Morgan’s Blog

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by astronomy. However, in all honesty, I really know nothing about it except that it is truly impressive to gaze into the expansive night sky that we can witness by just stepping out our front doors and looking up.

According to cnn.com, “A comet that unexpectedly brightened in the last couple of weeks and is now visible to the naked eye is attracting professional and amateur interest.”

The second I read this I was hooked.

Apparently, in 1892, an eruption in the sky led to the discovery of this comet. In the past few weeks, this comet has been going through this same process again, erupting and expanding. Except, the difference this time around is that it is now visible to the naked eye.

“The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun, has grown to be bigger than the planet Jupiter,” says the article. “The comet lacks the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies but can be seen in the northern sky, in the constellation Perseus, as a fuzzy spot of light about as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper.”

I don’t know about everyone else, but I will be looking up there tonight to see what this is all about.

According to cnn.com, there has been a recall on about 5 million frozen pizzas sold nation wide.

Five million pizzas.

I had to see what this was all about. Apparently, on Thurday, General Mills recalled Jeno’s and Totino’s brands “because of a possible E. Coli contamination.” I think I have a Totino pizza currently freezing in my freezer!

The General Mills plant in Ohio said the pepperoni for the pizzas came from a different supplier. In the midst of all the E. Coli breakouts over the summer, nine of the 21 contaminated people recalled eating one of these pizzas with pepperoni prior to their illness.

Tom Forsythe, General Mills spokesman, assured the public, “To date we have found no E. Coli in our plant, and we have found no E. Coli in our products.” So, I’m assuming we can rest assured that the case is being taken care of.

However, I think I am going to go throw away that pizza sitting in my freezer.

Every holiday season, some new extravagant technological innovation makes its presence at just the right time. It absolutely amazes me. Moms stand in lines outside of Target or Wal-mart in the middle of the night just so they can get the new Nintendo Wii that their child has been begging for ever since they first heard the hype about it.

But it seems that MySpace will be saving consumers the trouble in the next year. No more having to camp out in parking lots on Black Friday. MySpace is expected to launch games from their social-networking Website beginning in 2008.

There will be a variety of games and players will be able to compete with other players online. And they wont even have to get off the couch to go purchase the game. It all happens through the incredible, convenient piece of technology we call the Internet. No more spending hundreds of dollars for games like Wii and Game Cube. MySpace is trying to appeal to this same market by poking at the convenience factors.

Although online games would never take the place of store-bought video games, it is a great target to go after. We’ll just have to see what the feedback says once this new idea gets under way.

As an undergraduate senior, the question of going back to school for a graduate degree is constantly lingering over my head. There are many advantages to furthering your education, but there are some setbacks to consider as well.

According to Fred Whiting, director, strategic communications at Washington-based Points of Light Foundation and PRSA National Capital Chapter mentoring committee chair, “A graduate degree is probably not going to get you the job, but probably [will] put you in the interview pile.” He adds, “It does distinguish you from many of your colleagues.”

A great thing about receiving an MBA or master’s degree is that you get a better knowledge of how an organization works as a whole. It prepares you with better management skills, teaches you how to work more strategically, socially, theorectially and you can even gain more specific PR education.

Kim Newman, former book publicist, says about getting her master’s: “I wanted to get a bigger world perspective of PR.”

If you are well-educated in a wide variety of areas, it only makes you that much more qualified for a PR position.

However, there are some drawbacks in going back for a graduate degree. And, unfortunately, a majority of those drawbacks are due to financial reasons. You sacrifice work time for school time, which means less income and more outgoing payments. It is also not guaranteed that you will ultimately get paid more after receiving an MBA or master’s degree. And there is also the issue of the time it takes out of your already busy life to go back school.

So, the question lies in whether you would personally like to benefit from the advantages of getting a graduate degree or whether you are happy in your current position. I don’t think you can go wrong either way, it’s just a up to your personal preference.

In the PR Week Career Guide, Tayna Lewis states, “Demand for PR talent is enormous - even greater than last year - and it shows no signs of slowing.”

In my PR Style and Design class, we have been talking about how difficult it is for PR firms to find outstanding, talented PR prospects. This young talent is crucial in building successful companies. These young practitioners are one day going to be the ones running the show and it is critical that they are well-educated, creative and talented while still getting the job done sufficiently.

Another great point the article makes is that “there are lots of candidates at all levels, but few exceptional ones.” This should say something about the growth of the PR industry. If there is such a high demand for “exceptional” candidates, it must mean that PR will be around for a while. It’s not going anywhere. In fact, it will prove itself in being a highly qualified profession.

These young, highly-qualified practitioners will be the ones training the next generation. You better believe PR needs the exceptional ones. PR needs young professionals who won’t just tackle the challenges ahead of them, but who will do so with outstanding results, constantly finding better ways to work strategically and learning from their past mistakes. The industry needs people who are going to go above and beyond what is expected of them for the betterment of the company’s reputation.

It’s becoming a competitive industry out there and students need to understand the importance of this concept before the job-seeking begins.

According to an article on nytimes.com, several law firms have begun using YouTube to their advantage. Because YouTube is popular among the generation they are recruiting for summer associates, they are now using the video Website as a hiring tool.

The article says, “The videos are still in the early days.” However, a handful of firms have started posting videos already.
What an interesting idea for these firms to be doing. I would never guess that they would do this being that law is such a sophisticated industry.

I have been hearing so often about how the Internet and changes in technology are effecting the way we live. And it is so true, I see it more and more everyday. It has become the norm. Recently, I was reading a post about a mother whose children are doing the whole Webkinz thing. I was in awe of how these 6-year-old kids can tackle this program with no problems at all.

There is no doubt about it, technology has changed our society. And for well known law firms to be using YouTube as a recruitment tool is incredible to me.

I found the article News is Out, Internet In on odwyerpr.com very interesting. Last year, I took a newspaper management class, and the main theme of the class was the future of newspapers. So, it was interesting to see a continuation of this argument outside of that class.

The gist of this article is that print and broadcast news are facing extreme competition from the Internet. Wolfe states that the Internet gives people “access to all information at all times and not merely to today’s news - indeed, all information, practically, that ever was…”

What a great point that he makes. I know, as a student, that it is often times so much more convenient to check the Internet quickly to skim the headlines and read a few articles before I have to be at my next destination.

However, Wolfe makes another interesting claim that papers such as the New York Times are not being effective in their use of the Internet. The Internet is typically viewed as a source to retrieve news quickly and easily. But, NYT has a bad habit of simply “transferring lengthy newsprint stories to the web when people want much shorter, punchier material to read.”

On the other hand, Wolfe refers to the newspapers as “cannibalizing themselves by giving away much of their content free.”

What a strange transition that the news industry is currently facing. The money is coming from the print news. However, there is an extremely high demand for fast news via the Internet. But, the Internet is not demanding enough for the audience’s use. The article states, “Veronis Suhler Stevenson, media research firm, says that by 2011 the Internet will have greater ad volume than newspapers, currently the biggest ad medium.”

So, are newspapers like the New York Times still going to be “cannibalizing themselves” in 2011 when the industry is at a peak?

PR Week Career Guide contains an article called My Giant Leap, in which Tanya Lewis profiles several PR pros who have been through significant changes to get to where they currently stand in the PR industry.

This article put me at so much ease. It reminded me that even if I don’t start out in a job that I would ultimately like to have, its completely fine. Even if I decide to change my whole career path, it’s still okay.

Lewis profiled Jennifer Jacobs of Edelman. Jacobs was pursuing a master’s degree in education when she realized that teaching was not what she truly cut out for. After taking a career test, it was revealed that she would be a great fit for PR. So, here she is today with a completely different career path, working for Edelman. However, education has still been her focus in the PR industry as she “manages Edelman’s Washington, DC, education and training program and contributes to its global training program.”

You can still use what you know to help you in the future. Here’s a woman who was studying for her master’s and ended up changing everything.

When I graduate in December, I plan to move to Nashville and work in the music industry. I was lucky to have the opportunity during the summer as an intern for the sponsor manager of a major headlining country music tour. I left at the end of the summer confident that I would like to pursue a career in the music industry. But, I still need to go in with an open mind. I may get there and hate it, leaving me with nothing to do but to change directions. So, this article reminded me that change is okay, and you can still use your background work experience to help you with a future career.

Annie Howell of Discovery Communications says about her change, “You have good days and bad ones. Push through. Keep Trying. The first six months were daunting. It was completely foreign and fast-moving, but I wasn’t shy about telling people [I didn’t] know. You cannot go it alone.”

This should be great advice for anyone, especially for graduated students just entering the work force.

Resumes. I always feel like i am always hearing different opinions on how to write a resume from several different people. So, how should I know which advice to take and which advice not to take?

In an article called First Impression in the PR Week Career Guide, Erica Iacono interviews President of Job-Bound Brad Karsh on resume do’s and don’ts for students applying for their first “real” jobs in the PR field. This was so helpful for me to hear because I was immediately able to pick out things on my current resume that need to be changed.

Karsh explains that a huge mistake in cover-letter writing is that applicants are not specific enough. He gives the example, “Most will say, ‘Wrote press release promoting [so and so].’ I might argue that any person seeking a job at a PR firm has written a press release. Recruiting directors want specific accomplishments.” This is so true. How am I going to impress a company while being so vague?

Karsh also explains his pet peeves when it comes to resumes. He says that “approximately 20 percent of all resumes have typos.” That’s incredible! Twenty percent? He has also received inappropriate email addresses like “spicychica@hotmail.com or thedirthead@yahoo.com.” Another pet peeve is that he doesn’t like seeing sentences on a resume. He says, “Also keep in mind the bullet points and action verbs.” He also argues that everyone in college knows how to work on Microsoft Word, yet they still list it on their resume as a computer skill. Karsh stresses, “Don’t fill your resume with self-evident computer abilities.”

Another great point that he talks about is what skills are important to list on your resume. He answers, “Anything you’ve done in PR, be it an agency internship, publicity for a campus group, or a meaningful semester-long class PR project.” He thinks the biggest mistake is that students do not include these real life experiences just because it was done for a class. Also, any leadership you hold is important too if you don’t have much experience in PR.

This article is so great to have on hand so I can compare my resume against his tips. I feel like maybe now I won’t be so hesitant to send my resume out to the “real world.”

A recent discussion, “Princeton Review Rejects ‘PR’ Study,” on odwyerpr.com caught my eye as I was skimming through some headlines.  And being that I am a PR major, it especially grabbed my attention. You may read the Princeton Review article here.

The article simply states, “A broad education is the best preparation, since PR requires familiarity with a wide variety of topics.” Well, yes, I believe this to be true, PR does involve a broad spectrum of situations. However, the article takes it further to say, “Though some colleges offer a degree in PR, most industry professionals agree it’s unnecessary.” While I do believe that people could learn the ropes of PR through experience in the field rather than a college degree in PR, I still find it extremely beneficial to offer the degree at colleges, especially if students know that’s what they want to pursue a career in.

Sure, there are cases where art majors may end up in the marketing field following college graduation, but does that mean to just do away with offering a marketing degree. Not at all. PR classes do in fact offer information that people not involved in the field would not understand. The article says, “the PR person must be a good communicator in print, in person and on the phone.” A regular education may teach you this. However, PR specific classes provide the best ways of communication, what to do in crisis management, how to write in AP style, how to write press releases and many other aspects for the PR industry.

I feel if someone is going to say, “Any major that teaches you how to read and write intelligently will lay a good foundation for a career in PR,” as it states in the article, then they may not understand what all PR entails. Which is completely OK. I just believe that it’s like any other major a college may offer: you declare a specific major to learn the specifics about a particular industry that you may not otherwise learn.