Winter Term 2010

This blog is currently Thank you for your patience!
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“Ladies fair, I bring to you
lavender with spikes of blue;
sweeter plant was never found
growing on our English ground.”
-Caryl Battersby

I really don’t know anything about lavender.

I considered growing some a few months back, but like any sun-loving plant it would be doomed to an unfulfilled life of shade on my patio. That’s why I considered myself fortunate to be visiting near Portland this weekend during the Yamhill Lavender Festival.

Tucked behind miles of rolling Oregon farm acreage, the festival has drawn both locals and enthusiasts to celebrate the distinct beauty, aroma and taste of lavender since ...

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Oregon is a rough place to live if you don’t like wet and dreary winters––which I think could account for just about everyone. The high point of the miserably unpredictable weather however, is the soft malleable land which creates one hell of a mess, but saves you from one expensive doctor visit to see why your back looks like the end of a drunken game of Jenga. Like most people, I too enjoy a little bit of the indoor lifestyle which a Northwest winter delivers, though it’s never long before I start itching, and driving myself nuts to get outside. This ...

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In the last three months, University of Oregon athletes reached out to the surrounding communities and connected with local schools for their non-profit organization called O Heroes. The players put their competitiveness aside in order to help with fundraising events and volunteer at various elementary schools.

In January of this year the athletes participated in a fundraiser called Dance Marathon, in which they danced for 12 hours to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network. The fundraiser was a campus-wide event and proceeds went to the children and infants unit at Sacred Heart Hospital.

The “Polar Plunge” was another fundraising event ...

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I came across an article that discussed the efforts the Portland Trail Blazers are making to help raise money that goes towards aiding Australia. The country was affected by massive floods and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. Patty Mills, currently a player for the Blazers, is from Australia which is why he decided to get together with his team to start a fundraiser and raise awareness of the devastating event.

Mills has been involved in many events to support the fundraiser such as going to various businesses across Portland to take pictures with fans and sign autographs. He also ...

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I came across a blog by Mike Tokito and other numerous articles about the Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra gaining a large amount of negative publicity because the team isn’t doing as well as it has been in its previous seasons.

The media seems to highly criticize Spoelstra as if he is the only one to blame for the losses. Aren’t the players the individuals that are supposed to win the game? The coach can only do so much, such as think of a few plays, so the rest is up to the players to implement the tactics to win the ...

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In April 2010 I helped with a fundraising event that was partially sponsored by Pacificorp, which is a power company with one office located in Portland. The event helped raise money for the organization called Junior Achievement.

The event took place at a bowling alley called Hollywood Bowl, located in Portland, where numerous companies bowled and donated money. Each company had a specified time slot in which they were to bowl and bring their donations. For Pacificorp, at the end of the bowling event, various awards were given out to bowling participants.

Some of my duties in the event included checking ...

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I read this interesting blog post by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund that provides eight steps to take when dealing with a social media crisis.The internet can be tricky so when a crisis arises, it’s good to know the correct actions to take in order to diffuse the situation.

The eight steps include:

Recognize the issue. The website where the crisis took place should be where the company responds. Take responsibility. Create a FAQ sheet. Create a discussion forum or place for people to comment. Communicate with concerned individuals offline. Inform your team. Learn from your mistakes.

Each of these ...

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One of my career interests is non-profit public relations and reading a blog post by a woman named Windy Hovey, allowed me to gain some insight on what nonprofit PR involves.

It is useful to read experiences from people who were once in a similar position as I am right now, a soon-to-be college graduate seeking an opportunity to work in the PR field. One of the things Hovey mentions in her post are the relationships you build with people in order to gain more support for the organization in which you are working for. She emphasizes the importance of those ...

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In order to prepare myself for a future public relations career, I have been reading lists of tips from PR professionals about how to be successful and obtaining knowledge from my college courses. So far I gained a good amount of insight and a little bit of practice in generating public relations campaigns. Being a rookie, I can always use more tips and advice so it was helpful to come across a blog post by Ford Kanzler that gives tips about how to be successful when creating a public relations campaign.

Problems are always going arise in the process of building ...

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A blog post, created by Adam Vincenzini, breaks down the concept of a social media campaign and describes how the concept doesn’t exist.

Being new to the social media world, I wouldn’t have known that the concept doesn’t make any sense. Vincenzini takes the concept a part and breaks down the definition of social media and the definition of a campaign. Once he explains the two separately, I can understand why it doesn’t make sense to put the two concepts together.

This information is good to know when going out into the public relations world because social media is increased in ...

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I read this list created by Katherine Young of top 6 tips that a future intern should know when going for interview whether the interview is for an internship or a position at a company. The list is very useful and good to keep in mind when going out into the real world. The list was written as follows:

1. Do your homework

The author states that you should read about the company and the clients the company has worked with so you have knowledge about what you’re getting yourself into.

2. Stay focused

In my experience going to a ...

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Mark Schaefer, the author of the post, lists four ways in which to have success on Twitter and get the most out of tweeting.

The first tip Schaefer lists deals with quality over quantity. He talks about how it’s better to have good quality tweets rather than tweeting on a schedule.

I just recently signed up for a Twitter account and I would agree tweeting on a schedule can get excessive. In my opinion, agreeing with Schaefer, it is better to tweet about something interesting that grabs the reader’s attention, rather than frequently tweet just to be noticed. The few ...

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I’ve been an absolute pile about posting the newest developments and ideas for this upcoming season; for that I apologize. This past summer has been a real learning experience as the spring one upped the winter months with so much rain. As it sounds like I am complaining, I’m not. Mentioned in my previous post, Cherry. Roma. Whatever You Got, although the rain had some dramatic effect on the growing habits of the tomatoes, they were far from sparse.

A good friend and fellow gardner, Jesse Wilson, was kind enough to stop by a few times a week throughout the spring ...

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I have a great interest and passion for public relations that has developed over the course of two years. Marketing was my first choice as a degree when I started college, but once I noticed a natural ability and talent for writing, public relations came into the picture.

This past year I started learning about the various aspects of public relations and the various careers that incorporate the field. Once I combined my extracurricular activities, such as sports, with public relations, I found myself working toward a career as a public relations representative for the NBA. At the same time, I ...

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here is a list of the top 10 check-ins Black Friday received. This information was found on adage.com. It talked about how most of the time consumers do not brag on where they went shopping, but on black friday it was totally different. For me, I went to 2 malls and old navy. I waited in line at 10:30 pm outside Old Navy on thanksgiving day and shopped until 2am. Then on black friday i went to about 8 stores at Stanford Shopping Center then I headed over to Hillsdale Mall and finished at 6pm. I can proudly say that all ...

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After occupying the dining room table for the better part of the winter as well as the spring with plant starts, we’re finally reaping the benefits. Oregon’s late spring had many gardeners wondering if their tomatoes had even a chance of making it this year, and with a majority of Roma tomatoes still green as we enter October, some people are ready to throw in the towel. Luckily, there are infinite amounts of recipes, and options for those green tomatoes in the garden, one of my favorites being a southern style green tomato pie. Unfortunately for our garden however, the tomatoes ...

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The summer is in full swing and and the neighborhood is eating like kings at last. The lettuce gives a great salad with dinner every night and with the great tomato starts my roommate Martin got going early this spring, I think we should be getting a wide variety of good fruit soon. I have not seen a huge move from the basil yet, but I’m hoping to try some new pesto recipes this season.

I was fortunate enough to get a few hop starts from awesome neighbor and friend David Stucky, but I think I may have waited too ...

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Connecting with an audience isn’t easy. With posters, it takes the right combination of words and visuals to make an effective message. For this, I decided to try and find a decent picture that related well to our topic of student debt. What I found was somewhat comical, but also had a deeper message: A graduation cap on a pile of money. I felt that it was a perfect representation of what education had become to so many people because of debt. One thing that I discovered that was interesting was this effect that I could do to the edges of ...

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I am very happy with the composition of the photograph I used for my poster design. I took the photograph myself on Wednesday afternoon with the help of my roomate, who is a skateboarder and is very intersted in the Washington-Jefferson skatepark. She was a very willing model. Her posture positions in photographs I took were very natural, I hardly had to direct her–she just stood there with her board and we chatted about the park plans. In addition, she was wearing the clothes and shoes she normally wears, so the photographs feel very candid and genuine.

Fortunately, it was a ...

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Gateway 3 Poster

Hate speech is an issue experienced on many college campuses across the United States, but with the colors of the “hate” words, my poster is aimed towards the University of Oregon campus. The green and yellow words represent the university and the word “hate” written numerous times represents the hate speech occurring on campus. “Let Oregon rain. Wash away the hate” is a slogan that goes along with the water trickling down and washing away the hate words because action needs to take place in order to prevent hate words and hate crimes on the UO campus. Free ...

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MaikoAndo_poster_final

Here’s my poster assignment.

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My poster, representing my group topic of how two wars affect the city of Eugene, was carefully crafted and designed to target a specific audience. The target audience in this piece is the general public, but more specifically the public that is unaware of our United States heroes. Anyone can watch the television news or read a newspaper to receive information, but it takes a lot more to make a person really care about an issue. My poster is designed to do just that.

Using a strong, bold black background, I choose a silhouette of a soldier, also in black, standing ...

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