Time Management

Time management is important in any career, really in any life. There is always a balance to maintain. This being the last semester of my senior year, I am really learning the importance of time management.

Public Relations is a field of juggling. Multitasking is not an option, because something gets slighted. That is where time management comes into play. The key with great time management is to plan with such detail that it looks as though you are multitasking.

If I have learned anything this year it is to focus on one thing at a time. To plan exactly what time I am working on everything. I cannot check my email and respond every hour. I must have a specific time to respond to emails, or I will waste hours responding to emails.

I read a PR blog about the time management of a new PR Professional.
They broke down some of the important tasks to take on each day

1.) Social Media: It is timely and important to stay up date. This is something that should be scheduled in the day frequently.

2.) Editorial Work: I am constantly writing and editing differnt publications or documents. It is imperative to set aside time for this work.

3.) Look at the bigger picture and track success: With many projects going on at one time, I have to examine the progress every day.

Time management has to leave room for flexibility too. Although much of life can be scheduled in the field of PR things are ever changing and I have to be ready to change at a moments notice.

For best results...repeat

Dream. Research. Brainstorm. Create. Hate. Trash. Revise. Recreate. For best results...Repeat.

My personal recipe for creativity.

I was reading the blog of a PR student and was inspired to think about creativity in public relations.

Public relations is a field of creativity. Some people argue that the field of PR stifles creativity. In Public Relations you are at the mercy of the media to portray your company in whatever light they choose. They argue that this causes a PR professional to merely play the game of the media rather than use creativity. I could not disagree more.

It is a field in which you have to know your audience. Depending on who you are representing your audience might be the media, but it could also be the public. In order to create any kind of publicity you have to have something unique to draw them in. A new twist on an old company, a innovative event, a unique selling point on a story. To get the media to pay attention you might have to play by the rules: writing a press release, inviting media, preparing information for them, but in order to get the media to pay attention creativity had to take place beforehand.

Creativity can be an exhausting process. It is a personal experience, but not always a personal expression. In public relations I have learned it's really important to realize that it's not about you. You can come up with 100 different creative ideas, you've got passion them and they feel like they are a piece of you and each one can be turned down by the client or by the media. So it's back to the same process. The same exhausting, passion filled, slightly crazy, but really fun process.

Dream. Research. Brainstorm. Create. Hate. Trash. Revise. Recreate. For best results...Repeat.

Light Bulb

I am in the midst of searching for a Public Relations internship. This search has really made me think about my future and what my educational experience has prepared me for.

All through out my college career I have dreamed of working with a non-profit organization. Throughout my career as a PR student I have had the opportunity to volunteer with many non-profits and get hands on experience. Even though I had the deep desire to go into non-profit, I never really knew for sure what kind of non-profit I wanted to work with.

While preparing for my internship I have tweaked my resume several times creating a few different versions of my resume. One thing remains constant in every resume that I have and that is experience in non-profit health care. I never really did it on purpose or had this underlying drive to only work with health related non-profits. I have done PR volunteering with a nonprofit health clinic, a pregnancy center, and I have done several research projects relating communications and health.

Looking at my resume in this new light has given me a much clearer direction in the kind of non-profit I would like to work for. It was like a light bulb went off in my head that reminded me of how much health care interests me. It seems I found direction even when I wasn't looking for it.

Always Learning!

For my practicum this semester I am working on the 1st Annual Middle Georgia Student Diversity Conference. This has given me a new side of Public Relations. I have worked on event planning before, but not this scale of event planning.

One valuable skill I have learned is learning how to write a letter addressing a business. One of my responsibilities as a practicum student is to be the Publisher Liaison. I am in the process of contacting publishers to attend the event. I have created a professional letter inviting them to attend and also to sponsor the event.

Also I have learned how to work with a lot of people on one project. There are many people involved in the conference. I am learning how to take initiative and see what needs to be done, before someone has to ask me to do it. They all are wearing different hats in the event and it is my responsibility to make sure that the publicity side is taken care of.

In working with this event and events/projects I have learned to adapt a new kind of time management. One that is laid out very well in this article from Bizmore by Eric Reyes . On of the biggest things I have learned is not to check my email constantly, but rather to schedule when I check my email, because otherwise I will spend time responding to emails when there are more timely things to be done.

The conference is not until April and I am looking forward to more opportunities I will have grow as a public relations professional.

Twitter Challenge

This week my Public Relations Campaigns class was assigned a Twitter Challenge. We were challenged to start using twitter as means on networking and also to expand our tweet capabilities. 5 tweets a day doesn't seem that difficult at first. It doesn't seem that difficult, until it is the end of the day and you feel that you have nothing of any worth to share with the world. The true difficulty of this challenge was to use twitter as a meaningful tool of communication, rather than just a place for ambiguous thoughts.

Twitter has the power to connect the masses, but also it has the unique power to connect individuals who would otherwise never be connected. A part of the challenge was to follow more public relations professionals. I have been actively trying to follow more people and companies in the PR industry, the advertising industry and the news industry.

Several professionals have started following me back which in turn makes me reevaluate the image I am portraying on my twitter page. Having personal tweets are just fine, but if they portray me in a negative light, then my followers will see that. If I am counting on my followers to provide networking opportunities then I should be very careful how I package myself on Social Networking sites. I should try to present myself in the best way possible, not just avoiding a negative image, but building a positive image. I need to make it a goal to use thoughtful, insightful, and honest tweets to build my repuation. I don't need to pretend to be someone else, I just need be professional.

I look forward to continuing to use Twitter and other social netorks to build my repuation and to make connections.

PR in Action

Last night, December 5th, I participated in a Holiday Acoustics Concert held at Blackbird. It was planned by Tyler Pearson. He put together a group of musicians to play to help raise money to buy Christmas Gifts for some of the kids that attend Kid's Ministry. The band consisted of Mike Palombo, Jami Smith, Tyler Pearson, Jonathan Chancey, and myself. We played some original pieces, some covers and Christmas songs as well.

This was PR in action because of our use of social media. This event was proof to me that the best way to reach College age people is through facebook. A Facebook event and word of mouth got enough publicity for us to have a sold out show. 115 people crammed into the basement of Blackbird. We also raised enough money to buy atleast 8 kids the presents that they asked for.

It was a really fun night! And definitely a lesson in how powerful social media is.

Anti-Binge Drinking Campaign

I created an anti-binge drinking advertisement. The assignment was more difficult than I first anticipated. Not only is it extremely important to know how to execute an advertisement, it is important to do thorough background research. Due to errors of uploading this is not the completed ad, but it is the picture that used.

I started my background research by learning about binge-drinking and specifically binge drinking in college. I then researched why people like to drink. Some people drink to forget their worries, to have fun with friends, to be more comfortable or to fit in, just to name a few. I then started to research what it is that people love about college, by talking to friends. I got a lot of different answers so it was difficult to narrow down the topics. People said things like, “I love college because of the friendships I have made,” or “I love college because of the life long memories that it brings.” After my research I decided to make my target audience 18-24 year old females. I had the most background research and also could relate.

My first thought was to go along with the whole idea that college is the best four years of your life. Most college girls come to school hoping to meet lifelong friends, have fun, meet new and exciting people, experience life in a new an adventurous way. My first idea was to make a scrapbook like ad chronicling the life of a party girl. She would be wasted and aloof and the slogan would be, “Best four years of my life.” I started my photo shoot with that in mind.

I recruited several of my roommates and friends to dress up and enact several scenes of people partying with alcohol. Then I took several shots of people suffering the consequences of the overconsumption of alcohol such as, a hangover, unwanted sexual advances, and passing out.

After creating a scrapbook like ad, I changed my mind about the theme. While the overall message was clear, the pictures were not strong enough to portray binge drinking as a negative. In fact some of the pictures looked like the people really were having the time of their lives.

So it made me analyze some of the other consequences that binge drinkers encounter. The one that rang with the most resonance was the idea that by partaking in binge drinking you won’t remember anything. Now at first not remembering can seem like a good idea, but not when college is supposed to be the best four years of your life. Also I spoke to a lot of people who although they don’t remember what they did when they were drunk, they still suffered negative consequences. That is how I came up with the slogan, “The night I can’t remember…but wish I could forget.”

This slogan can target any college age student, but mainly serves to target female drinkers who did something they regretted after getting drunk. It also serves to remind them that they might do something they regret when they are drunk.

The picture in the advertisement is actually two pictures superimposed. One is a soft focus picture of alcohol and the other is a picture of a girl hugging the toilet after a night of partying. The two pictures together act to make the images a little bit blurry. The blurriness of the picture is supposed to serve as a double meaning. The girl’s memory is blurry because of the “blurry” alcohol.

As far as the execution of the ad was concerned I wish that I was more skilled on the computer. I would really like to gain more computer skills and learn how to create visually appealing advertisements.

This advertisement taught me the importance of research, the importance of brainstorming and the importance of being willing to change to your plan.