Semester's end

The semester is done, and this blog is on hiatus. But here's one last shot of the PR 191 crew, taken on the last day of class.

Final thoughts on PR 191

PR 191 opened my eyes on new topic. I did not pay attention to blog from before. Following a blog during the semester was challenging and made me realize that this is the new trend in business. Blogging is becoming more important than ever, even businesses use it to polish their company’s image like in “Sun” case.

But, the problem resides in who is behind the blog? Who is writing the blog?
We saw in Walmart case that Walmart hired secretly people to start blogging in its favor. Blogging can confront unethical problem.

Overall PR 191 was a challenging class, looking back, I feel that I learnt a lot of valuable information whether in doing position paper, annual report, a direct mail package or blogging.

Again Moore in Trouble

Treasury Department is investigating Micheal Moore, the Academy Award-Winning filmmaker’s trip to Cuba for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.
Moore, took along with him about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, and to help him in his upcoming health-care documentary “Sicko.”
After receiving the letter, the first thing Moore did is to place his documentary “Sicko” in a safe place outside the country so the government won’t get hold of it before the scheduled airing on May 19 in Cannes Film Festival.
What kind of surprise Moore has for the world now? We shall know soon.
Read more

Sarkozy For a Change

Finally, the French people said their word. They elected Sarkozy hoping for some serious interior reformation in the country.
Sarkozy, son of Hungarian immigrant promised to lower the unemployment rate and to be tough on crime and control immigration.
Sarkozy announced after his election, his support to USA even though some opinions may contradict.
Will the American – French relations witness closer ties than ever?
Days to come will decide.

Germany Galcier Is Melting

According to ZUGSPITZE, Germany (Reuters), the glacier is melting despite the Herculean efforts to save it.
Frank Huber, the manager of cable car and skiing operations on the 2,962-meter peak in the northern Alps is very sad that the glacier is melting and he can’t do anything for it.
He regrets that his children may not see it and enjoyed it as he did when he was little boy.
Scientists blame it on global warming and on the change in the climate.
What do you think? Should the weather be blamed for the melting glacier?

More on PR analysis

Many thanks to Carol Welsh of Cisco Systems for coming in to our class this week to talk about PR assessment and analysis.

A student in Rob Barlow's section of PR 191 asked Welsh to recommend a book on public relations analysis. She wrote:

"I did some digging and have found Don Stacks' book. It was published in 2002, but the concepts are very current. Also below are some of the 'professional' reviews of the book, courtesy of Amazon."

Primer of Public Relations Research
by Don W. Stacks (2002)

"This book will undoubtedly make a major contribution to public relations research education. Its clarity and breadth of scope make it equally appropriate for undergraduates preparing to enter the job market, graduate students in master's or doctoral programs, and working professionals seeking greater research application ability. Unusually well written and easy to understand, the book serves the multiple knowledge needs that we confront in public relations education."--Melvin L. Sharpe, College of Communication, Information, and Media, Ball State University

"Many public relations practitioners avoid using research in their day-to-day work. There are several excuses: good research takes time and money; some practitioners want to avoid accountability for what they do and how they do it; and the way many of us learned research methods in college made the subject seem boring, difficult, and tedious. In this book, Don Stacks shoots down nearly every excuse for not using research, showing how it can be accessible, affordable, and even fun. In his usual engaging style, Stacks gives practitioners a better understanding of what research is and how it can help them."--John W. Felton, President and CEO, Institute for Public Relations

It sounds like an excellent resource.

Wal-Mart did it again

Wal-Mart cut down the price of a top brand name—the 42-in. Panasonic high-definition TV—by $500, to $1,294. Wal-Mart’s low prices policy has caused many electronic stores to suffer. In fact, Circuit City after closing down 70 stores, they laid off 3,400 employees and put its 800 Canadian stores on the block on March 28. ff 3,400 employees and put its 800 Canadian stores on the block. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group is closing 49 of its 153 stores and dismissed 650 workers and Dallas-based CompUSA is closing 126 of its 229 stores.
Is it good PR for Wal-Mart? Of course, it is. But, how about the other businesses?
I believe that Wal-Mart is giving other businesses more causes to hate the giant retailers and to seek its destruction.
What do you think?

Read More

One person, one ticket

Beijing Olympic tickets went on sale in the Chinese capital on the basis of one ticket per person.
"Limiting tickets to one per person is a problem for sure, but there are just too many of us Chinese," said Wang Wei, secretary general of the Beijing Organising Committee.
"We've taken this policy to ensure many more people can watch the games." he added.
More than 7 million tickets will be available to the public, 75% of the tickets will be reserved for the Chinese people.
Tickets will be sold via the internet and at 1,000 branches of the Bank of China.
Officials are hoping to make $140m from tickets sales.
The Olympic Games will begin on 8 August 2008.

Imus- A PR Crisis

Imus created an uproar last week when he called the women's Rutgers basketball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hos". It created a mini crisis management situation for Imus, CBS and MSNBC.

A variety of groups wanted Imus to be fired for his racist comments. Their wish came true http://news.aol.com/entertainment/articles/_a/cbs-fires-don-imus-from-radio-show/20070411183809990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001. In an attempt to deal with the situation, MSNBC dropped his show and his sponsors canceled their contracts with him soon after. Imus was put on probation and it was just released today that CBS has decided to fire Imus.

CBS took action in a timely and efficient manner which is part of dealing with a crisis. Although Imus may not hear the end of it, CBS appears to be in the clear.

Moneyball

This article was not on my blog but I found it so interesting I want to share it. It discusses a self titled theory "money ball theory," this theory examines flawed decisions based on perceptions and image. The author discusses the old Oakland A's recruiter, Billy Beane and his technique to recruit players who didn't fit the perfect player prototype. He was able to get great players at a lower cost because they had been overlooked by other scouts only interested in close to prefect players.

The author apples this bias to the PR industry and hiring process. "PR is just as flawed and narrows the hiring to a limited personality type." He discusses how not very long ago there was no PR students and therefore the job was completed by many other fields. The author questions how good PR can be when it is only conducted by a certain type of trained student.

Wrapping text in InDesign

In our last class on InDesign, a couple of you asked about wrapping text around a photo or graphic. This tutorial on Layers Magazine, called "Making Wraps Sing," explains it all to you.

Layers has more than 150 tutorials, including 10 tutorials on working with InDesign. Here's a link to the magazine's main directory page of tutorials: http://www.layersmagazine.com/category/tutorials/

NO WAY OUT

It is heartbreaking to know that we,the American people are aware of the wrong decisions our government is making.
However, we feel handcuffed and immobilized. Our objections and demonstrations are not paying back.
I came over this video on youtube. I couldn’t but share it with you. Please click here.

It is sad but true.


Enjoy it................

What Are You Doing?

There is a new site out there for people to join and share with others what they are doing. It is a newly created site that people around the world are joining. They are aligning themselves with this website for one purpose--to tell people what they are doing. It is called Twitter and is all about telling others what you are doing. The main page shows the latest entries with very few links on the page. Clearly the site is still a work in progress because aside from about five links, 10 people listing what they are doing, and a sign up for Twitter, there isn't much else on the page.

Twitter, although probably attempting to be the next best thing in On Line entertainment, seems to be a little lack luster in that it doesn't give me reason to care about what the other people on Twitter are doing. The whole point of the site is to share what you are doing with others, but why? The purpose makes sense, but in order to draw any more of my attention the site must first tell me this--who really cares?

A new controversy is created

A new article has been written by well-known Reverend R. Albert Mohler Jr. The article states that there may be a biological reason for homosexuality http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/furor-over-baptists-gay-baby-article/20070315023809990001?cid=2359. Mohler goes on to state that in the future there may be technology that allows parents to find out if their unborn baby will be born homosexual or heterosexual and have the ability to change it. This statement has caused an enormous amount of outrage with different groups.

Some people are saying that he is "willing to play God" and that he is "letting homophobia take him over". His response to all of this is that he just wanted to start a conversation among people.

It is unclear at this time if this article will be damaging to his career or if it will strengthen his following in the Christian community. However, at the moment he has stayed quiet. He has not apologized for the article. Instead he has only questioned whether people actually understood what he was saying or not. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out in the next couple of days.

CRM is replacing public relations or what?

Did you know that Cause-Related Marketing or CRM serves as public relations. CRM generates lot of publicity and media towards a firm. CRM benefits the organiztion in many ways:

-Increased sales
-Increased visibility
-Increased customer loyalty
-Enhanced company image
-Positive media coverage

Cause-Related Marketing is when a well- known company teams up with a non-profit organization to generate money for it through the company products.
An example of a successful CRM is the one Lee company created. Lee company teamed up with The Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer research. Through a good marketing, Lee launched Lee National Denim Day to fund the breast cancer association.........


Read more about Lee's campaign on Lee website

Change of schedule

The guest speaker originally scheduled for tomorrow can't make it, so I'll be rescheduling her...probably after spring break. I'll keep you posted.

Instead, tomorrow we'll cover Media Interview Prep, originally scheduled for April 23, and have an in-class exercise.

How To Be A Good Guest

I found those tips on how to be a good guest, on the PR blog that I am following and I want to share them with the class. Here are the tips:

-Always mention your company at least 3 times in a 15 minute interview.
Most Producers know and understand that’s why you’re on their broadcast in the first place. Most will never bring it up so you have to be a “used car salesman” and mention it.

-Be yourself!
Don’t try to be Rush Limbaugh or any radio announcer….it sounds phony and most
Producers can see it coming a mile away.

-Be concise
Summarize your main point in a crisp 3 minutes. That’s how long you will get when you’re on a TV program or a radio broadcast.

-Think before you speak
Speak slowly; I didn’t say dead. Speak like you talk and think before you speak.

-Offer your help
Offer the Editor or Producer help in ways to write or how to cover your story.
Don’t be pushy, but you can offer valuable insight into possible angles for the story.

-Always say thank you
Too many times a guest leaves without thanking the crew, the hosts, the producer.

Pictures from the past haunt new "idol"

Antonella Barba is one of the hopefuls on this season of American Idol. On friday, pictures were released on the web of her and four other girls posing topless on the beach http://news.aol.com/entertainment/tv/articles/_a/racy-internet-photos-linked-to-idol/20070224123809990001. The girls were covering their chests with their hands and two other girls were engaging in sexual acts.

The publicist for the show decided to remain quiet about the incident rather than making a statement. They are also making sure that the contestants unavailable for comment to ensure that nothing is said about the pictures. The tactic that they are using is somewhat surprising. I thought they would at least put out some kind of statement acknowledging the incident. By not saying anything, it is almost as if the show's publicist is hoping the pictures go away by themselves.

It is unclear at this time whether the incident will affect her chances in the competition.

Cisco-Apple settled at last......

The two Silicon Valley tech giants Cisco and Apple have settled their dispute over the "IPone" name after six weeks of legal battle.
According to Gene Munster, senior research analyst with investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co, Apple might have paid Cisco between $25 million and $50 million for rights to the name.
However, both company are not talking much about the deal but some are talking about possible partnership between the two tech giants in the near future.
Analysts said the deal was likely a longer-term strategy by both companies to reinforce their competitive positions in the fight to deliver digital content -- particularly video -- directly into consumers' homes.
The settelment gave the right for both companies to use the name "IPhone."

Time for a change

A new book has been published called In Women We Trust. The book talks about how women are treated in areas that society thinks men may know more about i.e. cars, electronics and tools. Women tend to be ignored in stores while the men get help immediately. If the corporate businesses catered both to women and men in their ads, their sales might go up dramatically.

The http://ringblog.typepad.com/corporatepr/ website takes out excerpts from the book showing how much women influence the buying decision in certain categories. It may be more than businesses think.


They are missing a large opportunity for sales and if they do not change their marketing and advertising soon to include women, they may end up losing everything in the end. Men are not the only one making decisions in the households anymore. They can no longer underestimate the power of women.