The Top 10

This week we were asked to list the top 10 things we learned in our PR concentration, this top 10 list will not be as hilarious as Letterman's but I do believe it will be more useful.

10) I wish I had known about the whole portfolio thing when I was first accepted into the MSCM program. It really would have helped me.

9) Know your audience. In order to have a successful event or campaign you need to know who your target audience is and then you need to figure out how to appeal to them.

8) How to write a proper PSA. It needs to be short and sweet and give all he appropriate information at the same time.

7) How to put together a GOOD campaign book. It is a lot more intricate than one might think.

6) When dealing with outside vendors always have a written agreement between yourself and and them, that does not make you liable if anything goes wrong. We learned this during Ladies Lawn Night...enough said.

5) Design skills. Take Desktop publishing and other design classes this just helps you be more well rounded and while your at it you should also take web design, it never hurts and it's a fun class.

4) You may not like blogging or tweeting, but if our going to be in PR you need to learn how to use it. In my upcoming internship I have already been told that I will have to keep up with both of those things. Plus it is a great way to network!

3) Working well with others. I know it sounds like something your kindergarten teacher would grade you on but it is still true. Most of the time you will be working with other people and you will not always see eye to eye. The key is to compromise and pick your battles.

2) How to write a GOOD press release. This is something every PR professional will do regularly and you need to make sure it's a good one.

1) Meet your deadlines. I know there are extenuating circumstances that can happen. With me it is usually freak computer accidents, but you need to meet your deadlines, back up your documents, make sure your power point will run on a PC and a Mac, etc.

Those are my top 10,

Amex is still keepin It real...

It is no secret that in order to be a successful company in today's world you have to be socially responsible. American Express, like so many other companies, has created there own socially responsible campaign called The Members Project.

American Express was founded in 1850 as an express mail company that forwarded freights and valuables. the company quickly expanded to selling money orders and travelers cheques. In the early 1920s American Express entered the travel business and charter the first around the world cruse in 1922. Today American express is most know for it's credit card than anything else.

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kenneth I. Chenault, stated in the 2008 CSR report that "We strive to be good citizens and neighbors wherever we do business. We help strengthen our communities by funding philanthropic efforts such as cultural heritage and historic preservation, as well as actively encouraging community service and volunteerism. We are also dedicated to protecting the environment by helping to conserve natural resources, reducing carbon emissions and building a focus on sustainability into our everyday operations."

The Members Project started in 2007 for American Express cardholders to get involved in a "chance to join a community that's passionate about making a positive change in the world." The members project was not the first time American Express showed interest in corporate social responsibility. The company has had a public responsibility committee as apart of their four executive committees since the late 1970s. The first Public Responsibility Report was published in 1980 and published again in 1990. The reports were used to analyze what people in the community, as well as their customers viewed as important projects in the community. Today the Members Projects takes this original idea one step further and asks their card holders to submit their own ideas on how American Express can help in the world. The 2008 Members project winner was Jay Smith. He submitted the idea for Alzheimer's Disease: Early Detection Matters when his wife was diagnosed with the disease too late. Early diagnoses for this disease can keep people significantly slow down the the development of the disease. The four runners up also recieved money for their cause. The causes included "Help 100,000 children thrive in the Classroom," "Loans that Change Lives," "Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children" and "Feeding 1 million children Daily."

American Express is also a founding member of Product (RED), an international campaign founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver to help raise money to help fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. American Express donates 1% of every American Express red credit card transactions to the (RED) campaign. In the first 18 months the partners of (RED) were able to raise $45 million for HIV/AIDS relief in Africa.

American Express also helps out locally with Historic Preservation. In 1983 American express ran the first ever cause related marketing campaign to raise money to restore the Statue of Liberty and reopen it to the public. American Express has continued to help preserve historic sites all around the world through it's partnership with The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the World Monuments Fund. These organizations not only help preserve and protect historic sites but also help to promote tourism to these sites. In 2006 American Express and the World Monuments Fund announced 6 special initiatives:

• Climate Change
• Iraq's Cultural Heritage
• European Fine Interiors
• Jewish Heritage Program
• Modernism
• Sustainable Heritage
  

WMF's goal is to help reduce carbon emissions and conserves natural resources at historic sites around the world. they hope to accomplish this by using traditional methods suited to the local environment as well as promoting green building materials and sustainable tourism.

Iraq's Cultural Heritage works to help preserve historic sites in Iraq that are not only apart of Iraq's history but human history, that is why they are working closely with local communities to help protect the sites from looters and the scars of war.

European Fine Interiors is a program managed by WMF Europe that helps conserve the architectural interiors of historic sites throughout Europe.

Jewish Heritage Program was founded in 1988 to help preserve historic Synagogues, cemeteries and other historic Jewish sites throughout Europe.

Modernism is a project that the WMF started in the past 10 years to help protect buildings and architecture from the 20 century. WMF believes that hese modern structure deserve just as much care as historic structes because they are apart of our history as well.

Sustainable Tourism is the main project hat American Express and WMF work on togeather. They are dedicated to promoting tourism to hisoric sites around the world as well as manitaining culturally and envriomentally responible tourism. Sustainability tourism also helps create hundreds of job and increases local economeys while maintaining and sometimes improving the Environment around them.













http://tinyurl.com/ylhdbwt

This past week our PRSSA chapter won it's first national competition! Not only did we win but we took home first and second place. Ladies Lawn Night, which I was apart of, took home the first place prize. Heather, Lauren, Katie and I are ecstatic with the results because we put all of our efforts into this one project. This is the first time we have done a PR campaign, not as a class but in small groups. We nurtureed this project from the very beginning and it paid off.

We could not of done it without the help our of friends and families, whom we had to call in a few favors from. It was an incredably rewarding experience to see all our hard work pay off in the end. I can't wait to feel this rewarded again as I enter the business world.

PR Portfolio...so glad that's over

As a senior Mass Communications major everyone is required to turn in a senior portfolio. This is total H.E. double hockey sticks on all of us. The portfolio consists of all of our best work we have done throughout our college career and if that work is not good enough, then we don't pass our senior exit exam. And if you don't pass that, well you can guess what happens. My senior portfolio was due this past Monday and I hope that it will be good enough.

I incorporated three major projects I have done throughout the past two and a half years into my portfolio. The first is the work I did for habitat for Humanity, the second was my senior campaign Ladies Lawn Night and the third was GCSU Sustainability Council work. All of these projects were done as either a part of a class or as a Praticum (an on campus internship). At GCSU the professors not only teach you how to write a press release, do a time line, and write a PSA but they make you put all of that stuff to use through there classrooms or practicums. We get real world experience before ever even leave our campus. This experience is something that interviewers have been the most impressed with, they always ask me questions about what I have done with these different projects and leave the usual, boring questions, at the door. I am happy that I chose to come to this school and be a Mass Communication major because I know i am getting a good education and lots of experience.

PR Day

As a college student who is currently interviewing for internships PR Day speakers offered some great advice. Dress code is key for the job you are interviewing for. Always dress professional when going to an interview, even if the place you are interviewing at is a casual work environment. It is always better to be over dressed than under (but ladies leave your stilettos at home). Research the company and job (if possible) you will be interviewing for. Try to answer all questions in a professional manner as well as portraying what you want them to remember about you.

Keeping the Scene Green

If you have ever meet me you know I am all about environmental awareness. So it probably did not surprise you that I spent my summer picking up and sorting trash at music festivals nor does it surprise you that I am doing an on campus internship to make the GCSU campus a little bit "greener," and I bet it really doesn't surprise you that I'm about to give you 10 helpful ways to be green every day.

This is us after cleaning up Bonarroo!

1) Use your own grocery bags. They look prettier than those ugly plastic bags!
2) When you have to print something off of the computer, select an eco friendly font such as Sprang Eco Sans. And what better to use an eco friendly font on than eco friendly paper!
3) Turn your lights off! if your not in the room, don't leave the light on...it's that simple.
4)Keep your thermastat set to 78 degrees in the summer and 68 in the winter. Choosing to decreese the temp even one degre in the summer or increase one degree in the winter will add 3% to your power bill!
5) RECYCLE!!! There really is no reason not to recycle. Seperate your glass, cans, plastics, newspapers, white paper, cardboard and even electronic equiptment to be recycled.
6) Walk, run, ride your bike or skateboard to campus or downtown. This saves you money on gas and car maintenence as well as cuts down on the amount of carbon emitted into the air (smog=bad).
7)Do not take extended showers (unless your really dirty, then it's ok) or leave the faucet running when brushing your teeth and doing dishes.
8)Invest in a reusable water bottle and coffe mug. This saves you money in the long run, espically for you coffe drinkers because many coffe places, including starbucks, give you a discount if you bring your own mug. Oh, and if you want bonus points you can buy reusable bottles made from 100% recycled plastic!
9)Make a compost pile in your yard. Forget the pestisides and use a coffee ground compost to garden with. (if you don't drink coffee you can go to any local starbucks and they will give you a five bag pound of used coffe grounds for free as a part of their "Grounds for you Garden" project)
10) Clean Vibes LLC is a non profit oranization that cleans up during and after music festivals. Volunteering for them means that you get to go to music festivals all of the United States, for free, as long as you work during or after the event.

This semester my Public Relations campaigns class participated in the national Public Relations Student Society of America and CW television network campaign competition. The challenge was to create an on campus event that would promote the new Melrose Place and the new 90210, oh and did I mention that we only had a month to do it?

My group chose to do have an event that featured a fashion show and a band before we would screen episodes of Melrose Place and 90210. The band, the Jazz Bandits started off the evening and were followed by a fashion show. The band was great and he fashon show went well however, after the fashion show. In retrospect I would have had the fashion show in between the screening of the shows.

The actual planning and implementation of the event went very well. We were prepared for the day of the event and were able to set up without a problem. We promoted as well as we could for our college campus but to be completely honest, this is a school that does not get involved in many on campus events.

What?... Ethics?

Ethics is one of those things that changes from person to person. It does not mean that one is necessarily wrong, it just means different. Within societies there are many different codes of ethics used. Everyone has their own personal ethics as well as professional ethics. Sometimes personal ethics influence professional ethics and vice versa, it really just depends on the person. Personally my upbringing has a huge impact on the job I want to have.

My mother and father have greatly influenced how I view society as well as the role I would like to take in society. I would like to join the Peace Core after I graduate college, I would like to do PR for an NGO or a company that cares about environmental issues and social issues, not just how much money they can make in a year. I am not willing to work for a company that ignores these issues.

As the vice president of Bobcat PRSSA it is my responsibility to organize fundraisers. This semester I have decided to do a joint fundraiser with a friend of mine to help organize a s a series of events that will benefit the women who were involved in the Indian Independence Movement. The money raised will go toward an event that will be held in one year in India, the event is called "A Time for Peace." These women marched and worked closely with Gandhi to peacefully gain their independence from Great Britain. PRSSA chose to do this event because this is a message that needs to be "heard".

Strengths v. Weaknesses

I feel like this question will haunt me as I start to interview for jobs in the coming years or when I sit across from my boss during a performance evaluation; and you know what I will probably dread having to answer it then as much as I do now. No one wants to admit their weaknesses, yet in order to improve oneself it becomes necessary just as it is necessary to know what your good at.
So here it goes this is what I think I need to learn/improve upon:

1)Writing: I feel like this is something that I can always improve upon. This is not to say that I think I'm a bad writer it just means that there is always room for improvement.

2)Media Relations: More specifically, pitches. I hate, HATE, speaking in public. It is hard for me to sell my ideas to a room full of people when all I really want to do is run away. Because I get so nervous speaking in front of people I tend to rush through my presentation, which causes me leave out key points and sometimes fail to get out some of the most important information.

3)Blogging: I won't lie, I do not blog very much. I should... but I don't. I don't read other peoples blogs very often either. I understand that bloggers have a growing voice and enable PR professionals to have a better understanding of how the public views a certain issue. This being said I still don't read blogs very often.

Now that I have revealed my faults as a PR student I will tell you what I think I'm good at.

1)Small 'c' communications: Face to face, day to day, I am a strong communicator (not in front of a large audience though).

2)Work ethic: I am throwing this one in because it is 10 pm on Tuesday night and I have been at the library working on homework for about 2 hours even though I have been very sick for the past 3 days...but I'm still getting all my work done.

3)Social Networking: Coming to college at the time I did really helped me with this. It was at the height of myspace and the beginning of facebook. Through those two social networking sites I gained understanding and knowledge of how to properly use social networking to my advantage.

Summertime when the living's easy...

Epic is the only word that comes to mind when I think of this past summer. I won't lie, it did not exactly start of that way but it could be because of my Maymester class. However as soon as that ended everything began to fall into place.

June was consumed of deep sea fishing, serious beach time, road trips with my favorite people and Bonnaroo. Bonnaroo, if you've been living under a rock, is a three day music festival in Manchester, TN. Tickets are $280 but I was able to go for free because of my involvement with Clean Vibes. Myself and 175 other volunteers stayed for 3 days after the festival and were able to clean up 700 acres of farm land that Bonnaroo uses as campsites. Clean Vibes is a non-profit organization that organizes recycling, compost and landfill waste at many different music festivals around the country in order to help spread environmental awareness and "keep the scene clean." I learned a lot through this experience but even better I was able to see the Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg, Moe, Erica Badu and many more amazing musicians for free.
July was consumed of pretty much the exact same things except instead of Bonnaroo I worked at a music festival in Masontown, WV called ALL GOOD. This festival was, in my opinion, much better than Bonnaroo. I was able to see Lotus, Keller Williams, Base Nector, Moe (who always plays till the sun comes up), the New Mastersounds, Galactic and so many more. All in all it was a great way to spend the last summer of my college career!

Earthfest

If you have ever meet me then you probably know that I am a bit of a tree hugger. I can't help it though, I was raised this way. In the past few years "going green" has become more and more popular. Every where you go there is a "go green" t-shirt, bag or some other environmentally friendly product or message. The recent interest in going green is a huge step towards helping to save our planet, the more people who become involved the better. With that being said GCSU wanted to do there part to raise awareness on campus and in the Milledgevilee community. That is why GCSU celebrated their 3 annual Earthfest a few weeks ago and I, being the tree hugger that I am, decided to help them out with some of the PR for the event. Throughout the week there were information tables set up to promote green living, fundraisers, a power ride, and much more. The weeks festivities capped off with an all day celebration on front campus. During the day there numerous activities on front campus and at night there was live music featuring the Blacka nd White horror Picture Show, Los Jazz Banditos and The K-Macks. This video is a montage Earthfest, the music I used is by the K-Macks. I hope you like it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN8Epr3qe3Q

open mic night

For my PR class we were asked to join yet another social networking website and at first I was skeptical. I mean I blog, I tweet, I have a facebook, I feel pretty good about my social networking skills and my chosen networking platforms. However, I've got to give Ging her props. PR Open Mic is great for people in the PR world as well as for students (like myself) who will be needing to find internships and jobs soon. The website makes it easy to find information regarding both internships and jobs around the country. There are many blogs and links to articles that offer great tips on everything from writing for the social media to resume advice. if you haven't checked this site out yet, you should. propenmic.org

Thunder Rolls

This past semester my PR admin class had been planning and promoting the 11 annual GCSU athletic auction. On April 11, this past Saturday, we finally pulled it off and raised about $40,000 to go towards athletic scholarships. The planning process was long and a bit slow at times. That being said the weekend of the event the class came together to set up the event. Everyone did there part and I even brought along a little helper. In the past few months it has become clear that in order to put on a great, succesful event it is a heck-of-a lot easier and more fun to do it with people you enjoy and get along with.

P.R. pays off at home

When my mother calls me, a senior P.R. major, for help with an internal P.R. campaign for her company I'm honored. However, my first question is why do they have an Information technology manager working on an internal P.R. campaign? What she told me surprised me. She hired an outside P.R. firm to run the campaign and she in turn was the client. The problem was that the P.R. people assigned to run the campaign did not impress her. They did the bear minimum even though there was a large budget at their disposal as well as her full cooperation but, she was not satisfied with the work they produced. My mother said there was a serous lack of creativity (which is one of the main reasons she hired them) and the work they produced was sub par. To be honest this is exactly the type of P.R. professional I do not want to be. I explained to her the types of things we were doing in my classes and she was impressed. Impressed because we are learning the tools and skills to produce great results. in the end she wrote down some of my ideas and called a meeting with the P.R. professionals to talk about how they could make them apart of the P.R. campaign. I still don't know the results of this meeting but I am pleased that she liked my ideas and was suggesting to the P.R. firm that they use them in their campaign.

Tip Top

Look around you right now. It does not matter if you are in the library, in a cafe, on front campus or at your house; what do you see? Are people wearing the same style jeans? Do you own a pair yourself? Have you ever wondered why we were all wearing similar style skinny jeans instead of the flare leg jeans that we were all wearing five years ago. The answer is simple. Sometime about five or six years ago their was a small group who started wearing these jeans. Gradually, through word of mouth, a connector helped to send the skinny leg jeans into main stream society. The skinny leg pant trend is similar to how hush puppies came back into style. A small group of kids in New York City bought the shoes because no one else was wearing them, they were seen by a connector and the rest is history. Five years ago, skinny jeans hit the tipping point.

The tipping point, as described by Gladwell, is the point when an idea, product, social movement, or epidemic becomes popular in mainstream society. For example: Once upon a time there were four talented English musicians who met, formed a band and a few years later became "more popular than Jesus". We now call them the Beatles. The Beatles were not over night sensations, they played in many small, less than popular pubs in England before they were seen by what Gladwell would call a maven. The maven saw the band and told a connector about the band, and from there the four musicians became the most popular band of all time.

In order to tip the athletic auction we need to make people care about the athletes who benefit from the auction. Our class needs to act as connectors, mavens and salesmen. Perhaps we could get an article published in the Baldwin Bulletin or Union Recorder about the auction. We should educate the community by letting them know what and who the proceeds go to benefit. I have found in the past that if you put a face on a cause more people get involved. We should also get local businesses involved by either buying tickets or donating something to be auctioned off. We need to make the community care and we need to let the right people know about the event.

As I was reading The Tipping Point it was interesting to try and classify myself as a connector, a maven, or a salesmen. A connector is one of those people that knows everyone. This type of person has many acquaintances and "simply likes people in a genuine and powerful way and he finds the pattern of acquaintanceship and interaction in which people arrange themselves to be endlessly fascinating." (Gladwell 43) A maven is someone who enjoys collecting information and then passing it on to others. A maven wants to help people simply because they like helping people. A salesman has the skill of persuasion. They are usually very friendly, upbeat people who have the ability to make everyone feel welcome. I am a maven. I am always reading and collecting new information from people I meet. Once I have this information I decide weather the information is useful, if it is I tell my friends, family and now I tweet about it. An example is that a friend of mine saved $500 on a plane ticket to Sweden because of information I gave her about STA travel. Another one of my friends was able to get a job overseas because I told her about a student work program I had read about.

Tweeting has really helped in my never ending quest for new information. I am able to keep up with the music scene, domestic and international news, the best and cheapest ways to travel as well as the coolest places to go hiking in Georgia. Twitter is a wonderful way to stay informed and connected with both friends and associates, however, I have not hit my tipping point on this site yet. I have hit the tipping point on facebook though. I remember getting a facebook account the summer before I came to college and not really using it. Then I got to college and I started checking it everyday, then twice a day and at the peak of my obsession I checked it every time I was around a computer. This is because suddenly every one had a facebook account, it was the best and easyist way to get in touch with people. I can't wait for my next tipping point.

Online social networking is with out a doubt one of the newest and most widely used tools in PR and other media outlets. The problem is that facebook has become so large that everyone is getting in on it...including employers. When facebook first came on the scene it was for college students only, then it went to college and high school, now it is open to everyone. So the problem is "How do we separate our personal lives and our professional on facebook?" The social Times published an article " 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know." http://tinyurl.com/c59bzd

The article explores many different ways to separate your friends from your family and your colleagues. The first setting is different friend lists. You can create as many different friend lists as you want and each friend list has it's own privacy settings. This means that you can be friends with your co-workers and bosses but they can only see as much of your profile as you want them to see. Another great thing about these friend lists it that you can send out a message or invitation just to the people on that friend list.  The second setting is to remove yourself from facebook search results. This will enable that no one can see your profile if your not friends with them. The third step is a long the same lines, remove yourself from google. I got lucky and didn't find anything about myself until about 10 pages back. However this is due to the fact that there is a swimwear designer by the same name as well as a famous jazz musician so I'm not really a good example. The fourth point is if you are going to use Facebook as a professional tool avoid being tagged in less than flattering pictures. Now, I'm not talking about a picture where you think you look bad, I'm talking about those party pictures that would be better off not being on the Internet at all. The only problem is you can't control what other people post on facebook but you can control who sees the pictures on facebook. The fifth point goes along with the fourth, make your photo albums private and limit them to those who you want to see them.  Relationship statuses are another good point. if you are in a relationship and it ends do you really want everyone at work to know about it right away? I know that I don't. It is also suggested that you make all of your contact information private. Only let your "Friends" see your phone number and such.  Now for the point the ninth point and the one that I found really helpful, avoid the embarrassing wall posts. I don't know how many times I have had to delete wall posts that my friends have written on my wall because I don't want everyone to read what that person said. Now I won't have that problem because I learned you can control who sees your wall and who can post on it. For instructions on how to do these things on your facebook account just read this article at http://tinyurl.com/c59bzd.

What future plans?

Lately I have been doing something I try not to do. I have been thinking a lot about the future. Where will I do my internship? What type of internship do I want? Should I travel before going into a career? Should I join the peace corps? If I do travel, how in the world am I going to pay for it? When I do enter a career what do I want to do? Where will I want to live? These questions and so many more are constantly running threw my head and to make matters worse, everyone I know has an opinion about it. This is why I started to do my own research. I read many different articles about getting started in PR, how the poor economy is affecting the job industry, etc. What I have found is that while the PR job industry is not the hardest hit by our poor economy it is still not thriving in the way I and many other soon to be PR graduates would like it to be. However the articles did offer tips on how to get ahead of the competition. Internships, social networking skills, desktop publishing and at least a basic study of sociology were all listed as some of the most important skills needed when applying for jobs post graduation. I will graduate with all of these this accomplished but this still doesn't help me figure out what I am going to do when I graduate.

I discussed this with my cousins this past weekend when I was in Texas. My cousins are all in their late twenties and are fully into their careers, I asked if there had been many lay-offs at their companies?, if the companies were hiring?, if they thought it would be a good idea to travel now or go into a career? Their answer was to go ahead and travel. This was pretty much the encouragement I needed. There are many different ways that I can travel for cheap, the one I am looking into is an opportunity through STA travel. STA will find a you a job in almost any country as well as a place to live for at least six moths. This might not be what most people would like to do but I think it is a very good thing for me because with the mass communications we have today there is a lot more international communication. This means that being able to live, work and communicate in a different culture is a desirable skill for PR professionals to have. So while I am traveling I can work in another country, build up my resume and immerse myself in something completely unlike anything I have ever experienced.

All the little birds on jaybird street love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet

Twitter, tweeting, tweet. That has pretty much what I have been doing for the past 2 hours, and I kind of like it. If I have a question for some of my friends from home they respond to it immediately via their cell phone, there is no waiting 5 hours for a response, it is almost immediate. That aspect of twitter is great but I still have not mastered the site. For instance what is a nudge? Why does twitter keep telling me I reached my limit on searching for people? Why can't I find people who I know are on twitter? I'm sure I'll figure all these things out soon enough but in the mean time I'm a tiny bit confused.

The other side to this is, since I don't have a television and I hardly have time to read a newspaper I can now follow news media on twitter. If something important happens in the world CNNI will tweet about it. My favorite magazine, Rolling Stone, is also on twitter so now I can stay up-to-date on my favorite bands and music news all for FREE (my favorite word). I am not saying that the 140 character updates will be my primary souce of news but on days when I get to campus to late to pick up a NY Times I can always get the most pressing news issues via twitter. Twitter is also great for staying informed with what is happening in the PR world and with any luck I can start networking for an internship and future job possibilities.

In recent years there have been numerous online social networking websites to arise and gain significant prominence, not just in the PR world but also in everyday life. These sites have become a way for friends across the country to stay in touch, for businessmen to stay informed, and for PR professionals to stay in touch and inform the public. It is becoming increasingly necessary for PR professionals and students to be skilled in these online networks. Joseph Priest selected 15 different media terms to know in 2009, all of which have something to do with the Internet and technological advances. Just in my PR Admin class it is necessary to be apart of "twitter" as well as keep a blog. If these tools are being taught in our classes I just wounder what is next for the PR world?