The afternoon sessions promise a good look at the present and near future:
Julia Hood: Town Hall luncheon interactive conversation with the editor-in-chief of PR Week
Not sure what to expect of this session.
Josh Hallett: Bloggety, Blog, Blog
The conference program says: “From Newsweek’s cover to CNN broadcasts, blogs are the most hyped tool for today’s communicatiors. Find out if the hype’s justified. And discover how our new communications world can evolve into a practitioner’s dream – or nightmare.”
I’m looking forward to this session. Given the profile of its membership, Counselors Academy is a good indicator of the extent to which social media tools have been adopted by small and mid-size firms across North America. At last year’s session in Phoenix, the people who attended Giovanni Rodriguez’s blogging workshop showed only very early awareness of RSS feeds and newsreaders. It will be interesting to see how much farther these media have proliferated in the past yer.
Tom Foremski and Robert French, moderated by Giovanni Rodriguez: The Future of Newspapers/The Future of PR
Another forward looking session. It’s advance billing: “This panel … will look at the financial stress that many newspapers are under and examine a number of possible causes. What does this mean for the future of newspapers? What does this mean for the future of public relations? The panel will debate and discuss a number of recent trends including the impact of Craigslist; competing sources for news; citizen journalism; and new media (blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, etc.)” Hmmm. Wonder what the “etc.” could be…