Auburn PR Blog

As I am counting down the days to the end my college career ( well at least classes) I become overwhelmed with feelings of sadness, excitement and nervousness. I will not be graduating in August like the rest of my classmates… I will be interning. I meet with my internship “mentors” this Friday. As I have already posted previously, I am interning with Comfort Care Hospice. When I first tell people where I am interning, I get varied reactions. What I don’t think people realize is that I will not ever come in contact with patients….. I am actually working with the Marketing/PR aspect of the company. I didn’t realize exactly what hospices were until I found this internship. Now I am recognizing them everywhere I go and realizing what a competitive market this is. Greenville is a very small town in Alabama yet we now have two hospice services. The competition is a large homehealth and hospice service that is known and used statewide. Comfort Care on the other hand is fairly small and new but is rapidly growing. The fact that it is small is intimidating, but exciting. I believe this leaves a lot of room for new ideas and opportunities. I have many ideas and am sure I will have even more once I begin my internship. My biggest fear though is expressing these ideas and then coming off as overly aggressive or a “know it all”. I feel as though this internship will give me the chance to use all of the things I have been taught in my classes. My biggest question is how do I express these ideas and suggestions without being offensive?…… after all I am intern.

Deadlines. Technicalities. Legal Stuff. These are all things we run into during our PR lives. And procrastination is something we learn to hate and avoid from birth….but then about junior year in high school, it becomes our friend. Then about senior year in college, it’s our middle name.

The deadline: “by the end of today”
Technicalities: “today” — which doesn’t end for another 36 minutes!
Legal Stuff: this is the first chance i’ve had to complete my blog posts….SUE ME! hehehe j/k, Robert!

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This is my thank you and farewell post to all my blog friends i’ve made so far this semester. My favorite friend, Jeremy Pepper, and my favorite teacher, Robert. You guys have taught me so much and i will continue to blog, post, and keep in touch and look forward to learning much more in the near future!

Everyone else: Keep on being one anothers “Push - ups, Padding, and Extra support”!! Let’s be ready to catch each other when we fall. “Grace!”

Look out PR world, there are 6 hot new items on the menu!

I always write about how the PR practitioners I have encountered are on each others’ side….in fact — there are no sides! Everyone is on the same team (our career field’s team) and is constantly ready to leand a hand, an ear, or even their voice!

Robert’s Podcast Site is a perfect example of this!

What should one do when they have gone to school for 4 (sometimes more!) years at an outstanding university…studied countless hours…and finally have their degree…a Public Relations degree!…resting in their hot little hand.

Your first real job. Your first real assignment. The resident CPA asks you to design an ad. “No problem! Right up my alley!”

After spending countless hours brainstorming and creating, you now have in your hot little hand your ticket. Your ticket to success! Your ticket to fame!

Turns out…it’s your ticket back to your office because your ad is “confusing” to the CPA…when clearly it is brilliant (if you dont say so yourself) and beautiful…..

I can hear you now! “Get over it! Move on! That’s life! Brace yourself girl…..you’ve got somethin’ coming!”

Okay, well — blowing my cover — the jig is up. This is a true story. About me.
Here’s my question….

Should I have explained the ad to the CPA or just cashed in my ticket back to my office to re-brainstorm, re-create, and re-evaluate my education?

Food for thought!

This is one of those things where you read it and say, “yea! right on!”

Camp Livingston is a Jewish summer camp for kids and teens. They just recently started a blog. Their blog is specifically for daily activities that the kids are involved in. I contacted the camp on Friday and I spoke with the camp director, Andy Brown. He was very helpful and very much bought into using a blog. He said that they had tried to do newsletters to the parents of campers but that it just wasn’t reaching as many people as they wanted.

Basically the blog has a picture of an activity and a paragraph describing what is going on in the picture. Mr. Brown said that they had an assigned staff member who went around to the counselors and got a paragraph they had written about an activity that day. He said that the staff member would then take a picture of the activity and go back and load the picture and paragraph himself.

As far as putting the information on the blog, I think that this would be a good idea for Camp ASCCA. They could assign an intern or staff member to collect the info for the blog and post it for the counselors. This would eliminate the problem of not having enough computers for counselors to use and it would also eliminate posts being put in moderation until they can be reviewed. Mr. Brown also said that they didn’t have to provide incentives because they would be expecting the staff member to come get the info. This would also eliminate counselors not posting.

Overall he said that it was a great success so far. He said that it was especially big with the parents being able to find out more about what goes on at camp.

Everyone get your wallets and pocketbooks ready! Today is the opening of the summer movie that I can’t wait to see…The Wedding Crashers! After you pay an arm and leg to sit by a big, smelly Joe and a chatty Cathy on her cell phone and then watch 30 minutes of commercials and previews, at least Vince Vaughn and Own Wilson’s comedic antics seem promising enough for a trip to the theater.

Like any other movie released this year, there has been a great deal of hype surrounding this movie. There has been an endless parade of talk show appearances, commercials and paraphernalia trumpeting the arrival of the summer comedy. I think every cast member of The Wedding Crashers has chatted with Jay Leno.

However, the most successful marketing strategy behind this movie campaign was getting the key public involved. As the number of Americans that are willing to spend their life savings to watch the latest block buster decreases, mega movie marketers are forced to reach deeper into their bag of tricks to razzle dazzle their target audience into the theater. The Weddings Crashers did just that.

Trailers Crashers is a site where visitors can become cast members of The Wedding Crashers’ trailers. This was a brilliant understanding of an audience demographic and the interactive use of humor appeals to get moviegoers involved in promotional efforts. After visiting this site, I have been emailing my trailer crasher to everyone I know! Crash your own trailer here…you know you wanna.

Look what made the front page of The Plainsmen today.

Here is a quote from the article:

“We aren’t at the point of ‘if you don’t blog you’re history,’ but we are almost there,” Tucker said. “(Blogging) is a way of making your presence known to the world, however big or small it is.” - John Tucker, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala.

Until recently, blogging was relatively unknown and misunderstood among college students on Auburn’s campus. I was plesantly surprised to see some light shed on the subject, because I grow tired from having to explain to my friends what a blog is.

However, there are some problems with story. It is apparent that little to no research was done before the article went to print. Not one word was mentioned about Robert French and the dozens of comm/pr/journalism students that blog everyday for class. Most of us even have our own personal blogs. And we are all right here right under their noses.

A checklist put together by our class, for our class, and for anyone who wants to utilize!
Help yourself!

YOUR CAMPAIGN:
Research
—Interviews
—Benchmarking

Objectives
—Quantifiable
—Simply Stated

Strategies
—Specific
—Measurable
—Examples

Implementation
—Timeline
—Channels

Evaluation
—How?
—Through what means?
—What are you counting?

Publics
—Internal
—External

—Primary
—Secondary
—Latent
—Emerging

Can venting about home, work, life or anything for that matter actually get you fired? Well according to a newspaper article in the Montgomery Advertiser,,,, It can and it does! People all over the world are using their blogs as personal online journals….. and are possibly saying too much. For instance several bloggers have been fired for writing about work in their blogs. According to Amanda Lenhart, a researcher at the Pew Internet and American Life Project who tracks how young Americans use the internet, stories of these so-called personal diaries online are getting more and more people in hot water. When looking for job it is important that if your name is googled titles on your blog such as “The Drunken Musings of….” doesn’t pop up!Lenhart said that a man did research his niece, who was a college student searching for a job, and found her blog with that exact title! Ouch! I think the lesson to be learned is to always be careful of what you publish because it is public and if you can’t watch what you write maybe you should think about passwords because down the road that one post about something bad or crazy or whatever….. may just come back to haunt you! Final note: Maya Marcel-Keyes, daughter of conservative politician Alan Keyes, discussed her being a lesbian on her blog and during her father’s recent campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois…. guess what came up? (he made many statements throughout his campaign which were anti-gay)

I stumbled upon this article today that talks about a knife that was found in the Peterson household. (Laci and Scott Peterson, that is. The couple who was spilt apart by a tragic slaying of Laci and her unborn child…later proven to be the doings of husband, Scott.)

Two things. First, “case closed” — Scott did it. Sentanced to death. Let the story die. Secondly, it talks about how much their house was sold for, since obviously it is no longer in the family name. It sold for $10,000 more than the asking price. Who would pay more for a house than they had to? And on top of that, the guy who bought it is a real estate agent!
Irrelevant!? I guess this is just another example of trying to get news out of something not very newsworthy.

Former CBS reporter Bernie Goldberg has just released his newest book, “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.”

Some of the hits I couldn’t agree with more, others are subject to criticism. Even a few bloggers show up on Goldberg’s list. Take a look at the list for yourself here.

An article on CNN.com discusses the topic of time off before college, or as they refer to it “a gap year”. According to the article, college admission officers are supporting the idea of students taking a year off between high school and college. The idea is that during this year, your time would be spent doing something educational and worthwhile, like teaching in Costa Rica and trying to figure out exactly what you want to do with your life. While the idea seems good, I feel that it would only be beneficial to a small group…..those that are over achievers. Most 18 year olds would us this time to be lazy not for educational reasons. The article does admit that some, like Sarah Lawrence, have encouraged a gap year simpy because they didn’t anticipate the number of students that would be attending in the fall. So even though it appears that administrators are looking out for students best interest, they are really fixing a problem for themselves. I don’t consider myself to be a slacker, but I know that when I was 18, I wouldn’t have used an entire year “for growth” to my advantage. Going to college right after high school actually pushed me to grow up faster and realize what I wanted to do.

I like to think that I do not have a naive view on this matter, but I truly feel I have seen the best side of Public Relations and its practitioners. The ones I have encountered (at least thus far) have all been positive, there to catch me when I fall (or prevent me from doing so!), as well as a knowledge base for me to learn from.

I think it is an important and refreshing aspect to our career field when we are able to make suggestions with out hesitation if we think that we can help. My new best blog-friend Jeremy Pepper shared with me recently an idea that I will surely be able to use when I reach my new job. He even went to the trouble to send it snail mail, to include a hand written letter and a newspaper clipping. I was very impressed and very thankful that he would go to that trouble and take the time to make sure I got that information! So, Cheers to Jeremy!

I hope that as I transition from my “practice-real-life-experience” into my truly real-life experiences, my encounters will remain as pushed-up, padded, and extra supportive as my…well…my college experience has been. Truly.

Ok…I finished the book. Overall I’m very shocked at the behavior that was described in the book and even more of how accepted it was by many girls she was friends with. I had to put the book down after reading the first 2 chapters because of how descriptive the book is. I am disappointed in the fact that I didn’t learn anything that I wanted to. My purpose in reading the book was to find out more about what happened after her blog was found, how she felt personally…if she felt it was a mistake, who exactly found the blog, how she handled the media. There were only two chapters devoted to “when she got caught” and they werent very informative. It was mostly about her dealing with everyone that she wrote about in the blog. The only thing I did learn was that she chose a blog because it was easier and less time consuming that instant messenging her friends all day about what she did the night before. I also learned that there are really girls like her and they don’t think their behavior is abnormal. So overall I wouldn’t recommend this book. It was basically like reading a trashy romance novel for $23.95. If anyone in the class wants to borrow it…go ahead…but get ready to be shocked.

Last fall, Robert told my class about the Washington intern who wrote in a public blog about her “experiences” as an intern and was caught. Well, she has written a book about it, The Washingtonienne. After browsing through the book, I realized that Ms. Cutler tells her story as if she is writing in a diary or in a blog. I’m interested to see if she ever considered the consequences of posting this information on the Internet. Although I have my own opinion before I have even read the book, I plan on reading it with as much of an open mind that I can possibly have. I am going to post after I read it…but I have a feeling that I’m still going to feel the same…if you are dumb enough to write about your personal life involving politicians in a public blog, then you deserve what you get.

The Blog Police are coming!

Should the Federal Election Commision (FEC) be able to monitor and deligate over blog content? Are we threatening democracy?

Hmmm….would this have ever seen the light of day if a military official had not posted questions in his blog? I will admit i was SHOCKED when I heard he did that, but for every other citizen blogging - - they should not be punished or restriceted.

And how, if some blogs are password protected, would they monitor all blogs?

Today, instead of meeting in class for campaigns we traveled a little ways up the road to visit Camp ASCCA(one of our wonderful campaigns for this summer!) Arriving at camp, I already had images in my head about what it would be like. My first surprise was that we did not travel down a long,lonely dirt road…… but a paved road! My next shock was that the staff do not just live near camp….. they actually live AT camp! Wow it takes some pretty special people to live “way out there” all of the time!
Camp ASCCA is so much nicer than I expected. Though there were areas where there is definitely need for improvement, for the most part all of the facilities were awesome. This week is MDA week, and most of the campers are in wheel chairs. It was amazing to see how easily these children got around the campgrounds and how enthusiastic counselors were about being with these children. As we were driven around the grounds on the golf cart we were able to see all of the activities the children get to participate in. I was interested to find out that a majority of things around camp are donated by different businesses and people, from the boats to the tables in the dining hall. My favorite part, other than being able to watch the campers interact, was the enviromental center. I have never seen such a cool place to learn about animals, nature and the environment. It is definitely a state-of-the-art building, which we were informed was designed similar to ones in Disney World. I was really glad our class took the trip. It gave me a new look at camp and how much potential this place really has. The only thing they are really lacking are more donors, but I believe this task can be easily accomplished by approaching it the right way.
By the way…….. I cannot believe Richard Schrushy was acquitted, what is our legal system coming to?

www.cnn.com
I’m sorry….did she say she was dilated 47cm?!
Please do not watch “Stabbing, robbery caught on tape,” but rather please listen to this amazing story titled, “Newborn weighs almost 14 lbs.” Now guys, I know this may seem irrelevant to you, but for you ladies, please read my title again! YIKES! Talk about good PR for “reasons being a woman is harder than being a man!”

Scrushy - NOT GUILTY
(By the way — Is that Scrushy’s daughter? or wife?…please watch the video if you have not seen her…TOO CUTE FOR HIM!)