Getting Started on PR 2.0
This entry is dedicated to fellow PR professionals who sit in the threshold of calendar years religiously drawing up ambitious lists to gain self-enlightenment, achieve world domination and please impossible clients/stakeholders (in that order of difficulty).

If you’ve been absorbed in thoughts and talk on ‘new media’ and are just raring to get started in the new year, here are three possible additions to your list of New Year resolutions:

1. Understand — Increase your understanding of the new media (micro and macro) environment. Yes, I hear you – ‘continual learning’ ranks alongside ‘filling timesheets’ at the back of your mind after a long day’s work. Who has time to search for reading materials? Well, one of the best ways to learn is to identify a few good resources – such as Online publications, Blogs, Podcasts and newsletters – and add their feeds to your RSS reader. A good mechanism, they say, beats a hundred good plans; so set up a learning system that automatically delivers the latest and best insights straight to your desktop, making it easier to educate yourself on PR 2.0. You can start with the PR 2.0 Universe feed here.

2. Participate – Join an online community that is centered on one of your personal interests or professional one. Better yet, create one and invite fellow-enthusiasts and like-minded individuals to join you. In doing so, you’ll experience the difference between authentic conversations and marketing spew. Use Web 2.0 tools to share information (such as holiday photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube) with friends. Once you get the hang of how these tools work, you’ll discover how to create viral videos (and other online content) that will simply fly through cyberspace and reach thousands or millions.

3. Incorporate — Think of how to include a ‘2.0’ dimension into every PR plan. For example, when launching a new shopping mall or high-tech manufacturing facility, would it help to also launch a Second Life version of the venue? Maybe, maybe not. But even if you are certain that others will not buy into the idea (for fear of treading into the unknown), you would have made it a habit to ‘think 2.0’ – a good way to condition your mind, and to prepare for the inevitable future of marketing.

These are just some starting points; and you can decide how far you want to go with each one.
With these thoughts, I leave you to the rest of your resolution list; and I wish you a very exciting and fruitful 2.0 07!

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