Lunch Bunch

Earlier this year group of DC-area communications professionals started getting together for an informal book group to discuss books relevant to our work.  The group started in February with a conversation about Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.  Participants discussed how they use new media, how it is changing the communications field and how new media can increase effectiveness in sharing messages with a variety of audiences. 

 

The group is made up of about 20 mid- to senior-level professionals including those working in public relations, new media, multimedia presentations, writing and other specialties as both consultants and in-house communicators.  A small group of the members (4 to 7) meet monthly downtown at lunchtime (some participants bring their lunches), generally in the offices of a new media company on 15th and L.  Meetings are free.

 

The next meeting, scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on June 17, will be to discuss Robert Schlesinger's White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters.  According to reviews, the book not only details the history of how messages have been developed, but “emphasizes how changes in the media (radio, television and the Internet) altered the settings and presentation of presidents’ words.”  One reviewer says “Schlesinger's coverage is wide, his research comprehensive, his pace fast, his prose light.”

 

For more information, or to join the group, please email the group’s organizer, Korey Hartwich at [email protected]. (PF Tipster)