Just a quick recap — Last night a few of us attended the PRSA Totem Awards which honored the best PR campaigns from the Puget Sound region over the last year.  There were a few surprises throughout the evening, like the award winners who didn’t show up to accept their awards (that’s embarrassing….) and surprisingly much fewer attendees than we remembered in years past.

That said, it was still an interesting night to learn about other successful PR campaigns for companies such as Boeing and Starbucks, among others. 

Additionally, Suzanne Hartman, Director at Seattle City Light was the honored speaker of the evening.  She took the Totem’s theme “Celebrating the Impact PR Creates” to heart when she described a campaign she worked on in the 1980s with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU).  The campaign was focused on getting more Seattleites to recycle, before reducing your carbon footprint was all the rage.  The campaign truly showed what kind of impact PR can have on our communities.  For example, while SPU hoped for a noticeable increased adoption rate, even they were shocked when an astounding 80% of Seattleites signed on to recycle.  Even more interesting is that because of the success of this campaign, it was reused in communities throughout the U.S. for years to come.  The key takeaway here:  PR can make positive short and long-term impacts on our community – a pretty cool thing, considering we’re not neurosurgeons saving lives every day!

Also, the emcee even turned out to be a local celebrity, Pat Cashman, who is known for his Emmy award-winning skits on the comedy show “Almost Live,” which made the event quite entertaining!  

And a little pat on the back to some of our fellow MWW team members – in addition to a selection of internal PR teams and outside PR agencies, MWW took home Certificates of Excellence for our work, including:

• Fulton Innovation: “eCoupled Wireless Technology Takes Charge of CES 2009”
• Tetris Online “2008 Tetris Online Launch of Tetris Party for WiiWare”

Thank you to the Puget Sound PRSA for putting together a great evening and to Pat Cashman for the laughs!