In lieu of a photograph, I snagged this recent video interview of today’s TDMJ subject Ged Carroll. This London-based PR man is the head of digital strategy for the UK office of Ruder Finn Public Relations. In the above interview with Econsultancy, Finn gives us a few social media best practices. Below in TDMJ, he tells what it’s like to work in the UK and in the digital department of a top global public relations agency.
Name: Ged Carroll, 38
Current City: London, England
Company: Ruder Finn, 40+ people UK and 600+ worldwide. Prior to this he helped found Waggener Edstrom‘s digital office and worked in house at Yahoo!
Job Title: Director, Digital Strategies
Mopwater: What made you get into public relations? What do you like best about the field? GC: I got into PR through wanting to work in an agency environment following completing a degree in marketing. I had previously worked part-time marketing club nights, DJ’ing and working in the oil industry as a plant process operator. PR as a career has been good to me; I have managed to travel internationally and meet some interesting people.
Mopwater: What aspects of the industry are you currently most excited about? GC: Probably the most exciting bit about the industry at the present time is the change that it is undergoing, which I think that the recession will accelerate. This change will be structural as marketing communications disciplines mesh together and the opportunities opening up as the Gordian knot of how to measure PR is finally broken!
Mopwater: Describe a typical work day including your typical work hours. GC: There is no typical work day in digital. The other day I went from dealing with lice shampoo to semiconductors in the space of half an hour. My role involves doing web research, conducting online outreach, designing online campaigns, working with internal designers, developers and third parties to build websites, providing advice to teams and clients, running external training programmes and speaking at conferences. Sometimes it can be long hours, but on the up side the firm is pretty flexible and efforts are appreciated. Read the full story
Today’s TDMJ profiles James Walker, an incredible social media specialist who is just starting his career in PR. James is a junior project manager for APCO Online , a division of the global agency APCO Worldwide. James works in Washington, DC and I discovered him through his insightful tweets about PR and his informative blog Gen Y PR Prescriptions.
When he met me recently at a DC Starbucks, James told me how important it is to claim a piece of the social media pie for yourself if you’re a PR person calling yourself a social media strategist/expert (read: start your blog!) Hopefully I’ll be able to get the video footage of that timely interview up this weekend, pending tech support. For now, here’s James:
James S. Walker
Washington, DC
Age: 22
APCO Worldwide
Junior Project Manager, APCO Online
length of time in role: 6 months
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. What made you want to get into the field?
JW: I discovered PR right around the time I decided to declare a major at George Washington University. I made a call home to check in and mentioned that I was planning to major in Communication. My mother replied: “What kind of job can you get with that major?” I said: “Umm…(scratching head) you know…Communications positions.” At that point, Communication just seemed interesting, but I knew that I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t come up with a good answer, so I went to work.
After reading books, taking career assessments and browsing hundreds of sites, I decided that PR was it. Glad that I figured it out, I called back home and made a compelling case showing how I would get a job in PR. Her response: “So… what exactly will you do?”
Reflecting back on my answer to her then reminds me of the opening for MTV’s The Real World – “You think you know, but you have no idea.” I have worked (internships and full-time) in a number of Communications roles since then, from university relations and special events to CNN’s Crossfire at GW to public affairs and crisis comms shops to a health care communications firm and now a global communications agency.
In my short time in the industry, I’ve worked steps away from James Carville and Donna Brazile, helped prepare for prescription medication product launches, developed materials for patients with chronic pain and diabetes, and proposed social media strategies for tech giants. Each position taught me something new about the industry and myself, allowing me to grow both personally and professionally.
Mopwater: What aspects of the industry are you most excited about?
JW: I am most excited about the role the PR industry already is and will continue to play in the development, promotion and adoption of social media among businesses and other organizations.
I think the industry is well positioned to not only teach groups how to engage in social media but also to provide communications counsel on how to engage in a way that benefits them and their audiences, the people they serve. Read the full story
