It started, as these things tend do these days, with an innocuous tweet; the tweet in particular was about Twitter lists. After a torrent of @ replies and emails, it was determined I needed to flesh out a post for a newly formed blog focusing on public relations as, it turns outs, there are some things that cannot be described in only 140 characters. And thus, my entry into the world of competitive blogging organized chaos.

That was a year ago. A complete revolution around the sun has come and gone since I first submitted a guest post to PRBC, a post in which I subtly make fun of both the blog and a little less subtly, the narcissistic nature of social media. As regular readers of this space, or even naturalized citizens of the world wide web, you know that not much has changed. Sure, there are more people coming here to read their daily fix of public relations banter, and sure, there are more people using social media, but what’s changed?

A year ago, we were talking about engagement and transparency; about client (and internal) management and crisis communications; about how to pitch both media and clients, as well as how to listen to said media and clients. In short, we were talking about the same things we talk about today. Maybe the case studies have changed and maybe there have been more guest posters who have entered the conversation, but one of the most consistent things in a public relations professional’s life (which will never change) is the basic tenet of our profession: every company needs to communicate, and we’re more than happy (for a competitive fee, of course) to help.

In the past year, PRBC has grown, on average, over 2-3 times in readership since its inception. And considering the amount of daily posts have lessened from three to two, it’s impressive – both from the readership perspective and from the direction of those running the asylum.

Relationships have been formed and members of this group of young, energetic practitioners are making, if not waves, at least giant splashes in the communications waters. They’ve used this platform to get new jobs with more responsibility; they’ve used this platform to serve as unofficial spokespeople at public relations conferences; and perhaps most importantly, they’ve used this platform to become better at what they do.

And that’s the key thing, isn’t it? Over the course of 365 days, we hope to grow, while at the same time hope to hold on to the past. It’s this dialectic tension that occurs when we want two opposing things at the same time; it pushes us, it sparks creativity, it connects seemingly disparate dots, it makes us communicate.

One year ago, I was the same, but different person. So were you. But we continue to come to sites like this so we can see progress – whether personal or professional – while relying on the things we know to be true that are always true.

About 365 days ago, I received an email asking if I wouldn’t mind writing a few things for this blog because of a tongue-in-cheek tweet. Hopefully, 365 days from now, I’ll be invited to write another post about some of the same topics we’ve been discussing for the past 365 days. Until then…

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