Earlier this week, I was going to write a post about how I felt about the recent IABC Ovation Awards ceremony in Toronto, but it looks like the glamorous and gorgeous Julie Rusciolelli beat me to it. I’m new (well, newish) to Toronto, so I had never heard of a lot of the companies and people that won awards. I’m sure they did a great job, and its too bad that the IABC didn’t do a better job of designing the actual awards. I don’t think I was even eligible for an award, and for that I’m glad. Those purple, globular, glass things were ugly. To me, they certainly didn’t communicate “excellence.”*
One person who did communicate excellence was Scott MacDonald Scott Macdonald. He won the student award (sponsored, I believe, by Maverick PR). I met this guy a month or so ago at one of Joe Thornley’s Third Tuesday Meetings (again, great work on putting those together, Joe). He’s smart, a skilled writer, and a good conversationalist. Based on what I can tell, he also works pretty hard. And he won that award.
I’m fairly certain you can’t ask for much more.
Normally, the practice seems to be for young folks like him to call around, looking for ‘informational interviews’ at agencies in order to get a foot in the door of the PR industry. You know, ask questions, find out about the company, show that you've got a head on your shoulders in the hopes of getting a job. With Scott, I think the tables should be turned. You guys should be contacting him, trying to get him into one of your agencies. Take him out for lunch, buy him a drink, preorder business cards for him, whatever. Don’t miss out on this future Toronto PR star.
Oh, and his classes are over at the end of a summer, so he’ll be looking for an internship in September.
-Parker
UPDATE: Scott's URL is actually scottymac.wordpress.com. Sorry, Scott!
*Note: What are the awards like at the annual Award Makers' Awards? I bet that the categories are awesome and super self-referential: “Best Design For An Awards Show Not Including This One,” “People’s Choice Award for a Trophy Designed For This Show,” and so on.