Upcoming Presentations: Fear or Fun?

So, we all have these major presentations right around the corner.  According to my classmates this fact is very big and scary.  For me, the presentation isn’t the scary part, that’s when I get to shine.  I don’t mean to say that I’m some world-class speaker, just that, as PR majors, that’s when we get to do what we’re best at.  I can’t imagine how hard it would be to pitch to a client without being able to really present your proposal to them.  Think about it.  If all we could do was send them a giant packet of information without having the opportunity to “sell” our ideas, our lives as PR practitioners would be infinitely harder. 

Here’s my thought: we get to present to an audience who is interested in what we have to say (at least we know Dr. Gilpin and our individual clients will be).  We are so lucky!  I was flipping through presentations on Ted with my own personal challenge in mind.  I decided to click on presentations that sounded completely boring and see how well the speakers could engage me.  It was kind of fun. 

Bonnie Bassler describes bacteria communication and makes me question the idea that I am a human.

C.K. Williams discusses his poetry, the idea of youth and something about having to pee in the sink.

David S. Rose explains how to pitch for money via powerpoint alone…a bit relevent.

Dan Dennett explains that being conscious does not make you an expert on consciousness.

So what do you think?  How are these speakers doing?  Are they engaging you?  Any tips for our own presentations?

Congrats You’re Graduating! Now What?

To all of the PR students graduating this semester and to those past graduates, congratulations. This is a time to celebrate that you will never have to write another term paper again or take another mid-term exam (except for you grad school overachievers). For the rest of us, we now have to get our lives in order and start on the 2nd act in our lives (the 1st act being childhood and the 3rd act being retirement/senility/adult diapers).  In this 2nd act, we must now become dependent on ourselves to provide food and shelter. I know it sounds like a daunting task, but do not fret because it is much easier than it sounds to cook something other than a hot pocket.

Katherine Strate is a soon to be PR graduate from the University of Georgia and she collected Five Pieces of Advice that should help make it a little easier to transition from a student to a PR professional. Strate writes about many matters plaguing graduates, but her most important point focuses on being proactive in job hunting and while at the first job/internship.

At PR Channel, a site that features thousands of agency listings, the site solicited comments from many of its agencies concerning Advice for the PR Grad. The most interesting comment that I found involved the use of social media in finding a PR job. Here is what Heather Huhman, founder of entrylevel-pr.com had to say:

sign up for Twitter, start following thought leaders in public relations (specifically, the area of public relations that interests you most, such as health care), and get engaged via the various PR hashtags: #PRadvice for asking pros questions, #EntryPR for entry-level jobs and #PRintern for internships.

This is great advice and I can attest to twitter being a valuable tool for networking purposes. I met up with Brian Stelter, current NY Times columnist and creator of TVNewser, through him asking on twitter if there were any ASU Cronkite students that tweeted. I naturally responded and ended up having a lunch interview with him and other Cronkite students. It just goes to show that Twitter and other social media sites have a profound effect on marketing, and in an economy where employers are looking to hire 22% less jobs than last year, it is important to get as many legs up as possible.

Before going, I want to leave everyone with a youtube video of a British PR/Marketing professional giving some advice on how to best deal with finding a job in this economy. Besides us having a better army than the Brits, we are pretty similar in most everything else:

What’s wrong with heels?

In a recent blog post on the Valley PR Blog Linda Vendevrede questions whether or not wearing “the highest of high” heels is beneficial in the PR field. She discusses how over the past 10 years heels have become higher and have the same power of appearance as ties do for men. However, she concluded by asking is wearing high heels a sign of selling out or just staying competitive?

As far as I’m concerned, it is simply keeping up with the times and showing ones ability to relate to current culture. Being fashion forward in any industry is beneficial as long as it is kept classy. Heels that are a little too high or provocative is taking it to far and not appropriate for the workforce. However, heels that are classy and sleek show a woman’s fashion sense and give her style.  

Wearing high heels is a form of confidence that carries over into one’s work as well. Most clients will take you more seriously and have more respect for your ideas and opinions. I think it is especially important in the public relations industry becuase appearance has an important role in the field. It is important because you are constantly dealing with people and trying to gain their trust. People that come accross more put together will find it easier to build realtionships with clients, media and/or stakeholders.

Heels getting higher in the workforce is just a mirror image of what’s going on in the fashion industry. Wearing heels does not meant that you are selling yourself out, it is simply a fashion statement that comes with a little boost of confidence.

Give me a “P,” give me a “R.” GO PR!

Two weeks ago, Diane Schwartz, wrote a blog on the PR News Blog about a new advocacy campaign launched by PR News called “It’s the PR.” The campaign is basically designed to show that the public relations field influences everyone and to give a forum for PR professionals to discuss campaigns that have worked for them.

When I first saw this, I laughed to myself because I pictured it as a cheerleading site for the PR field. Then I began my job search. As most of us are seniors, we all know the pressures of trying to find a job after graduation. My plan is to move to New York and I was told by a professional in the industry that finding a job in New York would be easy because there are always job PR job posting for New York. In my search thus far, that could not be any farther than the truth.

With graduation a month away, I am starting to freak out that there will be no job openings for me. Am I going to be one of the many graduates who end up in a field that has nothing to do with their degree?  Is the state of the economy really going to affect PR and similar fields?

With all these questions and fears beginning to build up, I began to think about the “It’s the PR” campaign in a new light. Personally, I could use a cheerleader keeping me in high spirits during my job search. Sometimes all it takes is a little change in perspective to show the worth of something. I’m happy to say that I will be checking in on the campaign regularly and hope to get a job so I can also add to it!

The Twitter Game

First of all the most crazy thing I read in the post about Gaming Twitter on Communication Overtones was that Twitter originated in April 2006, I guarantee half the people in our class did not know this!

I didn’t know that people “gamed twitter”.  What it means to game twitter is when you create tons of followers by telling them you will follow them back, neither party has any interest in the contest either is posting.  I find it fascinating that people even care if 1. They have followers and 2. That other people “game twitter”.  If someone is using Twitter for proffesional means, shouldn’t they be professional and not act like a 7 year old and fight over who has more friends?  This seems funny to me.

These are the Twitter rules to Game Twitter:

Four Steps To Game Twitter

1. Sign up for a Twitter account, creative name gets you extra credit but isn’t necessary

2. Automatically follow people with similar interests by searching for specific keywords and autofollowing people. One of the most well-known services for this is Twollo

3. Sign up for all of the services that help you manage your followers: SocialToo, TweetLater, My Tweeple,  Friend or Follow, Mr. Tweet, TweetSum and others. Use them to unfollow anyone who doesn’t follow you, preferably leaving only those that autofollow. Rinse and repeat this step daily.

5. Be sure that you auto follow people so others like you will add you.

I did not know that there were services that manage your followers, it is like a vaccum that goes through your account daily.  This seems like far too much work to claim you have followers, when really do you care about any of them. 

On an additional note, did this article REALLY post something reminding people not to pay people to follow them on Twitter…what is our world coming to, this is ridiculous!

In this post there are links to people’s opinions on what it was like before Twitter became a huge trend, for personal use.  There is also a link to ways that a business can use Twitter affectively, which is a good idea for all of us in this class launching a social media campaign, to make sure we are selling Twitter the correct way!

Are a pair of high heels the new power tie?

So I came across this post on Valley PR Blog by Linda Vandeverde called Heels are the new “Power Ties” in PR that I would love to share with you.

The author Linda Vandeverde mentions how high heels have gotten these days and makes a connection between  the working woman and her dress code (mainly heels).

Linda Vandeverde goes into the history of women and their revolution of fashion in the work force. It used to be that women wore suits with big shoulder pads, close toed shoes, pantyhose and a bowtie. Well today, men use there ties as a power statements where as more and more women are using their heels as “power weapons.” Vandeverde references Sarah Palin as one of the first female candidates that used heels to her advantage.

These high heels definitely do make a statement for a powerful woman just as a tie does for a man. Do you feel that this is a sexist view or that there is this expectation for powerful women to dress a certain way? How do you feel about the power tie analogy? I am still trying to decide myself. Let me know your thoughts.