Critical Mention has been conducting a series of interviews from the floor of the PRSA International Conference, taking place through tomorrow. Starring the company’s new president, Dave Armon, guests cover a wide range of PR personalities including Ketchum‘s president Rob Flaherty and Jack O’Dwyer. We’ve attached a clip with MaryLee Sachs, former Hill & Knowlton head and author of the new book The Changing MO of the CMO. Other videos are available here.

Gail Simmons is the first client for the allied Wagstaff Worldwide and True PR. Photo: Tina Rupp

The National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) has elected Derek Cole the 2012 chairman of the organization’s board of directors. Cole is the VP of IR and corp comms for ARCA biopharma. He succeeds Douglas Wilburne, VP of IR at Textron.

Dave Armon has been appointed president of broadcast monitoring and analysis provider Critical Mention. Armon spent 20 years with PRNewswire, last serving as president and COO. Since leaving that company, he’s worked with Context Optional, dna13, and other companies.

APCO Worldwide has added Christopher McCannell as VP in its Washington D.C. office. McCannell was most recently VP of government affairs at Ameriprise Financial and previously served as chief of staff to Democratic Rep. Michael E. McMahon (N.Y.). APCO also has a new senior advisor in the healthcare practice. Bronwen Kaye is the former senior director of government affairs at Pfizer.

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Ogilvy PR has appointed Jason Stolarczyk as SVP and Shelley Risk as VP of the firm’s Western US technology practice. Stolarczyk has 15 years of PR experience, including recent work with IBM and Microsoft. Risk was most recently with Horn Group, responsible for the consumer technology/Web 2.0 practice and social strategy content development for the firm.

Ethan Riegelhaupt has joined Edelman as SVP for corporate and public affairs. Previously, he was VP of speechwriting and internal communications at The New York Times Company. He will specialize in executive speechwriting, employee engagement, public affairs and crisis comms.

Lorie Fiber has joined Weber Shandwick as EVP and GM of Southern California operations, beginning October 13. She will be based in Los Angeles and report to North American president Cathy Calhoun. Previously, Fiber was an EVP at Edelman. Read more

Saturday Night Live‘s Seth Meyers had a room full of New York digital media types laughing hysterically last night at an event hosted by social marketing company Buddy Media.

We transcribed some of Meyers’ social media zingers. Jokes after the jump.

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Former PRNewswire President Dave Armon has joined social marketing company Context Optional vice president of strategic services. The company is a “preferred Facebook developer” and concentrates mostly on marketing solutions for the Facebook platform.

Armon told PRNewser in a phone interview today that this is his first operating role since PRNewswire. “Brands spent a lot of time experimetning on Facbook in 2008 and 2009 and the timing is great” for the company, he said.

The new position involves working with brands and their agencies and “making sure they’re abiding by best practices on Facebook.”

“I’m not attacking the heaviest issues on the planet right now but I’m having a lot of fun,” he added.

Armon joined “reputation management and media monitoring” company dna13 as vice chairman in October 2009, and will retain his seat on that company’s board.

The above video of dna13 vice chairman Dave Armon interviewing Jack O’Dwyer, founder of the O’Dwyer PR newsletter has been making the rounds. In the interview, shot at this week’s PRSA International Conference, O’Dwyer argues that PR professionals should only deal with press and not the “public.”

O’Dwyer cites a speech from John Iwata, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, IBM, and stated that the web will eventually “filter down to experts, people who know what they’re talking about. And all these people on Twitter, who are saying they just brushed their teeth, they’re not the experts.”

It seems, ironically, that some of the communications were mixed up in this reporting. Iwata didn’t advise PR professionals to only deal with the press. He did say, “If you show up on the web…You need to be recognized as an expert…both knowledgeable and persuasive,” according to O’Dwyer’s reporting.

In just his second month on the job, dna13 vice chairman Dave Armon is already making some big moves. Today, the “reputation management and media monitoring” company announced a partnership with Thomson Reuters.

Thomson Reuters is already developing what Armon calls, “innovative workflow and communications solutions for PR professionals,” and dna13 will be contributing “television, print, internet and social media monitoring expertise and workflow functionality,” to these new services in development.

The deal opens up dna13 to a large audience, as the division of Thomson Reuters developing the new services already has more than 6,000 corporate customers.

SideBAR was packed last night for PRNewser’s latest happy hour party. Thanks to everyone for stopping by and enjoying the drink specials, complimentary appetizers, and of course, the good company.

We chatted with newly appointed dna13 Vice Chairman and former PRNewswire President Dave Armon. “We’ll be expanding in North America this year,” he said. Lane Buschel, President of Morris + King’s digital division SeisMK talked to us about some recent successes with client Glam Media. We asked him if he had any agency news, to which he said, “no.” [Update: It turns out M+K does have some news as they announced a new client, LBi IconNicholson US, in today's Spin the Agencies of Record.] Rob Manfredo let us know he just landed at Beckerman Group this week, an agency that was in the news recently for their acquisition of Wise PR. Matt Caldecutt and Scott Rosenblum of TrylonSMR were in attendance, perhaps toasting to the agency’s new client win: LocateTV. Matt also posted a brief recap on his blog. Alyson Campbell of AMP3 PR looked more at ease after a big week managing client Grooveshark and their deal with record label giant EMI.

Kaplow VP Chaim Haas has been busy keeping things running smoothly on the Skype account and was Tweeting away throughout the night. Waggener Edstrom account manager Jeremy Bridgman was busy mingling and reminded us that he is not on the Microsoft account. PRNewser’s favorite couple, Converseon’s Paull Young and M Booth’s Alyssa Galella were enjoying beer and wine, respectively. Tiffany Winbush let us know that she landed at Bridge Global Strategies as a Senior Account Executive. The Dowd Agency publicist Laura Dempsey told us that she runs the agency’s Twitter feed. They’re up to 450 followers. Not too bad.

The most telling sign was that despite the economy, about 90% of attendees (rough estimate) seemed to be employed. Were there job seekers in attendance? Sure, but they were the minority.

There were also a few journalists that snuck in, and some racy ones at that. Playgirl editor-in-chief Nicole Caldwell told us that she is consulting with the magazine on some projects including the Levi Johnston photo shoot. That’s about as far as we got on that one.

Dave Armon, former president of PR Newswire, will join “reputation management and media monitoring” company dna13 as vice chairman, it was announced today. dna13 founder Chris Johnson will step down from his day-to-day responsibilities as chief executive officer.

In a blog post announcing the move, Armon said, “Most people have never heard of dna13. Compared to an entrenched giant like PR Newswire, this Ottawa-based software company is very, very small. Yet dna13 is a wonderful example of how someone who’s an expert in his job – dna13 founder Chris Johnson worked in corporate communications for Bell Canada – can bring a fresh solution to market and watch it grow.”

“The company is in good hands with Dave Armon,” said Johnson in a statement. dna13 made big waves last September when it announced Edelman as a client. The company’s Director of Marketing, Alecia O’Brien tells PRNewser that in the last year they’ve signed new clients Anglo American, Georgia Tech, the Miami Heat and Silicon Valley Bank among others who she couldn’t name because they are under NDA. Larger accounts signed more than a year ago include the Royal Bank of Canada and Wachovia.