This post originally ran on PR Breakfast Club. However I wanted to share to readers of this site who may have missed it.

The 2010 calendar is running out of daylight and the liquor stores are

stacking up the bubbly. So that can only mean a few things are going to come into high fashion and range in levels of greatness.

Some of which will even be trending topics on Twitter including the funny glasses, hangovers, kissing at midnight and the ball dropping in Times Square, but those won’t make their way onto the page. Instead we’re going to take a look at some resolutions that will help us professionally as PR folks. So break out the Pepto because these resolutions may be a tough pill to swallow.

Keep it Clean – I am not sure about you, but I cannot keep my desk clean for the life of me.  I had a conversation about this with fellow PRBC staffer Christina Khoury the other day.  Perhaps the biggest reason for this is that we don’t ever stop to think about ourselves or our area during the day and are hyper-focused on the task at hand.  Set some time on your schedule to tidy your area at least once a week. It will show folks you take pride in how you present yourself and can go a long way with your bosses. Being messy can lead to questions about your work ethic and we all know what they say about cleanliness…

Make a Connection – We work in a cold industry.  It’s often filled with cold calls, fake networking events and blind emails.  Relationships with journalists are often frosty at best for PR folks, let’s try to change that.  In 2010, I made great connections with a slew of journalists and was better for it. I plan on meeting more during 2011 and challenge you to do the same.

Canned Meat – How long does it take you to write an email?  Five, 10, 20 minutes?  Since the time is minimal, why not spend some time customizing your pitches?  Keith Trivitt wrote a great post on PR automation the other day and it also was part impetus for this post.  We need to cut the <name> crap and get back to having a meaningful relationship with journalists.

Meet your Network – Show of hands, how many of you have met at least 1/10 of your social network in real life?  While it may be tough to do, IRL meetings important.  This year, I am looking forward to meeting Rebecca Denison, Danny Brown, Chris Barger, Arik Hanson and Michael Dolan.  Who are you going to meet?

Screw Your Brand – Now I am not sure if this is legal in the 50 states, but I will defer to the lawyers on the legality of it.  In all seriousness 2010 was the year of the personal brand.  Maybe I am just naïve or worked in sports for too long, but I firmly believe in the saying that you play for the name on the crest not the name on the back.  Unless you are the head of your firm, your job as a PR pro is to make your company or client look good.  Everyone knows that your job today will likely not be your last, but you shouldn’t use your current role to gain yourself notoriety.  If you want to build something up that is Brand U, do it 5-9 not on the company dime.  I predict that we’ll see more companies cracking down on this kind of self-promotional behavior.

You may be asking yourself where the other five resolutions are.  I am asking you the same thing.  You see, resolution lists  often feel empty to me and would be better  if they were created together. Please note this caveat is the reason for the asterisk in the title.

At the end of the day we’ve all got things that we need to be better at, but may not be ready to admit them, so let’s think of the comments below as a group therapy session where we can make the best resolution list for 2011 that we’ll create together as a definitive list.

There are no bad answers and we’ll give you credit in the final post 🙂

This post originally ran on PR Breakfast Club. However I wanted to share to readers of this site who may have missed it.

The 2010 calendar is running out of daylight and the liquor stores are

stacking up the bubbly. So that can only mean a few things are going to come into high fashion and range in levels of greatness.

Some of which will even be trending topics on Twitter including the funny glasses, hangovers, kissing at midnight and the ball dropping in Times Square, but those won’t make their way onto the page. Instead we’re going to take a look at some resolutions that will help us professionally as PR folks. So break out the Pepto because these resolutions may be a tough pill to swallow.

Keep it Clean – I am not sure about you, but I cannot keep my desk clean for the life of me.  I had a conversation about this with fellow PRBC staffer Christina Khoury the other day.  Perhaps the biggest reason for this is that we don’t ever stop to think about ourselves or our area during the day and are hyper-focused on the task at hand.  Set some time on your schedule to tidy your area at least once a week. It will show folks you take pride in how you present yourself and can go a long way with your bosses. Being messy can lead to questions about your work ethic and we all know what they say about cleanliness…

Make a Connection – We work in a cold industry.  It’s often filled with cold calls, fake networking events and blind emails.  Relationships with journalists are often frosty at best for PR folks, let’s try to change that.  In 2010, I made great connections with a slew of journalists and was better for it. I plan on meeting more during 2011 and challenge you to do the same.

Canned Meat – How long does it take you to write an email?  Five, 10, 20 minutes?  Since the time is minimal, why not spend some time customizing your pitches?  Keith Trivitt wrote a great post on PR automation the other day and it also was part impetus for this post.  We need to cut the <name> crap and get back to having a meaningful relationship with journalists.

Meet your Network – Show of hands, how many of you have met at least 1/10 of your social network in real life?  While it may be tough to do, IRL meetings important.  This year, I am looking forward to meeting Rebecca Denison, Danny Brown, Chris Barger, Arik Hanson and Michael Dolan.  Who are you going to meet?

Screw Your Brand – Now I am not sure if this is legal in the 50 states, but I will defer to the lawyers on the legality of it.  In all seriousness 2010 was the year of the personal brand.  Maybe I am just naïve or worked in sports for too long, but I firmly believe in the saying that you play for the name on the crest not the name on the back.  Unless you are the head of your firm, your job as a PR pro is to make your company or client look good.  Everyone knows that your job today will likely not be your last, but you shouldn’t use your current role to gain yourself notoriety.  If you want to build something up that is Brand U, do it 5-9 not on the company dime.  I predict that we’ll see more companies cracking down on this kind of self-promotional behavior.

You may be asking yourself where the other five resolutions are.  I am asking you the same thing.  You see, resolution lists  often feel empty to me and would be better  if they were created together. Please note this caveat is the reason for the asterisk in the title.

At the end of the day we’ve all got things that we need to be better at, but may not be ready to admit them, so let’s think of the comments below as a group therapy session where we can make the best resolution list for 2011 that we’ll create together as a definitive list.

There are no bad answers and we’ll give you credit in the final post 🙂

This post originally ran on PR Breakfast Club. However I wanted to share to readers of this site who may have missed it.

The 2010 calendar is running out of daylight and the liquor stores are

stacking up the bubbly. So that can only mean a few things are going to come into high fashion and range in levels of greatness.

Some of which will even be trending topics on Twitter including the funny glasses, hangovers, kissing at midnight and the ball dropping in Times Square, but those won’t make their way onto the page. Instead we’re going to take a look at some resolutions that will help us professionally as PR folks. So break out the Pepto because these resolutions may be a tough pill to swallow.

Keep it Clean – I am not sure about you, but I cannot keep my desk clean for the life of me.  I had a conversation about this with fellow PRBC staffer Christina Khoury the other day.  Perhaps the biggest reason for this is that we don’t ever stop to think about ourselves or our area during the day and are hyper-focused on the task at hand.  Set some time on your schedule to tidy your area at least once a week. It will show folks you take pride in how you present yourself and can go a long way with your bosses. Being messy can lead to questions about your work ethic and we all know what they say about cleanliness…

Make a Connection – We work in a cold industry.  It’s often filled with cold calls, fake networking events and blind emails.  Relationships with journalists are often frosty at best for PR folks, let’s try to change that.  In 2010, I made great connections with a slew of journalists and was better for it. I plan on meeting more during 2011 and challenge you to do the same.

Canned Meat – How long does it take you to write an email?  Five, 10, 20 minutes?  Since the time is minimal, why not spend some time customizing your pitches?  Keith Trivitt wrote a great post on PR automation the other day and it also was part impetus for this post.  We need to cut the <name> crap and get back to having a meaningful relationship with journalists.

Meet your Network – Show of hands, how many of you have met at least 1/10 of your social network in real life?  While it may be tough to do, IRL meetings important.  This year, I am looking forward to meeting Rebecca Denison, Danny Brown, Chris Barger, Arik Hanson and Michael Dolan.  Who are you going to meet?

Screw Your Brand – Now I am not sure if this is legal in the 50 states, but I will defer to the lawyers on the legality of it.  In all seriousness 2010 was the year of the personal brand.  Maybe I am just naïve or worked in sports for too long, but I firmly believe in the saying that you play for the name on the crest not the name on the back.  Unless you are the head of your firm, your job as a PR pro is to make your company or client look good.  Everyone knows that your job today will likely not be your last, but you shouldn’t use your current role to gain yourself notoriety.  If you want to build something up that is Brand U, do it 5-9 not on the company dime.  I predict that we’ll see more companies cracking down on this kind of self-promotional behavior.

You may be asking yourself where the other five resolutions are.  I am asking you the same thing.  You see, resolution lists  often feel empty to me and would be better  if they were created together. Please note this caveat is the reason for the asterisk in the title.

At the end of the day we’ve all got things that we need to be better at, but may not be ready to admit them, so let’s think of the comments below as a group therapy session where we can make the best resolution list for 2011 that we’ll create together as a definitive list.

There are no bad answers and we’ll give you credit in the final post 🙂

This post originally ran on PR Breakfast Club. However I wanted to share to readers of this site who may have missed it.

The 2010 calendar is running out of daylight and the liquor stores are

stacking up the bubbly. So that can only mean a few things are going to come into high fashion and range in levels of greatness.

Some of which will even be trending topics on Twitter including the funny glasses, hangovers, kissing at midnight and the ball dropping in Times Square, but those won’t make their way onto the page. Instead we’re going to take a look at some resolutions that will help us professionally as PR folks. So break out the Pepto because these resolutions may be a tough pill to swallow.

Keep it Clean – I am not sure about you, but I cannot keep my desk clean for the life of me.  I had a conversation about this with fellow PRBC staffer Christina Khoury the other day.  Perhaps the biggest reason for this is that we don’t ever stop to think about ourselves or our area during the day and are hyper-focused on the task at hand.  Set some time on your schedule to tidy your area at least once a week. It will show folks you take pride in how you present yourself and can go a long way with your bosses. Being messy can lead to questions about your work ethic and we all know what they say about cleanliness…

Make a Connection – We work in a cold industry.  It’s often filled with cold calls, fake networking events and blind emails.  Relationships with journalists are often frosty at best for PR folks, let’s try to change that.  In 2010, I made great connections with a slew of journalists and was better for it. I plan on meeting more during 2011 and challenge you to do the same.

Canned Meat – How long does it take you to write an email?  Five, 10, 20 minutes?  Since the time is minimal, why not spend some time customizing your pitches?  Keith Trivitt wrote a great post on PR automation the other day and it also was part impetus for this post.  We need to cut the <name> crap and get back to having a meaningful relationship with journalists.

Meet your Network – Show of hands, how many of you have met at least 1/10 of your social network in real life?  While it may be tough to do, IRL meetings important.  This year, I am looking forward to meeting Rebecca Denison, Danny Brown, Chris Barger, Arik Hanson and Michael Dolan.  Who are you going to meet?

Screw Your Brand – Now I am not sure if this is legal in the 50 states, but I will defer to the lawyers on the legality of it.  In all seriousness 2010 was the year of the personal brand.  Maybe I am just naïve or worked in sports for too long, but I firmly believe in the saying that you play for the name on the crest not the name on the back.  Unless you are the head of your firm, your job as a PR pro is to make your company or client look good.  Everyone knows that your job today will likely not be your last, but you shouldn’t use your current role to gain yourself notoriety.  If you want to build something up that is Brand U, do it 5-9 not on the company dime.  I predict that we’ll see more companies cracking down on this kind of self-promotional behavior.

You may be asking yourself where the other five resolutions are.  I am asking you the same thing.  You see, resolution lists  often feel empty to me and would be better  if they were created together. Please note this caveat is the reason for the asterisk in the title.

At the end of the day we’ve all got things that we need to be better at, but may not be ready to admit them, so let’s think of the comments below as a group therapy session where we can make the best resolution list for 2011 that we’ll create together as a definitive list.

There are no bad answers and we’ll give you credit in the final post 🙂