“Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance.” Dan Rather

I briefly mentioned my practicum with University Communications in a previous blog. My primary job is to write news releases and article for the GCSU Info Page and also the GCSU page for the Union Recorder. This has greatly challenged my writing, interviewing, and communication skills.

I have learned the importance of an editor and that any story can be made even better. No matter how many times I edit a story, someone else will find things that I didn't see. I usually have 2-3 people edit for me. I have discovered a need to write faster. The communications world is at record pace and in order to stay on top of it I need to speed up!

I discovered that my favorite kind of interview is conversational. I love to just sit down and talk with person to hear the story. It is important to do background research and having questions prepared is smart, but it can also skew a story. By just allowing the source to talk, their unique story unfolds.

My communication skills are challenged on a daily basis. I am generally a quiet person and often I find it humorous that I ended up in the Mass Communications world. Although it's fun to see the humor, I also see the benefit. Developing strong communication skills will greatly benefit any career. Interviewing people helps to develop those skills. It demands boldness, persistence, and confidence.

I didn't discover my love for journalism until I started taking Mass Communications classes and tried my hand at writing.

Check out some of my stories to see what I've learned!

Freshman Conquers Challenges with Determination - I gained a new appreciation for interviewing and learned the importance of immersing yourself into the story.

Team returns to Tibetan Children's Village - I learned a lot about editing with this story.

Gov. McDonald's portrait hangs in Old Governor's Mansion- I was challenged to be bold and confident and to think on my feet with this story.

I still have a lot of learning to do, but that only helps me to keep working!

The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, is about how an idea spreads the same way that an epidemic does. People commonly believe that trends and ideas are gradual and that in order for something to become an epidemic it must go through a slow process. Gladwell dispels that way of thinking. He points out three characteristics of an epidemic: “It must be contagious, small causes can have big effects and the change happens not gradually, but at one dramatic moment.” (9) The tipping point is that moment when everything changes, the moment when crime declines or blogging takes off, or twitter becomes a phenomenon. The tipping point is when the idea or event becomes an epidemic.

Gladwell points out three parts of an epidemic which he calls the “three agents of change” - The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. (19)

Our class' goal is to make the Relay For Life Kickoff an epidemic! Our class can utilize Gladwell's "agents of change" tip the event, but in order to do so we must first understand the agents of change.

The first agent of change is “The Law of the Few.” This law talks about how a few people use their talents to set off an epidemic. In this law there are three types of people: the connector, the maven, and the salesman. The connector connects people to other people, they are the kind of person who knows virtually everyone. The maven is the person who connects people to information, they know a lot about the world and how it works. The salesman is a person with a lot of charm that can easily influence others. (30-88)

I believe that I am most like a maven. I love gathering information. I love learning about and researching things in the world. I am constantly reading the news and trying to keep up with what is going on around me. A maven is not just someone who loves to gather information though; they have to love sharing it as well. As soon as I learn something I want to share it with everyone around me. When I learn about new things I am constantly connecting that new piece of information to someone I know. To me that is one of the best parts of social networking. If I find something that I want to share with others it is easy to post a link or write about in a blog, on Facebook, or Twitter. I love music and as soon as I find a song I like I want to share it with everyone I know so they can enjoy it in the same way. My friends are used to hearing me say, “So I heard this song and you’re going to LOVE it!” I love sharing information and that is a big part of why I decided to become study public relations.

The second agent of change is “The Stickiness Factor.” This establishes whether the idea will stick. You can have a great connector, maven or salesman, but if you don’t have a good message it doesn’t matter. The stickiness factor determines whether the idea is good enough to start an epidemic. The stickiness factor plays a huge role in why social networking is so popular. Facebook and Twitter took off because they were great ideas. They stepped away from the norm enough for it to stick. (89-132)

The last agent of change is the “Power of the Context.” Introducing an idea or concept into the right environment is key if you want it to explode into an epidemic. The idea behind the context is that you have to know your audience, their environment and their needs.(167)

All three of these agents of change can play a role in the tipping point of the Relay For Life Kickoff. Our class is full of connectors, mavens, and salesmen. We have to hone in on our skills and allow our passion for the event to overflow to the community. The goal of the kickoff is to honor, inspire and motivate team captains. The connectors of our class can connect us to the right people for donations. The mavens can connect us to the information about prices and quality. The salesmen can sell the kickoff to the community. The kickoff should not have a problem with the stickiness factor if we correctly use our skills to publicize it. It is important for captains to want to come back each year. By making it a fun, honoring and unique kickoff the event should stick. As far as the context is concerned it is important for us to understand not only our client, but also who our client serves. Our client is the planning committee, but they serve the cancer survivors and team captains of Baldwin County. It is important for our class to understand their needs and what will honor them.

Social Media is a perfect example of how a tipping point takes place. Facebook, Twitter, and blogging are all outlets that can start an epidemic. The speed at which something can become an epidemic on Twitter is ridiculous. The recent “Balloon Boy” exploded on Twitter. It is important in the PR field to take advantage of the opportunity to “tip” something through social media. Our class should be using these methods to try to “tip” the kickoff. We are already blogging about the event, and using Facebook and Twitter to communicate with each other about the event. Continuing to use social media could serve to create a buzz for the kickoff and possibly “tip” the event to its full potential.

Blog Action Day

Today I am a part of thousands of people blogging about climate change for Blog Action Day!

Climate Change. Why should I care? Why should YOU care? The truth is most of us don’t know why we should care. Climate change seems to be an ambiguous idea that doesn't directly affect any of us. So why should we care?

I could sit here all day and type a list of the reasons why we should care. I could tell you all about how every time we drive our car, use a hairdryer or microwave a meal we are emitting greenhouse gasses. But why would you listen to me? Why would you care?

One great privilege of Public Relations is ability to connect other people. I feel that the most powerful communication occurs when people can connect and relate to each other. Communicating does not mean cramming your opinions and beliefs down someone else’s throat, but rather about opening up the dialogue and gaining awareness. Opening up dialogue and making people more aware allows people to come to their own conclusions and take ownership of their opinions and views.

In order to gain more awareness and open up the dialogue on climate change I would propose a campaign.

I would propose a campaign that focused on everyday people and why the issue of climate change is important to them. The whole idea behind it would be to have a variety of people that many different people could relate to.

My proposal would have these major components….

1. Interviews that focused on the simple question-“Why does climate change matter to you?” Or “Why do you care about climate change?”

The interviews would be short and focus on what everyday people think.

2. The interviews would be compiled into PSA’s, advertisements to be placed in magazines and possibly even billboards.

I don’t have any idea how people would answer the question, but I do know how I would answer it.

Why do I care about climate change?

I care because living on this beautiful planet is a privilege and I want my future children to experience the same privilege.

Why do you care?

Relay For Life

My PR Admin class is undertaking the task of planning the Relay For Life Kickoff for Baldwin county. We split up into teams of three and pitched an idea to the planning committee. My wonderful team of Corinne Burnstein and Brooke Brookins came up with the idea of "Unwrapping the Cure." Our idea behind it was that Relay For Life gives incredible gifts and most importantly the gift of life.

This is a write up explaining the whole concept....

What gift does Relay For Life unwrap for you?

Relay For Life gives a gift to everyone. Relay For Life is working to unwrap the cure but it unwraps so much more. To many it unwraps the gift of hope. Relay For Life unwraps love in a tremendous way. It is an outpouring of love from our community. Most importantly Relay For Life unwraps the priceless gift of life. What gift does Relay unwrap for you?

Our goal was to keep everything uniform and to keep it simplistic, but meaningful. My favorite part of our pitch was definitely the decorations. We used purple and white with silver accents. We painted corkboard to look like presents and pitched the idea of having quotes from survivors as gift tags.

Our pitch was not picked, but I am incredibly proud of my group. We all communicated well and took responsibility for pitch. Brooke and Corinne were a pleasure to work with and I look forward to working with them again! In the meantime I am very excited about the theme for Relay this year. Celebrating A Memory is the theme that was chosen and I excited to see how we all work together to celebrate and honor Baldwin County cancer survivors!