Public relations encompasses rapidly developing communication and management functions. The practitioner's work is filled with a wide range of media, creative, and strategic planning functions. This "professional breadth" is clearly reflected in the following paragraphs as Marissa, a young public relations professional, works through her daily assignments.

Marissa is feeling pretty good about her life and especially her job. She received her bachelor's degree two years ago with an emphasis in public relations. Then, following a paid summer internship, she competed successfully for a full-time account coordinator job at Waggener Edstrom, a Pacific Northwest public relations and strategic communication agency best known for its work on behalf of Microsoft. Now, almost two years later, she's just been appointed an account executive after having spent the last year as an assistant account exec.

Today is her first in the new job. She checks her e-mails and especially an overnight media tracking report to see what the media reported about her Microsoft product over the last 24 hours. She also looks to see what, if anything, has been said or written about her client's competitors. She summarizes the highlights and e-mails them to her clients and other members of her Microsoft product team.

After reviewing her schedule for the day, Marissa begins organizing artwork to accompany a new product launch announcement that's intended to run two months from now in the trade publication WIRED. She's been working with a WIRED reporter for several months so that the Microsoft announcement will be the lead article and featured on the cover. She gathers up the materials and takes them to an account team meeting where the members work on synchronizing the product announcement in WIRED with follow-up stories in other trade publications, consumer electronics magazines, and the financial press.

Lunch is spent advising a volunteer group of community library supporters who are trying to organize a summer reading program for latchkey children from low-income families. Marissa suggests local business sponsorships to help underwrite the program as well as a partnership arrangement with the city bus service to transport the children to and from the branch libraries.

When she returns to the office, a voice-mail is waiting from the Seattle Times technology reporter who wants to get a local angle on an Internet deregulation story coming from this morning's congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. Marissa locates a Microsoft executive who will answer the Times reporter's questions and explain the company's long-term deregulation positions.

It's now 3 P.M. and Marissa begins assembling research materials for a Microsoft brand manager who wants to know how public relations can support his marketing program that also includes advertising, corporate sponsorships, promotions, and sales materials.

Thus, in just the past six hours Marissa has clearly demonstrated what skillful public relations practitioners accomplish for their organizations and clients. In preparing the product launch announcement for the trade press, she showed how practitioners use communication strategically to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace among key audiences. By helping the library volunteers she demonstrated how public relations professionals think about building relationships or win-win situations with groups such as corporate sponsors. And finally, by thinking ahead, Marissa was able to connect the Times reporter with a smart company spokesperson who could explain how Microsoft was adapting to changing societal and business conditions, thereby enhancing the company's long-term reputation.