The Bold and the… OK, I’m a Little Overwhelmed

Normally, I would never admit to having anything less than nerves of steel.

After all, I presented a PR campaign to an international client this summer with no fear and he bought it. Before I was 22. Before I had finished my senior year of PR.

But now, now… I’m a little bit timid and my nerves are pulsing with more malleability than that board room meeting over the summer in N.C.

Why?

Because now I am telling fellow professionals in my field what to do. Not an authoritative thing, mind you. I’m not their boss. Technically, I haven’t even entered the workforce yet – I interact with it on a daily basis, but I am still a senior who is not FULLy in the workforce yet.

Confused?

Meet PR(evolution): the pet project of me and Jessica Ayers.

PR(evolution)

PR(evolution) is a new idea here at the University of Alabama – students teaching students (I know, this has happened before… wait for it) AND staff (even more) AND practitioners. One might say:

“But Platform Online Magazine does this already.”

To which I would have to say that Platform, an online publication targeting students, teachers and practioners in the field of PR does in fact do this. But what does it teach them? PR? Sure… we do that, too.  But  we also teach Social Media. Think of us as the brainchild of Platform. Continue to read them. They’re great. Betsy Plank even recommends the publication and its blog and Twitter. But if you want to understand how Platform and other PR professionals use Social Media, you might want to take a peek at PR(evolution).

Now past its first and second sessions, PR(evolution) is well on its way to being succesful – we now have commitments to speak at public institutions and to present to the local libraries.

We have high-ranking professional coming in to tell us that our program is being used to help evaluate what SM they should use. (See DCH – The Hospital)

And all this has me wondering – is it all about to fall out the bottom? Because this could really lead places. Recently, in private talk, Damien Basile, a man who knows his way around PR, social media and brilliant dialogue, asked why I was afraid to embrace the success. After long thought… its because I am afraid it will fall out all at once and I will be left holding pieces.

After all, in order to embrace this, I have to make it my whole focus… I can have other background focuses, but they will only serve as a minor support net.

So my question to you (as I love to encourage dialogue) is: when you began to hit your own brand of success, what continue to motivate you and keep you from being scared to death that it would all fall through?

This blog, of course, falls more into my “Taking What’s Mine” mantra and less of “Giving Something New” because this time, I need some assurance.

Confession, My Runners: Days Two and Three of the Long Stretch

I have not run yesterday, and I will not run today for my portion of Crimson for a Cure. I have a stomach virus and am taking it easy today. I will, however, attempt to run this Saturday morning whilst I am in Mobile.

That is all.

–JMS–

First Run of the Stretch

Welcome, my runners… to your icebreaker run. I hope it was good. And if it wasn’t, sorry… it will get better. Just believe that you can finish and you will. Yesterday you had to run 2 miles. Today you run 3. To let you in on a little info and show you just how hard it can be to get running, I will post my runnings each day – and hopefully it can encourage you by seeing how sometimes your runs are great and sometimes they’re not… but you just have to push through.

The Rules of the Game: Cyber Ethics, Part I

Get online and post a profile picture. I dare you.

No, really, go ahead.

Just make sure I’d like it…

We all know that what we put online stays online. It can never really be deleted. But what if you knew that the sites sponsoring said info were not only not protecting the raw data, but were also actively selling it to others?

It has come to my attention over and over again that this is the case – I even interviewed for a company last spring that was able to put a mini bio together about me from information they had “collected.” Now, as a company, I don’t blame them. If they have a way of buying info about me… so be it. Do what you need to. But I do blame the company leaking my info in the first place. Employers should have to work to get my information – either in form of interview, resume, application and/or actually setting up a profile on social networking sites in order to talk with me.

After all, do I get to know about the secret lives of my immediate boss (I would use CEO… but I am sure I would get comments telling me that I do in fact read news stories about their scandals)? No. I don’t get to know the secret inner workings. And they do post things online – I would just have to know where to look.

Facebook disagrees.

This especially bothers me, since, as part of my PR Campaigns class my last semester… we are working for a client that teaches cyber ethics. I didn’t take it seriously at first – the idea, not the project. I didn’t take it seriously, because most of the time my mantra is that if you haven’t protected your information, it wasn’t important enough to copyright.

But now, after reading this article, this breaks even my rules.

Basically, Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, has said that he can change the Terms of Service  (TOS) at any given time without alerting users. See, here, users believe they have protected their information… but to no avail. In fact, Zuckerberg has gone on to say:

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change or delete portions of these terms at any time without further notice. Your continued use of the Facebook service after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new terms.

Does this annoy you? I am sure it does. And I don’t mind my information being out there. But I do mind a contractual evil.

So my questions to users are as follows:

• Does this bother you?
• Where do you draw the line?
• Why?

Based on that, I will introduce Part II of this.

–JMS–

TwitterSheep

Ok, so I will have a longer post soon, I promise. Just been busy getting PR(evolution) going. This is a workshop where a fellow senior and I will teach PR staff and students here at UA about the Social Media.

But I digress…

My good friend (only know him online, but I have SO much respect for the man), Danny Brown, wrote a blog about TwitterSheep. So I plugged in my username. Tell me if you think it’s me.

–JMS–