It’s the time of year when we’re flooded with predictions for the year ahead — and I figured one more wouldn’t hurt. Seriously, given all the challenges that the tech PR community has been through in the past year, some thoughts on the positive signals we see as we enter 2010 are worth noting. A few weeks back, my fellow Topaz Partners founder Paula Slotkin and I were asked to share some thoughts in an article on trends we expect in 2010 for PRSA’s PR Tactics. It’s no surprise that social media is the biggie (it’ll become an even bigger part of our PR lives, will help us to do even more with long-dormant writing skills, and will force even more changes in our work with traditional media). All this got us thinking about how the developments of 2009 set the stage for the year ahead. So, in a news release Topaz is putting out today, we looked at how last year’s major happenings will influence 2010. Again, social media takes center stage, but we think in 2010 it’s more about the integration of social media and mainstream PR. We provide two examples of how companies have done this effectively — one longtime client, the Scuderi Group; and one new 2009 client, Black Duck Software. There are a lot more clients we could talk about — every one of our account teams have built social media into its PR strategies in some way. So while Topaz — like the the entire business world — is digging itself out of a pretty nasty hole, we’re encouraged…by this integrated PR/social media movement, and by a late 2009 spike in new business activity. Given this, we’re entering the new year with positive expectations — and we hope others are as well. Happy New Year.

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