A Busy New Year

It has certainly been awhile since I've written a post. Life in the agency world has never been as busy at is has been these past two months. New business opportunities are abundant, we've gotten a few major programs off the ground for some of our existing clients and we've even counseled one through one of the most publicized crises in its history. All on top of that, we've started an exciting new partnership with the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago.

A team of twelve people from our Corporate Affairs group is volunteering their time to be on-call media spokespeople for our local chapter. On weekends, we take on the roll of speaking on behalf of the the Red Cross when they respond to a fire, flood or other local disaster. What's more, we will even have the opportunity to help the national organization with various aspects of media relations should a major disaster unfortunately occur in the U.S.

All levels of PR professionals are involved in this partnership, from assistant account executives all the way up to our executive vice president. I am particularly excited about the opportunity this presents to us junior staffers who do not have much (if any) experience being the central spokesperson and conducting media relations during a crisis. Not only does it provide valuable experience to our team members, the Red Cross gets peace-of-mind as talented professionals represent them so they can have their weekends back. We are almost done with our six-week training period and things are going remarkably well. I know we are all looking forward to volunteering more and developing this partnership to its full potential. Expect more updates about our experiences as we move forward.