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Personality Profiles :: More than Pre-Obituaries

Photo Credit: "REBOOT!" by Mark Magnusson

In reviewing the Personality Profiles written by my PR Writing students over the last several semesters, I’ve discovered that there are several common errors that seem to show up. Avoiding these common errors will help ensure that someone might actually want to read the story you have written.

  • Treating the story as if it’s a pre-obituary… you know, the obituaries that newspapers and TV stations have waiting, just in case someone famous dies. They tend to simply recite a few key facts from the person’s life. These pre-obituaries, posing as personality profiles for my class, are flat and fail to engage the readers. Yawn.
  • Telling the story in chronological order.Just because we live our lives in chronological order doesn’t mean that is how the stories should be told.
  • Writing a snoozer of a headline. Something like “A True Leader in Our Community!” is not something that would entice someone to read the story.
  • Not reading well-done personality profiles before starting out to write one. People magazine and Sports Illustrated always have numerous profiles in each issue.
  • Not interviewing the person you’re writing about. You can typically learn more about your subject in a face-to-face interview in 30 minutes than you can by reading things others have written for three hours. (Okay, I made up those numbers, but you get my point.) Spend some time learning who the person IS, and then you can better write about what the person DOES.
  • Lack of quotations. Using the words of the subject of the story and those who know the person well can bring the story to life. Aim to incorporate quotations in every three to four paragraphs. They don’t need to be long ones, just ones that punctuate the point you are trying to make.
  • Using the first paragraph or two to recite the subject’s job description. Try leading off with something that might be interesting to the readers instead. You can add in bits and pieces of the job description throughout the story if needed, but please don’t lead with them.
  • Focusing on only one part of the subject’s life. In addition to describing the subject’s connection with the client organization, it’s smart to also sprinkle in some details about outside interests.
  • Making the subject seem superhuman or saccharine. Even if the story is for your internal company newsletter, it’s important to make the subject seem like a real person that others can aspire to becoming like. If you put the subject too high on a pedestal, there’s the danger of creating a persona that is not likable.
  • Failing to use standard news release format. Remember that a personality profile is just a specific type of news release. Datelines, contact information, -MORE-, slugs, end signs and perhaps even boilerplate information are still needed.
  • Neglecting AP Style. See my post on 8 Common Errors for more details on this.

What other tips would you add for creating an effective personality profile?

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Don’t Text in Class . . . And Here’s Why

Text Messaging in Class
As a professor, I'm not ROTFL about cell phones in class

A colleague and I were having a discussion today about cell phone use in class, especially during student presentations. We were of the same mindset that it’s especially rude to be texting while a peer is doing a presentation for a grade. It’s tough enough to be standing up in front of a room full of peers; it’s doubly or triply tough to do it when your peers are (apparently) more interested in a tiny electronic device in their hands than whoever is baring his/her heart and soul by doing a presentation. A great majority of student speakers I have worked with would prefer eye contact and other forms of engagement to the appearance of boredom by the audience. Wouldn’t you?

NOTE: I do have a different view of tweeting in class, if the students are distilling the presentation and sharing soundbites in 140-character segments so that others can also benefit from the presentation. At times, I even encourage tweeting in class.

This reminded me of a blog post I wrote on my Becoming Learner Centered blog a while back. Below is a cross-post of what I wrote in 2008. The sentiment remains the same here in 2010.

Like many educators, I have a short statement in my syllabi stating that I do not want my students to be spending time in class text messaging or surfing the web. But many of my students probably believe this is just because I want them focused on me instead of elsewhere. And that’s partially true.

Why don’t I want them doing other things in class? Read this syllabus excerpt by Professor Cara A. Finnegan. (Cara gave me permission to reproduce her article from her First Efforts blog.)

Technology and the Problem of Divided Attention

In recent years the saturation of cell phones, text messaging, and laptops, combined with the broad availability of wireless in classrooms, has produced something I call the problem of divided attention. A March 25, 2007, article in the New York Times summarized recent studies of productivity in business settings. Researchers found that after responding to email or text messages, it took people more than 15 minutes to re- focus on the “serious mental tasks” they had been performing before the interruption. Other research has shown that when people attempt to perform two tasks at once (e.g., following what’s happening in class while checking text messages), the brain literally cannot do it. The brain has got to give up on one of the tasks in order to effectively accomplish the other. Hidden behind all the hype about multi-tasking, then, is this sad truth: it makes you slower and dumber. For this reason alone you should seek to avoid the problem of divided attention when you are in class. But there’s another reason, too: technology often causes us to lose our senses when it comes to norms of polite behavior and, as a result, perfectly lovely people become unbelievably rude.

For both these reasons, then, turn off your cellphones or set them on silent mode when you come to class; it is rude for our activities to be interrupted by a ringing cellphone. Similarly, text messaging will not be tolerated in class; any student found to be sending or checking text messages during class will be invited (quite publicly) to make a choice either to cease the texting or leave the classroom. You are welcome to bring your laptop to class and use it to take notes, access readings we’re discussing, and the like. You are not welcome to surf the web, check email, or otherwise perform non-class-related activities during class. Here’s my best advice: If you aren’t using it to perform a task specifically related to what we are doing in class at that very moment, put it away.

Thanks, Cara, for explaining why texting in class is not a good idea.

Photo Credit: “Spink!” was originally uploaded to Flickr by apples for lylah

So, what are your thoughts about students texting while other students are giving presentations in class?

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COMM 4363 Final Project Presentations

Photo Credit: The Perfect Software Architect, by Martino Sabia

For your Final Project Presentation in COMM 4363 (Corporate PR), please keep these guidelines in mind. Both the presentation and the final project are due in class on Tuesday, November 16.

In General

  • Share with your class 10 Things People Should Know About [Your Company], based on the research you did for your series of blog posts. Pick and choose the information you find to be most relevant and important to share with your classmates.
  • Dress professionally (business casual at a minimum), just as you would if presenting directly to a client.
  • Follow this basic format (just like you learned in your public speaking class)
    • Introduction (remember to start with an attention getter to lead into your introduction)
    • Body (the 10 Things)
    • Conclusion
  • Please use either PowerPoint or Prezi to augment the spoken part of your presentation, but no Death by PowerPoint. If possible, embed your presentation or presentation slides in your blog.
  • You will use your own computer, not mine. I can help you set it up. (If you have a Mac, bring the appropriate adapter.)
  • Though I love gum and hard candy as much as the next person, avoid them when you are in front of the room.
  • Review my tips on How to NOT Suck as a Guest Speaker; even though this post was about being a guest speaker, not doing a class presentation, many of the guidelines still work well.

Solo Presentation, 5-7 minutes

  • See above

Team Presentation, 17-20 minutes

  • In addition to the 10 Things, also include approximately 10 minutes on an overview of your mini-campaign. Use visuals, as applicable, to back up your points. Be sure to include a section on what you’d do differently if faced with a similar campaign in the future.
  • Each team member must have a speaking role. Practice transitions between speakers, in addition to practicing the content. Also think about where people who are not speaking will be when one of you is presenting. It’s important that the entire team appears engaged during the presentation.

As an Audience Member

  • Treat the speakers with the same level of respect as you would wish for your own presentation.
  • Tweeting during presentations is acceptable. Use the class hashtag of #COMM4363 with any tweets. (Avoid any other use of electronics, please.)
  • Develop a question or two to ask the speakers. I expect to hear at least one question from everyone in the class on the day of presentations.
  • Applaud when the presentations are over.
  • See additional tips on being a good audience member by Cathy Stucker.
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I Voted. Have You?

Thanks to FourSquare, we can see where people have checked in (via the location-based app FourSquare) to vote all around the US. People who checked in by sharing “I voted” or “#Ivoted” even earned a special FourSquare badge.

NOTE: This interactive chart was not designed by me. I am sorry, friends in Alaska, Hawaii and a few other places, that you cannot be seen easily here. You can click on the Zoom Out icon (the minus sign) to see yourself that way.

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Bok Tower Gardens Floral Photo Safari, Halloween 2010

On this gorgeous Halloween Day here in Florida, my husband Kevin, daughter Katharine and I went to Bok Tower Garden in Lake Wales for a short photo safari. Here are some of the photos we took. I used both my Canon PowerShot  SX110IS and my Samsung Epic for the photos, and it’s hard to tell which camera I used for which pic.

Which flower is your favorite?

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10 Ways NOT to Prepare for College Advising

Image Credit: "Twenty Questions" by Laura Billings

One spring, I had the honor and pleasure of advising undergraduate students who are in their first or second years of college. Though several of them came to their fifteen-minute advising appointment extremely well prepared, most did not.

Below, you will find a list of ten things NOT to do when you are being advised.

  1. Don’t show up. That’s right, several students were no shows for their appointments. (That wasn’t really a surprise, but it was disappointing.)
  2. Come in and say, “Okay, tell me what I need to take next semester.” Whatever happened to being responsible for your own learning? Check out your four-year plan to see what courses are typically taken and in what order.
  3. Make excuse after excuse why you have withdrawn from class after class — and still expect that a professor might give you an override to get into a full class. Yes, there are definitely some reasons to withdraw from classes, but when it becomes a habit, it begins to reflect poorly on your ability to manage your schedule. For every class from which you withdraw, there probably was another student who wanted to get in before the semester started, but could not because the class was full.
  4. Spend more time looking for ways to avoid taking your core classes than actually taking the classes. Everyone in the university needs to take a core of similar classes. Even you. And don’t expect that your advisor will tell you “which ones are the easy ones.”
  5. Don’t look in the college catalog to see what will be required for your major; expect your advisor to know all the details off the top of his or her head. It surprised me that several students “knew” they wanted to major in a certain subject, but did not have any idea what courses would be required for the major, or that a certain GPA was required.
  6. Don’t check out the online registration service from your college to see when your earliest registration date and time are. Find out when your registration time is, and make your advising appointment before this time, so that you can register at the earliest possible moment. Many classes fill quickly, and the earlier you can register, the more likely you can get in.
  7. Expect your advisor to be able to counsel you on which major you should choose AND help you choose classes for next semester, all during your allotted 15 minutes. Choosing a major is an important, perhaps life-changing, decision. Make an appointment with a professor or advisor in the majors you are interested in far ahead of the advisement period.
  8. Give your advisor a blank stare when he or she asks you, “So what steps are you taking to bring up your grade point average?” As the old saying goes, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” Many majors have minimum GPAs required for admittance to their programs; make a plan to exceed that minimum by as much as you can. Utilize the many services your university has to offer for study skills, tutoring, etc.
  9. Respond to text messages while your advisor is talking. Come on, the appointment is only 15 minutes. Couldn’t that wait? And if it couldn’t, would it be so hard to say, “Please excuse me for just a moment. There’s something urgent I need to do”?
  10. Leave your iPod earbuds in your ears so you can continue to listen to your music (and use your pencil and pen as drumsticks on the desk) while the appointment is going on. Seriously. As a 20-year career educator and parent of four, I don’t shock easily, but the rudeness of this took me aback. And it happened not once, but twice, with two different students. At least neither of them hesitated at complying when I asked them to focus on our meeting rather than their iPods.

Now, it probably sounds like I don’t ever want to advise students again. Not quite. . .

During my “dream appointment,” and I did have one of these, this is what happened:

A young woman walked up to me confidently, put out her hand to shake mine, and said, “Good morning, my name is Katey. Thanks for meeting with me today.” She and I walked back to my office, chatting about where she is from and why she chose her major. Katey sat down, reached into her backpack, and took out her planner. She turned to a page where she had marked up the core requirements sheet with classes she’d already taken and highlighted those she was considering for the next semester. Katey turned serious when she noted, “I know I need to take the second English class in the series, but I looked online, and the classes are already full.” Hmmm. This was intriguing! She had done some significant preparation for this meeting. We worked together to come up with an alternate plan that took into account what to do when Plan A wasn’t going to work. We looked ahead to required courses to her major and selected two that are prerequisites for many other courses. We briefly discussed how she could get involved on one or two campus organizations related to her major. And the whole meeting took less than ten minutes.

If only there were more Kateys! Maybe there can be if students can know what to expect of the advising appointment.

For another “what NOT to do,” see How to Fail a Class Without Really Trying.

What tips would you offer to help a college student have a successful advising appointment?

[Adapted from my Listening Matters blog, March 2008]

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8 Common Errors in News Releases

Photo Credit: Untitled, by PotatoJunkie

After reviewing all the first news releases in PRCA 3330 & COMM 4333, I am generally pleased with what I saw, considering it is the first news release that many of you have written. The best stories were ones that passed the “So What?” test; they were newsworthy to those outside your client’s organization. They were well organized and clearly written. You must have remembered what you learned in your Intro to Journalism class!

Here are some common errors I saw:

  1. Using “we” or “our” when it’s not part of a quotation (a news release needs to sound like a story one would read in an impartial newspaper, not in a company newsletter). News releases need to be written in third person, not first.
  2. Improper use of commas (either too many or not enough)
  3. Puffery (making statements in the news release that don’t seem newsworthy. Some of these would be okay as part of a quotation, however.)
  4. Calling women “girls” or “ladies” (even though it’s common in sororities to do this, AP Style calls for the use of the word “women” when you are writing about female adults)
  5. Abbreviating the word Georgia as GA (rather than Ga.) or Florida as FL (rather than Fla.).
  6. Improper formatting on dates, times, numerals, etc.
  7. Format (forgetting to put an embargo date or For Immediate Release, end sign, page slugs, letterhead with mailing address, etc.). Check BlackBoard or GeorgiaVIEW for the template I provided to you; this will help with basic formatting.
  8. Including a headline that is not compelling. Your headline should be active and entice the reader to dive right into your story, not bore him or her to sleep.

Be sure to avoid these errors when writing future news releases. And you might want a quick refresher of how to flag your AP Stylebook for easy reference, if you haven’t flagged it yet. It’s a real time-saver; I promise. I’ve been using AP Style for all of my adult life, and I still need to look some things up.