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Coming to you, live, from the PRSA International Conference…and we’re all in Orlando together.

It’s a far better experience to record in person than with Google Hangouts and our Zoom recorders. Body language is easier to read, even though we use video, and we can play off one another better.

We hope you agree!

Soledad O’Brien was the conference opening keynote where she talked about diversity and media relations.

She, as she says, is a “mixed race person.” Her dad is Irish and Australian and her mother is black and Cuban. During her keynote she describes systemic racism and how far we’ve come, but that we still have a long way to go.

Her parents were at Johns Hopkins and living in Baltimore as an engaged couple. They couldn’t get married in Baltimore because, in 1958, it was illegal. So they got married in DC and lived illegally in Baltimore as an interracial couple.

You may be wondering what this has to do with the communication industry.

The PRSA conferences have always had programming that drives toward a greater purpose. Our job is about serving more than the master; it’s our job to not accept things as they are, but to communicate views in order to move things forward.

The keynote Soledad set the right tone for the conference and for any kind of organization…that is: communications should serve as a higher purpose.

She also talked about storytelling being the foundation of everything. She said, as PR professionals, we have to tell her stories and then trust her to take our stories and create something useful for her audiences.

It really bothers her when she is pitched by people who haven’t bothered to watch what she does. She says it’s offensive to receive those kinds of pitches and this is something the three of us discuss at length during the podcast.

Also some news for Joe and Martin at the end…so don’t tune out early!

Coming soon: Interviews from old friends and new, including Pierre-Loic Assyag, Dan Tisch, Shonali Burke, Abbie Fink, Jay Baer, Mary Barber, John Devaney, Eric Schwartzman, and more!

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Do you have an idea for a topic you would like us to discuss? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pron Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.