happened in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. You can read the story of the pipe bomb here. However, we are not here to judge whether or not the passenger should have been allowed to board the plane, we talk about how the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) reacted to the crisis. But, we don’t always want to dwell on the bad news. Young PR Pros is asking our listeners to share their stories of good examples of crisis communications. We will put together an episode in the coming weeks that highlights the positive lessons learned from organizations or individuals that handled a crisis properly. Don’t forget to share your ideas! In this episode, we also talk about journalism integrity. The media might seem like it is always out to get your company, but in reality, there are journalists out there that follow good ethics. Yes, there might be some bad apples, but so doesn’t communications.

Welcome 2014! As our first episode of 2014, we talk about a not-so-secret multi-million dollar business. The business of fake Facebook likes and Twitter followers. The CBC reported that celebrities, businesses and even the U.S. State Department have bought bogus Facebook likes, Twitter followers or YouTube viewers from offshore "click farms," where workers tap, tap, tap the thumbs up button, view videos or retweet comments to inflate social media numbers. Since Facebook launched almost 10 years ago, users have sought to expand their social networks for financial gain, winning friends, bragging rights and professional clout. And social media companies cite the levels of engagement to tout their value. So today, hosts Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent talk about the ethics of fake social activity. We want to hear what you think about fake social activity. Do you support it? Have you seen examples of it? As always, you can post a comment below or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or in our LinkedIn

This time of year is the best time to reflex, review and learn from your experiences in the past year. But in this episode, Kristine and Julia thought we would take a more holistic glance at not just the past year, but the entire podcast. Young PR Pros has listeners from across Canada, the United states, the U.K. and India. Here is a heat map of the globe to show you where your fellow YPP listeners reside: The top five most popular cities that listen to YPP are: Ottawa, Canada Toronto, Canada Phoenix, U.S. New York, U.S. London, U.K. We also reviewed what our listeners like to hear. Here are the top 10 most listened to episodes: Take uOPRA to Work Day: Episode 2 - Lifestyle and Entertainment with Ottawa Fashion Week Take uOPRA to Work Day: Episode 1 - Technology with MediaMiser Take uOPRA to Work Day: Episode 3 - Communication Agencies with MediaStyle Episode #65 - Tips for Public Speaking Take uOPRA to Work Day: Episode 4 - Government Relations with Fleishman-Hillard Episode #68 - Peer Pressure Episode #6