The Future Starts Now!

Rising 39 stories high in the skyline, the magnificent Marriott Marquis San Francisco Hotel exudes an essence of modern luxury and the convenience of an extraordinary downtown San Francisco hotel. For four power packed days, this lovely hotel in San Francisco served as the home of the Public Relations Society of America’s International Conference and largest public relations gathering in the world!

The theme of this year’s conference was aptly titled, “The Future Starts Now.”

As an IMC student at WVU, I was given the fantastic opportunity to experience this conference and represent the Mountaineers! Let me say, that I wasn’t disappointed. The conference included lots of opportunities for good networking and focused on several relevant topics for those keeping tabs on the trends taking place in the field of public relations and  integrated marketing communications. Here are a few of my favorite sessions:

• How to Turn the Agency/Client Relationship Into a Win-Win
• World Class Communication: How Great CEO’s Win With Key Audiences 
• Speaking to Diverse Groups: Successful Strategies in Multicultural PR
• Leading the Way for a More Social Business (My favorite!)

Overall, I had a fantastic time and was certainly able to combine the lessons learned in the IMC program with the topics being discussed in each workshop. One person in a particular workshop talked about the need to remind students who are fresh out of college about the importance of traditional marketing and ROI. Guess what? What a perfect opportunity to plug the IMC program at WVU and share some of my knowledge gained.

Sure seems like we’re going back to that theme of “real world application.”

Well, of course, because it’s true!

Thank you WVU for the awesome opportunity!

Tags: Blog Ambassador, IMC, Integration, Jose Huitron, PRSA, PRSAICON, public relations, San Fracisco, Social Business, Social media