My Big Payoff, Nothing to do with Money

My Big Payoff, Nothing to do with Money

by Ashlie Clay

Public relations is a profession that transcends boundaries, whether a railroad company shipping coal or a small B&B tucked away in the mountains. This untamed nature of where public relations practitioners can be utilized leaves ample room for taking my public relations degree and practicing the art of strategic communication in an industry that I have a sincere interest in. However, my sincere interest and how it ties into a professional career has yet to be discovered.

One of my favorite shows is ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In this reality show of sorts, a group of carpenters and interior designers design, build and decorate a home for a family that has faced significant hardships in their life. At the beginning and end of each episode I all but ball, as the stories, happy endings and just the generosity of people overwhelm my heart. Ideally, I would like to have a career that creates this sort of life changing events for people as this television show does each week. My dream job would leave me with that warm fuzzy feeling. I am not one to sit in an office or cubicle all day every day and I have an undying need for interaction with other people. With this in mind, the corporate world just does not seem to be in the cards for my life after graduation.

So what would a job like this take? This sort of job would entail lots of hard work and creativity, a knack for people and being able to adapt at a moments notice. Very unlike the corporate world, the world of nonprofits is without the glitz, glamor and usual luxuries and all about the nitty-gritty and rewarding pay-off. Seeing families with a place to call home, children with positive role models playing active roles in their everyday life and kids going home on the weekends with food to eat would be reward enough. I want to serve a bigger purpose and bring smiles to people’s faces. The key is just finding out what career within the public relations realm will allow me to do just this.

Yearbooks - Has the Ship Sailed?

Yearbooks – Has the Ship Sailed?
Ashlie Clay

We have all spent hours perusing through our parents’ and grandparents’ yearbooks – laughing at their style of dress, big hair and even bigger glasses. We have anxiously awaited the day when our BFFs could tag all of our inside jokes on the inside cover or the high school heart throb declare "have a great summer" next to his picture with the football team. But in a society where technology and immediate gratification reign supreme, is the yearbook in the traditional sense, still a coveted keepsake to occupy our shelves?

This is the dilemma my group is facing with our client Sooner, the OU yearbook. With the creation of Crimson Traditions, a freshman only yearbook included in Camp Crimson fees, Sooner became a “senior only” book; problem being that seniors are not buying the book that has been largely created and customized for this specific audience. Many students are not even aware that OU has a yearbook, let alone know where to purchase one or are even familiar with the content.

Seniors spend three years at OU as freshman, sophomores and juniors without even so much as a peep from Sooner. So when senior year roles around, they are bombarded with mass emails about graduation photos, Sooner Shots and this elusive “must-have” tradition. But how can you expect a senior class to care about a book that has blatantly ignored them for the majority of their college career?

Facebook and MySpace present even more challenges to an already apathetic fan base. With real-time results and customization capabilities that expand beyond just the University, these new high-tech social networks could quite possibly be the demise of college yearbooks. So the dilemma becomes the choice between acquiescing to technology and convenience or re-affirming the value in tradition and nostalgia. This inevitably forces those few collegiate yearbooks still in print to find creative means of marketing and design to re-capture their target audience and revive this time-old tradition.

Additional Sources:

Friendless Facebook like Yearbook without Signatures

Bringing Back the Yearbook

Trends Conspire Against Yearbook

Crisis Management missing in Undergrad programs

Crisis Management Missing in Undergrad Programs
By Ashlie Clay

As a college student, I often find myself engulfed in my own bubble, preoccupied with classes, my work schedule and finding time for friends, all while striving for a sufficient amount of rest and consuming some fraction of the main food groups. But in lieu of recent events, hurricane Katrina and the tragedies that occurred at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, I find it a necessary to be aware of what is going on outside of my own little world. In a utopian society the unexpected would not occur and the necessity of a crisis management plan would be null and void. But as we are all aware, the world in which we live is far from utopia.

Crisis management focuses on worst case scenarios and ultimately managing the information from internal sources to the media and general public. Good crisis management is proactive when it comes to this inevitable component of PR. So why not prepare potential PR practitioners for the inevitable? As a PR senior, graduating in less than three months, I have had no formal training in crisis management over the entire course of my studies at the University. Several universities do offer crisis management courses but are only required in graduate programs.

The crisis management link between PR, communication and business is vital in any industry and can truthfully make or break a company. We take such care in learning the art of news releases, the importance of research, identifying target publics and organizing and implementing a campaign, but what do we do when a hurricane destroys half a state and displaces thousands of people? Or our company’s number one product is found to be defective and harmful. Crisis management is part of real world PR and should be part of PR undergraduate curriculum as well.


http://www.prweekus.com/The-business-of-teaching-PR/article/45288/

http://www.gwu.edu/~guides/sciences/crisis.html

http://www.cmionline.org/

http://www.universitycrisisresponse.com/contents.htm

http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/