High School Graduate Looking Forward to the PR World in 2018

Kaleigh May, a bright and promising senior from Rocky River High School, invested several weeks of her time over the past year shadowing agency personnel to learn about the world of marketing and public relations. We are grateful to the counselors at RRHS (most especially Anne Kleinsmith) for preparing their students and making this an exceptional experience for everyone involved. Kaleigh was professional, prompt, pleasant and engaged. As a last act before leaving the agency, we asked Kaleigh to speculate on her future as it related to our industry. Here are her thoughts… 

I’m about to go off to college, study how to work in public relations, probably write some stuff, but what do I expect beyond those four years? Media is changing fast right now, let alone after four years. PR is about staying ahead of the game, and as Jim Sweeney said to me, it’s not about keeping up with media—it’s about anticipating it.

What am I anticipating? I’m thinking of a fast paced, go-Go-GO work place where I constantly have to update something, fix something, organize something, etc. It’s very fast paced now, and it’s only getting faster as the internet and other media accelerates.

Everything is in our hands as we hold our smartphones, getting instantaneous alerts from CNN, texts from Mom, Snapchats from our friends and notifications that John Doe accepted our friend request. Everything is now. We even complain if our phone takes more than three seconds to load something. The PR industry is getting even more instantaneous too, like putting out shorter and shorter press releases.

Media is a main source for interactions between people of all kinds. PR will become more interactive. It will have to be more than sending tweets and posts out—it’ll be retweeting, liking, commenting and supporting blogs and webinars.

As I move on to the next step of my life, I will, like all PR professionals, look forward to anticipate change before it happens.