Junior Student Reflections of Pittsburgh Professional Development Conference

Starting this fall semester, our student PR team became an official PRSSA chapter, giving us access to networking, career services, and invitations to PRSA professional development conferences. To me, if you’re a college student looking to break into the industry, those are some pretty good benefits.

This month was the first time that we were eligible to attend a conference as official PRSSA members, so I decided to go and see what one of these conferences was like. On September 15, we traveled to PRSA Pittsburgh's Professional Development Conference. I particularly enjoyed these two speakers.:

Pat McMahon, director of public relations for PNC Bank, talked about his company’s acquisition of National City Bank, and the process of converting those branches not located in Pittsburgh over time. The goal wasn’t to change everything overnight; that would’ve caused panic and confusion for PNC’s new customers. PNC’s major action in the plan was to use the local television media in the new market areas to deal with concerned customers directly. In this case, they held a live internet town-hall style discussion, where anyone could ask questions about how their banking would be affected.

Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications for Domino’s Pizza, told us about his “worst week on the job” when a Youtube video appeared that threatened the reputation and integrity of the entire Domino’s company. He told his story about how he worked with the president to make sure that this video (commonly known by those who have seen it as “Disgusting Domino’s Workers”) and the potential crisis was stopped immediately. To accomplish this, Domino’s needed to find the workers responsible, make sure no one was injured (the video turned out to be a hoax), and create an apology video with the president himself to be viewed before the other video gained too much notoriety. Even though this case study has been met with mixed opinions in the PR field, it is a solid example of crisis relations and crisis management. The incident also proved to be the turning point for Domino’s and social media.

So, the main point that I learned from the speakers here:

Good PR involves analyzing a situation, careful planning, and efficient execution. If you can stay aware of what the public is saying about your organization, and/or project what they will say in the future, then having strong plans ready for situations will keep your company in a good position. And that’s all great stuff to learn from professionals in the industry.

Kevin Conley (@Kevco542)

Junior Public Relations Major

PRSSA Member