So last week my Style and Design class had the honor of speaking with Jack O’Dwyer of O’Dwyer’s Public Relations News. He had some very honest opinions about PR and the route that people should take. He was very blunt and stated his opinions very clearly and I think everyone in our class appreciated it.
He told us all not to do nonprofit PR. I think this may have pissed off some people, but he is a very experienced PR professional.
Then, maybe the most interesting thing he said, was about the PRSA–the organization that is supposed to be representative of the public relations profession. He told us that he was black-balled from the PRSA and that no one from the PRSA is allowed to speak with him.
But here is the other interesting thing, when you are voted to the board of the PRSA you are no longer able to speak with the media…
Wait–I thought transparency was a good thing, not forbidden! This must be why there is so much controversy surrounding this organization.
This weekend I went home to visit my family for Easter. I realized that in a few short weeks, it won’t be “visiting” home, it will be living at home!
This started to overwhelm me a little bit and made me nervous. So I looked in the newspaper to price some apartments. As I was reading off prices of places I thought I could afford, my mom commented that she paid $140 a month for her first apartment.
While I definitely didn’t find any safe apartments for this low price, there were some that were affordable.
So I wrote down a list of things and prices of various bill that I will have. The list kept going and going, things that I had never considered because my parents always paid for it.
As the estimated amount of bills rose and my money each month dwindled I was almost proud of myself for thinking ahead and planning. I am excited about being on my own and having my own money. I know a lot of people who are dreading having to fend for themselves, but I feel that I am definitely prepared!
Now if I only had a job…
I visited my future office this weekend and I am even more excited to be getting done with class! I went and talked with the people that I will doing my internship with this summer.
As you may remember I accepted an internship with the Bruno Event Team in January and my start date is getting close!
At my internship, I will help coordinate and put together events for Barber Motorsports in Birmingham, Ala. The main thing I will be working on will be the Porsche 250 Event beginning on July 28.
I knew that I would be doing this, but I was unaware of the specifics of my internship. So I asked general questions about the types of things that I will be doing. So the list that my boss came up with is this: Event operations, public relations, promotions, ticket sales, on-site operations, liason with vendors at the event and office administration.
I have to say, I am very excited about everything I will doing. She even gave me tickets to their event next weekend. If anyone is interested in motorcycle racing, this one is supposed to be huge!
My boss also said that when I am done and graduate they will see if they can find a position for me! This is definitely a business that I can see myself in.
She was saying that the month before the event is crazy, but otherwise things are fairly calm and easygoing. I will begin at the end of May and until July will probably only work about 25 hours a week. At the beginning of July it will pick up though, and I will probably be working twice as many hours.
I will tell you again that I was excited before, but after chatting with a few people and finding out what I will be doing, I am even more excited!
So it has been brought to my attention that some people do not respect women in the PR world. This is something I have always known, but tend to forget about because of my surroundings. And what I mean by my surroundings is that there are three men that I know of in the senior class of the public relations major. I don’t see a lot of guys in my classes.
I do know that these feelings of disrespect exist in the business world and it is very disheartening to a young woman wanting to break into the PR world. And I know it is discouraging for PR professionals who are women to deal with these attitudes.
Last week in Robert’s class we had a skype call with two PR professionals who are aggravated with recent attacks on women in PR. These two professionals, both being women, have dealt with these issues for their entire careers and offered very good advice.
Some of the advice included how to act around men in the workplace. I think the best piece of advice was that you do not need to become one of the guys. Be able to “roll with the punches,” but do not become a man.
Another piece that is valuable is that there are three types of relationships (other than significant others) in your life: friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. Go out and have fun with your coworkers after work sometime. But remember that they are your coworkers, not your friends.
This is something that, as I get closer to the real world, I am worried about. How friendly should I be with coworkers, how many times a week do we go out after work, and when can I say no?
I have to say that I enjoy the facebook. I have been able to chat with people from high school without even picking up the phone and having that akward “so, how have things been” conversation.
The thing I don’t like about the facebook is that people use it as a gossip tool. Who is in a relationship and who just broke up and who posted what on someone’s wall. I have a feeling that is not what the creators invisioned for their site.
The facebook is better than myspace, where long commentaries along with other features tend to pop up and overwhelm innocent bystanders.
But now on to the real purpose of this post. To all you facebookers out there, a piece of advice: Do not put personal and incriminating photos or information about yourself on your profile. I repeat DO NOT put pictures of yourself doing stupid things or funny “about me” monologues.
What people don’t realize is that employers are really looking at websites like the facebook and myspace. I know many of them say they are, and at first I did not believe them (I thought they were just trying to scare people) but they really look at it. And they are critical. A friend of mine was sat down and given a talking to about using profanity in her profile because she was a representation of that organization.
As soon as I was told for the fifth time that employers look at facebook and then witnessed my employer scanning profiles, I ran to the computer and took all unnecessary info and untagged any unflattering photos. I do not have one album on my profile and no interests such as “tanning” or “working out.”
So students on the job hunt, be warned and for those of you who are already out there, don’t write about your office life.
OK, so I have gotten a few comments about my post on the Axe commercial. I thought the commercials were fairly degrading to women and offensive to me personally.
Obviously what I think hasn’t had much of an affect on the deodorant industry…but they are just my opinions.
I still think the commercials were offensive, but after thinking about it a little more, I realize it was just a marketing scheme and it probably worked pretty well for the fellows at Axe. It is a funny commercial that people talked about.
So, like I said, my apologies for the things I said to anyone who may have disagreed. The commercial is a good concept, just a little over the top for me. I will definitely hold my tongue for at least a few days after I see something that aggravates me like that. That should definitely be a rule in my professional career. I am usually fairly good at it, but sometimes it is just so hard!
But good luck to axe deodorant, which actually smells really good, doesn’t make me want to attack anyone, but still smells good.
This past week was Spring Break for Auburn University students. There was a mass exodus Friday afternoon of students escaping the reality of exams and looming graduation to make way to the beach or other destinations.
My friends and I were not unlike everyone else. We left at 5:30 a.m. Saturday. As we headed down to Jacksonville, Fla. we hit a series of traffic jams and stopped multiple times, but finally made it. As we were coming into Jacksonville we saw out of the windows of the car our wonderful cruise ship, the M.S. Celebration.
When we got to the port we were all anxious to get out of the car and get our long-awaited Spring Break 2006 underway.
So we board the ship, find our rooms and head to the deck. While there we ordered a few drinks and I was carded. No big deal, I always get carded. I informed the waiter that I didn’t have my ID on me. I promised him that I was of age (I am) and he looked at me like I was idiot. That was not very nice. But, after he carded all my friends, who are 21, he realized I must be too and served me. No big deal.
Later, as our experiences on the ship developed we were all surprised. A lot of the employees were just not that nice. It may have something to do with the fact that we are Southerners and are nice to everyone and no one on the ship was American. I mean no one, except for the golf pro and a few entertainers.
Some of the crew that dealt the most with people didn’t speak fluent English. Honestly, this was kind of frustrating. It was not frustrating because they couldn’t understand us, but because some of them were just plain rude. I don’t want to deal with someone for five days on a cruise that is rude.
I hope that I had a bad experience with the crew of a Carnival “Fun Ship.” Because other than these few people who were rude, I had the time of my life. But I do firmly believe that customer service and relations has to be the main focus of an operation like Carnival Cruise Lines.
I would recommend a Carnival Cruise to anyone that was interested, but I would recommend to Carnival that they evaluate some of there employees or potential employees.
I have one more tidbit of wisdom from my time at the CNBAM conference.
I know everyone has probably heard all the tips on interviewing. I feel like I have been bombarded with information on the proper way to interview and answer questions and how to dress for the past year. So, in honor of that here are 10 tips that I learned at the conference that really sum up everything. Here you go.
1. Be Passionate and make sure it is evident.
2. Your body of work should demonstrate that you make things happen.
3. You should fit in with the culture of the company. What does the company value most?
4. Use your resume to highlight your accomplishments, not just responsibilities.
5. Let everything about your work and appearance exude professionalism and accuracy.
6. Be specific about what you want to do.
7. Be prepared for the Behavioral Interview Process…”tell me about a time when…”
8. Prepare two to three well-crafted questions to ask in any interview.
9. Ask for specifics and examples about new employee training and career paths.
10. Talk about “The Brand Called You” and Me Inc. Know how to talk about yourself and emphasize what you can add to their company.
Another tip the speaker gave was not to bring up money in the first interview. Look around at different websites, such as salary.com and careerjournal.com and if you are offered the job and told the salary you will know if it is comparable.
These tips made sense to me and I hope they help some of you.
I was talking to a classmate today and she mentioned a post that she saw while exploring another blog. It was about what you will be doing in five years.
Five years? That’s a long time! In five years I could have had three different jobs, be married and live on the other side of the world.
She was concerned with her next five years. She has no idea what she wants to do and said that she has been obsessing over it recently.
While I do think about the future, I try not to obsess. I can tell you what I hope to be doing.
I hope to have a substantial foundation for my following five years. I hope to have a good job (in PR), a husband and some money saved up. Other than that, it is all up in the air, and even the two latter things could still be in the works. So really all I have is a job in PR.
I can say that this more than I knew five years ago, which makes me feel good. Getting to PR as a major was a difficult process for me, so I have definitely come a long way. Up until last year I didn’t even know that I definitely wanted to do PR, and not something related. And now, where I can say I want to have a job in PR, I am not sure what part of PR.
I will get to try one part of PR this summer. My internship involves a lot of event planning. I cannot tell you how excited I am that I have this opportunity. Event planning is something that I have been wanting to try since I arranged my first tray of crackers and cheese. And although I know that this doesn’t have much to do with event planning it was a start. I can’t wait to see if this is something I am cut out to do and if it is, maybe the company I am interning for will offer me a job!
Sometimes I feel weird about actually being excited about starting my career. Then I talk to my classmates and they are also excited about getting job offers, but we are all nervous about the next step. I guess we will see how well our teachers have prepared us for the real world!
The College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers Conference was much more useful than I ever thought! Another topic that was valuable to me at the CNBAM conference was the issue of the future of newspapers. Several speakers that attended addressed this issue and brought up an interesting point. Media is becoming fragmented. Almost every area of media is seeing a decrease or stabilization in audiences and no one is beating the other significantly.
This is interesting for us as PR practitioners because we have to target our publics in so many ways now. Whereas a few years ago we may have focused on TV advertising or newspapers, we may have to break up the money and effort spent to target our publics through the internet, radio, TV, magazines and newspapers.
Each individual person has a specific way of getting their news. At the conference we were asked the question of what outlet we received information from. It was very interesting to see that no one outlet was overwhelmingly more popular. Although most of the students said the internet, many of the advisors and some of the students said either TV, radio or newspapers.
I was surprised by the amount of people that did say newspapers. I have been hearing for quite some time that newspapers are not doing very well and that many people are not interested in getting info from a newspaper. Even though this was a newspaper conference, many people revealed that they enjoy reading the newspaper.
So, all this fragmentation means that PR needs to be resourceful and efficient in its media tactics. This means that even more research needs to be done to find the right media. WOW! Amazing how a conference about college newspapers can mean so much to PR…I am definitely glad I went.
