With yet another semester coming to a close, I am extremely looking forward to the one month break that is only days away. I have actually managed to finish up all my projects and papers, and only have one final left, which is not until Thursday. Next semester is looking to be just as busy as this semester was, if not even more. I am set to take 19 credits next semester, including classes such as PR Writing, Reporting and News Writing, Advanced Studies in Media, Mass Communications and Democracy and a few other upper division Comm classes that I have left to take before I graduate.
Another change for next semester is that I am now the Project Manager for the Boise State chapter of PRSSA. I think this will be one of the more fun aspects of next semester, and I am really looking forward to another great semester in PRSSA. We have a really great group of members, and I believe that we will have a lot of fun next semester.
Looking forward to it!
Sean
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Promotional Public Relations
Once again the semester is winding to a close. WIth finals quickly approaching, my free time is dwindling away. Haven't had a bunch of time to post lately, but trust me when I say more is to come. Christmas break will be a great time for me to do a bit of catching up with the thingsin my life that I have fallen a bit behind with. In the meantime, please watch this awesome video we made in my promotional public relationsclass last week. We had 25 minutes to concept a video for YouTube and then shoot it, and I think it turned out pretty good. It's about going green and encourages college students to recycle.
More to come in the upcoming weeks, I promise :) Good luck with finals everyone!
Sean Winnett
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Leadership in Public Relations - PRSSA National Conference 2009
Hello All,
I recently had the amazing opportunity of attending the PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) National Conference in San Diego, CA. The conference was a great place for students to connect with other students and professionals in the industry, as well as to get a better feel for where PR is at and where it is going. There were many workshops that I attended, but I am going to focus on two of my personal favorites from the event.
The first workshop I attended was "A View From the Top: How to stand out as a young professional". This workshop was lead by Ron Culp and Kevin Saghy from Ketchum PR. This was a great presentation in my opinion because it gave both an upper and lower management view of young professionals coming into the field of PR. They posed four questions, and then gave the responses that they received from both upper and lower management across many different agencies and corporations.
The four questions they asked were:
1. How can young talent stand out in your organization?
2. What example comes to mind of a young professional who advanced quickly in your organization, and why have they done so well?
3. How can/have employees hurt themselves by trying to raise their profile?
4. If you could anonymously say one sentence to your junior staff, what would it be?
There were many responses and quotes given for each question, so I will briefly go over the most common and relevant responses.
1. How can young talent stand out in your organization?
Senior Management - They show initiative, and they are a team player.
Junior Staff - They go the extra mile, and they show a positive attitude.
2. What example comes to mind of a young professional who advanced quickly in your organization, and why have they done so well?
Senior Management - They know the business, they show quality work, engage us with intelligent ideas, and they go the extra mile.
Junior Staff - Quality work, they present smart ideas, they work hard and they are willing to explore new learning opportunities.
3. How can/have employees hurt themselves by trying to raise their profile?
Senior Management - They should not seek credit all of the time, or follow own agenda instead of the agenda of the team.
Junior Staff - Don't throw co-workers under the bus, and don't skip the tactical work. The ones who succeed are the ones who do not have a sense of entitlement.
4. If you could anonymously say one sentence to your junior staff, what would it be?
Senior Management - What are you doing to prepare yourself for the next level? There is not a bad idea in a brainstorming session.
Junior Staff - Become known for your willingness to take on the most challenging, difficult assignments no matter how big or boring. Be the 3 C's: current, curious, and creative!
I have about 10 pages or so worth of notes from this seminar, as I felt they addressed a lot of the prominent questions a young professional has when going from college into the "real world". I also had the opportunity to stay after the seminar with about five other students to hang out and talk with Kevin and Ron for about 40 minutes. This was where the real insights came out, and allowed for some great one on one discussion about how the industry is evolving and where they feel it is going from here.
The other event I am going to talk about was the speech given at the PRSA National Conference by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/)Arianna was a great speaker, and had some great insights on the industry. The most important piece of information she shared I felt was how drama is a necessary component in the news and in public relations. This is the driving force behind passion, and getting people to care about what you have to say.
Arianna Huffington speaking at the PRSA National Conference in San Diego, CA
Overall, I would say this was an amazing conference where I had the opportunity to meet a bunch of students and professionals in the field and get some great insight on how Public Relations is changing. Since the day I started at Drake Cooper, I have witnessed a passion and desire to always be ahead of the game by everyone here in the shop. This conference strengthened my view on how important this fact is not only for young professionals going into the field, but for professionals already in the public relations field, and any field for that matter. This drive to always improve ourselves, our work, and Drake Cooper in general is what will keep us ahead of the game in years to come! Thanks guys :)
Sean Winnett
I recently had the amazing opportunity of attending the PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) National Conference in San Diego, CA. The conference was a great place for students to connect with other students and professionals in the industry, as well as to get a better feel for where PR is at and where it is going. There were many workshops that I attended, but I am going to focus on two of my personal favorites from the event.
The first workshop I attended was "A View From the Top: How to stand out as a young professional". This workshop was lead by Ron Culp and Kevin Saghy from Ketchum PR. This was a great presentation in my opinion because it gave both an upper and lower management view of young professionals coming into the field of PR. They posed four questions, and then gave the responses that they received from both upper and lower management across many different agencies and corporations.
The four questions they asked were:
1. How can young talent stand out in your organization?
2. What example comes to mind of a young professional who advanced quickly in your organization, and why have they done so well?
3. How can/have employees hurt themselves by trying to raise their profile?
4. If you could anonymously say one sentence to your junior staff, what would it be?
There were many responses and quotes given for each question, so I will briefly go over the most common and relevant responses.
1. How can young talent stand out in your organization?
Senior Management - They show initiative, and they are a team player.
Junior Staff - They go the extra mile, and they show a positive attitude.
2. What example comes to mind of a young professional who advanced quickly in your organization, and why have they done so well?
Senior Management - They know the business, they show quality work, engage us with intelligent ideas, and they go the extra mile.
Junior Staff - Quality work, they present smart ideas, they work hard and they are willing to explore new learning opportunities.
3. How can/have employees hurt themselves by trying to raise their profile?
Senior Management - They should not seek credit all of the time, or follow own agenda instead of the agenda of the team.
Junior Staff - Don't throw co-workers under the bus, and don't skip the tactical work. The ones who succeed are the ones who do not have a sense of entitlement.
4. If you could anonymously say one sentence to your junior staff, what would it be?
Senior Management - What are you doing to prepare yourself for the next level? There is not a bad idea in a brainstorming session.
Junior Staff - Become known for your willingness to take on the most challenging, difficult assignments no matter how big or boring. Be the 3 C's: current, curious, and creative!
I have about 10 pages or so worth of notes from this seminar, as I felt they addressed a lot of the prominent questions a young professional has when going from college into the "real world". I also had the opportunity to stay after the seminar with about five other students to hang out and talk with Kevin and Ron for about 40 minutes. This was where the real insights came out, and allowed for some great one on one discussion about how the industry is evolving and where they feel it is going from here.
The other event I am going to talk about was the speech given at the PRSA National Conference by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/)Arianna was a great speaker, and had some great insights on the industry. The most important piece of information she shared I felt was how drama is a necessary component in the news and in public relations. This is the driving force behind passion, and getting people to care about what you have to say.
Arianna Huffington speaking at the PRSA National Conference in San Diego, CA
Overall, I would say this was an amazing conference where I had the opportunity to meet a bunch of students and professionals in the field and get some great insight on how Public Relations is changing. Since the day I started at Drake Cooper, I have witnessed a passion and desire to always be ahead of the game by everyone here in the shop. This conference strengthened my view on how important this fact is not only for young professionals going into the field, but for professionals already in the public relations field, and any field for that matter. This drive to always improve ourselves, our work, and Drake Cooper in general is what will keep us ahead of the game in years to come! Thanks guys :)
Sean Winnett
Monday, October 26, 2009
The new ROI (Return on Influence)
I recently stumbled across this video on YouTube from Digital Royalty (Their channel can be found here, and their homepage here) showing their method of social media measurement.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) :
Digital Royalty recommends picking at least two KPI's from each of the following categories for social media measurement.
Digital Royalty's ROI (measuring social media) -
Once again, please send anything that you guys run across related to social media that you find interesting my way. Thanks!
Sean Winnett
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) :
Digital Royalty recommends picking at least two KPI's from each of the following categories for social media measurement.
- Volume - This includes number of fans or followers, tweets per minute (TPM), trending topics, etc. Anything that represents reach and frequency.
- Engagement - ReTweets, subscribers, sentiment, comments, "likes" on FaceBook, etc. Things that people are using to "spend time" with your brand.
- Conversion - Click through, leads generated, sales. Anything showing activity and action.
- Cold (engagement metric)- (Reach x Frequency) / Time Spent
- Hot- Sentiment and Ecosystem size
Digital Royalty's ROI (measuring social media) -
Once again, please send anything that you guys run across related to social media that you find interesting my way. Thanks!
Sean Winnett
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
How Public Relations Has Taken Over My Life
Hello all,
I have tried many very random ideas with this blog, and rest assured more randomness will follow. Lately however, I have been overwhelming busy with school and work. I am taking primarily PR related classes this semester, I'm doing work with PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) which I am a member of, and work is 100% PR all the time. I don't think I have ever been happier, and I honestly mean that. The title of this post may seem negative towards PR, but I can honestly say that I have never been this driven towards one topic. I wouldn't be doing it this much if I didn't love it. Public relations has truly taken over my life, and I don't think I would have it any other way.
I am getting extremely excited for the PRSSA National Conference that is coming up on November 6 - 10 in San Diego, California. This is the first PRSSA conference I will have attended, and it looks like there is going to be a ton of great industry related workshops. Be looking for some updates while I'm down there. I'm sure there will be a bunch of new photos on Flickr and maybe even a blog post or two. Have a good one guys!
Sean
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Artist Watch: LIGHTS
Hello all once again,
As this blog seems to be heading in a different direction every week, I figured it was time for a music related post.
Today, I am going to talk about an artist I discovered just over a year ago. LIGHTS is a young 22 year old up-and-coming artist from Canada. What sets LIGHTS apart in my eyes from the slew of other pop artists out there is her extremely unique personality, and her keen use of platforms such as MySpace, Twitter and YouTube to really establish a connection and start conversations with her fan base. LIGHTS does weekly videos during her tours to talk to her fans, which does an amazing job of bringing her fans into her world. It makes fans truly feel as though the artist cares about them, and honestly you don't see too much of that these days. She talks about how the tour is going, does special acoustic versions of her songs, and creates a place for her fans to truly get to know LIGHTS. This is a very intuitive PR tactic, even if it isn't meant to be.
LIGHTS truly seems to be ahead of the curve with her use of social media to reach out to her fans, and really gives them something back. Keep your eye out for this one, she appears to be coming up very fast. Her first full album "The Listening" was recently released and can be purchased through her site, and is available on iTunes.
To visit her very cool interactive site, click here.
Here is her latest video, "Savior":
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Changing times
Hey all,
Sorry for the lack of posts as of late. School and work has totally taken over my life. 19 credits is more than I have taken on before, and working three days a week at Drake Cooper has filled what is left of my free time. It will all be worth it in the end, especially if I am able to graduate in May like I am planning. Then I will be fully immersed in what I call the real world. Though, I am curious as to how much more real things can get.
Anyway, I thought a quick update was in order. I will hopefully be back soon with something important to say. Until then, back to reading "Putting the Public Back in Public Relations" by Brian Solis. -- Amazing book! I recommend it to everyone in the PR profession. If you have read it, leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I'm always in the mood for a riveting conversation about the public relations profession. Thanks guys, and have a good one ;)
Sean
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