This morning, I had the pleasure of taking a two-hour floral photography safari in Mounts Botanical Garden in W. Palm Beach, FL. It was beautiful and serene there, all except for the every-five-minute takeoffs and landings at the airport across the street. Oh well.
Here are a few of the 100+ pictures I took today.
After reviewing all the first news releases in PRCA 3330, I am generally pleased with what I saw, considering it is the first news release you have written. Many of the news releases were spot-on; they were newsworthy and clearly written. You must have remembered what you learned in your Intro to Journalism class!
Here are some common errors I saw:
Be sure to avoid these errors when writing your Personality Profiles that are due next week.
To learn how to see my specific feedback for you in GeorgiaVIEW, see this short video below.
Questions?
Let’s face it . . . whether you’re a PR student, practitioner or faculty member, we’re all busy. So how can you get (and stay) up to speed with the ever-changing world of public relations? Here’s a quick guide to how I stay current in public relations.
Some of my favorite podcasts are: For Immediate Release, Inside PR, The Creative Career, Trafcom News, Marketing Over Coffee and Coming Up PR. My favorite time to listen to podcasts is during my daily two-mile walks in this sweltering Florida heat. I also listen to them when I drive, work out and clean the house. Some people prefer to listen to podcasts on their computers; my preference is listening to them on my Palm Pre or iPod.
Here’s a short video on how to subscribe to and download podcasts using iTunes. If you’re not an iTunes person, you may want to visit Podcast Alley, where you can find thousands more podcasts. You can listen to the podcasts directly from the website.
My favorite PR newsletter is one that comes into my inbox daily from Ragan Communications: the PR Daily newsfeed. When I want to read the latest on PR, this is the newsletter I turn to first. Another helpful newsletter comes from Chris Brogan; Chris provides different content in the newsletter than he does on his blog, so it’s definitely worth subscribing.
Are you a public relations student (or recent grad) just getting started using Twitter? Try following some (or all) of these people or organizations in my Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students. They all have something in common: they tweet useful or interesting information for people involved in public relations.
There are hundreds of blogs about public relations. I’ve bookmarked many of them in Delicious for you. You can subscribe to them using your favorite RSS reader (such as Google Reader), or just read them on the web. Some of the most helpful blogs I’ve discovered recently include The Comms Corner and Karen Russell’s Week’s Best (which I just learned is on hiatus for the summer), as they aggregate current posts of interest to PR practitioners.
Yes, I said “watch the news on TV.” I mean on a real TV, with a complete newscast, not just bits and bobs that you catch online. I start off every day a steaming mug or three of chicory coffee and at least an hour of broadcast news, usually with 15 or so minutes of local news followed by the Today Show. By knowing what’s going on in the world, it helps frame the snippets of stories I read or hear online throughout the day. To be sure that I’m keeping up on the news, I also listen to the podcast version of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me weekly news quiz. (I sometimes even play the Lightning Round of Wait Wait in class on Mondays to see how much my students know about what’s going on in the world.)
What additional resources would you recommend?
(NOTE: This post is an updated version of one I wrote in early January 2010.)
So that you are prepared for our next blog checkpoint, which will take place sometime after June 12, please complete this form. (NOTE: You will need to scroll to get to the bottom of the form.)
In my Summer 2010 PRCA 2330 & PRCA 3330 classes, students have created their blogs and have started blogging. The blogs are worth a significant portion of the grades in these classes. Here are some tips for students based on me reading the initial blog posts.
As always, if you have questions . . .
We’re about halfway through our One Week of Twitter. Many of you have provided your Twitter ID. I have made lists of the names (using a service called TweepML). Be sure to follow everyone in your class, along with the additional people I recommended in the One Week of Twitter assignment blog post. And follow others, too! If you’re not following people who are interesting to you, then you will get nothing out of this assignment.
You can easily add your classmates to your following list in Twitter by visiting the appropriate link below and following the directions on the page:
Hope you found this note helpful.
Barbara
(PS — You’ll write about your Twitter experience next week.)
Wow, what a year 2010 has been. On top of moving from the Savannah area to central Florida, here’s what’s been going on:
Like I said, wow, what a year 2010 has been.
Now to figure out what the “New Norman” is for us.
This summer, here’s what’s going on:
Stay tuned. When my family is involved, there’s always more to come.
[Originally posted February 24, 2010.]
In the two years that I’ve been using Twitter, I’ve tried my best to get my PR students using Twitter, too. Most of them dutifully complete their One Week of Twitter assignment, then fade away when it’s no longer a requirement. One week definitely isn’t enough time to “get Twitter,” but the classes I teach aren’t Twitter 101 classes . . . Twitter is simply a small component of the classes. And the more I make it an assignment, the less they seem to like it.
So this week, I decided to compile a list of reasons and ways PR students can get the most out of Twitter. Maybe if they (you?) see the benefits, it will encourage you to stick with it even when it’s not an assignment.
And now for tip 10.5: Interested in getting more followers? Take a look at your last page of tweets on Twitter.com. Read them carefully. If you didn’t know you, would you want to follow you?
So those are my 10.5 tips. What else would you suggest?
If you participate in the social networking site Twitter, it’s likely that you have come across an account called BPGlobalPR, which has more than 135,000 followers. And if you’re like me, you probably have been thinking, “This account can’t be for real.” I mean, why on earth would BP’s public relations team tweet things like this? Here’s a sample tweet from the account from last week:
ABC News’ Dan Harris (virtually) sat down with the person who runs this satirical account to get to the bottom of the story.
Warning: Some of the language in the video is PG-13 (not awful, but not what I’d want to play for my kids).
So what do you think? What should BP’s real public relations executives do about this satirical account?
Barbara Ann Lindley was born in Chicago, IL, on August 16, 1929, to Avalon and James Lindley. She spent her childhood years in Chicago. During her teen years she was involved in the Eastern Star’s Rainbow Girls and at 16 became a Worthy Advisor.
She is the proud mother of six children: Avalon Braun of Eugene, OR; Thomas Alton of Las Vegas, NV; Nancy Sanchagrin of Orlando, FL; Susan Borchini of Kissimmee, FL; James Anderson of Jacksonville, FL; and Barbara Nixon of Lakeland, FL. Barbara had 13 grandchildren ranging in age from 10 to 34 and three great grandchildren. She was predeceased by a daughter, Kathleen Lee, who died in 1964 from a premature birth.
Throughout her life, Barbara was involved in volunteer activities. In her younger years she was President of the P.T.A., our Brownie and Girl Scout Leader, President of the local Garden Club, and she also started a Mother’s Club in Niagara Falls, NY. She was a Census Taker in 1960 and with her earnings bought camping equipment that started a lifelong love for camping in the Adirondack Mountains, yearly trips to Groton State Park in Vermont and then in Arkansas. Some of our fondest memories were those camping trips.
In Livermore Falls, Maine, Barbara was a Baptist Youth Fellowship Leader, Vacation Bible School teacher and a Deaconess at the First Baptist Church. She also volunteered with the Red Cross.
In her later years, Barbara moved to Atlanta and became involved with Meals on Wheels, Northside Hospital Auxillary (Escort Service), and the Crafty Ladies Craft Group at Christ the King Lutheran Church.
Not long after moving to Atlanta she and her daughter Barbara worked in marketing research together. Her last position was a medical records clerk at the Hug Center/Healthfield in Atlanta. She was first person to retire from the Hug Center.
Barbara had a love for cooking and flowers. You could always find her whipping up a new recipe. She loved to travel and did a lot in her retirement years.
Barbara was well loved by her family and friends and all who knew her. Her sense of humor kept everyone in stitches. She had a lifetime of service to her community and was always willing to lend a helping hand. She will missed by all.
She wanted to make sure that all her friends knew how much she appreciated all the wonderful support she received during her three-year struggle with lung cancer. Her family extends a tremendous sense of gratitude for the kindnesses shown during her illness. With your support, Barbara was given the highest quality of care and love during her last days. Know that she and her family will always be thankful to you all.
Barbara died on May 25, 2010, at the age of 80.
