About Beth

Copy and paste-able version:

Beth Evans works at Nyhus Communications on the business-to-business technology and global health team. She has global public relations agency experience and worked in Beijing from 2008 to 2010 in arts administration and English education, all the while keeping up on public relations trends through in-person networking and social media participation. She blogs and tweets about public relations, China, art, and how they intersect.

Detailed version:

My goal as a blogger is to link to and share excellent content, either from other sites or my own real-life experiences, on art, public relations and China because these are the topics that I’m most curious about. I currently aspire for my blog content to be unique, useful, concise, and focused on my three main topics. I interpret art and public relations broadly. To me, art includes such topics as independent rock, America’s Next Top Model, and literature, in addition to what you can see in a museum or symphony hall. I include social media and occasionally event planning under the public relations umbrella.

I am a junior public relations employee at Nyhus Communications, a small, award-winning public relations and public affairs firm in Seattle. My public relations education and experience dates back to 2004 when I moved from Seattle to attend the University of Oregon for its public relations program within the excellent School of Journalism and Communication. My interest in art and China originated during my childhood. I grew up going to the Seattle Children’s Theatre with my parents and taking lessons in tap dancing and classical clarinet. I’ve always been curious about China  because it’s the world’s most populous country but I didn’t learn much about it in school.

In college, I studied Mandarin Chinese as my language required for graduation and studied abroad in Beijing in the fall of 2005. I also took courses in arts administration and considered it a higher priority to get a job after graduation in that field than in public relations. I began blogging as an assignment for my Advanced Public Relations Writing class taught by Tiffany Gallicano my senior year in 2008. At that time, my blog, PR Ninja, was still on public relations and art, but internationalism in general as opposed to China.

The first post-graduation job offer I got and liked, in May 2008, was as a gallery assistant at a contemporary art gallery in Beijing’s famous 798 Art District. I moved to Beijing 11 days after I graduated, then changed my blog to Beijing Duck and replaced the international topic with China to reflect the move. In case you’re not familiar with PAC-12mascots, the “duck” in Beijing Duck stands for the University of Oregon Ducks.

I eventually moved back to Seattle to start a public relations agency career after I decided that out of public relations, art, and China, public relations was my favorite.  You can trace my early career evolution through this blog’s content.

I enjoy connecting with people who have read my blog, so feel free to add me on any of the social networks on my About.me profile or contact me by email at beth dot evans 4 at gmail dot com.