Week 15 Blogging

Advertising vs. Public Relations

The terms advertising and public relations are though of as synonymous terms by many people outside of both professions. Although both professions share some attributes, Advertising and PR are both, at times, worlds apart.

The definition for PR, given in the text book, is:

"The management of relationships between an organization and the publics that can affect its success."

The definition of advertising is:

"The process of creating and sending a persuasive message through controlled media, which allows the sender, for a price, to dictate message, placement, and frequency."

Advertising basically allows a company more freedom to say what they want, because, after all, they are paying for the message to be sent out.

PR is more news based, less hype. Many PR professionals are trying to get free publicity, which is completely opposite from advertising.

PR professionals are the link between a company and the media.

Advertising is a way of getting a companies name into the public.

These are just a few of the differences between the two. Hopefully people will continue to learn the differences between the two.

Here's a link about 10 differences between the two.

Brandon Brooks

Week 13 Blogging

Cultural Issues and Public Relations

Chapter 14 was one of the more eye catching chapters in the book. It changed my perspective about how differently we have to treat different cultures when dealing in business.

One of the more interesting parts of this chapter was the bullet points on page 460, which gave some demographics that were startling. I encourage everyone to look over that before continuing to read.

The most interesting things brought up by this chart is how small a slice of the world America really is. Although, most of the time we Americans feel like the center of the universe.

The bullet points explained if the world was a 100 person village, only 9 would speak English, 7 would own a computer, 20 would earn less than a dollar a day, and, the most startling figure, 17 would not be able to read or write.

This chart just gives so much information about how little are culture is in terms of the world. Doing international business, under our policies and attitudes about culture could ruin a business.

It's just interesting to think that no matter how important we think America is in the world it's only similar to a fraction of the world. We are so unique and lucky and many of us take that for granted.

It is up to us, as future professionals, to make sure and learn as much as we can about other cultures so that we can be successful in a global market place.

Brandon Brooks

Week 12 Blogging

Embedded Journalists: Real News or Public Relations

American troops having embedded journalists traveling with them during overseas conflicts has become quite the norm for news organizations. However, is it really news? Is it public relations?

The case study found in Chapter 12 doesnt really give a definite opinion on the topic and I'm not sure that I have one either. I feel that it's extremely hard to come down on either side of this issue.

I feel the positives of embedded journalism are:

1. Shows people watching the news what is going on in the war.

2. Keeps us more interested in the daily happenings of our country's troops.

3. Makes us, as citizens, feel that we're actually getting a real view of what's going on in these conflicts.

Some of the negatives, from my perspective:

1. To narrow a view of the war/conflict. We might see one embedded journalist report something and think that's the case for the whole war/conflict, when in actuality that might be an isolated incident.

2. The reporters might grown to close to the troops they are embedded with and not offer balanced journalism in all cases, in order to protect the troops they have grown close with.

Although I have only listed a few positives and negatives regarding embedded journalists, there are many more points for both sides of the issue.

Although I think some of the negatives are very bad, I would hate to think that not having the reporters there would be better for us as citizens. Having the reporters around at least gives us some view, other than that of the government, that is a little more impartial.

Also, here is an interesting link to a story about embedded journalists.

Brandon Brooks

Week 11 Blogging

PR Finally Gets Some Respect

The case study found in Chapter eight was one that really caught my interest. The study, which dealt with Boeing's move from Seatle to Chicago, shows one of the few times that public relations officials have received credit, as opposed to criticism.

The PR profession seems to be full of stories where companies fail, such as the American Red Cross case study, and the Edelman Worldwide "flogging" scandal. However, PR practitioners rarely get credit when they do something right.

It's similar to a offensive lineman in football, no one really cares, or talks about the positive things these players do on a regular basis. But, once one of them gives up a sack or doesn't block well enought it's all over the news and sports page.

The point is that PR professionals across the world are doing wonderful things, like setting up business continutity plans, getting information out about charaties and public works projects. Yet, the general public rarely gives them credit, becuase it's not flashy like advertising or marketing.

This example of Boeing's PR professionals being praised is one of only a few times where the people that work hard to make their companies better finally get the credit they deserve.

Brandon Brooks

Week 11 Blogging

Uses & Gratifications Theory

The uses & gratifications theory is one of the most interesting thories, in my opinion, found in this book.

The definition of Uses and Gratifications Theory, according to the text book, is:

"The belief that people have the power to pick and choose the mass media channels that, in turn, influence their actions."

According to this theory, basically, the public will seek out a media source that best fulfils their needs.

This is very interesting to me and I find it to be very true becuase of the massive amount of media outlets that we have to chose from. We walk around everyday and are bombarded by numerous sources of media: broadcast radio, satelite radio, newspapers, magazines, cable tv, satelite tv, internet, etc.. And to top it all off we're always connected. We can even recieve news on our cell phones.

All of that connection and media allows us, as consumers and members of the general public, to chose what best suits our needs. I am more apt to get my news from sources like radio and the internet than my grandmother, who might get her news from the newspaper and cable television.

It all varies based on demographics. We're not all programmed the same way. Therefore, trying to fit us all into one category, which previous theories of mass communication did, we are now thought of as more individualistic. And that's definately a step in the right direction.

Brandon Brooks

Week 10 Blogging

Information Sheet for Pandemic Media Kit

SOUTHWESTERN ENERGY MATRIX PANDEMIC & EMERGENCY PLANNING
RESOURCE LIST

The following should provide you with definitions for terms that are heard when discussing a pandemic and also a few places where more information can be found on the topic.

Pandemic- Pandemic is defined as a disease that is prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world.

Quarantine – Quarantine is defined as a strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease.

Isolation – Isolation is defined as the complete separation from others of a person suffering from

contagious or infectious disease.

www.pandemicflu.gov – This page contains information about federal, state, local, business, individual, etc. planning about what to do, and what’s being done, in the case of a possible pandemic flu.

www.hhs.gov – This page is for the Department of Health and Human Services, and contains information on their pandemic influenza plan.

www.cdc.gov – This is the page for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This site offers valuable information on how to control and stop the spread of certain sicknesses.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/pandemicflu/ - This page contains a copy for the national implementation plan for pandemic influenza.

Brandon Brooks

Week 9 Blogging

Fact Sheet for Business Continuity

SOUTHWESTERN ENERGY MATRIX PANDEMIC & EMERGENCY PLANNING
FACT SHEET

1. Employees should enable direct deposit for payroll into their personal bank accounts.

2. Lists of team leaders, managers, and other necessary employees are to be found on the company’s employee website.

3. Employees that are essential to the company, who can work remotely, will be set up to do so by the company’s technology department as soon as possible.

4. Glass enclosures will be erected for employees that need to be in direct contact with customers.

5. Sick leave days will not be detracted from employees that are working remotely.

6. Employees that aren’t sick, yet aren’t coming into the office due to mandatory quarantining, will not be charged with sick leave days.

7. The company’s health insurance provider will be contacted and any vaccines or medicines that can be administered at the workplace will be done so at a discounted rate.

8. Classes on health safety and keeping germs from spreading will be mandatory for all employees that don’t work remotely.

9. Lists of employees, and their contact information, will be sent to all employees at their company e-mail address.

Brandon Brooks

Week 8 Blogging

The Art of Flogging

Flogging, which is described in the article as :

"Flog, a play on words to demarcate the fuzzy line between the fake (paid-for) and real posts out there in the unruly blogosphere."

The idea that Wal-Mart, or their PR Firm Edelman Worldwide, had people pose as real consumers and blog for them is outright wrong.

There is no two ways about it.

But, should we really expect anything better from Wal-Mart? A company who have been known to drive out local owned businesses and treat their employees poorly, for years.

I have come to think of Wal-Mart as the greedy "Mr. Scrooge" type of corporate America. Always wanting more and giving less.

You can say what you want about this particular instance being their PR firm, which it most certainly was. However, I would'nt say that this same company would do this for all their clients.

It seems to me, and this is only my personal opinion, that the corporate environment of Wal-Mart lends themselves to practices such as flogging.

In my mind, I hold both Wal-Mart and Edelman Worldwide equally responsible for this happening.

Although I have refused to shop at Wal-Mart for years, this act by their PR firm only goes to strengthen my view on their company.

I hope that the act of flogging doesn't became a mainstay in the American market, since many people my age are cynical enough about American corporations as is.

Brandon

Business Continuity

For the blogging on business continuity I though the first thing that should be done is to define the term. Here is a good explanation I found on the website www.globalvoice.com/index.asp:

"Business continuity describes the processes and procedures an organization puts in place to ensure that essential functions can continue during and after a disaster. Business continuity planning seeks to prevent interruption of mission-critical services, and to re-establish full functioning as swiftly and smoothly as possible"

The first business continuity plan I found was for a company called Investors Capital Corp. Their plan "defines critical functions, staff assignments, resource requirements, vital records, and alternative work site locations related to restoring business operations with minimal impact"

The second business continuity plan I found was for Harbert Management Corp. The key elements of their plan, which is listed in full at the link provided, includes maintaining evacuation plans, maintaining an emergency contact list, and backing up critical data daily.

Lastly, the third business continuity plan I found was for First Financial Equity Corporation. Their business continuity plan stated the following:

"In short, our business continuity plan is designed to permit our firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption."

Communication with employees is an integral part in all of the business continuity plans I came across. It is vital that a socially responsible company take care of it's employees and their needs, not just their customers, in a time of crisis.

I believe to have good business continuity plans a company must provide numerous lines of communication for employees. The companies also should provide a emergency list of off-site contacts, , to all employees, so that everyone has an opportunity to find out what is going on.

The Center for Disease Control defined isolation as the following:

"Separation of an ill person who has a communicable disease from those who are healthy. Isolation prevents transmission of infection to others and also allows for the focused delivery of specialized health care to ill persons"

Their definition for quarantine is:

"Separation or restriction of activities of well persons who are not ill but who are believed to have been exposed to a communicable disease and are therefore at high risk of becoming infected."

Employee activity would vary greatly between the two because for isolation only a single person, known to be ill, would have to be removed from a workforce. However, when considering a quarantine, large amounts of people can be removed from a workforce, whether they're sick or not.

Brandon

Week 7 Blogging

For this blog entry, covering the questions from Chap. 6, I found some of the following information:

2. The first part of this question asked about businesses that were seen as some of the most ethical. To answer this question I found the list from Business Ethics website:

The first on the 100 best corporate citizens was a company called Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. The company offered the following statement, concerning their purpose and principles, on their website:

"Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is a values-driven company that views profit as a means to achieve a higher purpose. We allocate 5% of our pre-tax earnings to social and environmental causes and focus on our Company Purpose and Principles in business operations. We are motivated to achieve success because the more profitable we are, the more good we can do in the world. "

The second company on the 100 best corporate citizens list was Hewlett-Packard, a computer company based in Palo Alto, Calif. Their website had the following statement on their website about the importance they place on diversity in the workplace:

"Creating a diverse, inclusive environment has been an ongoing journey of continuous action for many years. It has been a journey guided by deeply held values. Today, our diversity vision is one of global proportions. One that requires courageous, bold actions from many people throughout the world. We are proud to share what we have learned along the way and the aspirations we are actively working to achieve."

However, with all the good these business are doing there will always be another side to the coin and you will have companies that are considered unethical. Some of the more recent companies to have been called into question by the media have been companies such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and my least favorite Wal-Mart.

While the unethical behavior may vary between each of these companies, the fact remains that many instances, by each of these companies, have been documented showing their unethical behavior.

6. This question talked about CSR, or corporate social responsibility, and whether companies who were well thought of for placing a high value on CSR were likely to influence purchasing decisions.

I feel that a great place to start for this question is the same website that lists the 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2006.

The companies featured on this list, which included Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., H-P Co, Motorola, T.I., Nike, Starbucks, etc.., are companies that ranked high in a slew of categories. The categories that the companies were ranked were Community, Corporate Governance, Diversity, Employee Relations, Environment, Human Rights, Product, and Total Return.

I, for one, do feel that the way a company is viewed, as far as CSR goes, does influence my purchasing behavior. Although I wish I could say that all of the purchases I make are from socially responsible companies, I'm honest with myself, and I really can't.

However, knowing a companies behavior on a responsibility level does really influence my purchasing behavior, as I hope that it would everyone elses.

Brandon

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Department of Homeland Security

After reading the case study and viewing the Homeland Security document, I don't feel my perception of the whole system has changed. The bureaucracy that permeates every aspect of our government has been something I've always been cynical about.

My main problem with the entire idea of a color-coded system, which supposedly describes the threat level to our country, is that it's a waste of our country's resources. When the nation's threat level is raised from yellow (elevated) to orange (high) what does that really mean?

The answer is that it could mean different things for different places. But, that is the flaw of the system. The people in the D/FE metroplex may be wasting our resources on threats that don't exist for our area.

And, while I do like the idea of a unified message being sent out, I also think that it's impractical for a country of our size to treat a threat the same in New York City as we do a threat in Topeka, Kansas.

However, I can see the other side of this as well. The idea of localizing a threat to a specific area would cause mass panic in that area, which is not something a city should have to deal with if the threat was false in the first place.

My life, and the lives of many other people, changes very little, if any, when the threat level is raised from gaurded to elevated. While I don't believe that the current system is working, I also don't have a respectable alternative.

But, being the cynical person that I am, I feel the current system will stay in place until the government finds a better way, at least in the eyes of the citizens, to pick and choose the information that is getting out to us.

Brandon Brooks

Chapter 3:

A Brief History of Public Relations

What do bookmakers, real estate appraiser, insurance companies and public relations companies all have in common?

They all utilize knowledge about the past to more acurately predict the future.

The idea of looking at the past to predict the future has always been a standard of all types of business in this country and it is no different for public relations.

As much as public relations may have changed over time, the fact remains that peoples behavior, over time, remains very similar. Therefore, the idea of looking at past results to help establish new strategies is an idea that will never go away.

A great example showing the static behavior of consumers, and people in general, is shown in this chapter. I will attempt to add to, and explain in more detail, the situation from the book.

Discussed on Pg. 62 is the ploy used by Bernays, in which he hired 10 women to walk down NYC's 5th Avenue with lit ciggarettes to combat certain notions about women smoking outdoors. This act inevitably created a buzz in the country and helped change the way many people looked at smoking.

This tactic is the idea of what is now known as "Social Proof." Social proof is one of the great marketing/public relations tactics used to make taboo subject's socially acceptable, new clothes seem fashionable, and new bars seem like the place to be.

The main idea behind social proof is the idea that if something is made to look popular and acceptable, no matter how crazy/outlandish/ridicolous it is, then more people will continue to accept it until it becomes the social norm.

Take for example my mentioning of the new bar earlier. Let's say some you and some friends want to go out on a Friday night to an area with 2 different bars. Bars 1 &2 are almost exactly the same. However, at bar 2 there is a line 50 people long and a man at the door checking a list and letting people in every few minutes. The second bar looks like you will have to wait for at least 30 minutes to go inside, while at the first bar you could walk right in.

Which one seems more appealing?

Say what you will, but many people would chose the bar that had the long line, no matter what the wait. This is the idea behind social proof. You create an image that promotes other people doing something you want them to and the masses will follow.

I believe the idea, of social proof, proves the point that human behavior is static. No matter how many know that social proof is just a marketing strategy, people will continue to act in these socially programmed ways, without even realizing they're doing it.

This is why the past is the predictor of the future. Because, really, human behavior falls into perdictable patterns. And if you can figure them out, like Bernays seemed to do in the smoking example, you will successful in any field, not just public relations.

Brandon

Perceptions of Public Relations

The following are the three questions I asked the three people and their answers:

Can you name a person that works in public relations?

1. Ann Richards- Former Texas Governor, who I believe also ran a public relations firm in New York.

2. Tony Snow- New press secretary for the White House

3. A Police Chief- I think they work in PR since they're in charge of issuing statements and things in the community.

How do you define public relations?

1. The act of getting the public aware of a certain topic or special need.

2. Public relations is influencing public perception for your personal cause.

3. The idea of getting people aware of happenings.

What do you think of my definition of PR?

1. Believed that bullet point No. 1 was the most accurate.

2. Agreed with it and thought that it sounded good.

3. Also agreed with the ideas and thought they sounded good.

After completing this assignment, it really changed my perspective on the knowledge people have of PR. I thought, going into this, that most people wouldn't be able to clearly articulate a good definition of the subject. However, I was certainly wrong. I felt that these were all very good and intelligent answers.

Brandon

Public Relations

The following are a few ways that I define Public Relations:

1. The selling of an idea to a community or any group of people.
2. The upkeep of a positive public image.
3. Creating a lasting image of a company or organization.
4. Blending of companies and communities to create a mutual understanding.

Although there are countless other ways to describe PR, the main idea behind it is always creating, and keeping up, a positive image.

The following are a few links that have definitions of Public Relations:

Google Definition

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia