Networking is creating community. Networking is also one of the best ways to get a job, especially in an industry like communications. But many people, especially new graduates or college students, don't understand how to network.
The Dallas International Association of Business Communicators give a few tips on their YouTube channel.
Take a look at these quick tips on Networking, and then join in a networking event. You'll be glad you did.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Community Relations Ranks at the Bottom for Higher Ed PR
http://chronicle.com/article/Understanding-the-Public-in/48999/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The previous article, Understanding the Public in Public Relations, is from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It focuses on a portion of public relations at universities that gets short shrift: community relations.
Now how, you ask, does a university located in a community ignore the community? Well it isn't a matter of ignoring. It's more a matter of taking for granted.
Throughout the history of higher education, institutions of learning have depended on the support and finances of the local community to fulfill their missions. Without the local community, these institutions wouldn't have become the Harvards and Yales and even the University of fill-in-a-name. Instead, they would have withered away and died.
In the early going, even Harvard had problems staying afloat, relying on the generosity of the local community, and some benefactors from throughout the United States, to pay faculty, provide books and provide students...
So why is it that universities have taken their communities for granted?
Well, like any good relationship, if you're in it long enough, you begin to relax. You begin to count on the person on the other side to just be there and to just be. That's when you begin taking the relationship and hence the people for granted.
I'm not saying that all universities do this. I'm saying that it's easy to do this in a longstanding relationship. But when new people move into an area, they don't understand how the university did whatever it did. They expect a certain level of attention, and when they don't get it, problems arise. Here's when you should focus on community relations--before this happens.
Public relations is supposed to be about building and maintaining relationships. Community relations really focuses on this more than many other forms of public relations, which is why it's so important. And while we have a tendency to just take that relationship for granted, it does require work and maintenance.
So PR folks in Higher Education, when was the last time you asked your neighbors what they think of your university? Maybe it's time again.
The previous article, Understanding the Public in Public Relations, is from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It focuses on a portion of public relations at universities that gets short shrift: community relations.
Now how, you ask, does a university located in a community ignore the community? Well it isn't a matter of ignoring. It's more a matter of taking for granted.
Throughout the history of higher education, institutions of learning have depended on the support and finances of the local community to fulfill their missions. Without the local community, these institutions wouldn't have become the Harvards and Yales and even the University of fill-in-a-name. Instead, they would have withered away and died.
In the early going, even Harvard had problems staying afloat, relying on the generosity of the local community, and some benefactors from throughout the United States, to pay faculty, provide books and provide students...
So why is it that universities have taken their communities for granted?
Well, like any good relationship, if you're in it long enough, you begin to relax. You begin to count on the person on the other side to just be there and to just be. That's when you begin taking the relationship and hence the people for granted.
I'm not saying that all universities do this. I'm saying that it's easy to do this in a longstanding relationship. But when new people move into an area, they don't understand how the university did whatever it did. They expect a certain level of attention, and when they don't get it, problems arise. Here's when you should focus on community relations--before this happens.
Public relations is supposed to be about building and maintaining relationships. Community relations really focuses on this more than many other forms of public relations, which is why it's so important. And while we have a tendency to just take that relationship for granted, it does require work and maintenance.
So PR folks in Higher Education, when was the last time you asked your neighbors what they think of your university? Maybe it's time again.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
How to Promote and Market Your Student Publication
This is the presentation that I did at the Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Advisers convention in Austin last weekend.
Our student newspaper at Texas Wesleyan, The Rambler, is a weekly, so it should be all about community engagement. That's what weeklies are good at, and that's what communities expect.
This presentation was reaching out a different community, my colleagues at student newspapers across the nation, to help them understand that marketing and public relations aren't bad words, and that they should do more of each.
Our student newspaper at Texas Wesleyan, The Rambler, is a weekly, so it should be all about community engagement. That's what weeklies are good at, and that's what communities expect.
This presentation was reaching out a different community, my colleagues at student newspapers across the nation, to help them understand that marketing and public relations aren't bad words, and that they should do more of each.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Creating Engagement With Wikis
Check out this SlideShare Presentation. I'll be presenting this on Saturday in Houston at 8 a.m., so stop by if you're around for the IABC Southern Region Conference. I'll also be commenting on additional aspects of engagement throughout the week.
Creating Engagement With Wikis
View more presentations from Kay Colley.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Importance Of Professional Networking
Networking is just another name for creating community. We rely on our network of contacts to help us get jobs, find out information, give us the latest gossip, and provide us with a good set of eyes and ears so we'll know the latest in our chosen professions.
To successfully maintain a professional network, you have to be good at maintaining community. Whether the network is actual or virtual, people want to hear from you, and that's what community is all about.
Check out this SlideShare Presentation. Hopefully you'll find it helpful. I certainly found it helpful to put together--I always learn more from teaching people. And fortunately, I was able to find a super-duper networking tip sheet from Barbara Gibson, president of the International Association of Business Communicators. I've embedded a link to her website in this presentation.
To successfully maintain a professional network, you have to be good at maintaining community. Whether the network is actual or virtual, people want to hear from you, and that's what community is all about.
Check out this SlideShare Presentation. Hopefully you'll find it helpful. I certainly found it helpful to put together--I always learn more from teaching people. And fortunately, I was able to find a super-duper networking tip sheet from Barbara Gibson, president of the International Association of Business Communicators. I've embedded a link to her website in this presentation.
The Importance Of Professional Networking
View more presentations from Kay Colley.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Narrow Definitions of Objectivity Kill Media, Reduce Minority Community Coverage
As the adviser to a college student newspaper, part of my job is to teach students how to cover stories for the mass media. As you might guess, that can become quite a daunting task, especially when you throw in ethics.
Recently, an adviser colleague found ethics to be even more daunting than usual as she contemplated hiring a student who was part of the gay community. This student was active in the gay community, and the adviser was concerned about the student's ability to objectively cover issues related to the gay community.
A variety of other advisers chimed in saying how involvement in an organization means that a person cannot be objective in covering the organization.
My response was immediate.
As a journalist and a professor who teaches journalism, I have had the philosophy that wrapping yourself in the flag of objectivity is ridiculous if you are a journalist. Objectivity is an ideal, not a reality.
It's better to understand your biases and work to maintain fairness and balance. The ideal of objectivity just leads to biased coverage and lack of context, which is what most people complain about when they roast the media. This is the context in which my response began, but it is also based on my belief that the white, male view of news is just plain biased. And the white, male view of journalism is what my colleague got from the variety of other advisers who offered their advice.
The reality of covering news is that gay journalists have a better understanding of the gay community; Hispanic journalists have a better understanding of the Hispanic community, African-American journalists have a better understanding of the African-American community, etc., etc. You get the point. People from the community are also more likely to speech to folks who understand them--people who are like them. We use this understanding of people in research by trying to match subjects and researchers based on gender, age, ethnicity and race. It just makes sense.
Today's media would benefit from looking at things differently. Embrace the different points of view of groups who could expand coverage, expand thinking and expand the media market. Seems like something today's media really need--expanded markets. After all, narrow thinking has left the media grappling to stay alive. Isn't it time they were maybe a little more relevant?
Recently, an adviser colleague found ethics to be even more daunting than usual as she contemplated hiring a student who was part of the gay community. This student was active in the gay community, and the adviser was concerned about the student's ability to objectively cover issues related to the gay community.
A variety of other advisers chimed in saying how involvement in an organization means that a person cannot be objective in covering the organization.
My response was immediate.
As a journalist and a professor who teaches journalism, I have had the philosophy that wrapping yourself in the flag of objectivity is ridiculous if you are a journalist. Objectivity is an ideal, not a reality.
It's better to understand your biases and work to maintain fairness and balance. The ideal of objectivity just leads to biased coverage and lack of context, which is what most people complain about when they roast the media. This is the context in which my response began, but it is also based on my belief that the white, male view of news is just plain biased. And the white, male view of journalism is what my colleague got from the variety of other advisers who offered their advice.
The reality of covering news is that gay journalists have a better understanding of the gay community; Hispanic journalists have a better understanding of the Hispanic community, African-American journalists have a better understanding of the African-American community, etc., etc. You get the point. People from the community are also more likely to speech to folks who understand them--people who are like them. We use this understanding of people in research by trying to match subjects and researchers based on gender, age, ethnicity and race. It just makes sense.
Today's media would benefit from looking at things differently. Embrace the different points of view of groups who could expand coverage, expand thinking and expand the media market. Seems like something today's media really need--expanded markets. After all, narrow thinking has left the media grappling to stay alive. Isn't it time they were maybe a little more relevant?
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Social Animal Syndrome: New Media Ideas from History
I just finished re-reading the book From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman and was struck by several parts of the book. One part in particular discredited the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes. In Leviathan Friedman quotes Hobbes regarding the "state of nature:"
...."where every man is enemy to every man...there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain....and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Notice the solitary aspect of Hobbes' assertion.
But what Friedman noticed in Beirut was that no matter how awful things got, people didn't become solitary beings. They reached out to each other, and as Friedman said, "Rather the behavior of Beirutis suggested that man's natural state is as a social animal who will do everything he can to seek out and create community and structures when the larger government or society disappears." The idea of making order out of chaos.
Friedman continued with his assertion that when government in Beirut failed, people turned to microsocieties based on religion, culture, geography, family ties, and other ties that bind people together. In short, people searched for ways they were alike.
This idea plays into the community that can be created using new media and/or social media. We, as communicators, focus on the ties that bind our constituents together, and send our message to those communities. In a sense, we create our own little societies based on our interests, our family, our religion, our culture, our whatever--insert your favorite thing here. That's why you can find whole websites devoted to Star Wars, Star Trek and other "cult-like" phenomena. In essence, we're all just trying to find people we can talk to and understand us, at least on some level.
I guess if you think about this from a physical and psychological standpoint, you can look at the need for babies to maintain physical interaction and nurturing to sustain their growth and development. As adults, we seem to be no different. Physical interaction and nurturing are essential elements to a healthy life. So what does this have to do with communication?
Segmentation and differentiation. As communicators, we need to segment or differentiate our audiences based on their differences and commonalities. It's easy to appeal to differences to drive wedges between people, but the commonalities upon which we develop communities, whether they are based on geography or shared interests, make people more likely to listen to and act on messages that impact them. And that's how new media can learn from history.
...."where every man is enemy to every man...there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain....and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Notice the solitary aspect of Hobbes' assertion.
But what Friedman noticed in Beirut was that no matter how awful things got, people didn't become solitary beings. They reached out to each other, and as Friedman said, "Rather the behavior of Beirutis suggested that man's natural state is as a social animal who will do everything he can to seek out and create community and structures when the larger government or society disappears." The idea of making order out of chaos.
Friedman continued with his assertion that when government in Beirut failed, people turned to microsocieties based on religion, culture, geography, family ties, and other ties that bind people together. In short, people searched for ways they were alike.
This idea plays into the community that can be created using new media and/or social media. We, as communicators, focus on the ties that bind our constituents together, and send our message to those communities. In a sense, we create our own little societies based on our interests, our family, our religion, our culture, our whatever--insert your favorite thing here. That's why you can find whole websites devoted to Star Wars, Star Trek and other "cult-like" phenomena. In essence, we're all just trying to find people we can talk to and understand us, at least on some level.
I guess if you think about this from a physical and psychological standpoint, you can look at the need for babies to maintain physical interaction and nurturing to sustain their growth and development. As adults, we seem to be no different. Physical interaction and nurturing are essential elements to a healthy life. So what does this have to do with communication?
Segmentation and differentiation. As communicators, we need to segment or differentiate our audiences based on their differences and commonalities. It's easy to appeal to differences to drive wedges between people, but the commonalities upon which we develop communities, whether they are based on geography or shared interests, make people more likely to listen to and act on messages that impact them. And that's how new media can learn from history.
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