Remember … way back when … I mentioned that I was working on a secret project? (Probably not. I was pretty stealth about it.) But I can now proudly announce that we — a group of students and young PR professionals — have launched an online community called Forward. Our mission: To provide a comprehensive, ever-evolving, online springboard for students and young professionals in PR.
This is a hugely collaborative effort of several Auburn students, plus some folks from far away (i.e. Paull Young from Australia). We’re working hard to build a place where young PR people can interact with both their peers and seasoned professionals — because much can learned from a conversation involving both. Forward aims to help provide students and young practitioners with the tools, knowledge and confidence to go Forward in their careers.
The site features:
- commentary and advice from students, faculty and professionals from around the world from varying levels and areas of PR
- information to help you find PR experience and how to make the most of it
- the opportunity to learn about trends and tools that they don’t teach you in college
- helpful interviews with professionals
- a comprehensive list of suggested reading material including blogs, books and professional publications
Wanna know a little secret about the idea behind this? I’m getting really fed up with the meme that PR people are idiots. Really, it’s my mission in life to prove people wrong about that! But … we can make an even bigger dent in that ridiculous rumor if we work hard to help to share ideas and educate each other. By staying focused and driven and making an effort to really dive into things and engage our brains, we can turn PR into an industry that people recognize as one of smart, savvy, ethical professionals.
On that note, I really encourage you to take a look! With one little catch. Let me know what you think! I live for feedback. Tell me what we’ve missed, where I’ve made an error, how we can make this better.
I’ll close with this nice little quote from the site: “Forward thinking. Forward moving. We aim to help you do just that.”
8 responses so far ↓
1 Young PR » Blog Archive » Introducing ‘Forward’ - an Online Community for Young PR’s // Mar 13, 2006 at 11:06 am
[…] Erin has posted a great introduction to Forward. Basically, it aims to be the place for Young PR’s to converse, learn and move Forward in their careers. […]
2 Michael Morton // Mar 13, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Great work Erin!
I do have one suggestion…
I think the site should have an article section with various subcategories (like New PR Professionals, Internet PR, Marketing, etc.). Your blog post about creating a portfolio would make a great article.
3 Erin // Mar 13, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Thanks for the suggestion, Michael!
So are you referring to an article section within the html pages (the non-blog part of the site)? Or do you mean having blog categories by those titles?
The blog has categories for PR, New Media, etc. And the “FAQs and Tips” plus the “Misc Career Insight” categories are geared toward what you’re talking about. I might need to make all that more clear — either rename some stuff or create additional categories. Do you think so?
I’ll go in later today and add a tagging plugin, to make the content easier to find from outside the site, too.
4 Michael Morton // Mar 13, 2006 at 5:00 pm
I was actually referring to an article section within the HTML pages. It seems to me that html articles (if properly categorized) are more easier to to find. I would imagine once the site starts growing, it would become a little difficult sorting through blog posts. Plus, I also believe that HTML articles seem a tad more professional than blog articles.
However, these are just my suggestions.
The site is really impressive! I’m thinking about submitting some of my work to you to become a contributor. I would like to write about the different aspects of using email, the Internet and event promotion within a PR campaign.
5 Jennifer // Mar 13, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Erin,
That’s wonderful! We definitely need more areas where us young folk can congregate and exchange stories and ideas.
Congratulations.
6 Erin // Mar 14, 2006 at 12:21 am
Thanks Jennifer!
And Michael, your idea for the html pages sounds interesting. The reason we’re leaning toward posting articles in the blog is so they’re easily available to our subscribers. (Believe it or not, we already have several!) We’ll give it some thought, and I’ll talk it over with the team.
I look forward to receiving some work from you. Thanks a lot!
7 Jeremy Pepper // Mar 14, 2006 at 7:52 am
Geez, you couldn’t have had this written last night, so I could have used it for Blog Run?!
Congratulations on the launch, and hope it lasts long beyond your tenure at Auburn.
8 Links PRBlog » Blog Archive » The Word about Forward is Spreading // Mar 14, 2006 at 2:52 pm
[…] Erin Caldwell’s PRblog […]
Leave a Comment