If you recently graduated with a degree in a particular marketing discipline you could be excused for wondering how relevant it is to the shifting sands of our industry. If you think the pace of change is challenging, spare a thought for the old farts who started their careers before Facebook, or television in Jonathan Hirst’s case. Technology is driving a process of continual change in the marketing industry. PRs are scrabbling to become SEO experts and SEO experts are hoovering up PR talent in response to the changes in Google’s algorithm. Digital agencies are spreading their wings as integrated agencies and more traditional agencies are rebranding as digital experts, or in the worst cases, ninjas. The best agencies are taking great ideas and spinning them out across the most appropriate channels to reach, engage and inspire an audience to buy a product or service and tell their friends about it. The brands that nail it create cultural memes around meerkats or dancing ponies. There are people with jobs and people with careers. People with jobs come to work, work hard, do a good job and go home. People with careers live and breathe their industry, take time to keep up with the latest developments in the industry and build a professional network to support and inspire them. It is the people with careers that will thrive in the current environment. The pace of change is accelerating and it is a full time job keeping up with it. Employers will demand people who can adapt and grow within a business, to challenge and push the boundaries of their own job roles and generally be smart arses. A degree and work experience in any particular discipline is a great starting point that should be built on because the great marketing people of the next ten years are going to be ideas driven, technology literate and channel neutral. Nathan Lane Campfire PR