PRactically Speaking Houston with Kami Huyse, APR

Welcome Kami Watson Huyse, APR, to PRactically Speaking Houston – the official podcast of the Houston PRSA Chapter.

Kami Watson Huyse, APR, is a communications strategist, keynote speaker, and author. Through Zoetica Media, she advises corporate communications and marketing teams on strategy, visibility, and AI-supported workflows. An early adopter, practitioner, and educator through three waves of communication technology, she helps PR and marketing leaders turn AI experimentation into useful workflows. She has trained thousands of communicators through Smart Social Mastery and the Social Media Breakfast of Houston and she serves on the PRSA Houston Board as the University Chair.

Connect with Kami Watson Huyse, APR at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamihuyse/
https://www.instagram.com/kamichat/

Links mentioned on podcast:
https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/
https://smbhou.com

Connect with Veronica V. Sopher at:
Website: https://www.veronicavsopher.com/
Social:@VeronicaVSopher

Learn more about the PRSA Houston Chapter, our events and opportunities at www.prsahouston.org.

PRactically Speaking Houston is brought to you by Veronica V. Sopher, Public Relations.

Transcript

Veronica Sopher: Hello and welcome to Practically Speaking Houston. This is the official podcast of the Houston chapter of PRSA.

My name is Veronica Sopher and I have the opportunity to be your host and introduce you to some of our amazing PRSA Houston chapter members and talk about all the things that we spend our time doing when we're on the job and when we're off the job, We're talking about public relations, advertising, marketing, business communication, and everything else in between.

And I've got an amazing guest for you today. You've met her before, but this is an opportunity to catch up and see all the great things that Kami is up to.

But before we get started, though, I want to remind you to hit the subscribe button. We don't want you to miss any episodes of Practically Speaking Houston.

And if you are listening on Facebook or LinkedIn, drop us some comments because we would love to communicate with you. Stay connected and make sure that our network here in the Houston area is growing. So let's go ahead and get this episode started.

Here we go. I've got Kami Hoyse joining us today. Kami, hello and welcome back.

Kami Huyse: Hello. It's so good to see you.

Veronica Sopher: Awesome. I am so excited about today's conversation because you have been up to a lot of things and everything you post on social media is just gold, especially for those of us who are trying to get our minds wrapped around what's happening in the digital space with social media and AI. So fill us in on all the things that you're doing.

Kami Huyse: Thank you. Oh, well so much. And I'm very curious. So I, I come from the point of view of being very curious about things. And so I'm always looking at what's next.
And so that's part of why you see me talking about those things.

And I've always done that. I, I laugh at my kids. I have teenage and adult kids. And when I was in college and I was their age, This did not even exist. You know, it didn't even happen. So I really do feel for the current group of kids that are coming out of college right now. And they're like, what am I going to do? Am I going to be replaced? All these things.

And so I feel like, you know, I have some interesting kind of perspective on that because when I graduated out into college, the world, it was the, it was the internet bubble. It was the internet was new. And so I'm really excited that that is happening. And so I'm always on that. And right now I feel like for us as communicators, it's really important that we understand what's happening and also the environment.

So you talk about AI and you know, I'm not an anti AI person, but right now that is the sentiment.

There is a huge backlash against AI right now. In the world and you've seen it at the graduation speeches. That's why I brought up the kids. You see it because people are like tone deaf coming at these kids saying, your jobs are gonna be replaced and they expect them to be welcoming that.

And by the way, you look at these kids, they're using AI. It's not that they're not using it. at all. It's just that they don't want to be told that they're irrelevant before they've even gotten started in their careers. And so I feel like as communicators, we need to be on this.

We are not talking about this enough because this is a PR problem. It a hundred percent is because if you're going to Go out there and talk about AI. You need to also understand the underlying current that's in the culture right now. It's really important.

Veronica Sopher: Yeah, absolutely.

And there's a group of people who haven't had a chance to enter into the workforce, but then there's another group of people who are on the last couple of chapters of their career who, this came at us really, really fast. So if you're in a senior position and you're having conversations with mid-level folks and new entry-level folks, you almost don't have the jargon to communicate.

And so I'm really interested in hearing from you your thoughts on how some of us senior-level folks can get our minds wrapped around not only the language, but usage, communication, ethics.

I mean, some of the bigger things that we hear younger people talking about, but we're not really having those conversations in some of the big boardrooms.

Kami Huyse: No, I totally agree with that.

And here's the funny thing about that. There's a lot of fear advertising rightnow that's aimed at us. I've seen it because they aim it at me and I just look at it and I kind of roll my eyes.

But one of the things that we have and we bring to the table as senior practitioners is experience. And a lot of this is about human experience. It's like how people are going to react to things or what's going to happen.

That's why I brought this up to begin with is we have to understand the cultural shift.

And we have to also understand that we like uniquely have really like amazing experiences that are going to help with this transition now as far as the ai and being fluent and all that you just have to use it and you have to use it in a way that so you'll understand it and that's kind of where i come from and I know you've seen me do this what I'll do is i'll work with people senior people and also younger people I'm doing both because in as part of my prsa board position I'm on the universe. I had the university committee, so I care about the kids.

Veronica Sopher: Right.

Kami Huyse: But I also care about I mean, I'm a senior practitioner, so I care very much about what's happening to our group. And it's easy, by the way, if you understand how to use these things to very quickly. come up with ideas about how to make it better. And because of your ethical underpinning, because of the things that you've been through, you will be the first one that says, Hey, have we thought about this?

I mean, that's been always our role as PR practitioners, right? To be in that boardroom thinking, you know, okay, how does it sound if you're saying, you know, AI first, if you don't use AI, we're going to, we're going to put you on the sidelines. That right now is a total fear conversation. And PR, the PR practitioner that works in the C-suite we're supposed to be there to tell them how this is coming off to the workforce and why they're losing the workforce and why Amazon, when they say you have to, you know, they make it a metric to use AI. that people are just using it for whatever they want to use it for.

They're just getting up to that metric. Metrics drive behavior. And that's part of what I think as a public relations, senior public relations practitioner, that is what we need to be bringing to that C-suite is like, how is this coming across?

And again, I think that we as senior practitioners can only do that if we understand the technology.

Veronica Sopher:  Right. For sure. For sure. And I know some folks have embraced it. And some of the things that we think about as day-to-day tasks, like maybe managing a social media channel or administrative duties like bookkeeping or some of the things that we have to do as part of our day-to-day can be streamlined with AI. It's just a matter of getting the right training.

What are some good training tools, tips, resources? Obviously, you've got an opportunity to connect with lots of people in some of the work
that you're doing, but what are some training opportunities and tools that people can start tapping into to get started and really elevate their use?

Kami Huyse:  um there's a couple of them uh macon which is m-a-i-c-o-n and don't ask a marketing something anyway it's m-a-i-c-o-n um they've actually created an entire um like prsa for ai kind of things and so they have some stuff coming and training and they have a lot of like training.

So I, first of all, just follow them and follow along with them.

You can definitely follow me on LinkedIn because I do talk about this a lot.

I also have a smart social mastery group. That is a paid membership for people who are PR marketing and consultants.

So it's really, that's really meant for consultants to learn how to use this in a consulting environment. And we like build things. That's what we do. We build all kinds of things to underpin our practice.

So I'm happy to talk to you about that, but generally speaking there's a lot of things out there right now trying to get you to pay for them. Also PRSA themselves, I mean, and I'm sure all of the other organizations are the same. They have like free training on their
workshop.


I just did a training for them. I think you have to pay for it, but it was a two day workshop on how to do workflows. AI workflows. So that's on the PRSA platform.

And I'm assuming like AMA and all the others have a similar kind of thing.

And then I also run Social Media Breakfast of Houston. And we hit on this topic quite a lot.

And that's smbhou.com. And on there, we actually live stream everything and it's a free event. So you can go back and watch all of these. Um, also on, on YouTube, we have a YouTube channel that you can go back and watch them on.

So there's just a lot of, uh, of things that I'm doing to help. And I know other people are too. So I would just say you don't need to spend lots of money to do this.

Like all these workshops with like, um, certifications and stuff i i don't know if that's really necessary right now but you do have to like get a really good model I like claude, chat GPT
is good too buy it like actually pay for it twenty dollars a month and start to use it And that alone will bring you to a new level.

Veronica Sopher: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And those are some great resources. And if you're listening on the podcast, we are going to put links to everything that Kami shared.

So you can just click on those and learn and really take advantage of your professional memberships.

So Kami, you've been on the board on and off for many years. What are some of the things that you want some of our newer members to know about PRSA and some of the other professional organization, our sister organizations that we collaborate with from time to time? What are some other things other than those professional development opportunities you mentioned that you think would benefit someone coming into the profession?

Because yes, those skills are important, but also there's a lot of other things. The peopling, as the kids like to say, the networking.

What are some of the great levers that can be pulled when you're participating in a professional organization like ours?

Kami Huyse: Well, we're talking about digital and online, but show up. I mean, I really feel like that's one of the things I learned early in my career is to show up. Kind of an old story, and I think I might have told it before, so I'm not going to go into too much depth. But when I was in college, I had a PRSA member bring me to meetings, like live meetings. And that was in Washington, DC. So I was part of the, of that chapter for many years.

And that's why I got my APR. That's why I got all those things happening early in my career.

So that's another thing, you know, in both. And I mean, for, for PRSA, we call it the APR,
the accreditation and public relations. I highly recommend you do that. We're going through some of that right now.

We have a great team in, at PRSA that will lead you through that whole process, that would be one thing you could think about if you're mid-career, early career.

Even some people do it in their later career because it just revitalizes their thinking, which I think is really great. It really taught me there was a science to PR. Do you know what I mean? There was a science and a method to PR.

And early, I was so glad I took that in my twenties because I brought that with me through my whole career.

It's not so much that people know I have an APR. That's great. Most people don't know what that is, but it was me and my practitioner, the way that I think about doing the craft, right? And so that's number one.

Number two is definitely networking as far as being at these events and also the combined events we have sometimes with the other organizations. I think they're really, really important that we do some of those.

You know, applying to get rewards. I think that's a huge one. We have an awards ceremony coming up. It's a little bit late to apply this year, but every year there's a time to apply.

And what's cool is if you start thinking about it now, the next year, like when you start a new campaign, I was just telling you, I'm starting a new campaign with a client. I'm like, Ooh, how do I start this so that we can like put this into an award like situation?

So making goals ahead of time, all these things you have to do. So, and by the way, APR taught me that. So there's just a lot you could think about for that. And then I guess the last thing that I would say is that volunteering is really, really important. I'll tell you why.

The second that you put your work equity into something um first of all it changes the way you look at an organization the second thing is that it changes the way that other people perceive you um you know and so you can make deeper connections with people I've made some of my best friends honestly of my whole life as, um, on the board of PRSA.

Um, you know, my first real big client when I was starting out was, um, Fran Stevenson. Um, she was, she was coming up as the president of PRSA San Antonio, cause that's where I was at the time. And then she hired me into SeaWorld. And then we've, we spent a bunch of years doing that.

And then she went out on her own

and then she and I started Texas Travel Talk together and we sold Texas Travel Talk together.

I mean, she's just like a dear friend of mine forever that started there. And the same thing here in Houston. We have such good friendships. that have, I don't, I mean, they're lifetime friendships.

Veronica Sopher: Yeah, yeah, for sure.  And volunteering is so very important for not only just the connections in the network, but for everyone else to see us as
an organization being out and about and not just collecting dues and having luncheons, but physically contributing to our community. I think that makes a big difference and certainly gives us an opportunity to collaborate.

So, Kami, as we're thinking about the next year or so, what are some of the big topics or
current events that PR practitioners, especially in the Houston market, should be thinking about?

Whether it's, you know, trends that you're seeing in the economy, in politics, local government.

What are some of the things that you think PR practitioners in the Houston area really should be thinking about? Because it's going to impact us this year in twenty twenty six.

Kami Huyse: Yeah, I agree. So there's so much going on. Obviously, here in Houston,
we have the World Cup coming in a couple of weeks. I mean, this will probably be done by the time we get there.

But the idea that the world would come to Houston and see us, I think that's really important for us to think about how that's going to impact on beyond.

So the fact that you have the World Cup coming here, there's been a lot of soccer kinds of things going on. And I think in the future.

That's going to continue because you've gotten a lot of people excited about that, sport during this period of time. So that's going to continue.

I think, one of the things I heard, and I'm going to bring this up. It's kind of a weird thing. I heard it. I'm trying to remember exactly what the sourcing was, but I heard this a couple of weeks ago.

Somebody said the, one of the few things that we do at holistically, like nonpartisan, whatever is sports. Like we watch football and we watch soccer and we watch basketball and, And you have people sitting side by side that are that way. There's a little bit of that with concerts too and music. So I think the arts become really important for cohesion as well as sports.

So I'm just, I'm wondering if we should start thinking about like, how do we bring that together? Because arts and sports are like the place we can like connect again.

Because there's a lot of, you talked about politics. It's an election year. There's going to be a ton of, vitriol. That's the best way to put it. Um, no matter which way you think about this, we're going to have to, uh, think about how do we bring people back together?

Veronica Sopher: Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. And I've seen so many soccer focused things from, um, schools. Cause you know that I'm in the K-12 space. So seeing schools really embrace that, um, a lot of vendors, signage all over the city, even the city participating.

I recently was flying, um, through, um, Actually, I was flying through both airports and I
saw a ton of soccer just branding and imaging. And I thought, oh, right, I completely forgot. And then the next couple of weeks were leading up to it. And now we're just a few weeks away. And you start thinking about the financial impact that it has on the city.

And you realize people have been thinking about this for a really long time. That branding, that planning, all of that done well was done, you know, months and months ago, as soon as those big contracts were signed.

And so I think people are now ready for the big payday to everybody to come into town, eat here, sleep here, shop here, enjoy the city. I think it's going to be a great time.

Kami Huyse: I agree too. And that's really important to think about too, because it's not just the sport, right? It impacts the entire community and it's inspiring a next generation of kids.

Veronica Sopher: Yeah. 

Kami Huyse: who might like take this on so I just think there's a growth in this
area really important to think about yeah

Veronica Sopher:  no I love it I love it. Okay Kami as we're wrapping up, why don't you share with everybody  how to get connected with you where you spend most of your time online and how to stay connected because we want our members and members of our sister organizations to really tap into each other as resources so that we can grow as a professional communicators in the area

Kami Huyse: Well, thank you. I'm on all the social media out there, but I do spend most of my time on LinkedIn. I found that that's kind of where I've kind of gravitated towards over the last couple of years. I am on Instagram as Kami Chats, and I'm also still on Facebook-ish, you know, I'm in and out. It's strange to me, but a lot of people are still there. So if you're there, I'm there, you know, you tag me, I will see you. Um, also Kami Huyse there. So I would love to see you. 

And I'm also, I'm the founder of Zoetica Media. So I do have an agency and if you're interested in that and it's a, and we've done a lot of PR marketing and a lot of social media. So we do a lot of that kind of thing, digital and helping different clients do that.

One of our biggest clients is Houston Methodist Hospital System. So we do work with big clients and small ones. We just, it's We have two new clients that are really amazing in the last one. And one is a renovation company and the other one is a legal firm. So, you know, we help a lot of people. Healthcare law.

Veronica Sopher: Yeah, absolutely. No, I love it. Definitely connect with Kami and her team. I promise you it will be worth it.

All right, Kami, thank you for joining us. We appreciate all of your wisdom as always. And I look forward to seeing you at one of our next in-person events.

Kami Huyse: Great. It's good to see you.

Veronica Sopher: All right, that wraps up this episode. Be sure to connect. We wanna make sure that all of our members and our friends in the communication space are staying connected here in the Houston area. It's so very important for all of us and our profession to grow and learn from each other and stay connected. So if you are watching, make sure you drop us some comments. We'd love to connect if that's you on Facebook or LinkedIn. And if you are listening on the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe. We don't want you to miss any episodes of Practically Speaking Houston. I'm your host, Veronica Sopher. And it was an honor to connect with you guys. And I can't wait to connect at the next one.