Category: Uncategorized

I’m getting through the “grading” of blogs and have found some more gems to share with you:

Alison Burns: Ali has a great sense of humor and sense of adventure. She (thanks to her amazing parents) is able to travel for six months before she has to find a “real” job. Lucky, lucky girl.
Have You Ever Noticed: Ali asks whether emotional appeal is the new sex appeal and talks about the Kleenex “let it out” campaign.

Kate Long:
Artistically Challenged: A great post that I can fully relate to about expanding one’s vocabulary about art beyond “that’s cool.”

Thanks for a great term.

Last week, PR Week awarded Fleishman-Hillard in New York Campaign of the Year 2007 for its pro bono work to raise awareness about asthma among students in New York City public schools.

Now, Waggener Edstrom has been awarded Gold in Not-for-Profit/Association/Government at the 2006 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media Relations & Publicity for its pro bono work with the Autism Treatment Network (and offers some great tips for doing nonprofit PR work).

Public relations practitioners and agencies really have so much power to do good work. It’s refreshing to see two large agencies giving back to their communities in such meaningful ways. I hope other agencies follow the lead.

Guest blog post from Amy Ziari, University of Oregon ’06.

It’s nearly been one year since I graduated from UO, and for those of you who think that Information Gathering was just a huge pain in the you-know-what, I’m a testament to the fact that it may be one of the most useful classes you will take at the UO in preparation for your career.

A huge part of my job is research: Market research, competitive analysis, industry news tracking, research on reporters, research on industry players…the list literally goes on and on. When research is required, I’m your gal.

Wait, you may say, I want to work in PR, not be a research analyst! But let’s get real: We are in the news business. Our job is to understand what’s going on in our client’s industry, know where the stories are, know what reporters write about, know the messaging of our client’s competitors so we can make our own more effective.

And even beyond this, our job is to be able to provide analysis and derive meanings from our research. What’s important? What isn’t? What does this mean for the industry? And most importantly, what does this mean for our client?

You can look at it this way: Would you book a flight to Morocco for a vacation without knowing where it was, or what it was like, what you could expect to see when you get there, or what activities you could take part in?

I know I wouldn’t.

Then why would you recommend that your client change their messaging without knowing the values and pain-points of their industry? Or why would you pitch a story to a reporter if you had no clue what he/she writes about or were unprepared to answer questions about your client’s industry? Beyond annoying the heck out of reporters and wasting your client’s money, not taking the time to do your research can even cause you public embarrassment!

These are just a few examples—among endless—of situations where you will be required to do some research as a PR pro. Even as you (and I!) gain more experience in PR and move to more strategic positions, research will undoubtedly still play a role in in your career in one form of another. Truth be told, doing your homework doesn’t stop with a diploma. In this business, you will be doing it for many years to come.

ABOUT
Amy Ziari graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in public relations. Today, she works as an Assistant Account Executive in Portland for MacKenzie Marketing Group, a marketing communications agency that focuses on emerging markets and start-ups. You can contact her at 503-225-0725 or amyz@mackenzie-marketing.com

I’ve often joked that, since I began working in an agency environment (and particularly since I’ve been on my own), I have a hard time justifying an afternoon at the movies. When you track your life in 15 minutes increments it becomes difficult to sit in a darkened movie theater for two hours when I could be billing a client. Sick, I know. I’m not claiming that it’s normal behavior.

A student mentioned to me this week that when I talk about billing in 15-minute increments in classes, it makes him nervous that maybe he’s just not suited for agency life. And that’s not a bad thing to realize. We’re not all suited for agency life. (Thank God! What a strange world that would be.)

However, the billable hour is a reality for many entry-level PRos. It is often the most difficult to master but, as the crux of the agency’s business model, a vital skill to have. Learning to track your time and do so ethically, responsibly and transparently will help you avoid the pitfalls (more here and here) of doing otherwise.

So here I offer five tips that, over the years, have worked for me.

1. Get a planner. Paper, electronic, binder, spiral bound… doesn’t matter. Get one that works for you. And just jot notes down during the day about what you worked on and for how long. I’ve found that the key for me is to have a paper planner and to have at least a one-page-per-day format. You need enough space to make good notes.

2. List & Prioritize. Making a clear task list will keep you on track. Nothing feels better than ticking things off a to-do list. As I’ve mentioned before, Stikkit is an awesome tool for doing just this. And prioritize – which tasks should be tackled first? Karen Sams at the Media Relations Blog has a great post on this topic.

3. Do it daily! Nothing is more difficult than trying to rebuild your time at the end of the week or the end of the month. It’s difficult to do – and it’s been shown (by who, I don’t know, but it’s always made sense to me) that you will tend to underestimate your time if you don’t keep track every day. And that costs you and your company money.

4. Practice. It may seem a little bit silly to track your school time, your study time, your work time or even your travel time. But if you plan to go into agency work, it wouldn’t hurt to practice. Use your planner (see #1) and track in 1-hour increments to start. This is a great tip to just simply get a handle on how you spend your time and manage all the tasks in your life.

5. Use the right tools. I finally found a Web-based tool that I just LOVE and helps making tracking (and therefore, billing) a breeze. An individual account is next-to-nothing a month. Of course every agency will have its own system you’ll need to learn, but this is a great, simple way to start.

Bonus: I’ve asked some of my agency friends to give their best time-tracking tip. See comments section.

www.websitesthatsuck.com offers 148 mortal sins that will send your site to Web design hell. Lots of good tips. When in doubt, ask the man from Mars:

It takes longer than four seconds for the man from Mars to understand what our site is about.

The man from Mars cannot quickly find the focal point of the home page.

The man from Mars cannot quickly find the focal point of the current page.

What are some of your favorite – or least favorite – sites?

As a horse fan, generally and a Thoroughbred owner, specifically – I mourn the loss of Barbaro along with millions of his fans today.

Business 2.0 names Wal-Mart’s PR “comeback” as the worst business mistake of 2006. Wow… And, I suppose even worse for Edelman is that it’s named as the architect behind this effort.

Check out this one and the other 100.

Cover letters are hard.
Templates typically suck and don’t fit a communications or public relations position, particularly an entry level one. Jay at Dumb Little Man has posted 100+ templates for cover letters. I’m sure you can find even one that works…

This is a great cover letter for asking for an informational interview.

One for advertising, but can apply to public relations, too.

It’s that lead paragraph that gets you on the right foot.

I’ll let you browse through the rest. Happy hunting.