PRos in Training

Author: Kelli Matthews

  • Fresh Picked Jobs & Internships


    PR Coordinator, Washington Park Zoo (Seattle, Wash.): Entry level job at the zoo in Seattle. How cool is that?

    Public Relations Assistant, Amazon.com (Seattle, Wash.): Another interesting entry level job in the Emerald City.

    Public Relations Summer Intern, Ketchum (San Francisco, Calif.)    : I’ve heard good things about this internship from past students.

    Communications Coordinator, Swarovski (Los Angeles, Calif.): As in crystal. Says it requires two years exp, but I say go for it.

    Account Coordinator, YPartnership (Orlando, Fla.): I know nothing about this agency, but about this time of year, Orlando sure sounds like a nice (weather) option.

    PR Intern, Omni Hotels (Irving, Texas): If you’re interested in travel/tourism, this looks like a great intern. Omni Hotels are in about 15 states are all luxury properties. Irving is the corporate headquarters.

    PR Intern, Liz Claiborne (New York): Liz Claiborne is recruiting now for summer 08. This is a paid internship in NYC

    Event Planning Internship, StarChefs.com (New York): Looks like the internship will involve planning the “rising star” events. StarChefs.com is an on-line culinary magazine serving the industry since 1995 with a clear focus on working chefs.

  • First Winter Term Linky Love

    We’re back to blogging in J452: Advanced PR Writing and with that comes the weekly posts for my students’ responses. I had a lot of feeds to go through and this isn’t half of the interesting things online this week. But it’ll do.

    Blogging:
    Tips for Promoting PR Student Blogs: As it turns out, I’m not the only instructor that makes you write a blog. You might as well make the most of it. Great tips from Karen Russell at Georgia

    One Blogging Command and Seven Sacred Tips to Beat Burnout and Avoid the Lazysphere: I’m enjoying Tiffany Monhollon’s blog called Personal PR. She has some great blogging tips and this post is a perfect example.

    PR posts:
    Six Steps to Better Blogger Relations – I like that Geoff starts his post with the basics: know your audience, have something of value to say and be committed for the long term because relationships are not “an event.”

    Reputation Management for New Media: Paul Dunay (via MarketingProfs) offers three step process for managing reputation online.

    Branding/Misc:
    Presidential Candidates Get the Brand Treatment – Suggests Hillary might be losing her brand by moving into attack mode.

    Best Internet Blog Posts of 2007: More than 250 posts about pretty much everything. Have a question about Reddit… or Twitter… what about link baiting. Get info here.

    Web Trends 2008: A lovely graphic that illustrates (as you might guess from the name) Web trends for 2008.

    Sleaziest Super Bowl Ads: Yeah, I guess I have to have one Super Bowl ad post on the links.
    You can also see the new Justin Timberlake/Pepsi ad here (very funny…)

    Career Related:
    Penelope Trunk has had a couple of good posts this week. She nearly always does, I recommend subscribing, but (for various reasons) both of these struck a chord with me and reflected things that have been on my mind the last couple of weeks.

    Quick Fixes for Image Problems: Good tips about dressing for the job you want and how to fake it if you’re on a shoestring clothes budget.

    How to Get a Job You’re Not Qualified For: I’ve often had students or recent grads shrink from the idea of applying for a job that might require a couple of years of experience. I always say go for it! Show you can do the job and you never know!

    Pave Your Brand Roadmap: Whether for a business or your life, this is a fun step-by-step to creating a personal/life roadmap.

    image:Corbis

  • Astroturfers Beware!

    Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media Democracy recently launched Full Frontal Scrutiny. They explain it this way.

    “The American public deserves to know when someone is trying to persuade them.”—U.S. FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008

    We strongly agree. That’s why we created this site: to focus public attention on the people and organizations who function in our society as hidden persuaders. You’ll find them at work posting to blogs, speaking before city councils, quoted in newspapers and published on the editorial page, even sponsoring presidential election debates. All this while pretending to represent the grassroots when in fact they are working against citizens’ best interests. We call these organizations front groups. One of the best ways to put their agendas in proper perspective is to expose their work. That’s what this website is for. We hope you’ll use it, tell your friends about it, even contribute to it.

    Astroturfing, by the way, is basically the idea explained here – “fake grassroots.” Clever, right?

    I am not always aligned with the Center for Media Democracy, which occasionally has a view that’s a bit too narrow and negative for my tastes. However, this is an excellent idea. Ethical public relations practitioners don’t do this. And they tell clients who suggest it, “no.” I have. It’s not easy. But I have.

    This is particularly timely with the upcoming election season.

    What do you think?

    Image: Corbis

  • Crisis 101

    I was lucky enough, very early in my career to be trusted by a colleague to help manage the crisis communication of a very serious incident. I’ve since been fascinated by crisis communication and hope that I have the opportunity to help other organizations during my career to survive and even thrive after a crisis.

    Shel Holtz has an outstanding primer for crisis communications. If you’re truly interested in public relations as a management function, you have to understand crisis and how to successfully communicate though it.

    I highly recommend this post. Take a look.

  • Jobs, Internships & Opportunities Delivered Fresh

    Came across a few opportunities on the WWW this week that I thought you might be interested in:

    Public Relations Coordinator: DaVita, Inc. (El Segundo, CA)
    Why it’s interesting: an entry level position with a pretty broad list of projects in which the new coordinator will participate including copywriting, research, powerpoint presentation development and project coordination.

    Junior Publicist: CNN (Atlanta, GA)
    Why you might want to take a look: an interesting entry-level opportunity in one of the fastest growing cities in America. Primarily media relations work.

    Marketing Coordinator: Stern Elkind Curray & Alterman (Denver, CO)
    Why it’s interesting: Marketing and PR at an entry-level for an immigration law firm.

    Public Relations Assistant: Jakks Pacific, Inc. (Malibu, CA)
    Why it’s interesting: Jakks Pacific makes Blue’s Clues toys! This would be a huge hit in our house. Includes working with media, too. And it’s in Malibu.

    Internship – Public Relations: Apple (Cupertino, CA)
    Why it’s interesting: it’s with APPLE! Oh, and it looks like you’d get to participate in a meaningful way with the PR team.

    Public Relations Associate – Halldin PR (Sacramento, CA)
    Why it’s interesting: Sacramento-based PR agency with a variety of clients. Decent entry-level pay ($30K). I have a friend that works for Governor Schwartzenegger’s office and is often telling me that student’s would be surprised at the opportunities for PR in Sacramento. Here’s one example.

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Part 2

    “I thought I was reading the movie script for ‘Cuckoo’s Nest 2.”

    This was the reaction of Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem when he receive the report from the Justice Department regarding the deplorable conditions at the Oregon State Hospital.

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, of course, was filmed at the Oregon State Hospital 30 years ago.

    The Justice Department documented incidents of patient-to-patient assaults, multiple suicide attempts by patients who were supposed to be on one-on-one monitoring, improper use of seclusion and restraints alongside mice in the rooms, outbreaks of norovirus and scabies and seclusion rooms where staff refused to clean up ‘messes.’

    Courtney’s reaction, I think, was a bit flippant for such a horrible situation. Fortunately, he’d prefaced that comment with a more appropriate reaction at least partially in line with the crisis communication mantra of “tell it first, tell it fast, tell them what you’re going to to about it.”

    “Whatever it takes, we will do,” Courtney said. “It’s a simple as that.”

    Courtney is also launching a task force to provide information to the legislature on whether the hospital is complying with the requirements of the report.

    The Justice Department’s report and the Senate President’s task force will, hopefully, require that an organization (the State Hospital) that has heretofore been very opaque be more transparent in its actions.

    In circumstances where you may work with (or for) an organization that serves or must communicate with voiceless populations, transparency takes a top-to-bottom commitment. It is a challenge to ensure you’re hearing the voices of the voiceless.

    There are few populations that have less of a voice than patients committed to a State Hospital. And it seems as if no one (not the legislature, not the hospital and not the activist group that originally filed suit) is getting the communication right. Each knew the report was forthcoming, yet appeared to be unprepared.

    If you were representing the hospital, what would your next steps be?

    Read more about the report here.

  • Ask Questions & Pay Attention: Keys to Good Client Service

    Cross-posted from my PR Campaigns Class Blog.

    Neil Tortorella at BODO (Business of Design Online) dishes out marketing and PR advice for designers on this blog. Often his advice is good for students, entrepreneurs of all sorts and anyone looking to build their career or their business.

    Because of the service learning approach in our classes at that School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, students often work with nonprofits or very small businesses that have little experience with public relations and no one in house who manages the organizations’ communication.

    That results in students serving not only as technicians who carry out tasks, but as a consultants to their clients. And that, my friends, is good practice for the real world.

    Clients, bosses, boards of directors may think they know what they need, but rather than just fulfill pre-determined tasks and move on, Neil has this suggestion:

    Ask a boat load of questions. Get to know your clients’ businesses, their competitive arena, their industry, their audience. In essence, learn all the gory details and become a partner in their success. Then, put on your consultant cap and get to thinking. What would help them out? What ideas can you offer up?

    Read the rest of the post here.

    image:corbis

  • Luxury Papers and Pens Amidst Tornado of Technology

    I love nice paper. And I have what some might call an obsession with pens – no ball point pens in my bag or on my desk; gel and roller balls only. My current favorite is the Tul line from Office Max.

    Well, according to Unity Marketing (via MediaPost), consumers age 25 – 35 are the biggest consumers of luxury stationery products. From the report:

    “The generational shift in the market for stationery is bringing dramatic changes in the marketplace,” the report says. “Suddenly specialty retailers like Crane & Co. Paper Makers, Papyrus, Kate’s Paperie and Paperchase found in Borders stores nationwide are destination shops for young people to pursue their paper passion.”

    Understanding trends such as this is important in your work in public relations. Of course, if you worked with a luxury stationery company, the application of this particular trend would be obvious (I hope). If you don’t, look around… what are the trends in your industry? or in the industry in which you hope to work?

  • Look out Guiliani, Your Pants are On Fire!

    St. Petersburg Times & CQ.com have launched PolitiFact, a service that rates the claims of the political candidates with a Truth-O-Meter.

    Not sure about what you’re hearing from candidates? Seem a little too… something?

    Apparently Guiliani has made the claim that he’s among the top 4 or 5 most well-known people in the United States. Yeah… he’s not. He’s #10, rating him in the “pants on fire” category of the Truth-O-Meter.

    My other favorite in the pants on fire category is Joe Biden’s claim that President Bush is brain dead. Apparently, not literally.

  • Make it Sticky: Present in an Unexpected Way

    The Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, has launched a microsite devoted to the issue of toy safety – NotInMyCart.org.

    The site features a parody animated music video that is poking fun, without placing blame, at the overwhelmed federal toy safety inspectors.

    As a parent, toy safety is no laughing matter. But this parody does a terrific job of helping me understand what the problem is. And the site tells me what I actions I can take to make toys safer.

    In the Heath brothers’ book, Made to Stick, one of the criteria for sticky messages is unexpectedness. This video does a great job of creating a sticky message about a very complicated and emotionally-laden subject. I watched the video once and can recall some of the key information presented (thanks to the catchy tune!).

    What do you think? Good idea? or inappropriate?

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