June 16, 2008 — 07:35 PM EST — by Amanda Gravel — Add a Comment

This post can also be found at Social Honeycomb.

I managed to capture a video at the end of the Pub Club “Buzz Word: New Media” panel on Wednesday night, and I wanted to share it with my readers. Brian Reich set it up, asking the panelists what PR pros should read or sign up for as a final word of advice. The speakers took the prompt in different directions, and I think there’s some good insight here.

Adam Ritchie thinks you should compare your company’s blog to industry leaders’ blogs and take a look at what’s missing or where you can learn from best practice examples.

Mike Volpe thinks that beyond reading something or signing up for something, every company should blog. He thinks if your company can’t blog, there’s something wrong because you should always have something interesting to share.

Patrick Richardson recommends that PR pros use the Internet as the marketing research tool it is. As he said, your customers are out there, opting in to conversations about your brand. His advice is that using RSS feeds is a great way to listen to these conversations and learn about your consumers.

Mark McClennan feels that too many companies are mute, but that the bigger challenge at this point is too many companies are also “blind and deaf.” There are effective, free ways to listen to and learn from all the things people are saying about your clients online. He also highlights that there are tons of PR pros sharing insight and information on the Web, and it’s important not to overlook these conversations as well. His parting words: You gotta listen and you gotta see.

Also, I won a copy of Brian Reich’s Media Rules. Share in my glee!

This week might just be my wackiest yet of 2008.

So, to kick things off on Monday night I attended the Publicity Club of New England’s annual Bell Ringers – the Oscars of the New England PR world. I enjoyed myself – food was good and I loved the steel drum band. The award show usually runs about 4 hours, so I didn’t get home until after 11pm. After getting only about 3 hours of sleep, Dan and I were then ripped from our slumber by the pungent smell of burning house.

I guess some old wires short circuited behind one of the walls in the hallway that leads up to the apartment above us (we live in a two-family). We stood out on the curb for 2 hours while about 20 Newton firemen gathered around the house, geared up and then entered the “danger zone.” Our apartment didn’t suffer any damage – as the fire stayed within the walls – but the whole house was filled to the brim with smoke. The couple that lives upstairs, however, haven’t really been home since the fire because they can’t use their bathroom (the firemen had to rip up the walls to extinguish the fire in the wall on the floor below.)

On top of all this, work has been hectic. We made a HUGE announcement for one of my clients, so we’ve been busy, to say the least. In addition, Dan and I went to go see Eric Clapton last night at Great Woods (aka The Comcast Center, formerly the Tweeter Center). The concert was a blast. The second we walked through the gates I said to Dan’s mom “so, what are the chances we’re going to run into someone we know?” Out of the thousands of people at the venue, within minutes of us being there, we ran into a whole family that we knew from Hopkinton. I called it.

Because of the fire, we’ve also had workers in and out of our apartment – insurance adjusters, cleaning crews, electricians, and the like. Luckily I’ve got a couple days off – and I need them. My sister’s bridal shower is this weekend and I’ve got to wrap up the planning. Can you say “go, go, go?”

Despite all the craziness, we were really lucky that the fire wasn’t worse. There was no damage to our “stuff”, and, more importantly, no one got hurt!