Age delivers experience, one of the strongest influences on competency and excellence that exists, with PR being no exception. Whether it involves any form of writing, managing a crisis, developing strategy, integrating public relations into broader business and marketing activity, managing teams and working with colleagues, or simply having developed a humility that comes from the realisation that everyone makes mistakes – it’s what you learn from them and how you deal with them that matters most – age=maturity=PR/business ROI.

Drawing an ethical or moral line in the sand for which organisations it is appropriate for me, as a public relations professional, to work with or for has long been something I have agonised over. I have refused to work with tobacco and gambling organisations in the past, yet have been comfortable working with a nuclear reactor and high-greenhouse gas emitting companies. Is there a line that PR should not cross…tobacco, gambling, petrol…name your ‘poison’?

I once was lost, but now am saved. So it seems, anyway. At a major juncture in my life and one year after starting this blog, I thought it an opportune time to explain how my discovery of the public relations profession pretty much saved my life. Maybe not in a fully literal sense, but close enough to it. Key out takes: do not rest until you fulfil your belief, or intuition, in yourself; you can begin a career later than in your 20s; hard work and talent create a career.

Nationalism is the antithesis of public relations, as the former is inherently opposed to the notions of diversity, multiculturalism and the sharing of power and is not representative of two-way symmetrical communication: nationalism, then, is bad PR. Or is it?

The time challenge of engaging/immersing yourself in social media whilst still living a ‘real-time’ life…especially for public relations and marketing professionals.