Two

How do I sum up my years as a public relations major at Appalachian State? Like most college students, I've taken some classes that were a massive waste of time and some that really taught me a lot.

My favorite class in my major was Crisis Communications. I took it last summer with Dr. Terry Cole and it has been one of the most beneficial classes I've taken since I've been a student here. I did my individual project on the Sen. Larry Craig airport bathroom sex scandal. Through the research I did for the project I learned a lot about reputation management and what to do and what not to do during a crisis.

Reputation management seems to be one of the most important elements of public relations. If someone really knows how to be effective in PR they know how to manage a person's or company's reputation. It can keep an incident from turning into a crisis. Knowing a client inside-out from day one is so important. If you know the strengths and weaknesses of your client, then you know how to manage them; what assets to play up and what flaws minimize.

During the class we also had a group project where we had to develop a crisis management plan for a company. My group developed our plan for The Inn at Crestwood. The project became overwhelming when we began to develop a list of possible crises that could occur since the location consisted of an inn, restaurant and spa. It is in a remote location. It is an older building. It is spread out over multiple buildings. It was a lot to plan for. Things that you wouldn't normally consider a crisis were a pretty big deal and then creating the plan for managing the crisis was even more difficult. Where would people evacuate if necessary? Who would be contacted? Where should they meet? What do they need?

Most importantly, what do they say to the media? I came to learn throughout that summer session that, essentially, this is the most important part of crisis management. How are people going to think of you when this is all over? Lots of times things happen that you can't control but being prepared just in case and being prepared for all the "what if's" will help to rebuild a positive public image when all is said and done.

Nepal

Today I'm starting my geography project on the biome that we chose. We picked mountains and ice caps and the location that we chose to focus on is Nepal. I'm a little excited to be doing some research on something kind of fun. The photos of Nepal that I've looked at so far are beautiful. And I happen to like the group I'm working with.

Will blog again soon about what I've learned about Nepal.
And another post relating to my seminar project.

One

Here goes my first actual post -- on topic.

Today, being March 23rd, is my mom's birthday.

The reason I mention this: in class today, my professor mentioned that today marks one year since her mother passed away. I think she said she was 91 years old. She said that one of the things that made her mother so extraordinary (as we all think our own mothers are) was the fact that she enjoyed touching people. Physically touching someone. She liked to make people feel special and important and she liked communicating that physically.

Mrs. Rosenberg then posed this question: How do we make touchpoints with people in today's society? So much of the way we live is so impersonal. We email instead of writing letters. We text message instead of calling someone. Things have gotten so fast-paced and convenient that we often forget how to make connections with other people.

For a public relations practitioner, this causes some problems. VERY simply put, public relations is relating to the public. It can become hard to relate to others when you've never met them in person or rarely even hear the sound of their voice.

So what do we do?
The rise in popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helps to close the gap a bit. You can form a professional relationship with someone and then friend or follow or add them to your profile and you can both get a glimpse of what the actual person is like. Favorite movies, books, music. Where they went to college. You can even see what they're doing within seconds of them posting their status.

No, this doesn't help develop physical touchpoints. However, with the nature of the business world these days, clients and even coworkers may be half a world away from you, making it difficult to send a letter or even make a phone call with the change in time. But we can use these tools to learn more about each other and see what we all have in common with one another.

So with today's class discussion, we now have Hannah's TouchPoints

Testing

So today in my seminar class we were assigned our final project. Instead of creating a portfolio of our past work and experiences, we will be blogging about things we've learned since we've been students at Appalachian. Classes. Professors. Real world experiences. Anything -- then relate it to public relations.

I would much rather blog than put together a portfolio of old projects. Revising 15 page papers for the twentieth time, remembering where I have all those old documents saved (if at all for some of them), finding old hard copies, hoping that graphic projects still "work" and have all their links intact. OR make a blog. BLOG, all day long. I like to write, especially when I get to do it my way.

So this is my inaugural post.

Now I just need to come up with some ideas that actually fit the project.