Big Day, Busy Day

Today has been very stressful and grueling. I have already done two presentations and got my COMM 4020 presentation left. I found out I have finals on my days off from school, Tuesday/Thursday, and I am highly disappointed. Those days I work. Now I got to try and flip my schedule all around to accommodate my finals! I made my final schedule for next semester and am very excited about that. I have 3 comm classes and 3 management classes. I look forward to the summer!

2 weeks or so left for school!

So I am currently working on my e-portfolio presentation for my COMM 4020 class and I was thinking of how I only have 2 weeks left for the semester. Today I filled out my final schedule for the fall and I am set to graduate next May. I am so thrilled of the idea. I am overwhelmed though of all the work that still needs to be done for my classes but I am trying not to think about it. One day at a time I tell myself.

Blog Entry!! Spring Break

Spring break is awesome, although it has gone very very fast. I did not do much of anything exciting over my spring break other than work 45 hours. I guess one would label me a workaholic. I did get to spend more time with friends and family compared to when I am at school putting in the time. This picture right here describes me and my view towards working during my "spring break". I am very happy to make more money (guy on left), disgusted that I have to spend my spring break doing that (middle), and sad and dumbfounded that spring break is almost over (right). I did go out a couple nights during the week and drank with a few buddies of mine. I also spent time with a lady i have been seeing and so far so good! Although many students probably had vacations book months ago for this time we call spring break, I was modest and happy just to make more money and not have to stress about school and all the hw and studying that goes into it (i am taking 18 credits this semester, yes).

My evolving attitudes throughout spring break!

Yes I drank more alcohol!

PR Blog Entry (2-13-12)

Good day everyone, I will be answering this weeks PR blog questions, enjoy.

1. When I visit blogs I often visit blogs of pro athletes who I admire the most. The most often blog(s) I visit would those of my friends and also blogs from athletes such as Evgeni Malkin and Fedor Emelianenko. The reasons to why I like to visit my friends blog sites is to get a better understanding of their daily lives. I cant always keep in contact with them due to time, but when I visit there blogs I can see what there daily routines are and how life is treating them. When I visit blogs such as Malkin's and Emelianenko, they are to see when the next game is or next fight is to get a better understanding if they will be up to par for that event. Blogs fill different needs for different people and we all inhabit them to fill a specific need that we want satisfied.

2. I would have to say blogs are more reliable than mainstream news distributors because you are going right to the source for information you seek. News outlets can distort information sometimes which doesn't give the end user the information that is factional. Sometimes blogs or other social media networks (Facebook, twitter, etc) have made up profiles of celebrities or athletes that is not accurate. You have to be weary sometimes of the information you seek and know if a blog is true to that person, or fake. News outlets are the middleman who are in business to fuel the fire to keep its audiences interested.

3. I don't think I could hold back information from my audience when it comes to being paid from an organization or source. Creating buzz about a product is one thing, but when your doing it for a monetary value it becomes something different. To withhold information from your audience would be deceiving and unethical because some of your audience might feel cheated or mislead if word were to come out about you receiving monetary gains from a particular product being promoted.

4. An effective way to take still photos for a feature story is to capture your person or product in its natural element. When you have your person or product in an environment that is conducive to there comfort level, they feel at ease and natural to that moment. Also the person taking the photo must realize how to use a camera in certain situations to effectively capture those precious moments that he or she wants to take.

PR Class 2-6-12

This past Monday in PR class we had a guest speaker, Jonathan Potts, who spoke to our class about PR. It was informative but was hard to hear him. We got alot of handouts and interviewed Dr. Jabro for our feature story. I am going to answer the blog questions for this week!

A.I am very nervous about writing this feature story! I am new to this with no prior experience. I feel like I got alot of information from Dr. Jabro to write my feature story but have no true plan on how I am going to piece it together! It will be a challenge for sure and that's how I am approaching it. I will be starting my feature story probably on Friday. I will be using Dr. Houser's examples on how he conducted his feature story on Dr. Wu. But I will be sure to instill my own flavor and style to my own! I look forward to this challenge as there is alot of unknowns and unturned stones in front of me!

B. I do not believe I will do exceptionally well on this feature story. As discussed in my previous question I answered I am nervous and very new to this experience. Although I love challenges and facing adversities, I believe that I wont knock this out of the park. Now some may so I am short changing myself, but I am a true realist and have an understanding of my capabilities. If I do end up doing well on this feature story and exceed beyond my wildest beliefs it will be an added bonus! I will incorporate my style and flavor and only hope that it is viewed by Dr. Jabro and Dr. Park as being exceptional! Parts that I feel I will do exceptionally well in are probably my creative thinking and organization. I love to spice things up and keep my readers interested. Organizing is a big deal with this feature story and I know that I will probably piece it well together. I will make sure I commit enough time to it and try to produce a well written story about Dr. Jabro. All in all I feel like my creative thinking and organization will be the two skills that I do exceptionally well on in this feature story. Stay tuned!

C.My biggest concern with this feature story that I don't feel like I will do exceptionally well on will be on depth of the story and factual information. When we interviewed Dr. Jabro, I posed questions that I wanted to ask and got most of the meat out of the questions that she answered, but not all. I also wrote down alot of the my fellow classmates questions and answers that Dr. Jabro gave but not all. I am concerned mostly that my feature story will not produce enough detailed or interesting information that I maybe missed when Dr. Jabro gave her responses to questions. Another concern of mine is grammer. I tend to rush when I write and really fumble around my words and thoughts when I try to convey them on paper. This is my other concern but I have came up with a plan to combat that, and that is to spend more time and proof read like crazy!! Although I don't feel like i'll blow this feature story out of the water and get an A+, I know I will produce a quality product (my paper).

D. When I got to the Chapel on Monday for class I noticed two gentleman who I never recognized before , Dr. Potts and a film crew member (forgot name opps!), standing in front of the chapel. We were informed by Dr. Jabro that the film crew member who be video taping us for a video that they would be showing on TV's in Nicholson for new freshman. I loved the idea of the thought and was pleased to be taking part in the video. During the session in which Dr. Potts gave his speech and we were being filmed, I noticed that the film crew member only took video at one angle and that was the right side of the chapel, as the chapel is split in two with chairs. I did not notice him video shoot at an angle from the left side of the chapel. I also noticed he stood directly behind a student in the 3rd row out of possibly 12 rows. I wondered why he did that and came up with my own conclusion that he wanted it to appear that the whole chapel was packed with students as it would be shown in the video. I also noticed that Dr. Potts seemed nervous and uncomfortable with the environment. I also noticed he said "um" alot and seemed lost of words at times. He did an excellent job with the material he talked about but seemed to run out of things to say. We could of helped him as students and probably asked questions! Other than this it was a great time as I have never been in the chapel before and an experience that I will never forget!  

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry I haven't posted on my blog for acouple days but I have been so busy! I am going to be blogging about my most recent PR class (2-06-12) here shortly. Stay tuned!

-Luke

Busy Day

Today was busy, had class, then visited my mother as she is recovering from spinal surgery and is rehabbing, then I went to the gym, then homework homework homework. Time to relax and watch the penguins go for 9 wins in a row!

-Luke

What I learned from my PR class (1-30-12) Cont.

C. The one glaring weakness that I can see being an issue potentially is our busy schedules. After class, we discussed as a group when we would like to meet and we each struggled to find common ground on a date and time that would be beneficial for each member. Fortunately we were able to come up with a date and time (2-3-12) to meet. So far everything has fallen into place, but things can change quickly! Stay tuned!!!

D. I would be lying if I said i was growing as a practitioner at this point in my college life. Being a beginner at PR I feel like I have alot to learn first before I can say I am a good PR practitioner. I know that this class will bring out the best in me and who I want to become in life. In my last semester class in which I had Dr. Park, I learned how to set up a PR plan and what it takes to instill all the components. I learned about call reports and other aspects when it came to implementing PR plans. This is the basic knowledge that I have gained up until this point in my ever growing desire to become a great PR practitioner. Having two great professors guiding the way with wealth's of knowledge will only make me become a better practitioner over time. Having my group members ( Chris, Andrew, Abby, Sarah and Valerie) will also help me because each of them has new ideas and knowledge that I can learn from them. Each week as I am subjected to the PR lifestyle placed upon me, I will grow and you will see me grow through my blog. It will be an interesting transformation not only for me, but for my audience! 

What I learned from my PR class (1-30-12)

A. When I was accepted into Robert Morris I knew that my main focus and love was business management. But i knew that i wanted to become a more global individual not only for myself but for the profession i want to get into. I thought about pursuing my minor and gave it plenty of thought before acting upon. So here I am, a public relations newbie practitioner in training! I want to become a better speaker and overall individual and this being my second public relations class ever taken, I feel a comfort level already in this field of study. I admit i don't know much about public relations or its core concepts, but what i do know is that it is a very detailed and demanding field. You must be a good communicator with a warming personality that is focused and has high ambitions to persuade others. The tasks that i would like to acquire mostly is to become a better speaker and to learn new concepts on how to lead and motivate others to get the best out of themselves.

B. Getting the plan and details about the meat of our project tonight helped me clarify some doubt i had in the beginning of the semester. This builders project seems to be very demanding, but a challenge that has high rewards. The biggest rewards i gained from tonight's class understanding the material better, and finally getting this project underway. I can already tell that my group will be a delightful one to be apart as we each have great personalities and wonderful work ethics (a sense i gained when talking to each of my group members individually). This to me thus far has been the biggest reward because you are only as good as the rest of your group members, as I have learned from previous group projects!As we get into this project in more depth as time passes, and i will hopefully be a avid blogger now, I will update my blog after each class to help update my audience about the progress of myself and my team.

C. My team is great! Touching on this subject in my previous question, I feel like we will be the team to get our feature story published out of all the teams, and I truly feel this way. So far we have exchanged e-mails and phone numbers to make ourselves more accessible to one another. We are meeting this Friday (2-3-12) to go over our logo and to divide the responsibilities among-st each other to help get the best results possible. Our strengths up until this point, it being early, is our communication, commitment, and diverse areas of strengths among each group member. My own areas of strength are my organization, attentiveness, commitment, and determination. Over the course of our builders project, more strengths will come to fruition, and some strengths we thought were strengths might not be such the case.

Robert Morris University PR

So after my public relations night class (1-30-12) we were given the assignment to create a blog to help evaluate the material learned from that night and answer questions posed. This should be fun and a definite learning experience for myself!

-Luke

New to the world of blogging!

This is my first time ever doing this! Hope this will be enjoyable.

-Luke