Hasta La Ideas

Wow! What an interesting week it has been. At Burson-Marsteller (B-M), we just completed the first Digital In Action program at our offices here in NYC. Just to provide a bit of context, Digital In Action is an intense, 2 day seminar aimed at helping B-M employees from disciplines across the company to be able to apply Digital to the way they help their current rosters of clients.

While the first phase of digital training that took place in early 2007, Digital Bootcamp, was designed to bring everyone in the company up to speed with the new digital landscape, Digital In Action took those efforts to the next logical step in showing them how to apply that knowledge to the way they help their clients. In other words, phase I was “this is a Wiki/blog/social network” while phase II was “here are the tools you need to go out and put all of this new knowledge in action.”

It was a great 2 days. I had the pleasure of being a faculty member and team leader for the 2 day session and the group I led was so inspired, they immediately began work on a digital action plan they hope to propose to an existing client within the next 2 weeks! What’s remarkable about this is that these individuals are not from our digital practice. They are traditional PR, advertising and communications professionals who work within B-M. Many of whom began their careers prior to the start of the Internet age.

This week’s program was the first of many to come. Eventually these sessions will be rolled-out globally within B-M. I’m excited about the change we can bring and the prospect of really helping to shape B-M so that the company can help define modern PR in the 20th century just as it did in the 20th century. Judging by the level of excitement generated this week within the company, I have no doubt that will happen.

.chris{}