Jump Into Public Relations

2008-10-14T13:46:40-04:00

While this blog has been on a bit of a hiatus lately, we’re gearing up for a busy couple months here in ASCE’s Communications office, so it’s time to get things on track again.

This blog is a forum for you to interact with the Communications staff as we offer insights into the world of public relations and how it relates to civil engineering. We want you to become more than just readers – we want you to ask questions, leave suggestions, talk about civil engineering in the news and your PR activities, along with any other PR topics that come to mind.

To help you figure out where to begin, ASCE developed the PR University training workshop. Some of you might be familiar with the workshop and some of you may have attended one already! The training is a highly interactive, one-day workshop where we share tips for effective communications, including media relations and public outreach, through presentations and hands-on activities. Each attendee receives a PR Toolkit – part “how to” manual and part resource guide, the Toolkit provides a practical introduction to public relations for civil engineers.

At the beginning of October, Jane Howell Lombardi, ASCE’s director of communications, and I traveled to Dallas to hold a training workshop in conjunction with the Texas Section’s fall meeting.

Here are some of the responses we received from attendees at the Dallas workshop:

• “Quickly captured how important PR is to ASCE.”
• “Good understanding about how to distinguish worthy news and get it out there properly.”
• “Realized how important preparation is and how to diffuse certain questions.”
• “Showed how to think on your feet and get your point across.”
• “Interactive format reinforces the message and helps practice.”

Sound useful? Want to get in on the fun? You’re in luck! We’ll be holding a PR University training workshop on Thursday, Nov. 6 as a pre-conference event at ASCE’s Annual Conference in Pittsburgh. In addition, we’re offering scholarships to members who are willing to serve as the PR liaison for their Section or Branch. If you’re interested in more information or applying for the scholarship, send me an email.

For those of you who have already attended a PR University training workshop, what kind of public relations activities have you undertaken since then and how were you able to apply what you learned?

Karen Albers
Manager, State Public Relations

Talk About Civil Engineering

Jump Into Public Relations