Generalities

When we saw The Onion article “Fracking Industry Now Largest Employer Of Recent PR Graduates,” we retweeted it as a joke. When Houston Business Journal reporter Deon Daugherty saw the story, she decided to investigate.

The article cites “a study” that says companies that make a business out of fracking are hiring more PRs than other industries with a bad rep — tobacco, for instance — because they’ve got a lot of spinning to do. Upfront, Daugherty says she knows this story is a parody. Still, she contacted Ed Davis, GM of PR firm Fifth Ring and “a media savvy professional,” for comment. And he responded!

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

 

There’s WhatShouldWeCallMe. And WhatShouldWeCallSocialMedia. Now there’s 99 Problems But a Pitch Ain’t One, just for the PRs. Thanks Internet. (And @MissSuccess.)

The winning entry to our “What Does PR Look Like Contest?” was sent to us by Brooke Bertuzzi, a studio designer at R&R Partners.

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I recently had an email conversation with a PR pro of the male persuasion when the topic of multitasking came up. In his estimation, women make better multitaskers.

“I just see what the lady-pros are capable of accomplishing in a day and recognize it takes me longer. God, maybe I’m just bad at this!” he told me. (He asked to remain anonymous.)

Are women better at multitasking than men? Who knows. (Actually, we do. Yes!) With the world moving at such a rapid clip, the more important issue is how to improve your multitasking skill, no matter what level you start from.

After the jump, we’re offering four tips to take your multitasking up a notch. Agree? Disagree? Have something to add? Please do so in the comments section.

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CareerCast has released its list of best, worst, most stressful, and least stressful jobs for 2012. And coming in at number seven on the most stressful list is PR executive. Yikes.

Last year, PR officer came in at number two on this list. And in 2010, that job was number eight. This year’s determination was made for much the same reason as 2011: it’s a “highly competitive” field that requires public speaking, interaction with “potentially hostile members of the media,” and follows tight deadlines. Average pay is listed as $91,810.

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It was recently brought to our attention that M&C Saatchi PR has dogs that regularly spend the day at the office. We would get absolutely no work done if we worked at this firm.

This is Lucy sleeping on a desk. Click through for more pictures because, yeah, the cuteness!

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We got a tip that there have been some staff changes at Marketwire, specifically, a number of layoffs that could indicate trouble at the news distribution company. Has Marketwire run into a rough patch?! No, they say.

“The company is doing well and performing well,” Marketwire’s VP of content and branding, Mike Torre, told us over the phone. “We did go through some restructuring recently, but not because of financial performance. We’re restructuring for better alignment of executive skills.”

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PRNewser will be trying to catch up on Oscar-nominated movies in honor of President’s Day. Three-day weekend! We’ll see you back here on Tuesday.

Tangerine tango is not the victory dance for the winner of the upcoming Florida Republican primary. It’s the official color of 2012.

The color was selected as Pantone’s “color of the year,” and is already making a fashion statement in stores, at sports events, and awards shows. Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of Pantone told the New York Times earlier this month that “the color of the year is not the hot fashion color, but an expression of a mood, an attitude, on the part of the consumers.”

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Meetings, tweeting, brainstorming, open floor plans. How much of your work in PR is done alone? From workplace trends in the past 20 years, one would guess very little. This “groupthink,” or herd-style working, could be leading to less creativity, says one author.

Susan Cain, who wrote Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking cites Apple’s Steve Wozniak and Isaac Newton as two famous loners who  prove her point. Some people can be friendly but just don’t like being part of a crowd. They need alone time to recharge. Quiet time, without jabbering or constant interruption, is when they do their best work. Not that I’m projecting or anything.

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