On a recent trip to New Hampshire, I found myself sitting in an airport for over five hours waiting on my plane to take-off. While I am a patient and understanding person, I was shocked by the customer service at the airport.

A series of thunderstorms caused delays along the northeast coast for most of the morning; however, we were not informed that our plane was going to be delayed until 30 minutes before our scheduled departure. 

Immediately after the announcement, there was a line at the flight desk. People wanted information. Information that the airline did not have. This would not have been a problem if the airline had made an announcement letting people know that they would announce all flight information over the intercom and that adjustments in connecting flights could not be made until the departure time of our flight was announced. Instead, they allowed people to wait in line for two hours, and then told them that information.

Even with the frustration this situation caused me, I did learn an important lesson about public relations.  It is important to always keep your public informed. Let them know what is going on. Even if you do not have any information, let them know that you do not have any information. 

Political campaigning used to consist of posters, yard signs, billboards, handbills, phone calls, and commercials. But, now we have to add Facebook wall postings to the list.

I was browsing Facebook earlier this week in some of my spare time when I came across a wall posting from a local political candidate. It was just a basic posting: asking for the person to come out and vote and then a sentence or two about their platform.

I was surprised to see this kind of campaigning on Facebook. But, after thinking about it, it does make sense for candidates to use Facebook and similar sites to reach out to young voters.

We are constantly checking Facebook. Most of us spend more time on Facebook and other sites than we do on campaign sites and reading local newspapers. So, it is a great way for candidates to get the word out about local elections and their platforms.

In the ever-changing world of technology, it is smart for candidates to think outside the box and try different ways to reach their audiences.

Why?

That is a good question.

Jeremy Pepper brought up this point in his blog The Art of Strategy. Or How I Like to Say No, and People Hate Me for That.

In his blog, Pepper ridiculed people for blogging just because other people were doing it. He says that we need to have a reason for doing things – a purpose.

This struck me today for some reason. I have been sitting on my couch for hours working on “social media” stuff. I have made several videos, written several blogs and read several blogs.

Why?

Well, the obvious reason is because I am getting a grade for it. Then, I started to realize that I actually enjoy social media. I have been given the chance to show the world my thoughts and feelings about an array of different topics.

So, still the question why?

Well, I can’t give a straight answer other than I am required to do it, but I am starting to learn more and more the importance of this growing trend for public relations.

In a world that revolves around technology, there is not a better way to get information out to people than on the Internet. In a world where PR people “pray for space,” why not set-up a blog where you don’t have to “pray for space,” but you can just hit the “Post” or “Submit” button.

So, the question may still by why?

But, I’m going to ask in return, why not?

As Dave Munger writes in his blog How do you make a reputation for yourself?, reputation is very important and the quest for it never really ends.

More and more, people are beginning to rely on reputation. From getting jobs, to keeping jobs, to making the “right” connections, reputations are becoming more and more important.

But, how do you develop this reputation?

This is a question that remains unanswered according to Munger. He states “But there have been surprisingly few studies of how reputations — good or bad — develop.”

So, where do we start then? This is one aspect of our lives that we do not have a how-to book to show us how to develop a good reputation.

From what I have learned in my classes, especially my management classes, I think one of the keys to developing a good reputation is to be an ethical person.

Show integrity in all that you do, accept the blame when you make mistakes, treat others as you would like to be treated, be respectful of your superiors, just to name a few.

 While these things may make you think “duh,” these qualities seem to be less and less frequent in today’s world. People are looking out for number one and are not taking into account how their actions are affecting others.

So, we all want a good reputation, right? The first place to start is to develop a character and identity that make people want to be around you, talk about you and most importantly work with you. 

“To Whom It May Concern,” a common way to address a resume or news release when a contact is not known. Even if we do not take the time to figure out who we are actually trying to send our information to, we all assume that the world is a nice place and our information will find its way to the appropriate person.

Wake up! It does not work this way.

Class after class, we have been taught the importance of making contacts and doing research about a company to ensure that your resume and news releases do not get lost in the shuffle.

I knew that this was an important lesson, but it was not until I read the blog Jobseeker’s Take Note that I fully understood its importance.

It is a simple and short blog, but it contains a very powerful message. Do your research, address your resume or news release to the appropriate person or you won’t have a chance.

What role does the media play in our lives? This is a question that is constantly being asked and discussed in the world today. Glorified mistakes, outrageous vocabulary and corporate scandals have made our society more accepting.

This past week, however, I was still shocked to learn about a conspiracy between 17 high school girls. This group of girls all agreed to get pregnant together so that they would be able to raise their children together.

Is it even necessary to ask what is weird about this situation? Why would high school girls decide to get pregnant? Why would they think it was OK or even glamorous to get pregnant at such a young age?

While watching CNN, I completely agreed with one commentators take on this situation. She claimed that based on the way celebrity pregnancies have been portrayed in recent years, it is no surprise that these young girls would think that this would be a good and even glamorous idea.

Take Jaime Lynn Spears for example. At 16, she becomes pregnant. Instead of scandal and outrage, the media has a field day with happy-go-lucky pictures of Spears and articles talking about her future plans.

Why did the media choose to portray this situation this way? Why was there not outrage and scandal? When did it become acceptable for girls to get pregnant at such a young age?

Spears is not the only example of glorified celebrity pregnancies. Look at the baby bump madness that has become increasingly popular over the past couple of years. We have Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez and the list could go on.

If the media continues to portray such serious issues in a light manner, our society will continue to become more and more accepting of things until there is nothing to define what is good from what is bad.

So, is the media once again responsible for this behavior? The answer is not clear, but it can be said that until the media starts to show celebrities’ true feelings and emotions situations like this will continue to occur.

What is in a title?

I simply listed five words that have nothing to do with what I am writing about in this blog; however, it did get your attention. Yet, it is completely misleading and irrelevant to anything I would like to say. I will not even be mentioning these randomly selected words again.

It was not until this week that I learned the importance of a title. After reading a blog by Robert French. I was directed to a blog by Patrick Evans. 

French had specifically mentioned a blog titled “It’s Time to Retire The Press Release.” The title immediately grabbed my attention because it has been stressed in my classes over and over again how important a press release is and will continue to be. It is how we “pray for space” in the world of PR. 

Yet, as I read through the blog, I realized that he is not saying the press release is going to be retired, but that it is going through a transformation. It has been redefined by the 24-hour and international news.

For such a good and thought provoking blog, it had an awful title.

Immediately upon reading the title, I thought Evans had lost his mind. Why would the press release ever be “retired?” I knew I was going to disagree with what he had to say, but as I continued to read the blog, I learned that he felt the same way I did about press releases – they are turning in to “news release” responses to news stories where it is beneficial and almost a necessity to have a contact at your desired media location.

While I intended for this blog to be a response to Evans’ blog showing the world that I disagreed with him and understood the importance of a “news release,” it ended up teaching me the valuable lesson that unless you have a good title for your news release you might as well not even send it.    

After a few PR classes in the spring, the idea of PR was starting to settle in. Press releases, fact sheets, position papers, this didn’t seem like it was going to be too bad. As the semester went on, we created press kits for imaginary companies and evaluated past PR campaigns.

We really were learning a lot. PR was no longer about just being around people and “spinning” things. It was about reaching out to your public and serving your clients.Then, Style and Design, PRCM 4020, appeared on our schedules.

The first day of Style and Design the room was spinning. We were being told of all the programs that we were going to be learning how to use: Photoshop, In Design, Movie Maker. We were even told that we were going to be able to write in HTML. What does HTML even stand for?

The ability to type a paper using Microsoft Word and create a nice little PowerPoint presentation to supplement a group project had always been sufficient to get an A in a class. But, that was until I entered this class – an upper level PR class based solely on learning the computer skills necessary to make it in the PR world.

Needless to say, we are all discovering that technology plays a much larger role in PR than we ever imagined. After only a week, we have created three online profiles: prblogs.org, propenmic.org and theloveliestvillage.org. We will be using these online profiles for the rest of the summer to post our written and video blogs. We have even started to learn the mysterious, yet magical, language of HTML.

Technology has opened a whole new world for PR, and thanks to Robert French, my eyes have been opened to a whole new idea of PR.