I had the pleasure of meeting today’s TDMJ PR Pro a few weeks ago, and was so compelled by her story that I knew you would be, too. In addition to being a new wife and mother like myself, Mrs. Lara is a tenacious public relations professional who started out in the world of academia and leveraged a thirst for knowledge and willingness to work hard to create her own opportunities. For Lara, this has translated into a pretty impressive career track only a few years out of college-not bad for someone who didn’t study communications in college! Already a senior account exec with several agency positions under her belt and a consulting practice in the works, Mrs. Lara is one to watch.
Name: Jacqueline Lara
Age: 26
Current City:Silver Spring, MD
Job Title: Senior Account Executive, Lyons Public Relations Owner, Mpact Communications
Length of Time in this Role: 18 months
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. How did you wind up in this field?
JL: My path to PR was nontraditional, but I wouldn’t change it for the world because each step has molded my experience. I received my B.A. in Sociology and a business certificate from the College Park Scholars program at the University of Maryland. While I enjoyed my major and loved analyzing groups of people and their behaviors, as well as organizations and the key factors influencing their effectiveness, I often wondered what profession I’d pursue after college. I felt pigeon-holed between working in HR and becoming a social worker. Neither of these options appealed to me, so I took a few communications courses and was intrigued by the power of words and the way media pundits ‘spun’ messages to advance their platforms. Read the full story
CNN correspondent Joe Johns offers what could be a case study in bad PR, and a cautionary tale for all of us. Johns tells the story of an unfortunate PR person who pitched the top of the CNN food chain (the producer) instead of involving the corresponding reporter directly.
This morning I attended the PRSA National Capital Chapter’s panel in Washington, DC: How to Get Big Media Hits in a Social Media World. Joe Johns, a correspondent for CNN, gave this great synopsis of how he uses Facebook to get information for his stories. While he loves Facebook, he’s not such a big a fan of Twitter. So the lesson here is, know your journalists’ tastes.
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. How did you wind up in this field? (Be sure to mention your course of study in college). CM: My path to PR was not direct or necessarily a traditional one. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Puget Sound with a minor in Business Administration. While in college I also earned a certificate of study from Centre Universitaire d’Etudes Francaises (CUEF) of the University of Grenoble III.
After graduation I worked in the public sector for a few years before being hired at Microsoft as a recruiter. There I was responsible for finding and attracting some of the nation’s top technical talent to the company. I developed strategic recruiting plans for Microsoft’s consumer and hardware divisions and helped attract key talent from Moscow as part of an acquisition.
I joined RealNetworks (Progressive Networks at the time) in early 1997 to drive technical recruiting for the company. Ready for a new challenge, I moved into a program manager position in 1999 where I managed product-review programs, key customer relationships and product development. During my seven year tenure at RealNetworks I had an opportunity to work on it server solutions as well as its Windows and Mac based consumer products.
The experience I gained in these roles – influencing, negotiating, interviewing with various audiences including technology editors, product reviewers, customers, partners and executives – led me to public relations, to found Communiqué PR and to author “Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR” Read the full story
Name: Jasmine Vega
Age: 41 Current City: Venice Job Title: Music Publicist Company Name: JPR Length of Time in this Role: 20 years
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. How did you wind up in this field? JV: I didn’t actually go to college. I started working at 14 yrs old and haven’t stopped. I didn’t know what a publicist was when I asked for the job. I was working at a law firm in the data entry department during the day and at night I was promoting my boyfriend’s club in Los Angeles. This was in the late 80’s. We always had rappers and record promoters come to the club and get on the mic. I became friends with the A&R person from Delicious Vinyl (Young MC, Tone Loc). He asked me if I wanted to come to his label one day after work, so I did. I looked around and saw that the office was in a shambles, no file cabinets, no structure etc. This was hard for me to understand coming from a law firm where everything was in its place at all times. So I asked why that was and a month later I got a call asking if I wanted to come in for an interview to assist the GM. I went in and got the job. A few months later the publicist at the label was leaving her position and said that I should ask to take her place since I was already doing her job and everyone liked working with me. Doing her job at that time since we had established artists was answering the phone and sending out press kits to those who asked. Those calling were the likes of Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek etc. I was in a very fortunate situation and took the position. The rest is history.
Mopwater: Describe how you got from the in-house publicist job to what you’re doing now. When did o become an independent PR pro? How many years into working at Delicious Vinyl did you decide to go out on your own?
JV: While working at Delicious Vinyl, we also hired an indie pr firm to work other projects that I didn’t have time to. After a year in the position, the pr firm had asked if I would like to work in their LA office. I eventually left the label, moved to the indie firm until it closed its doors. At that time, I was able to leave with a handful of accounts to be independent for a few years until Priority Records offered me an in house position. I was there for a couple of years until I was courted by Virgin Records. I remained at Virgin for 8 years until they moved the company to New York. At that time I went indie again and have remained indie for the last few years. Read the full story
Name: Lizzie Landon- Cole Sorensen
Age: 30
Current City: Saratoga Springs, NY
Job Title: CEO and Founder
Company Name:32Flavors Public Relations
Length of Time in this Role: 6 years before that consulted for 2 under another company name Blog Twitter
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. How did you wind up in this field? LS:I grew up around a lot of creative people, between a mix of artists and innovators who made a good living, and then starving artists. I could always see both sides to the story but couldn’t deny my genetic ability to create, have ideas, and follow through with them. My grandfather replaced Kurt Vonnegut when he left GE, and he (R. Ned Landon) was the chief speech writer for the CEO of GE, as well as the PR liaison between GE and Disney. It always seemed like a shirt and tie job to all of us 10 grandchildren growing up, but little did we know that we would all inherit a bit of his creativity. On my father’s side, my grandmother is an incredible painter, sculptor and photographer, and that didn’t start to hit me in my own creativity until just recently.
I couldn’t wait to get out of high school where I was president of my business club (nerdy yes, but hey, those soccer jocks aren’t being interviewed right now are they?). I found a college that had a PR/Ad department and would take me as a senior in high school and let me do both senior and freshman year simultaneously. I loved to write, and was always coming up with ads and commercials in my head so I thought it would be interesting. My father, who has had his share of starving artist and layoff moments in the field of advertising, photography, and graphic design wrote me a 17 page letter about how I shouldn’t move from upstate NY to Providence, R.I., 1. Because I was 16, and 2. Because the marketing industry can be tough. Along side the artists in our family we have our share of lawyers, and professors, and as much as I tried for a more stable profession, it just wasn’t in me. Read the full story
Name: Jacqueline Lara
