America's Biggest Fear: PUBLIC SPEAKING

I've never understood how public speaking is higher on America's list of fears than death or, in today's world, the economy.  What's the big deal? Some people say to picture the audience naked or imagine that they are dressed as clowns, but the audience is still there along with your fear of speaking in front of them. 

Public speaking has never been one of my greatest fears.  I think there are far worse things in life to fear.  I'm not saying that I've never been scared to speak in front of a group of people, but that had nothing to do with the audience receiving my speech.  

It is all about being prepared.  If you know your audience and your have prepared a speech, then I am completely comfortable speaking in front of a group of people.  If you know your audience, then you can also figure out what they want to hear so you won't bore them to sleep instead of listening to what you have to saw.  

In Ed Barks article, "The Truth About Public Speaking: Somebody is watching you",  Barks talks about the other little things that you need to be prepared for in any speech.  

"Uh"s and "Um"s don't cut it, ever.  You have to sound confident to receive credibility from your audience, and "Uhing" and "Uming" doesn't exactly make you sound confident. 

When Barks attends a speech he also pays attention to how the speaker engages an audience.  Part of being prepared for a speech is coming up with ideas to make what you're saying more interesting.  It won't matter how important the words are that are coming out of your mouth if the entire audience has fallen asleep because of a monotone voice or lack of visuals.  

If you want more advice about public speaking so you don't get stuck in fear, go see Ed Barks article at aboutpublicrelations.net. 

What is your best job interview tip?

I came across this article last night that really helped me reflect on my first real world internship interview experience.  Last Friday, I had my first interview with a company for an internship this summer.  It was very interesting.  I expected to be nervous, but I really wasn't.  I'm really good at talking to people one on one, so during the interview process I felt very comfortable with the people I was talking to.  I know this won't be the case in most interviews.  I know I won't feel comfortable talking in every interview, but this one seemed quite easy for me.  This article by Steven R. Van Hook, explains why being comfortable in interviews is so important.  You have to convince THEM that YOU are the right fit for their position.  If you're nervous and fidgeting the whole time, the employers won't take you seriously.  They will think at you are not confident in your abilities to do the job.  Van Hook also explains that the interviews are probably just as nervous.  If you make them see that you are completely confident in what you are saying, then they will be able to relax.  They will remember that when it comes time to hiring and you might get the job because they felt confident in your abilities even if it was mostly in how you presented yourself to them.

Here's another tip for all you readers.  As a marketing saleswoman for over 15 years, my mother taught me a very valuable trick for interviews.  Always be closing!  Towards the end of the interview, you should always try to get a time or date when you will be seeing them again or when you will be hearing back from them.  It sets another time up for you both to communicate, and they will see you as responsible for following up.  

I know a lot of you are trying to find internships for this summer, so I hope this helps for all of your many interviews! 

You can find the article by Steven R. Van Hook at aboutpublicrelations.net.

A place where the unexpected becomes expected

After reading "The Tipping Point," I started thinking about all the outrageous trends that have been started in the last few years.  At least one person had to think that UGG boots or Crocs were worth starting a trend over.  Those trends couldn't have just popped out of thin air and into stores with the buzz they had without someone telling people about them.  This is exactly the idea that "The Tipping Point" is based on.  Malcolm Gladwell explains the tipping point as the "one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once" (9).

Like any trend or epidemic, all it took was for a select few to think that the product was cool.  Then the trend would spread like wildfire.  In "The Tipping Point," Gladwell refers to the spread of a trend like a very contagious virus or infection.  All it takes is one person to spread the virus to everyone around him or her, and then they would give it to everyone around them.  This is how an epidemic would start out and it would just keep growing.  This entire process only happens after an epidemic is contagious.  There are many factors in making an epidemic, and all of them need to be involved to lead to the tipping point, that one dramatic moment.  Gladwell used the example of the Hush Puppies trend to show exactly how this idea is put into action.  In 1994, Wolverine, the company that manufactured Hush Puppies, was thinking about taking them off the market entirely because of bad sales.  They found out that people in Manhattan were going crazy over these shoes and the shoes were becoming hip in the bars and clubs downtown.  By the next year, Wolverine was selling more than 14x as many shoes as they were in 1994 (3).  Of course, these few people were not the only reason Hush Puppies succeeded in the market.  A tipping point is all about a few factors happening all at once to create a surge of buzz marketing.  

I believe that we need something like this for the Athletic Auction in April.  Factoring in this economy at this time we really need something that will make the Athletic Auction tip.  A great way to make this happen is to find out who are the influential people in Milledgeville and the surrounding areas.  Most of these people would have the means of being connectors and could spread the word that participating in the Athletic Auction can really help with the Milledgeville economy and the community.  If the Athletic Auction brings in more money for the Athletic Department, they can spend it on their sports by getting better equipment for the players and on marketing for sporting events to get people to the games.  All of this will get the economy rolling again in the Milledgeville area.  These factors are great incentives for the connectors to spread the word and for more people to come to the Athletic Auction. 

Another way to get our event to tip would be to make it sticky.  We need to continually reinforce the information of the auction to our target market.  In "The Tipping Point," Gladwell writes about an experiment conducted by Howard Levanthal, a social psychologist, on a group of senior college students at Yale University.  He tested two different groups with different booklets explaining the dangers of tetanus in order to see if it would show a difference in the number of people who actually were inoculated.  He tried the experiment a few different ways until one of them stuck.  He found out that once the students were reminded of the times of the clinic hours, they were able to find time in their schedules to come get inoculated (96-97).  For the Athletic Auction, we can apply this same idea by reinforcing the date, time, and place of our event.  Hopefully through reinforcement we can achieve the stickiness factor. 

When reviewing the different types of people Gladwell writes about in "The Tipping Point," I think I have a little bit of all three kinds of people in me, but probably the two most dominant would be the salesman or the connector.  I find joy in meeting new people and I love to unite completely different groupings of people.  I'm nowhere close to being a Roger Horchow of the world.  I don't have the ability to meet and remember that many people.  I also know from reading "The Tipping Point" that most of the connectors' abilities come out once they enter the business world.  Hopefully, once I step out into that world, more of my connector instincts will come through.  I also believe that I have some of the traits of a salesman.  People always tell me that I have the ability to persuade.  I'm hoping that like my connector abilities, my salesman abilities will strengthen after I join the world of business.  Since I am still a student, I feel like I still have so much room to grow and strengthen my abilites.  Now that I have read The Tipping Point, I know what to look for and what to build upon.

As for the connection between social media and "The Tipping Point," I believe that I have noticed my own tipping point with Twitter.  Before I joined Twitter, I had only heard it mentioned in Dr. Miller's Mass Media Law class.  She had only mentioned that it was a social media outlet and that her PR Admin class was involved in it.  I forgot about it until it was mentioned again in my PR Admin class.  My tipping point came after I joined.  I heard it everywhere!  It was like wildfire.  Twitter was on the news, on other social media websites, and even my non- mass communication friends were joining the new buzz.  I know that it was popular among the people in the business world, but it wasn't popular among the people in my life, in my world.  That one instant that I started noticing the mention of this "new" social media outlet was my tipping point for Twitter and maybe even the rest of the country.  All it takes is one person to think it's cool and tell a connector and then the trend spreads like wildfire.  That's how Myspace, Facebook, and now Twitter have taken off. 

How canny! (Or maybe uncanny?): Writers and the joy of fashionable new words

I used to think that only the words in the dictionary were the only words of speech.  Now writers are not limited to just those pages, they have started making up their own words.  In Greg Beaubien's words, writers make up words in order to be "cool."  It's a way for writers to make something more their own.  They not only have creative freedom to form sentences the way they want, but to add words with new exciting meanings.  

Sometimes I think that it adds a new twist to someone's writing to create a new word, but I also think it can get confusing.  If the writer makes up a word that the reader has never seen before, they might misunderstand the writer's meaning.  I think that there is fine line when creating new words.  If writers don't do it correctly and carefully, they might fail at what they are trying to achieve. 

Beaubien mentioned several different words that writers have made up that have become a part of everyday language. Some of those writers obviously created words affectively because even I have used some of them in my daily speech. Luxe, bemused, and stakeholders are just a few words that are newly created words that have transitioned into everyday speech.  

In 2009, Beaubien mentions that this trend of creating new words will pick up.  New words like frisson and canny have already been introduced.  

"But isn't it exhilarating to write, and read, words that have suddenly become popular?" Beaubien said. "They seem so fresh and novel."

Creating a brand new you: Why personal branding is so crucial today

Most of my blogs so far have been about how I can improve myself as I step into the business world of PR.  As of right now, I still feel like I know nothing about that business outside of school.  I am still looking for an internship to help me know more about my chosen career before I have to just jump head first into finding a job in an economy that makes it near impossible.  In my quest to find out more about the PR world, I came across an article about creating your personal brand.  

Jerry Wilson, senior vice president of The Coca-Cola Company and president of the Global McDonald's Division, explained a few things that individuals need to know about branding themselves.  Most of his advice is for professionals trying to rebrand themselves within the PR world, but I got a lot out of what he said.  Given this economy, you really have to stand out.  He said that it's not just what you wear that defines your brand, but your personality as well.  Wilson stated that we can learn a lot about how to brand yourself by the success businesses have had with branding their companies.  The reason most of these brands like Coca-Cola or McDonald's are so successful is because they are so consistent with their brand and message.  "Consistency, especially in the PR world, communicates," Wilson said.  I believe that is important as well.  If you advertise yourself in your resume that you are reliable and always on time, you can't be late three days the first week.  It is inconsistent and your employer will see right through you.  You would not be branding yourself correctly. 

Something else Wilson said really struck me.  He said that you have to audit yourself.  In order to improve upon your best qualities and fix your worse, you need to be able to look at yourself with a crucial eye.  You have to pick out the bad parts of your personality even if it is painful in order to rebrand yourself.  I good way of categorizing your strengths and weaknesses, would be to do a SWOT analysis on yourself.  "People have to look through the eyes of another for SWOT," Wilson said.  It is the best way of getting the truth without it being contaminated by your own ego.

This article really helped me understand what I need to do to leverage my best attributes. I know what my weaknesses and strengths are.  Now I just need to figure out how to use my strengths to my best ability and to work on my weaknesses to get me at the top of my game.  

Engaging online knows no limits

More and more people are joining online social networking including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and much, much more.  With this rapid expansion online, businesses and professionals are starting to pay closer attention to everything they see on these social networking websites.  The lines between personal communication and professional communication has blurred.  Everything you post can be read by your future employers and the rest of the professional world.  

Barri Rafferty from Ketchum wrote that even every word counts.  Twitter is a prime example of this.  The poster's thoughts are limited to just 140 characters per update, so they have to be concise and to the point.  Rafferty also talked about a tweet problem is his own company.  a colleague fired off an offensive tweet about a client's hometown without actually using the name of the city.  Even though the colleague of Rafferty's didn't mean any harm by posting his thoughts at the time, he wasn't professional in his use online.  Everything can and will be seen by someone.  That colleague was unprofessional and unlucky enough to have the wrong person read what he wrote.  

Rafferty also mentions five things to keep in mind when posting online. His first insight was that the private is becoming public.  Like I stated earlier, nothing is completely secret anymore.  You can't post something online and expect that you will be the only one to see it.  "Our professional work as communicators can be impacted by a personal comment," Rafferty said, "so we must appreciate the convergence of the worlds in which we live."  His second insight was that context still matters.  Even though speech may be restricted to 140 characters or must be written at the speed of lightning, context should still be at top of mind.  The third insight was remember there are 360 degrees of connections. Rafferty just meant that the poster must not only think about who they are posting to, but who else might read it.  For example, by posting this very blog, I know that my classmates are reading it, but I also need to think about any public relations professionals that might come across it!  His fourth insight was that the stakes are higher than ever.  With communication at the speed of lightning online, every post has the possibility of creating a conversation.  With this possibility, every post has to be correct.  All the facts must be checked before they are posted! 

His last insight I found most important.  Rafferty stated that we're all accountable.  Every time we post something, it is under scrutiny by someone else.  Everything posted on Twitter or a public blog is public domain.  We should all remember that next time we post! 

To check out Rafferty's article, click here. 

Taking an Internship... it's important!

As I was browsing through the PRSSA website, I came across an article that staff writer Shanna Williamson wrote about taking an internship.  

You can view the article here: click here

I agree that having that experience will do wonders for your future!  For the last two summers I have participated in a great internship with a small company called Jay Geier's Scheduling Institute.  I worked with the marketing and advertising department to get real experience in this field.  There is only so much you can learn in a classroom!  At the internship, I got to put everything I learned to good use.  Since I got real world examples of everything I learned, I remembered it better.  In Williamson's article she stated that employers use intern's time as a learning experience.  They know that you are not a professional yet, but they still want to give you all the experience possible so maybe one day you will be qualified enough to take on a job like theirs.  While working a an intern, I was able to help put together marketing pieces for their potential clients and see how the whole process works.  It was very beneficial to me.  

Since I am majoring in advertising and public relations, I would love to take on another internship.  At this point in college I still don't know if I prefer advertising or public relations.  Hopefully I can find an internship for the summer that can help me decide.  Williamson said by taking an internship, she was able to "try on" all the different areas of public relations.  I think this is what I need.  I want real experience so I can make an informed decision.  I want a career that I love.  An internship is the ideal way to see if public relations is for me!