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Becoming Social

As the semester progresses in both PR Publications and Introduction to PR, we’ll be investigating many different forms of social media. I will demo the sites for you in class, and then you will have the opportunity to explore the service providers.

The Conversation Prism, by Brian Solis

 

To get started, sign up for free accounts at the following sites. For quick and concise explanations of each of the services, see Common Craft’s “In Plain English” series.

A couple of notes:

  • If you already have an account at one of the sites, there’s no need to obtain another one just for this class.
  • If possible, use the same username for all the sites. I tend to use my real name as my username; if you are uncomfortable using your real name, feel free to use a professional-sounding username of your choice.
  • Avoid using numbers along with your name for your username; that’s often a tactic that spammers use.

Please be sure to sign up for all the accounts by January 21.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/2735401175/ (Note: A full summary is available on PR 2.0)

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A Cannibal is a “People Person,” Too

Bleeding Hearts!! by Sabby3000.As Spring semester is drawing near, I am preparing to teach Introduction to Public Relations for the first time in several years. One of the things we’ll do during the first week is discuss why the students chose PR as a major.

I ran across this info in a blog post by John King at East Tennessee State University, and I laughed out loud. King has heard his students give these reasons for liking PR:

“I’m a people person.” 
“I like people.” 
“I really like people.” 
“I really, really like people.” 
“I really, really, really like people.”

To these students, King replies:

“Well, so do cannibals!  They like them baked, half-baked, fried, deep-fried, even shishkabobbed and sushied (is that a word?).” 

“But, can you write?  Can you do research?  Can you write a speech?  Can you design a brochure, newsletter, web page or other persuasive publication?  Do you have a nice balance of creativity and analytical skills (right brain and left brain functions)?  Are you persuasive?  Are you willing to learn some management skills?  Are you a team-player?  Can you learn AP style? Can you meet deadlines?  Can you juggle 17 projects at once?  Do you understand media culture?” 

“Oh, and do you like people?”

Well said, Dr. King, well said!

barbara_is_listening

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/93014914@N00/495608405/

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Getting Ready for Spring 2009 PRCA 2330

A hearty welcome to all my new students who have enrolled in PRCA 2330: Introduction to Public Relations, at Georgia Southern University.

Textbook(s)

Wilcox, D.L., & Cameron, G.T. (2009). Public relations: Strategies and tactics (9th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

  • Purchasing the hardcover book is about $90 at Amazon.com, 
  • You can rent the hardcover book for about $50 from Chegg. 
  • Or you can rent an electronic version of the book  from  CourseSmart for about $60.

Recommended but not required: Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Forrester Research, Inc.

Social Media

Be prepared to immerse yourself in social media as part of Intro to PR. If you want to get a jumpstart before classes begin, you might want to do the following:

  • Sign up for an account at Twitter. (What’s Twitter?) Use some variation of your real first and/or last name. (Do not include any numbers with your name, or you may risk appearing like a spammer.) Follow me at Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/barbaranixon .
  • Join PR OpenMic, an online community for public relations students, practitioners and faculty.

Additional Items

  • Pack of multi-color markers (you will need these on the first day)
  • USB drive 
  • Occasional use of a notebook computer in class

Syllabus

And last but not least, here’s a copy of your syllabus for the semester. By the end of the first week of class, you’ll also have our daily schedule of activities. You can view the syllabus online below or download it for easy printing atprca-2330-spring-2009.

PRCA 2330 Spring 2009 Syllabus          

View SlideShare document or Upload your own. (tags: relations public)
Questions?
barbara_is_listening
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Pleasantries on Twitter?

In my (almost) year using Twitter, I’ve noticed that some people greet people with a “good morning” as they start their days, and others end their days with some version of “good night.” That led me to wonder how often–if at all–you exchange these types of pleasantries as you start and end your days on Twitter. Please take a moment and take this quick and unscientific poll.

I also welcome your comments on why you do or do not say “good morning” or “good night.”

 

 

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Choosing Whom to Follow on Twitter: My Strategy

twitt-twitt1When I first started using Twitter about a year ago, I would follow anyone who first followed me. As Twitter has grown, I have realized that I need to be more discerning so that I don’t get overwhelmed. Here’s a brief description of my thought process.

I tend to automatically follow:

  • people I’ve met in real life
  • students of mine at Georgia Southern University
  • PR students & faculty from other universities
  • people who live in the Savannah or Statesboro (GA) areas

I’ll visit my Followers page and hover my mouse over a name. If there’s no real name or any bio at all, I usually don’t look further. I’ll read a bio if it’s there. If in your bio you’re promising me things that I’d hear in a late-night infomercial, it’s unlikely I’ll follow you. Things in a bio that may intrigue me include:

  • public relations or social media
  • photography
  • Auburn University
  • Presbyterian
  • NASCAR
  • autism or Asperger’s syndrome

Though it’s not hypercritical, I prefer engaging in conversations on Twitter with people who use their real photos. It’s nice to have a name and a face together.

If I make it as far as looking at your most recent tweets:

  • Is there a mix of original comments, @replies,  retweets and links? (If all the tweets are of one type, I usually don’t follow.)
  • Do I see @replies to people I know?
  • Do I think I’ll learn something from you?
  • Are many of your tweets of a positive nature (not whiny)?
  • Do you make me laugh?

If I haven’t followed you, and you would like me to, it’s generally a good idea to send me an @barbaranixon so that I know you’re interested in engaging in conversation with me. And if it seems like I’ve been talking in a foreign language here, take a look at A Twitter Lexicon.

So, what’s your strategy? How do you decide whom to follow?

barbara_is_listening

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nereski/2889953926/

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TMI: 7 Things You Don’t Really Need to Know About Me

Last week, Lauren Vargas tagged me in a meme going around Twitter, where people are asked to share seven things that people probably don’t know about them. She shared her zany list, so now here’s my mine: 

  1. Though I consider myself a bit of a techy now, when my husband bought a computer with a 20MB hard drive in the mid-’80s, I thought he was crazy. What on earth would we ever do with all that storage? (My latest purchase for our home office was a 1TB MyBook external hard drive. We figured out what to do with all that storage.)
  2. I’m kind of a foodie. I worked as a chef at Club Med in Copper Mountain, CO, for a winter season in the early ’80s. (I also was a cook at Dr. Johnson’s Camp in Maine and a pizza wench at Domino’s Pizza.) I also edited four community cookbooks and wrote (and self-published) two of my own.
  3. It’s still “tin foil” to me. You’ll almost never hear me call it “aluminum foil.”
  4. When I was in high school in Atlanta, I found a tattered copy of The Fountainhead on a MARTA bus seat. Reading that book helped me to crystallize my political point of view.
  5. Timothy Leary held a meeting with the press after a speech at Georgia Tech. Since I had a press pass from my high school newspaper, I was able to go backstage and meet him. We sat in a circle on the floor, pretzel-legs style. I sat next to him. He had on white athletic socks. One of the socks was inside out.
  6. Just like the mom in Dexter’s Laboratory, I can’t bear to wash dishes or even load the dishwasher without wearing gloves. (I am not a mysophobe; I’m just a little vain about my nails.) 
  7. Between my hubby and me, over the last 25 or so years, we’ve owned 10 Fords:
  • ’66 Mustang coupe (bought as a present for my hubby when he returned from Operation Desert Shield/Storm – we still have this one)
  • ’74 Mustang II
  • ’74 F150
  • ’90 Explorer
  • ’92 Tempo (shhh, don’t tell anyone about this one)
  • ’96 Windstar
  • ’98 Expedition
  • ’00 Windstar
  • ’02 Expedition
  • ’06 Mustang convertible (this is what I drive now)
So, that was a list of seven things you probably didn’t need to know about me.  Now, it’s your turn. Here are seven people who I’d like to learn seven more things about:
  1. Urkovia Andrews @uandrews
  2. Kathy Lovin @lovinkat
  3. Marc Pitman @marcapitman
  4. Rodd Lucier @thecleversheep
  5. Todd Sanders @tsand
  6. Jim Bonewald @jbonewald
  7. Thomas Clifford @thomasclifford
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PRCA 3339 Newsletters in Review

The final project in PRCA 3339 (PR Publications) was a four-page newsletter for a non-profit organization, accompanied by a paper. The newsletter itself was worth 50% of the grade, with the paper worth the remaining 50%. A rubric was provided so that students could know exactly how the assignment would be graded. Though many students produced stellar newsletters, there were some common errors.

Common Errors in the Paper

  • Not including all the elements required
  • Having one-sentence descriptions for the sections
  • Not including how your newsletter will help the organization achieve its goals
  • Design Principles: When describing the four design principles of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity, leaving out one or more of the principles, and often providing no specific example of where I should look in the newsletter for application of the principle.
  • Costs: Not including the vendor. Not including a total for one run of the newsletter.
  • Publication Schedule: Being vague with your descriptions of what it takes to put one newsletter together, complete with dates. This section should contain all the deadlines (internal and external) another person would need to complete a newsletter like this. For example, when do you need to determine what the articles will be? Assign writers? Take photos? You get the picture, right?
  • Editorial Calendar: This is quite different from the publication schedule. In this section, I was expecting to see what the themes are for each issue for a year, along with when the issue will be produced. If the May issue is dedicated to graduation, then when do you need articles/photos on this topic?
  • Distribution Method: Most people did fine in this section.
  • Skills & Knowledge: Not being specific. Saying “I learned how hard it is to put together a newsletter” does not describe what you learned.

Common Errors/Problems in the Newsletter

  • Leaving out required elements (like the pull quote and masthead)
  • Having a mailing panel that does not conform to USPS regulations
  • Not using all available lab time to create the newsletter. When you create the newsletter on your own with the free download trial of Adobe InDesign or use the computers in the library, you don’t have the benefit of having others around you to help troubleshoot when you can’t figure something out.
  • Using too many fonts. Aim for two to four fonts, max. More than that, and it will look like a scrapbook page rather than a newsletter.
  • Headline and body text fonts too close in size.
  • Body text font too large
  • Pixellated photos and clipart
  • Photos and clipart that are stretched or squished (not proportional)
  • Color combinations that were hard to read (for example, red text on a green background)
  • Not using InDesign’s built in feature that allows you to flow text from one text box to another, complete with jumplines and continuation heads.
  • Not using InDesign’s built-in feature that helps you align elements on the page
  • Putting a pull quote or image in the middle of a block of text, then having the text wrap around it. Okay to do if you are using columns, but very hard to read when it’s smack-dab in the center, and text from one line is on the left and right of the image.
  • Not allowing enough white space between text and borders
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Deep Breath In . . . Long Exhale Out

Exhale by Photochiel.Since it hasn’t been so long since I was a student myself, I can definitely relate to the stress involved during finals week. My best advice? Not “take a deep breath.” It’s exhale.

According to the International Breath Institute, “‘Take a deep breath’ can [actually] be very bad advice to someone who is feeling anxious or is agitated.” To balance your CO2 levels, inhale, then make your exhale last twice as long. You’ll definitely feel a difference.

I keep a framed kanji of the word “exhale” on my wall. When I’m feeling out of sorts, a quick glance at the kanji reminds me to do what’s best for me, to exhale.

In closing, here’s a wonderful quote by Koichi Tohei: “Breathe out so your breath travels to heaven.” Keep this in mind the next time you are feeling stressed.

Exhale.

Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/photochiel/2672476712/

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Key Learnings for Corporate PR Fall 2008

Bendable Pirate CharactersAs our fall semester is winding down in my Corporate PR class at Georgia Southern University, we had a fun way to wrap up the key learnings.

Each student chose a small character (ninja, pirate or rubber ducky) from a basket and named the character. Then they each came up with a word or phrase that started with each letter in the name. (Full directions to the assignment are at my Becoming Learner Centered blog.)

A few volunteers came to the front of the class and presented their key learnings to us by showing their list and character on the document projector.

You’ll see what the key learnings for my students were as comments to this blog post. By having them create their own mnemonics in class today, I’m hopeful that they’ll remember many of the key points of this class long after it is over.