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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Waggener Edstrom just promoted Jen Houston to the new role of president, Studio D and global lead.

Houston was previously senior vice president, and will continue to lead Studio D, the agency’s digital division, which has expanded from 37 full-time employees in July 2008 to 132 employees today. Houston has been with Waggener Edstrom since 1999.

PRNewser caught up with her today for an exclusive interview on her new position and much more.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This year was all about digital, digital, digital. Agencies big and small expanded, re-branded, and staffed up to meet client demand, while also performing triage on their traditional business. A number agencies made deep staff cuts, while some closed altogether. Journalists fled crumbling mastheads to join the PR world. Flat became the new growth for those reporting earnings.

Here are a few posts remembering the year that was in public relations agency trends…

Firms create and name their digital divisions:

Levine opens LCO 2.0, Morris + King opens SeisMK; Ogilvy PR calls theirs 360° Digital Influence.

Big hires, mostly in digital:

David Patton leaves WSJ for WagEd’s Studio D; Stephanie Agresta gets a big bump at Porter Novelli; Chad Latz joins Cohn & Wolfe; Ogilvy adds several; Marian Salzman re-joins EuroRSCG; Cristina Lawrence leaves Fleishman Hillard for Razorfish; David Armano joins Edelman.

Digi-gurus leave their jobs to start their own consultancies, including:

“PR” Sarah Evans launches Sevans Strategy; “Key Influencer” James Andrews leaves Ketchum to start Everywhere; Chris Brown leaves “America’s Most Wanted” to run his firm full time.

Flat is the new up:

Richard Edelman predicts gloom at Davos; Omnicom, MDC (with up earnings), WPP all report revenue slips; Martin Sorrell already saying 2010 will be rough; The Council of PR Firms called it.

Firms and offices closed or shrank:

The mega-firm Enfatico, created to service Dell, has layoffs; Fleishman cuts deep in hometown Kansas City office; Taylor makes cuts; Catevo closes; LP&G closes office, goes virtual; Paul Wilmot exits L.A. after less than a year.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Journalists leaving their posts to take up careers in public relations is not a new thing, though it seems to be accelerating lately with the doom and gloom hitting the media business.

My co-editor Joe Ciarallo recently asked “Do Former Journalists Make Good PR Pros?” Most of the numerous comments offered a resounding yes, though most were in fact, former journalists. The writing, research, adherence to deadlines, dealing with a variety of people, are all important skills. Though, one agency head who requested anonymity said, “never ends well.” “Journalists would prefer to hang up on difficult clients. You can’t do that on this side of the fence.”

Moving from one side to another is both an interesting topic for PRNewser, and firmly fits mediabistro’s M.O. to help media people retrain, reinvent, and find the jobs they want.

Without further adieu, we’re adding a “hack turned flack” category to keep track of those who make the leap. I won’t go in to depth about the word “flack” though I don’t believe it’s pejorative, and hack-turned-flack is a lot catchier than journalist-turned-strategic comm consultant.

Here’s an alphabetical list of a few of the hacks-turned-flacks who have made the jump recently:

Dan Abrams, MSNBC anchor and general manager to found Abrams Research, then starting his own content play Mediaite with mediabistro’s Glynnis MacNicol & Steve Krakauer joining HuffoPo’s Rachel Sklar and the Daily Show’s Colby Hall on the masthead.

Chris Gaither from the Los Angeles Times, to Google corporate comm

Mike Hegedus, CNBC correspondent to McKinley Reserve

Keith O’Brien, PRWeek editor-in-chief to Attention

David Patton, WSJ.com to Waggener Edstrom’s Studio D division

Blake Robinson, founder of Crunchgear to MWW Group, on to Attention

Richard Wolff, Newsweek to Public Strategies, Inc.

Photo credit: Me, wearing a fedora.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Waggener Edstrom (WE) made its third high-profile hire for their Studio D division this week with the addition of Tac Anderson from Hewlett-Packard. His title is Digital Consulting Director.

Anderson joins Studio D Editor-in-Chief David Patton, and Senior Digital Consultant Paul Armstrong. Patton was at WSJ.com, and Armstrong was at MySpace, though achieved some notoriety recently as the man behind TheMediaIsDying Twitter feed.

Anderson spent two years managing HP’s social media outreach and as strategic lead for LaserJet Business Web 2.0. Other experience includes entrepreneurship ventures, and a stint as Director of New Media at BlueLine Marketing.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

TheMediaIsDying, a Twitter feed dedicated to “Helping flaks pitch better and update lists” according to its bio, is now a part of global PR agency Waggener Edstrom. By that we mean the feed’s founder, Paul Armstrong was hired as a senior digital consultant for WagEd’s Studio D in EMEA. Armstrong previously held the position of Manager of Consumer Corporate Communications for Myspace.

This is the second high profile hire for Studio D, who earlier this month snagged Wall Street Journal Senior Editor David Patton.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Another hack has turned flack, sort of, this week. Waggener Edstrom (WE), the firm known for its long-time relationship with Microsoft hired David Patton from the Wall Street Journal online, according to a release and accompanying video interview.

Patton will have the journalistic title editor-in-chief as he moves to WE’s digital division, called Studio D. WE hasn’t confirmed which clients Patton will work with first. Studio D’s About Us states that it exists to “drive influence and conversation through digital and creative engagement”. Meaning, it’s part of the competition with ad agencies, interactive firms, and other PR firms to build stuff to gain relevant attention on the web.

Patton started at the Journal almost straight out of college in 1993 and has held various positions there since including night editor during the explosion of the blogosphere in 2004, where he would contact relevant bloggers to let them know about the WSJ.com’s free content. His most recent position was Senior Editor, with a lot of bylines on the Automotive blog.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.