As we close out 2011 and begin putting together our plans for 2012, it is interesting to reflect on just how much the communications industry has changed in the last few years. From a spiraling economy and rampant journalist job losses to the advent of social media, there’s been immense change to incorporate into our daily lives as PR practitioners. It impacts all of us, regardless of whether you are on the agency side, corporate, retail or a sole practitioner.

Over 30,000 journalists lost their jobs from 2008 to 2010, and the numbers continue to be staggering. Ad revenue dropped precipitously, with The New York Times reporting a 30-percent drop in ad revenue in 2009.

But the changes didn’t stop there. We have changed the way we conduct business in the last few years. Now, with smartphones, tablets and our ubiquitous connectivity, we are reachable anytime from anywhere, always plugged in. It doesn’t matter where we are, today your office can be almost anywhere. From my own perspective, the fax machine used to be an essential part of my day, and that machine spit out paper nonstop. Now I can’t recall the last time I used it. Instead, today we tweet out links to multimedia stories reaching ever more wide-ranging communities. They, in turn, actively participate in story development, linking and engaging with us and with our clients. Lines have blurred the definition of a journalist and have caused us to weigh the importance of news sites versus bloggers.

The definition of a media organization is also changing, as many companies become media organizations in their own right. Now they create for themselves compelling content, and engage communities of their own. In numerous cases these communities have grown larger than many of the most popular media companies. This is a huge shift for the industry, as organizations begin to both develop and deliver their own content, instead of relying solely on traditional news to tell their stories to the world.

The distinctions between public relations, advertising agencies, and social media agencies will continue to grow fuzzier. Content is becoming integrated and fused across multiple channels and creative ideas come from multiple areas of influence. As we look ahead, what we will see is that more and more clients will hire the agencies with the most powerful ideas for engaging the largest population of advocates, period. Corporations will look to hire the job candidate that is smart, nimble, creative and well versed with how to connect these intersections for the best results.

We will continue to see more changes in communications ahead, perhaps at a greater rate than we’ve seen before. Innovations in digital media will continue to tear down the walls between social and traditional media, as well as between communications disciplines and areas of expertise.

In the end, there will always be a need for third-party, objective reporting, and storytelling will still be a priority no matter where that story will appear. Our job as communicators is still to help develop, shape and craft those stories and help to facilitate the telling of those stories. But the reporting of those stories will come from different and less commercially-funded sources. The best way to handle all the change is to remain creative, smart and fast on our feet as we maneuver the much more varied, exciting and ever-changing communications field.

Brenda South is a board member of the PRSA Puget Sound Chapter and Senior Vice President, Seattle Technology Practice Lead at Weber Shandwick.