The time in New Orleans at the annual Reputation Institute conference has been one amazing experience for me both as a scholar and professional in PR who is interested in reputation management. This has been a conference that I have attended and presented in for the last four years, and I have to say that out of all of the conferences I have attended throughout the four years in the PhD program, this is one of my favorites. The professionals and staff members associated with the Reputation Institute truly went above the call to organize a cutting edge, engaging, and built a strong bridge between practitioners and academics with this conference.
It is not every day that you get a chance to hear some great speakers from leading corporations (Cisco, Southwest, Pfizer, McDonalds) as well as CEOs from other strong brands and corporations (Sprint and Forbes). I was extremely impressed with the CEO presentations – especially looking at the research that my colleagues and I have done with perceptions of CEOs based on personality characteristics and attributes. I really enjoyed listening to Dan Hesse and his input on reputation management and the role of social media as being a key component to the reputation economy – very fascinating!
The RI Conference is a great opportunity to bring leading professionals into a conference where they can share real world examples and experiences that can be incorporated best practices both in the professional realm, and generate great studies and research for academic professionals.
I presented yesterday at the RI Conference, and it went very well. The focus of the paper was looking at the opportunities and barriers in social media and mobile technologies in reputation management and crisis communications practices. This paper was in collaboration with Dr. Michael Palenchar, and it was a fun presentation and project to work on.
I have to thank everyone at the Reputation Institute (Charles Fombrun, Cees van Riel, Anthony Johndrow, Adam Shoer to name a few) for all of their hard work and dedication to making this year’s conference wonderful experience. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the presentations, meeting new friends, and catching up with fellow colleagues in a positive, energetic, and exciting atmosphere. You all truly made my time in New Orleans wonderful and I will be heading back to Tennessee (and next year in Louisville, KY) energized and excited about initiating future studies with reputation management and crisis communications and social media.
I am looking forward to the upcoming conference in 2012 – it is definitely on my calendar for next year! 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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