I was asked to attend a professional development workshop at my alma mater. It’s a little strange because it was not long ago that I was attending these events as a public relations student. Now, I am in the fortunate position to participate as a practitioner.
This event is headed by Joe Murphy who runs student development events for the CPRS Hamilton Branch in his spare time. We met at the 2007 CPRS Pinnacles event while Joe was still a student. Currently, his ‘billed’ time is spent at Brainstorm Group.
Joe is enthusiastic and ambitious and it’s hard not to get excited when you hear him talk about his ideas. This particular idea is to give 30 PR students access to PR professionals in the form of an afternoon workshop. The afternoon will involve mock interviews, resume critiquing and portfolio building. There will also be an opportunity for the students to ask questions and maybe for me to do a little headhunting (hey…it wont hurt!).
This is a wonderful opportunity for CPRS to become more involved in student life; facilitating student/practitioner relationships is a win-win situation. If this pilot project is successful, and I have no doubt that it will be, it will only lead to more involvement from CPRS, other schools, and perhaps even a wider breadth of PR practitioners.
I will be posting later this week to discuss the event in more detail.
While at this MESA event with friend and colleague Collin Douma, one of the doe-eyed students asked the most poignant question of the night - “Does social media only occur online?”
No way! Collin’s first example is one of my faves. But I recently came across another great example in the local paper.
Notebooks. 50 of them, specifically. For 5 weeks they were circulated around the MacMaster University campus for students to contribute to them as they saw fit.
Some examples of entries:
* Math people turn coffee into theories
* Your friends will keep you sane
*I am not in science of engineering; no matter what anyone says I’ll never be flipping burgers after my degree.
Reminds me of Twitter but on paper! Who would have thought that would fly? It also makes me think, if one of those notebooks came across my path, what would I say?
With the notebook I have only one chance. It’s not like my blog, or Twitter, or my Facebook status, all of which I can update as much as I want. Also, it’s on paper. It just seems so final.
I received a thoughtful gift basket of cookies from the Niagara Falls RBC branch. See, in the picture, how beautiful it looks? If you look closely you’ll see a big piece of folded paper. No, its not the thank you card…it’s a list of Valentine’s Day specials from the store the gift came from. it’s a big, honking piece of cheap advertisement…right there, in the middle of my gift!
Of course, I did what all motivated Canadians do - I wrote a letter.
_______________________________________
Good morning Artful Cookie Niagara Falls:
I recently received a gift basket of cookies and it was a delicious gift! I liked that it was different from standard thank you gifts and showed extra effort from the people who gave it to me.
However, I was disappointed to see the MASS advertising inside the gift basket. Was the extensive list of items and prices really necessary to put alongside the card?
You exploited the thoughtful gift with this cheap form of advertising. Someone is trying to thank me for something and you take that opportunity to advertise.
Isn’t the gift advertisement enough? The tasty cookies, the presentation, the quality of the items - THAT is what I pay attention to…not an obtrusive piece of paper that lists prices. (A business card is really all you need.)
What is with the listing of prices? In doing this I definitely know the price range that the person spent on me and that is really tacky. It doesn’t matter to me (the thought that counts) but I am certain that it matters to some people (and probably the person who gave me the gift). Would you keep price tags on a birthday or Christmas gift?
That person paid for the gift. They didn’t pay for you to advertise.
This form of advertising as it really takes attention away from the gift and must be stopped. In today’s day and age I am sure that you can come up with something a little more creative…especially considering how wonderfully creative you are with your products!
I received a thoughtful gift basket of cookies from the 