It's been over a year since I've run a "Why Work in PR?" interview but today we have Alex May sharing with us her PR career story and offering some very thoughtful advice for students and young professionals who want to learn more about the industry and how to get into it. 

Alex is a good friend of mine (we met in Dublin) and I asked her to participate in my PR interview series because I felt it would be good for PR students thinking about the profession to hear from a younger pro who's closer to their generation and experiences. 

Before you move onto the interview, don't forget to follow her on Twitter @AMayHopscotch and say Hi. 

(If you've missed any of the previous interviews, you can take a look as well: Richard Bailey, Pippa Hanson, Jessica Hodkinson, Chryssa Skodra, Farzana Baduel, Scott Guthrie, Sarah Hall and Angharad Welsh.) 

Why Work in Public Relations: Interview with Alex May

As a society and individuals, we widely distrust businesses, governments, NGOs and the media. 

In fact, according to the 2017 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER, trust in these institutions to do what is right is at an all-time low. 

The situation is so bad that two-thirds of the 28 countries Edelman surveyed are now considered "distrusters" and the majority of respondents lack full belief that the overall system is working for them. This climate has increased people's fears both about society and the economy. We live in a trust crisis that's causing a systemic meltdown.

Such an environment, Richard Edelman explains, leads to a rise in populist action and nationalism as the mass population wants to take control away from the "elites". From an exalted position as a savior in the wake of the financial crisis, government is viewed today as incompetent, corrupt and divided, and is the least trusted global institution at 41 percent.

What I found most interesting, though, is that business is found to be in the best position of all institutions expected to make a change and somewhat trusted to make a difference. 

Admit it, you love TEDTalks. 

I do too. I'd love to have the opportunity to do a TEDTalk one day. In fact, this is in my 30 before 30 list where I've added things I want to do or achieve before I turn 30. 

Lately, I've been traveling a lot (pretty much every week) and as such, I've found a new way to spend the spare time at the airport. Instead of working on my laptop and dealing with emails or reading the next business book, TED has been a saviour. You all know how we've moved to interactive content formats - video has probably become the most favourite learning and entertainment vehicle for us. 

So what I want to show you today are two rather unorthodox TEDTalks that I saw recently because I believe they can both inspire and provoke you personally and professionally. 

The lines between work and personal life are blurring and as I always say, I believe we should be striving for work-life integration and not work-life balance. If you are not happy at home, you are not going to do well at work. Conversely, if you have troubles at work, you'll probably bring these back home. 

The two speakers are very much opposites in pretty much every aspect so watching the two videos one after another is quite impactful in two different ways. You'll see what I mean.

Let's start with happiness; then we'll get to the leadership lessons from war. 

Did you know that messages delivered through a story can be up to 22 times more memorable than just facts? 

I'd say no wonder given that stories provoke emotions, refer to our own experiences (when planned and told well) and so engage our subconscious minds. 

In our information, channels and apps overload era, that's a pretty significant number for businesses to consider when they are trying to engage with consumers or any other stakeholder group. Good stories can clearly sell. 

A lot of companies jumped on the bandwagon of storytelling or should I say on content creation as we saw the benefits in terms of SEO and user engagement.

But as the mass of content grew bigger and our attention spans got shorter, that focus on quantity versus quality is not doing you a favour anymore. 

What businesses, PR and marketing professionals alike need are fewer, but better stories that can capture hearts and minds at scale. 

We call this break through storytelling that can cut through the noise. 

Planning for this is easier than executing on it so let me help you with that. 

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending and speaking about Inbound PR at the IPRA PR Conference for Central and Eastern Europe in Sofia.

I met a number of very successful PR people from all over the world who have built careers in some of the largest companies and PR networks and got to listen to where they thought PR needs to go next.

I'd like to share with you some of my key learnings from the day as well as to agree and disagree with some of the general notion of what PR's biggest challenges are that stood out across all presentations.

Almost every talk during the conference focused on technology.

Technology - PR's Next Frontier

I agree that today's reality not only in the business world but also in our personal lives is underpinned by technology. PR people and other professionals alike have not yet figured out how to handle technology.

Digital still remains a major challenge for communications professionals but the understanding and adoption of tools, software and tech in general is rather low.