“Collectively, we have about 80 years’ technology PR experience between us,” I heard my boss say today over the phone to a prospective new client. Yes, we’re that old at Skout PR that between the four us we have that many years’ work experience under our belts.
This got me thinking about the value of experience in the PR sector versus fresh young blood full of new and exciting ideas. I also read an interesting article on this very topic describing how an agency head had mercilessly weeded out his older employees when he took over his business, describing it as rebuilding the company with bright young things.
Ok, I do understand how a young PR coming into this profession full of innovative ideas and adept at using social media and all things digital is a great thing. Todays’ under 30s have grown up in an era of communicating in a whole new way – it’s natural to them, whereas for us ‘vintage PRs’ we’ve had to adapt and learn how these new channels of communication work and understand how they can help us deliver our client’s campaigns.
However, we believe there’s a lot to be said for experience over youth in this profession – what about the years of knowledge we’ve built up on working with different types of media, the journalist relationships we’ve forged over time and the expertise we’ve built up giving us the ability to manage reputations and offer comms guidance at board level? We’ve earned how stripes in our profession and have the grey hairs to prove it.
