David Estok Presentation

I knew I wanted to blog about our guest speaker, David Estok, for the PR@Mohawk blog when I heard he was visiting our class. I had the pleasure to listen to David speak another time and I was impressed by his enthusiasm regarding his line of work.

David Estok has had a bit of a back and forth career, spending half his life in journalism and Public Relations. He was the associate business editor of Maclean’s magazine. He was the editor in chief at The Hamilton Spectator. He has contributed a great deal to the Communications program at the University of Western. Currently, he is the Vice President of Communications at SickKids Foundation and is in the midst of writing Canada’s first PR book.

If you decide to take the Public Relations program at Mohawk College, you’re in for a treat with David Estok as a guest speaker.

Firstly, David’s presentation on “Winners and Sinners”, the best and worst of Public Relations, is something he does every year. David shows a series of pictures of well-known people in the media and asks the audience to shout out what comes to mind when you see them. This year we saw Charlie Sheen, Steve Jobs, Rob Ford, Kate and William, Bill Clinton, and Jack Layton to name a few. In this fun little exercise, it is up to you to decide whether these popular people, coming from journalist stories we hear of, are either villains or heroes.

Next, David’s main discussion is around the 3 R’s: reputation, relationship and revenue. Without completely giving away this part of his presentation, note that these three things are essential to any PR career. Firstly, the most valuable thing you have is your reputation; therefore you must enhance, protect and defend your reputation. Secondly, you want to have a good relationship. Finally, if you have good revenue, people want to have a relationship with you. If you create and maintain these 3 elements in your PR career, David believes you’ll be successful.

Finally, what I found interesting about David’s presentation was the work he is doing for the SickKids Foundation. David showed our class their latest commercial for the foundations integrated campaign. It’s emotional, sad, but different.  Everyone you see in the commercial is a real person, including little Antonio from Hamilton, who is crime fighting cancer.  The point of the commercial is to tell journalistic stories through a narrative to try and get across the work that they are doing.

How do media relations fit in you ask? SickKids Foundation has a theatre at the hospital that has 150 seats. For this particular campaign, all the families, staff, and the media were invited to be the first to see the commercial. The media was there to film the reactions of the families to the commercial. They were crying, laughing, and applauding. This is the sort of PR perspective on real life work you will receive from David’s presentation.

To see the commercial for yourself, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM1Ho6lB29Y

I admire David Estok and think that his take on Public Relations is truly inspiring. People need us to help them think about how to communicate. That is what David teaches you during his time at Mohawk College. He gives the aspiring PR students some of the best advice needed to do well in PR. He urges students to know the news, be attached to the news and have an understanding of it.

If David visits again, he will tell you that you should always tell people something they’ve never heard before. This advice will come in handy during your studies at Mohawk College and out in the PR field.

Thank you David Estok for visiting the Public Relations Graduate Certificate program at Mohawk College.

“No vision can be successful until it is communicated.” – David Estok