Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to attend an event hosted by the Chicago P.R. and Marketing Network. The speaker was Peter Shankman — most recently known for creating Help a Reporter Out (HARO), a free service that helps connect reporters with sources. As a competitor to fee-based ProfNet, HARO has grown tremendously since it started as a small 600-person Facebook group. Now it boasts more than 110,000 subscribers.

Peter spoke about the changing role of public relations, journalism and today’s 370 million micro-journalists equipped with camera phones and a propensity for blogging; about how social media is a tool that allows for an “easier way to screw up to a larger amount of people,” but at the same time to also better facilitate customer service; and about the Internet making it easier today to search for and investigate the wrongdoings of the “old white men” who run our country. 

He also outlined five qualities of a successful business or PR professional, which I’ll detail here.

 

1. Transparency

 

Peter noted that if a company (or a company represent