Do you use Medium?

Turns out you should. It's the next big thing. Actually, it's already a pretty big thing.

For those of you who don't know what Medium is, it's basically an online publishing platform for anyone to share stories. It's kinda of like a magazine for personal blogs. You should check it out. 

I started reading it regularly a few months ago. It's cool because I simply chose the topics I am passionate about and every day I get a daily digest email with the latest posts for those topics. Many things there are different than my usual list of regular reading which is why I enjoy this so much, for example there are lots of personal posts (like this or this or this) rather than just the usual industry-related stuff that I follow and so it's nicer to start the day with such an inspirational piece or some sound leadership or business advice.  

I only posted something on Medium a couple of weeks ago because I feel it needs to be more personal there, different than what I usually publish here or on LinkedIn. I'll certainly be exploring it more but what I noticed is how people like, recommend and highlight pieces of your post. It's really cool to see which thoughts of yours people find most interesting and worth remembering.

Continuing with my blog series "Why Work in PR?", we have Sarah Hall today sharing with us her PR career story and some valuable advice for students and young professionals looking into joining the industry. 

I met Sarah on email a few months. Yep, we've never met in person but email and Twitter were enough to discover that we have many things in common, especially a passion for reviving the PR industry and particularly the agency world. 

With years of experience in PR, running her own agency now and seeing the pains of the industry, Sarah was the one who started the #FuturePRoof book project and reached out to me to see if I would be interested in contributing a chapter on Inbound PR too. Of course I was. I was so grateful to her for the opportunity. And so I invited her to share with us her story. 

Before you move onto the interview, don't forget to follow her on Twitter @Hallmeister and to follow @WeArePRoofed too. 

(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 and Scott Guthrie.) 

Why Work in Public Relations: Interview with Sarah Hall

Ask anyone about leadership and they'll tell you that emotional intelligence is key.

Read any management or leadership book and you'll get that same answer too.

In his article for the HBR "Leadership That Gets Results", Daniel Goleman explains that emotional intelligence is the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively.

Unlike IQ which is largely genetic and barely changes from childhood, the skills of emotional intelligence can be learned at any age but it takes practice and commitment.

It also takes time because the emotional centres of the brain, not just the neocortex, are involved.

The neocortex is the thinking brain that acquires purely technical knowledge and cognitive abilities very quickly. The emotional brain, on the other hand, needs repetition and practice to master a new behaviour and change a habit because it has to first unlearn the old one and then turn the new one into the brain’s default option.  

Daniel Goleman also explains that emotional intelligence consists of four fundamental capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skill.

I wrote a story on LinkedIn the other day about what I loved the most about working at HubSpot. 

As the comments were piling up, I started thinking about everything that has happened before and after I joined HubSpot. There's one thing I realised defines success whether in life or at work. 

It's all about making choices. The right choices at the right time for the right reason.

The choice to study hard.

The choice to work hard.

The choice to take a risk.

The choice to never give up.

The choice to want more.

The choice to do more.

The choice to never stop learning.

The choice to always be curious.

The choice to never be satisfied.

The choice to commit. 

The choice to grow.

These choices are influenced by the mindset you choose to follow – fixed or growth:

We are entering a new era of globalisation – a digital one – McKinsey says. Practically non-existent 15 years ago, digital flow of information and content now exerts a larger part on GDP growth than the centuries-old trade in goods. 

What we once called normal is no longer normal, it's traditional and old-school. Digital is disrupting the way we lead our lives and the way we do business. 

The outbound methods of pushing messages via TV, radio or direct mail no longer work. People ignore all that. We've become a lot more sophisticated because technology and online have offered us a lot of choice to design our ego ecosystems where we decide what to consume and what to ignore. 

The problem for business is that right now there's way too much noise everywhere which creates a huge challenge when trying to reach your audience. Hence the need for a partner in solving this challenge – an agency that's an expert in communicating your messages to the right audience at the right time with the right tools. 

But this presents yet another challenge: the list of agencies out there is huge too. Not all of them, though, are experts in the new world of digital, and among them, fall some PR agencies too. 

PR agencies still have this weird aura around them, being seen primarily as media relations experts and not getting respect. 

I've worked in the industry myself and now being on the other side consulting agencies on how to grow their business, I see the pains again and again every day. And they all revolve around one thing – the inability to measure and track results. 

I've made two big realisations over the past 12 months observing all this: