bluetree concert Nov. 1 in Macon

Fellow Bloggers,

There will be a Christian concert this Sunday, Nov. 1, at Christ Chapel on Bass Rd. in north Macon. You can get $5 tickets by emailing Brian @wordtested@bellsouth.net and telling him your group name and how many tickets you want. They will hold them at Will Call for you at the front doors of the church. Christ Chapel is in the old Sports Town building and it's a great place to have a concert.

The group is called bluetree. They are from Ireland and have toured all over the world with their hit song, God of this city.

If you go on your own without reservations and pay at the door, the cost is $10.

I am trying out the use of social media to promote this concert that I am interested in attending. I have used e-mail, Facebook, this blog and twitter to get out the message. As a public relations student, I am learning how valuable social media is in spreading the word around quickly and gaining support for an event like this!

Experiencing the Tipping Point

Gladwell mentions in his book that the tipping point is “the one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once.” This one dramatic moment is what I like to call a momentum builder or catalyst for change. It is in this moment where everything changes and the fire is fueled to keep on burning. Gladwell means just what he states on the front cover of his book, “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” and I would argue how good things can become great things. I think Gladwell’s definition of the tipping point is a variation of many things that I have heard before, but yet I am still compelled by Gladwell’s commitment to seeing the tipping point “grow richer with each new reading” and his ability to inspire readers like myself to use the Tipping Point as a way to come up with new ideas using the word of mouth phenomenon and finding those types of people in society: Mavens, Connectors and Salesman.

I believe I am a Salesman at heart and a Connector as a result. Gladwell’s story with Tom Gau was a great example of a natural salesman and I found many common characteristics that we shared. Gau said, “If you don’t try, you’ll never succeed,” and I think there is so much truth in his statement. Many of the calculated risks I take daily are simply in a good effort to succeed using my best performance. In addition, I believe that I have a high level of connectedness given that I am naturally optimistic and persuasive as a Salesman. I have a great versatility to my work as a student and like Gladwell states, “ In the case of Connectors, their ability to span many different worlds is a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self confidence, sociability and energy.”

For our Relay For Life event to “TIP” this semester, we must use our entire class made up of Mavens, Salesmen, and Connectors to work together and use our individual skills to better the group. I think our groups focus on the little things will make a big difference like Gladwell’s Power of Context example with the NYC Police and cutting down on crime. It’s those small out of context actions that get great results. My creative suggestion comes from my recent trip to the Atlanta Falcons game where the players were wearing pink sneakers, tape, gloves and the cheerleaders were also dressed in pink. The Falcons colors are red, white and black so this seemed out of context. However, they were doing this to promote breast cancer awareness. Implementing wearing purple at local community events, etc to promote Relay For Life seems to me would be highly effective. I think finding a similar niche place to promote Relay For Life would also be effective like the hair salon example in Gladwell’s book. I believe that our understanding in answering the question, Why Relay For Life? will help us to tip. This event is about these cancer survivors and their stories and helping to let others know through celebrating their memory. Like Gladwell’s smoking example, you can’t start to help people until you understand why people smoke.

Lastly, applying the use of social media is evident, the essence of the tipping point was using word of mouth phenomenon, but today there are so many ways through using the Internet to spread the word around. Viral marketing is a term to describe the way the Internet is used to spread a virus simultaneously and instantly through the Internet. One example is when Burger King launched a viral marketing campaign with its Subservient Chicken website. This was a hit and many people were prompted to go online and check it out. I believe that I have experienced the tipping point this semester through blogging and microblogging. The Kanye West performance that most of us blogged about in class is an example of how microblogging such as Twitter was used to spread information about Kanye West instantly. Also, participating in Blog Action Day was another great way to experience the tipping point and see how one little thing like writing a blog can make a big difference when you have many people joining in to do the same.

2010 South Africa World Cup & Climate Change

As a college soccer player, I am passionate about the game of soccer and the cultural and environmental role soccer plays across the globe. For the first time ever the FIFA World Cup will be hosted by a nation in Africa. The tournament will be staged at 10 venues across nine South African cities. Johannesburg will be home to two World Cup stadiums Soccer City and Ellis Park. According to Climate Neutral Network, South Africa is committed to integrating environmental principles into the planning and organization of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Their aim is to enhance environmental sustainability for South Africa and its citizens, and to reinforce the significance of environmentally responsible lifestyles within the context of the 2010 Soccer World Cup and the country’s economic and social development programs.

In a recent article, Wendell Roelf commented that South Africa has often been commended for being most active among developing countries in fighting climate change. However, environmentalists say while South Africa Government has set ambitious targets, it has been slow in executing them.

While environmentalists may have a point here, it is evident that the 2010 South Africa World Cup presents an opportunity for South Africa’s Government to execute these targets. The South African Government is working with the UN Development Programme on an initiative involving carbon offsets for the World Cup. The 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup offers South Africa a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the world its commitment to responsible environmental management, while improving the living environment and livelihoods of South Africans. This event offers important opportunities to showcase how South Africa can respond to the challenges facing its region, the planet and most importantly what they can do differently today and for the future.

As a passionate public relations student, I believe my journey in finding a future job in public relations will include awareness on social responsibility issues for the given company or organization to which I will be working. As a college student, I hope to make the world a better place through using social media such as blogging on important social and environmental issues, and also through completing an internship hopefully with the 2010 South Africa World Cup. If chosen for this internship, I will be actively participating in the South African community while being apart of the sporting world and its commitment to environmental management. I believe that using social media like blogging and completing an internship will help me as I seek a future job in public relations.

I have included the information below for any students who happen to read my blog and are interested in a summer internship focused on climate change or global events. Future 500, a non-profit organization that works on corporate social responsibility issues is looking for 2-3 research interns.

Climate change - The intern will undertake in depth research on public and private policy in relation to the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December. The research will become the basis of presentations to corporate partners and may be distributed to other stakeholders.

Global Events - The intern will undertake research on key social issues and risks for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, and the Shanghai World Exposition May-October 2010. 


Please visit this website for more information on these internships.

http://www.ypfp.org/jobs/summer-research-internships

Relay For Life Pitch

Our PR administration class recently pitched different themes to the Relay For Life committee in Milledgveille. The group I was a part of was selected as the pitch winner. Our black and white Polaroid picture theme "Celebrate a Memory" will be used for this years event. I am excited to now begin the details for planning this event where over a hundred participants are expected to attend including this years Relay For Life team captains and cancer survivors. The one thing that I've learned from my first pitch experience is that it is all about the way you position your pitch, you must distinguish yourself a part from the rest by highlighting the benefits and connecting with your audience. I think building an image that involves the participant is so important. I am currently focused on working to get the community business owners involved by donating items for this event as I am in charge of our committee to budget cost of food, refreshments and table settings. The best part of having this unique opportunity is to get to work with my peers and together collaborate to put together an event that means so much to our community!

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.