Transcript -
JOHNA BURKE: Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference with Bill.
Bill, will you please introduce yourself?
BILL MURRAY: Hi, Johna. I’m Bill Murray. I’m the president and chief operating officer of PRSA.
BURKE: So it’s great to have you here. And you just did some remarks talking about the focus groups that you all have been conducting across the country. And I’d love to hear that, because that’s a very valuable form of research. So what are some of the findings that you’ve been able to take away at this point?
MURRAY: Well, a great question, Johna. We’re doing a couple of things. Every three years we engage in a really deep, strategic planning exercise at PRSA. So this year we’re going across the country; we’re stopping in a number of cities and we’re talking to our members face-to-face about what’s affecting them as professionals out there on a day-to-day basis.
A couple things we’re hearing. First of all, folks want to know about ROI. Whether you’re client is your–us, whether it’s someone in your organization, whether you’re an agency, the questions increasingly are, `What sort of return am I going to get from my investment in public relations?’
Another thing we’re hearing pretty regularly from everyone out there is how do I connect the public relations function to the strategic mission of my organization? Folks know what their PR people do on a day-to-day basis, but what’s less apparent, especially in the upper reaches of management, is how they can connect that back to their financial objectives, their objectives for the reputation of the company, the organization, their objectives with respect to public policy goals. And so definitely this is something that public relations professionals need to be aware of as they advance their careers and as they better serve the organizations they work for.
BURKE: Bill, as a long-time practitioner, as a long-time member of PRSA, I’m delighted to see PRSA practicing what we preach. And where can people find you online and in social media?
MURRAY: My social media platform of choice is LinkedIn. I’ve been on LinkedIn for four or five years now. I love it. I check it every day. I’m there with little updates about what I’m doing. PRSA, of course, we’re all over the place. We’re on Facebook, we’re on Twitter, and we’ve got lots of folks in the organization looking at all our different Twitter names and Facebook pages. So, if you’re out there in the social media-sphere, we are too, and we look forward to meeting you out there.
BURKE: Thank you so much.
MURRAY: Thanks, Johna.
