Who We Are
The communications world turned upside down since launching PR Writer Extraordinaire in 2007. Not only did the financial world implode but Social Media took over the public relations universe.
It’s not just a good change but a great one. With the ‘people formerly known as the audience’ now in charge, public relations has moved into a horizontal climate rather than the old vertical model. This is the best development for the profession since the Internet itself became an earth-shattering presence.
While traditional PR is alive and well, Social Media is our business now. Whether it’s a Facebook site, Blog or Twitter feeds, we believe that these tools are what can market a smaller or entrepreneurial business in the SocMedia age—and it can do so better, cheaper and more efficiently than the older tools and techniques.
About Richard Rotman
Richard Rotman launched PR Writer Extraordinaire in 2007 after serving for several years as Vice President–Investor Communications (IR) at Toronto’s Wilcox Group and later Bryan Mills Iradesso. His IR activities included producing annual reports, quarterly conference calls and speeches, news releases, media relations, investor presentations and organizing AGMs for Kinross Gold, Priszm Brands, Scott’s REIT and Canadian Helicopters. Among his IR clients as an independent consultant were post-IPO communications for Audible.com, purchased recently by Amazon for $300 million and ongoing communications for Rentcash Inc., the most recent #1 fastest-growing company in the Profit 100.
Previously in Toronto, Rotman was director of Health Care Communications at Hill & Knowlton and was Senior VP/Managing Director at Kerbel Communications, a Toronto specialty health care boutique firm. He was also founding Director of Communications for Alliance Broadcasting’s Showcase and History Television. He started his public relations career in Chicago and rose to EVP and General Manager of the Ruder Finn office in the Windy City. Before becoming a PR practitioner, Rotman was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and The Washington (D.C.) Post.
He was also publisher and editor of Toronto’s Metropolis magazine and a radio movie critic on Toronto’s CKO all news radio, Q107, CFRB and CFNY.
His love of books and words prompted him to attend Bennington College, where he took a BA in literature and languages and studied with such writers as Nicholas Delbanco, and the late, great Bernard Malamud. He also studied languages at the University of Chicago and has a master’s in politics from Columbia University in New York. He is active on boards for charitable organizations and, as a result of his work for the Canadian Foundation for Physically Disabled Persons, won a Paul Harris fellowship from Rotary International for outstanding service to the disabled. He was also a Jeopardy contestant once upon a time.
This fall at Humber College, I am very proud to be teaching Social Media to the diploma students in collaboration with Andrea Tavchar, who will be responsible for the post-graduate certificate group. Kalene Morgan and I will work together on writing courses for the certificates, and Prof. Morgan has become the coordinator for that group. Congrats, Kalene! I’ll also handle my usual Media Relations duties for the Continuing Ed group with Elizabeth Duncan, the author of the Penny Brannigan mystery series. Her second book, A Brush with Death, was just published in July (www.elizabethjduncan.com). Recent other courses have also included Marketing Communications and Introduction to Journalism and PR at the University of GuelphHumber and a new course, Financial Communications, using my IR knowledge. In the first part of this year, I continued my involvement with online education, teaching writing for PR at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, the second course I’ve taught for UVic.
The common denominator to all these courses is applying social media to the problem of communicating to specific groups today.
Another course we taught was Managing the PR Function at the University of Victoria, British Columbia in the on-line environment. The common denominator to all these courses is applying social media to the problem of communicating to specific groups today. This fall we are taking on the writing sequence at Guelph-Humber and applying a lifelong devotion to the perfect sentence.
What We Do
Effective communication drives results and that’s what drives us. Whether it’s in a Blog or 140-character Twitter,
PR Writer Extraordinaire delivers creative, precise copy that inspires and motivates.
We bring outstanding experience across the broadest possible range of services: from online, print and electronic media to mainstream broadcast.
Whether it’s getting noticed or getting action, our commitment to the strength and power of language becomes your strength and power.
PR Writer Extraordinaire provides strategic advice, counsel and effective execution. Whether it’s something new and different from scratch or wordsmithing with the sharpest editing pencil in town, and whether it’s capitalizing on in-house expertise or our network of the best writers and social media relations experts, we have the know-how to know how to meet specific client needs.
We are high energy, enthusiastic, dynamic, and innovative with a strong work ethic to match. We also tap into a large network of Humber College students, for whom social media is not only second nature but it is their life.
Give us a call: for a results-oriented PR project, you want the best of the best — PR Writer Extraordinaire.
