Global Entrepreneurship Week – How Are You Helping Tomorrow’s Leaders?

This week has been dubbed “Global Entrepreneurship Week” by the Kauffman Foundation, the world’s leading foundation for entrepreneurship, and Make Your Mark, the UK’s campaign to give young people the confidence, skills and ambition to make their ideas happen. Their goal is to connect young people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.

One of the things I’ve been most inspired by in social media lately is the ability to connect with and help out students in the PR field. This is much easier (for parties on both ends) than when I was in college. Back then, you had to be extremely aggressive and convince already-too-busy executives to sit down with you for an “informational interview.” There were not a lot of opportunities to connect with – or network with – industry professionals beyond this all-too-brief meeting (one where the executive was usually running late and/or had to leave early), and an occasional PRSSA conference. But today, I’ve been contacted directly by students and have been able to answer their questions on a less-intense but longer-term relationship basis – thanks to social media. I was a special guest, and have watched others participate in, #PRStudChat on Twitter. I have connected with students through Facebook and LinkedIn. They can see what I’m reading, who I connect with and what issues I care about, as well as read about our day-to-day work via our blog, Twitter accounts and more. It’s an exciting time and I am eager to watch the progress of tomorrow’s generation of PR professionals.

All that being said, there are four fundamental goals that the folks behind GEW are hoping to accomplish, including:

• Inspire
• Mentor
• Connect
• Engage

I think these are fantastic goals to live by every single day as  business leader – not just for tomorrow’s industry champions but to inspire today’s as well. I also think we’ve covered them pretty well in 2009 at PerkettPR, but can up the ante in 2010. I hope to inspire my staff to be happy and balanced while delivering amazing results,  mentor a new influx of PerkettPR employees, continue to connect with our community and expand our relationships in the business industry at large, and engage not only PerkettPR friends and new clients, but their constituents as well.

How will you help tomorrow’s leaders – both at your own company and beyond?

For learn more about Global Entrepreneurship Week, visit their very informative and interactive site. Here’s to tomorrow!