At Keymer, the nature of our business means that our professional focus is often on clients and events far from our Jacksonville base. This year, to balance this, we made the decision to actively engage with our local community. The Jacksonville public relations industry seemed a good place to begin.

We are members of both the North Florida Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the First Coast Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Over the last year we have made a real effort to support both these groups and our membership has given us countless new opportunities and many new friends.

In June we sponsored keynote speaker Peter Shankman at the PRVille PRSA conference in Jacksonville. For those who don’t know Peter, he is the visionary behind the Help a Reporter Out (HARO) email service which, to use the vernacular, connects hacks with flacks. We wanted to sponsor Peter because we see his services as a tangible expression of something we have come to believe very strongly – that new and emerging technology has fundamentally changed the way in which we share information. In public relations this means that the tools we use to wield influence, build reputations and support brands have been transformed forever. It’s pretty obvious that Peter caught on to this way earlier than most.

On top of this, I have had the honor of speaking at both IABC and PRSA over the last few months. With the recession front-of-mind, I chose to speak to IABC on Allocating Marketing Spend in a Down Economy, stressing the need to maintain flexibility, pay closer attention to measures of effect and look to new and emerging media to take up some of the slack. At PRSA I dusted off and updated a presentation on Winning New Business, originally for junior and mid-level agency staff but redrafted to apply to freelancers too. I was grateful for smart and vocal audiences at both which made for truly interactive sessions.

In addition to our Jacksonville public relations groups, we regularly attend the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce (mainly the Government Affairs Committee) and the Professional & Businessmen’s Association of Jacksonville, where a brief presentation on our entry in the 2009 BABE Rally met with barely disguised astonishment….

We’ve got a lot out of these new interactions, extending beyond new contacts and the promise of new business. For me, personally, Jacksonville has a special significance. There is no place on earth where I have lived longer, I bought a house here, started a business here and had a child here. Keymer itself has been headquartered in Jacksonville for four years, but has always had a foot in Washington and one eye on places as far apart as Alaska and London. Our efforts this year have wrought a subtle change – Keymer has always been based in Jacksonville, but increasingly Jacksonville feels like Keymer’s home. (SK)