At this year’s FPRA Annual Conference, Rick Oppenheim, APR, CPRC celebrated the 25th anniversary of the founding of his firm RB Oppenheim Associates, a full-service, marketing-communications, advertising and public relations counseling firm based in Tallahassee.

Rick hosted a small champagne reception to mark the special anniversary and to remember and toast recently-departed friend and colleague Karen Plunkett, APR.

Going from a good to great PR practitioner means that you must be able see and understand your company’s “big picture.”  Helping to bring this picture into focus is your organization’s financial well-being. In this session, learn how to read your company’s top three financial reports, and learn the C-Suite jargon that will help ensure your communications efforts are supportive.

Debbie Mason, APR, CPRC, is an Accredited Public Relations/ Marketing counselor, and President of Strategists, Inc. Debbie has a wealth of corporate, agency and consulting experience spanning 25 years.
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Douglas Cherry, Esq., associate in the litigation and intellectual property practice groups in the Sarasota, Florida office of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP discussed the possible legal pitfalls for PR professionals dealing with trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets.

Securing your company’s intellectual property is more important than ever in these tough economic times.  People are often shocked when assaulted with issues dealing with intangible assets.  A lot of the law is counter-intuitive.  Doug regularly encounters expensive litigation issues that could have been prevented by some early, inexpensive measures.
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With a video that showed the current evolution of social media, SoBe Lifewater brand manager Rami Jabaji, launched into a presentation with statistics, video and case studies to demonstrate why public relations professionals should rethink the use of digital communication channels. In his role at Pepsico, Jabaji manages the Facebook, You Tube and Twitter pages for SoBe Lifewater, as well as media and promotions for the brand.

His background is diverse and extensive, and not all related to public relations and marketing. He has a background in computer science and he earned his MBA from Duke University. He also spent five years at Lockheed Martin. An avid media consumer, Jabaji admits that he deposits his paychecks directly to Apple.
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On October 1, 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created. John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL was established in 1962 as NASA’s launch headquarters. The Space Shuttle program, which has been launching human beings into space since 1981. As NASA and the U.S. Space program have developed over the years, it has captured the imaginations of people from all around the world. The Kennedy Space Center is dedicated to providing public affairs programming to help others to envision the thrill and the science behind it all. Combined with key strategies to reach their stakeholders, their wide array of public relations tools provide for the widest possible dissemination about the U.S. Space program to the public. Although the future of human space flight is still under governmental review, today, they are preparing the media relations and communication strategies for what appears to be the final launch of the U.S. Space Shuttle, scheduled within the next 12 months.
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George W. Jenkins opened his first Publix store in Winter Haven, Florida in 1930. The Publix name comes from a movie theater chain. Despite the depression, Mr. George opened another store 5 years later.

1940 – he closed the 2 small stores and built a state of the art “food palace.” It included things never seen before in a grocery store: marble, glass and stucco, and it didn’t stop there. It had innovations never seen before in a grocery store: air conditioning, fluorescent lighting, electric-eye doors, frozen food cases, piped-in music and aisles that were 8 feet wide. People traveled from miles and miles to shop there, and Publix prospered.
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In social media there are ‘those that talk’ and ‘those that do.’ Josh Hallett and Voce Communications are ‘those that do.’ In this session, Josh touched on the day-to-day operations of several successful social media programs using examples with Voce Communications clients – brands like Disney Parks, eBay, PlayStation to name a few. This session was not about “why” you should be doing social media, but rather it was a bigger look at strategy and tools/tactics. He also focused on measurement and ROI that make up the work.

The 4Ps are an essential part to social media. Review what makes up the 4Ps below and consider how your social media program incorporates these:

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Molly Kellogg is an etiquette expert. She has worked for a variety of organizations in Florida and has a degree in public relations. In this session, “Polishing your Professional Brand,” Kellogg gives a quick overview of how your actions can make or break you professionally.

As everyone knows, there are plenty of examples of people who have been in the news recently who are not paying attention to their own image:

            Lindsey Lohan
            Tony Hayward
            Mel Gibson

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Jeff Nall reviewed the various steps for the CPRC exam and the broadness of the procedure in comparison to the rules and requirements of the APR exam and its Readiness Review. 

In detail, Jeff explained the test is 6 hours long with 16 essay questions, including two lengthy narratives.  Each scenario deals with individual topics, such as research, evaluation, implementation, strategic planning and ethics.  Each question has a time frame assigned to it and that is the number of points to be earned for each question. 

Jeff went through several sample questions, pointing out each question is looking for the applicant’s knowledge of the information on one of the main areas of the R.A.C.E. formula. The sample questions are at the FPRA website.

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Jennifer Moss, APR, CPRC gives her acceptance speech as incoming FPRA State President. Jennifer will officially become president on Sept. 1, 2010.