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USU hosts 2-day regional conference of PR professionals, students

March 27th, 2011 Posted in Business

LOGAN—Utah State University’s public relations program hosted a two-day regional conference Thursday and Friday, bringing together PR students and professionals from across the six-state Western region.

This was the second year that USU’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter was selected by the national organization to host the Mountain West Regional Public Relations Conference. The national PRSSA selected USU’s conference as one of its 11 regional activities for the 2010-2011 academic year.

The conference provided students and professionals with opportunities to learn how to use public relations in all aspects of the professional world.

Sessions focused on using PR in all aspects of the professional world, following the conference theme of “Finding Value in Diversity.” Students also used the conference as a networking opportunities, as PR professionals from across Utah and as far away as San Francisco attended.

Professionals attending the meeting included Linda Walton, president of The Walton Group of Provo, Dan Adams of the Langdon Group of Salt Lake City, Chris Thomas of Intrepid Communications, who represented the Elizabeth Smart family during the recent trial of her kidnapper, and Gerrard F. Corbett CEO of Redphlag LLC, a California communications and consulting company.

“The purpose was for everyone to come together, build relationships, and establish themselves and their organizations,” said conference director Alyson Bauer, a USU PR senior.

There were plenty of networking opportunities for students from USU and other visiting universities, as several USU alumni returned to their alma mater as visiting professionals. Attorney Nicole Farrell, a 1998 JCOM graduate, of Salt Lake law firm of Parson, Behle & Latimer talked about new legal implications of social media. JCOM print news alumnus Marshall Thompson, a marketing communications executive who is now a law student at BYU, talked about building relationships with news media.

And Jacob Moon and Alex Koritz of Method Communications, two more JCOM alumni, discussed their company’s hugely successful use of YouTube and social media to build Provo’s homegrown OroBrush company into a top Web presence. The conference also included an impromptu workshop to demonstrate the use of a wide range of social media for public relations, from FourSquare to blogs, Google, FaceBook and Twitter.

“It is an amazing honor and speaks highly of our students to have been selected by PRSSA to host a national activity two years in a row,” said JCOM lecturer Preston Parker, PRSSA’s faculty adviser. “It takes a lot of work and dedication to accomplish this. To see students put together something so successful is great.”

TP

Tags: PRSSA conference