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2011 Blog Chair Introductions

Heather Sliwinski 1 Comment

Welcome and Happy New Year, New Pros!

While 2011 marks the end of term for last year’s Executive Committee, the new year also ushers in a new crop of PR professionals excited to serve as Executive Committee members.  We are so grateful for the 2010 team and strive to follow their example.  We are your two new Blog Chairs—Diahnn Henderson and Heather Sliwinski. 

Allow us to introduce ourselves:

Diahnn Henderson is a human resources generalist with an emphasis on employee relations at ProQuest LLC, an electronic publisher in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  With 10 years of experience in the HR profession, she needed a change of pace and began focusing her attention in a new direction.  In 2010, she completed her studies in Communications at Concordia University and recently launched a new business venture, Collaborative Communications.  As a new professional, she looks forward to serving in her role as the Blog Co-Chair.

Heather Sliwinski is a marketing communications manager at United States Drug Testing Laboratories, a forensic drug testing laboratory in the Chicago suburbs.  After receiving her degree in Journalism and Mass Communications with an emphasis on Strategic Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has enjoyed learning every aspect of marketing and event management for almost two years at USDTL.  She joined PRSA hoping to increase her network of peers, especially within the New Professionals Section.  Heather looks forward to the new year serving as Blog Co-Chair, offering New PR Pros a wealth of information and professional development.

Together, we hope to meet your expectations for this blog.  We look upon this blog as an outlet for virtual mentorship, through perspectives from new professionals like yourselves and seasoned professionals who have insider tips for those of us still learning.  For example, each month we will continue to feature a different aspect of the public relations field in the “Intro to…” series.  Look for our “Intro to Sports and Entertainment PR” post from a seasoned professional later this month. 

We encourage dialogue from fellow members.  After all, we only consider this blog successful if we are able to provide information you find useful.  So please, comment on posts.  Tell us which trends you are interested in.  We welcome the feedback.  Respond to the blog on Facebook or Twitter.  If you are itching for a more involved role, contact either of us to make your voice heard in your own New Pros blog post.  Our goal is to collaborate with members and create a discussion important to your careers.

So, New Pros, what do you want to see in the New Pros Blog in 2011?  We are excited for the coming year!

-Diahnn and Heather

Welcome to Your New Professionals of PRSA Blog

New Professionals PR Blog Leave a comment

I’ll bet you read at least one blog. Your experience with that blog may include visiting the site occasionally and reading or skimming the posts. Maybe you don’t post comments. You probably don’t contribute content. These other blogs are nothing like your New Professionals of PRSA Blog!

How the New Pros Blog Fits within Our Online Networking Suite

You might have noticed, the New Professionals of PRSA have quite the online presence–Facebook, LinkedIN and eGroups (Oh My!). Why would we need a Blog as well?

Simply put, each of these groups allows us a different way to network, but none of our earlier groups allowed space for long-form interaction. LinkedIN works as a great forum for gathering career advice. So far this year, we’ve been seeking seasoned professionals to answer our members questions on career advancement, resume writing and building relationships. Facebook gets most of our event postings and news discussions, while members find they get great peer advice by posting questions to our eGroups page.

As our only long-form online venue, the Blog will be home to longer discussions and analysis. Through these posts, we can share larger ideas and experiences, ultimately leading to building relationships with our fellow New Pros and strengthening ourselves as professionals.

Keep Up with the New Pros Blog

A new post will go live every Friday morning, although our inaugural posts are ahead of schedule and going live today! Subscribe to our RSS feed, and stay current on what’s new in your profession and your New Professional’s section.

Writing for the New Pros Blog

Did you join the New Pros group looking for advancement and leadership opportunities? Did you join looking for ways to network and share ideas? Our New Pros Blog is the perfect venue to share experiences, and so we’d like to invite each of you to consider authoring a post.

Whether you already have ideas or you prefer to get assignments, whether you love blogging or you want a prospective employer to see your byline on a professional site when she Googles your name, shoot me an email! By contributing to our Blog, you can boost your resume by sharing lessons learned and newbie moments or analysis and thoughts on our profession.

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NOTE

Thank you to those of you who were interested in commenting on this or other posts! Unfortunately, we’re having a technical problem that prohibits anyone, even WordPress users, from posting comments. We’ve notified the appropriate techies, and hope to have this issue resolved soon. Cheers~jk.