Happy Birthday PR in the Real World

What 45 Episodes of Recording a Podcast Taught Me About Listening 

It’s PR in the Real World’s first birthday. I’m not quite sure how we got here. To be honest, it started as an experiment — I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and that gave it a spirit of adventure. But somewhere along the way, our little gamble became a passion for producer Daniel Flynn and me. 

The plan was simple: give a voice to some unsung heroes. Have some conversations. See what happened. 

The first few episodes were tough — technically and in terms of confidence. We were finding our feet. I was more nervous than our guests, even though we were talking to people we knew. It was a case of testing the format and figuring out how to make it work in practice. But very quickly, our thinking shifted. 

Things started getting real. And I mean human. 

Not long into it, I was sitting across the table from someone who was holding back tears as they talked about the relentless pressure of this work. That moment when you’re managing a crisis at 3am and realise the weight of what you say next could reshape everything. The personal cost of getting it right. The sleepless nights when you get it wrong. 

That’s when the penny really dropped for me. We’d found our “why”. It’s to get to those PR stories that don’t get told often enough — by talking to the people who are usually on the other side of the cameras. 

Since then, we’ve covered everything: from harrowing PR-in-war stories to the creative breakthroughs — those off-the-wall ideas that become industry folklore. We’ve talked about the campaigns that make you laugh because they shouldn’t have worked… but somehow did. 

The laughs, the brilliance, the creativity — they remind you why people fall in love with this industry in the first place. Our guests have given voice to the reality of a world in PR and comms. 

Today, we’re more than 40 guests in. We’re listened to in 64 countries and counting. Thousands of hours of conversations have been downloaded and shared. But the real story isn’t in the geography or the analytics. It’s in what happened during those conversations. 

Here’s What I’ve Learned 

1. Listening is hard work.
   In a world of constant noise, distractions and endless notifications, truly listening takes a lot of concentration. I didn’t expect that. I thought I knew how to listen — I’ve been doing it all my life. But there’s a difference between hearing someone and actually listening to them, then considering where to take the conversation next.
2. Get over yourself.
   I still don’t like listening to my own voice — probably never will. There’s something uncomfortable about it. It’s not an accent thing; I hear the nerves and the stumbles, and the hindsight kicks in: Why didn’t you ask that?  Over time, I’ve learned to get over it. I’m not perfect, the pod’s not perfect — we’re just a small team striving to do something positive.
3. PR folk have a thirst for knowledge.
   Our most popular episodes cluster around three themes: measurement, creativity, and the future of the industry (of course, AI and GEO).That tells you something important about what comms professionals are hungry for. You’re not looking for more theory or corporate speak. You want proof. You want permission to think differently. You want to know you’re not crazy for finding this work impossibly difficult and genuinely important at the same time. 
4. You don’t need big names.
   Yes, high-profile guests bring their followers — that’s how algorithms work. But some of our biggest peaks have come from practitioners you might never have heard of before. People doing remarkable work behind the scenes, juggling real life with a demanding career. The measurement experts. The crisis handlers. The quiet leaders.

They weren’t performing — they were just telling the truth. And we trusted our audience to recognise authenticity when they heard it. And you did. 

The Stories That Stayed with Me

Some interviews have stayed with me.

When I spoke to Liz Riding from Lancashire Police, I was struck by her honesty. We’d never met before, but she talked about the day-to-day work with refreshing openness. Liz also described the toll that a long career in comms can take on your mental health. Sitting in that room, hearing her vulnerability — it set the bar high for everything that followed. 

Then there was Julia Petryk, a Ukrainian who, in recent years, has become a defence comms expert navigating the task of trying to live and work during wartime. It was a very humbling interview. Like the conversation with Liz, it will stay with me — not because it was clever or controversial, but because these were brave and honest women. And we gave them a platform. 

I’m genuinely proud of what we’ve created. Not because of the production quality or Daniel’s clever editing, but because of what’s actually in there: real conversations with real people saying interesting things. 

Thank you to all the people who took a risk to sit with us — and to everyone who has listened. 

PR in the Real World is produced by Viva PR, the CIPR Small PR Agency of the Year. New episodes drop weekly on all major podcast platforms.