As the back-to-school season kicks off, BITE asks industry leaders what they are committed to unlearning. Charlotte Woods, Senior Account Director at Citizen Relations, is shunning the pressure to be a PR specialist and embracing the power of learning from trying different things.

‘A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.’

The famous ‘jack of all trades’ quote is often repeated with the second half left off, framing a ‘jack of all trades’ as a negative. The implication being that for a person to be exceptional at a particular job, it must be the only thing they are doing.

Jack of all trades was originally intended as a complement, and the original quote was actually used to describe Shakespeare. The phrase means that a person is a generalist rather than a specialist; versatile and adept at many things, something which is ever increasingly important in the fast-changing PR world.

As summer fades to a distant memory, September often marks a return to routine and a ‘fresh start effect’, reminiscent of the school days of fresh uniforms and blank notebooks, no matter how old you are. It is a great time to reset, reflect and develop habits before the festive ‘silly season begins’. This year it is slightly different, instead of trying to set a new habit like less screen time, skipping a tube stop in favour of more steps or bringing a packed lunch to work, I am unlearning the pressure to be a ‘specialist’.

This is a relief, as an individual as it means I can continue to learn new and different things as well as focusing on being open minded, curious and accepting that sometimes in the ever changing comms landscape, having eggs in different baskets is better than putting them all in one. A hunger for learning and the desire for an ‘every day is different job’ is one of the reasons I went into PR in the first place.

There is a misconception that all PR’s must be specialists in their field - whether an earned media guru, influencer marketing specialist, creative or experiential events expert. When really it is the transferable skills and open mindset that stand the test of time in our increasingly fragmented and saturated industry. Things are changing faster than ever before and PR is at its core a dynamic profession.

Five years ago we still sat in offices five days a week with landline phones that rang several times an hour, our jobs were spent on the phone calling round media houses and going for lunch and coffee with journalists. Things changed extremely quickly, and traditional media has long been on the decline - the other day an article came out about The Guardian expanding into commercialisation, and traditional media is looking to diversify. This means as PRs we need to as well.

TikTok has risen exponentially in the last five years and Instagram has continued to boom, social media platforms are part of today’s consumers daily routine and given that most consumers now have different media consumption habits to Boomers, Gen X and Millennials,  we’ve had to lean into and learn influencer marketing, something which is crucial for us to target Gen Z. Even if you don’t want to be an influencer specialist, you still need to understand it, as there is no escaping the way it is used, consumed and  the opportunities that it offers brands. Traditional media is still important, but it is more important than ever that campaigns are fully integrated and 360, to reach the fragmented consumer world and for that we need to be a jack of several trades.

PR will continue to be driven by changes in politics, society, tech and the consumer landscape. As AI continues to grow it could present PR’s and their clients with new challenges and opportunities. It’s hard to predict where we could be in five more years as an industry, but one thing is for certain that we will have to be as adaptable and willing to try and become adept at whatever gets thrown our way.