This week I was contacted by an old social media friend of mine Simon Collister. He has kindly invited me along to the PR and Disruption conference, which is taking place next month on 10th July 2013 at LCC in central London. I get invited to a lot of things but as my agency Prohibition is based in Leeds I don’t tend to get to every event that I am invited to but I am prety excited about this as it means I will be able to meet a few people I have been chatting to for a number of years now but have never met. I was going to be down in London the following day anyway as I am speaking at a social media conference for the CIPR so it made sense to attend this conference as well.

The session PR and Disruption: Embracing and Surviving Change, aims to create discussions around the contemporary role of a PR practitioner and what could essentially revolutionise the industry in the near future. The conference looks to uncover changes in traditional roles and how it has had a considerable amount of impact on how we all deliver campaign strategies these days. You can book a place here.

Communication professionals can expect the event to explore all you need to know regarding

 

strategic planning and advancing on skills need. Essentially, the conference will look deeper into the different aspects of life as a communications manager and how they can develop existing skills and improve, to make better their part in this fast moving industry.  I personally think this is a great idea as an industry we need to ensure we keep learning and developing so PR as a specialism doesn’t get eaten up by the new hungry digital agencies.

There will also be series of workshops for visitors to take part in and a variety of PR professional (some award-winning) will be there speaking on their experience and what they think the future holds.

Speakers and participants will include:

  • Oyvind Ihlen – Professor of Media and Communications, University of Oslo and internationally renowned and prize-winning academic
  • Nic Newman – Digital strategist and fellow at Oxford University’s Reuter’s Journalism Institute
  • Dom Burch – Head of Social Media, Walmart-UK
  • Alison Theaker – Author, The Public Relations Handbook and independent academic
  • Drew Benvie – Founder and MD, Battenhall and ex-CEO, Hotwire
  • Paul Seaman – MD of West PR-Seaman and PR blogger
  • Heather Yaxley – Co-author, The Public Relations Strategic Toolkit and independent academic
  • John Shewell – Founder and MD at Colab and ex-Head of Communications, Brighton and Hove Council
  • Tom Allan – Global Engagement Manager, ActionAid

If you are going drop me a comment in this post as it would be lovely to catch up with you all.

 

About Chris Norton

Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.