Life after college with Chris Carmichael

Chris Carmichael is the President of Surfperch Communications, a web and pr firm located in Portland, Oregon. http://www.surfperch.com/

I had the opportunity to do a career review on Chris Carmichael in March of 2008. Chris Carmichael shared many life lessons he experienced after college that have inspired me as a senior pr student. As future pr professionals we all seem to be asking ourselves the same question, What is next, you know, life after college? I hope you enjoy reading about Chris Carmichael’s experiences, and are encouraged about a future in public relations after college!

“I started as a technical writer for Intel, and then three years later I started my own web and pr company, but I traveled first. I landed one good client, saved all the money from the 3 week job, then drove around America for 6 months, I even drove through Milledgeville. Then I came home and did another web job, and went to Europe for 6 weeks after that. All in all, I traveled for 9 months of 1999 when I was 25 years old. I knew that I could always find a job, but travel experience was something I needed. More than anything I did not want to have regrets about, ‘I never went there or did that,’ especially if I had to get a job and support a family. I didn’t want to resent anyone in my life for trapping me into father/husband obligations. I wanted to get the entire travel itch out before I started a career.

Why do I tell you that? Because those trips have meant more to my professional career than any class I ever took. I recommend building up great life experiences that you can use later in life to connect to your clients, your audience, your friends, and so on. It doesn’t have to be traveling either. If your angling for a successful career, you need to use true-life experiences in order to connect emotionally with the people on which your career depends. It could be clients, viewers, readers, colleagues, etc. My own work involves being a chameleon for my clients. Sometimes its just simple web design, sometimes it’s pr such as writing press releases or handling an interview with the NY Times or designing a participation campaign, sometimes its search engine placement, doing e-commerce, setting up a blog/vlog or handling a domain name emergency, ghostwriting an article, speaking at a conference or setting up a press conference or whatever.
My best experience on the job has been working with different industries in the same week. I’m backstage with Billy Joel and his staff, and one day later I’m speaking at a conference in Hawaii on another clients dime. One week later, I’m helping a client through an Oprah appearance and using that to springboard a charity I work with into the national spotlight, watching their online donations explode. It’s totally, completely awesome. It’s the best job in the world and I don’t even know what to call it.

I also worked in Sicily (Dec 2003-June 2004). Hard to do when you can’t always get Internet access and the country shuts down from Noon-4 every day. I was a newlywed then, and my wife and I just hung out, learned how to cook, learned to appreciate great wine, stayed up late learning Italian with our new friends, and talked about how we wanted our lives to go. It was marriage boot camp, and we really dug it. It’s made our marriage really strong, because we took ourselves out of our comfort zone and made it work. I wholeheartedly recommend Sicily. Wow, what a place it will change your whole outlook on life. No matter when you go, or with whom, you wont ever regret it. Ever. http://www.thinksicily.com/

I know it’s not always easy, but it is best to pray about a choice, and then make one with absolute passion and gusto. Don’t bury the coins. Remember Moses standing at the shore of the Red Sea when the Egyptians were closing in: he said, ‘Wait, God will save us…just watch!’ God immediately smacked him upside the head and said, ‘What are you waiting for? I gave you a really cool staff…now move the ocean!’ (Paraphrasing of course) I try my best to listen to His direction and not plan too much ahead, for He is the ultimate source of peace and relevance to our lives. And in the end, the websites, and pr campaigns are all gone, but the charities we work with make real impacts on peoples lives.

Surfperch is one more way to bring the Icthus/Christian symbol…it’s also a popular Pacific Coast fish that lives only in the crashing waves steps from the shore. Its representative of our work, always ebbing, flowing and crashing around us, yet, the turmoil is what makes the excitement possible.

Opportunities are endless. Really. Every company and organization needs a website and pr, a marketing plan, technical assistance, and general advice. The idea here is to be indispensable to the client, no matter what their needs are. Best of luck to you in your career!”

Sincerely,

Chris Carmichael

PR Lessons from Kanye West

The social networking website, Twitter was flooded with tweets about the Kanye West incident from Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards. There were over 5, 000 hits in the Twitter feed under Trending Topics: Kanye West. In our pr class we have talked about the effect of social media, and how it can explode to reach so many people in a short amount of time, and this is exactly what happened since this incident occurred. Kanye’s first apology after the incident was posted on his blog. This was the first of a total of four apologies, but the Jay Leno apology was the most public. The incident has been considered by some to be a PR stunt to help promote Jay Leno’s new prime time talk show on NBC. It is true that Kanye West’s appearance on the show helped Leno get a smashing start in television ratings, as the talk show pulled in over 15 million viewers. Even Obama had a say on the incident calling Kanye West a “jackass” in an off-the- record piece of a political interview on television. The remark was widely circulated by an ABC journalist who posted it on Twitter. This is not the first time Kanye West has been in the negative media spotlight, but the issue at hand is how we as pr professionals can learn from this pr incident. First, we must recognize the strong role and immediate effect that social media plays. Second, we must evaluate what is the best advice to be given as a pr counsel to Kanye West. As a pr professional you must try to understand how to handle a client who is in the public eye, and behaves in a negative manner. Does a public apology do the job or does more effort need to be done to counteract all the negative pr? There was plenty of negative pr being spread through micro blogging which included the following: Kanye being described as a racist, a troubled guy according to Bill O’Reilly, having a drinking habit that led to the specific incident, and most of all an outcry of disappointment and frustration from fans and other celebrities. We must address these questions and all the negative pr in the media in order to make a positive impact on the pr issue at hand. Whether or not Kanye West has learned from this incident, I can not say, but I can say that as a growing pr professional I am more aware of my immediate role and also the role that social media plays.

PR Profile

According to the traditional skills of a pr professional, I would consider myself proficient in writing press releases, news stories, features and a variety of other written skills including my most recent being blogging.

I certainly have the skill for communicating well with others, which can comprise of an array of communication processes some of which include delegating tasks efficiently, confidence in public speaking and group presentations and most importantly listening to others whether that is my teammates, co-workers or a future employer.

My attention to detail and media relations has greatly increased over the years. I have gained a lot of experience in different work settings such as a marketing agency, a nonprofit organization and in advertising for our student newspaper. I have compiled media lists, met aggressive deadlines, and worked on building good relationships with clients.

Work ethic and proactiveness are a part of my character, for example, tonight after soccer practice I met with two advertising clients, but this was only after visiting each client two times prior over this past week. The extra effort and time devoted to what I am doing pays off, and this applies to everything in my life.

One area where I find myself in need of more practice is in taking more calculated risks and not fearing failure. Many successful people failed many times or took several risks before they achieved anything. Yesterday, our soccer coach played an inspirational online video showcasing these successful people who took risks and failed, some of which included Michael Jordon, Walt Disney and Abraham Lincoln. They all had to “fail forward” as my coach put it in order to achieve something great.

Check out this link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6hz_s2XIAU

I am excited to learn more skills as I begin to get familiar with current technology and using the many social networking tools. I am a beginner blogger and microblogger, and I do not understand anything about blogger relations, but that is what this assignment is all about. In our classes, I look forward to discussing social media ethics, how to effectively promote an organization and implement an event and the pitching best practices.