My current obsession

I know I definitely could take a vacay from dropping f-bombs left and right. This new awesome blog/e-newsletter/spiritual site of awesomeness agrees.

I'm a little nervous... it's my first time

So this is what the whole blogging thing is about -- taking a deep breath and unleashing your perspective on the world, eh? Sign me up.

I guess I should start with why I'm doing this. And there's a bit of a story behind it...

After three years in the public relations industry, I have finally found my niche. Just after the New Year, I started as a senior account executive at R/West, a full-service creative marketing agency in Portland, OR . After testing the waters at two other firms (one local, one worldwide), I was told to "stay still" for a while, warned that future employers wouldn't want to hire me after just a year at two agencies. I was prepared to do what I had to, even though there was this pit in my stomach telling me I was most definitely not cut out for the corporate world.

Well luckily for me, my good friend, whom I worked with at my first agency job, had recently become the director of PR at R/West... and I just couldn't stay away. For the first time in my life, I've followed my gut, my heart and my brain, and as my first month comes to an end, I finally feel I've found my place in this crazy, mixed-up world of press releases, pitches, media lists and clipping services.

Oh right, so why the blog? Well, our stellar R/West PR team recently invited a few clever freelancers to our digs to brainstorm some strategies for a potential client. The energy in the room was so awesome, that we asked ourselves why we don't do this more often? We're so trained to protect our "intellectual property" at all costs, not to share or collaborate ideas with other pros for fear of "client poaching." Well f that! I know for a fact that there are some great, smart PR people in this community and I for one am tired of playing in my own little corner.

So my super cool teammates at R/West (Heather, Kendall and our newest edition, Kathleen) and I are going to see if we can stir it up a bit, literally. Stay tuned for details on our first shindig. We're thinking some good eats, yummy wine, beer (of course, one of our fave clients is Bridgeport) and lots of other cool PDX PR chicks to discuss the latest and greatest in the land of PR. Now we've just got to work on getting the boss to sign off on our party fund...

Ciao for now,
PDX PR Chick