PRSSA National Conference

Our chapter just got back from national conference in Washington, DC. Even though it was a conference full of sessions and speakers our chapter made the most of every opportunity that was there. We explored the city taking in our nation’s history and exploring the world of Public Relations outside of conference.

We started our trip on Friday, October 15 with a tour of the Holocaust museum, we viewed the exhibit State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, in which we learn how Hitler used propaganda, which is an early known form of public relations, to convince millions that Jews were the cause of all of Germany’s problems. Hitler created himself to be a trust agent and opinion leader of the Nazi party that lead the German military and country to trust and believe that his party’s ideals and messages where true and that the Jews were to blame for all their country’s problems and that a final solution was needed. We learned how he used messages and power over Germany to cause mass genocide. We continued that day with a sight seeing tour on bicycles, through the national mall visiting all the national monuments. Friday evening was out first opportunity to network with our peers as we went to the social that evening and met other PRSSA members and chapters.

Saturday, kicked off with speaker Jim Margolis from the firm GMMB, he is most known for working on the Obama presidential campaign. He talked to us about using emotion, creating clarity in messages and needing to create a moment to stand out and show a pivotal changing point. He also, stressed the importance of social networking. We also got the opportunity to present a chant about our chapter. We continued the day by attending sessions focused on media relations, careers in entertainment and sports, public affairs, corporate and agency PR, travel and tourism, and entertainment PR. Our e-board then got the opportunity to sit down with other e-boards and discuss their chapter and the problems and opportunities within their chapters and get support and ideas from one another.

Sunday, we attended professional development sessions that focused on diversity, career preparation with the intern queen, and nonprofit PR. All of the professional development sessions were helpful because it gave us all the opportunity to learn about the areas of PR we may or may not be interested in and learn more about the field from professionals who actually work in them on an everyday basis.

Monday, was our last day of conference, it was also our chance to talk with PRSA members and network with them. It was here we learned many things we wanted to bring back to our chapter and implement things in the classroom and in our weekly chapter meetings. We heard keynote speakers such as Bill Tancer talk about data and its link to social media and Jeff Hayzlett discuss having 118 seconds to pitch and sell yourself or an idea. We had the opportunity to sit in on sessions about forming messages and research. We spent the end of the day networking with PR firms and companies offering internships and entry-level positions, in hope of finding opportunities for jobs and internships. The conference also gave us an opportunity to learn about different graduate school programs, media measurement tools like VMS, pitch engine, and Cision.

We concluded conference with the Inaugural Ball this awards ceremony gave us the opportunity to recognize our peers for their work in PR. It was also an opportunity for us to be recognized for our successful Bateman campaign in 2010 that resulted in 3^rd place for our chapter.

Like It or Not, Twitter Has Become a News Platform

There’s been plenty of debate lately about whether Twitter has become “mainstream” or not, but examples continue to pile up of how the social network/microblogging platform has worked its way into our lives, to the point where it has become a form of media unto itself. Whether it will ever become mainstream in the sense that it gets used by your aunt or grandmother is almost irrelevant — the reality is that, for all its flaws, Twitter is a publishing tool, and an increasingly powerful one. And it can be used by anyone, journalist and non-journalist alike.

Examples:
Several days ago, a Japanese journalist who was kidnapped in Afghanistan managed to trick his captors into letting him post a message about his location to Twitter. It’s not clear from the news reports whether his tweets helped get him released or not, but it is yet another example of how easy Twitter makes it to broadcast that kind of news — and not just to one or two people, the way email or text messaging does, but to potentially hundreds or even thousands (in 2008, Twitter helped American photojournalist James Buck spread the news that he had been arrested by Egyptian police while covering an anti-government protest).

Two other examples of Twitter as a news platform are the recent hostage-taking and shootout at Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland, and the earthquake that hit near New Zealand last week. In the first case, reports about a gunman in the Discovery building started coming in before the news was on a mainstream news outlet. And in the case of the earthquake — as in similar cases involving earthquakes in China and forest fires in California — reports flooded the Twitter network while most mainstream media outlets were still unaware that it had even occurred. One resident said she relied on news she got from Twitter more than the radio, because it was a lot faster (although it should be noted that she is a Twitter fan and web consultant).

You can finish reading this story at Gigaom