Thrilled About Thirteen

Hello friends! Happy New Year to y’all. I am just thrilled about beginning 2013, aren’t you? I hope so. If you are, share your goals with me. If you aren’t, feel free to share your worries. I would love to offer you some encouragement!

I am so happy to see that many of my friends, via their Twitter accounts, are sharing their goals as opposed to their resolutions. Goals are what we should all strive for. Moreover, short term and long term goals should both be considered. I find that pairing these two together is the best way to actually accomplish your goals. You can accomplish your short term goal to get some fairly-instant gratification and then build on that feeling for the rest of the year. Sometimes, you need to make your short term goal happen in order to be prepared for your long term goal. Perfect! I have shared a few of my goals below…

2013 Goal #1 – Health & Wellness
Short term: Lose 10 pounds by March 1. Begin practicing a healthy lifestyle with workout regimen. #fitlife
Long term: Keep weight off. Continue #fitlife practice all year.

2013 Goal #2 – Leadership
Short term: Grow future leaders by focusing on leadership within KSUPRSSA.
Long term: Begin mentoring immediately after joining PRSA|GA after May graduation.

2013 Goal #3 – Savings & Spending
Short term: Begin new budget & savings plan upon starting spring internship.
Long term: Continue to be spending savvy and savings focused.

There you have it, my friends. What are some of your goals? I would love to hear them. Do not limit yourself to just a few goals. I certainly have not. The ones above are just the key goals I have created for the new year. Above all, do not forget to benefit others as well as yourself. Express love, gratitude, and positivity as often as you can. I cannot wait to spend another year with y’all here and on Twitter. Please view my about.me profile to see how else we can connect.

Cheers!

Wisdom, Wisdom Everywhere

Hello friends. If you have read Mark DeMoss’s The Little Red Book of Wisdom the image above is familiar. This quote begins one of that book’s chapters. If you have not had the chance to read his book, please do so. It is one you will carry with you the rest of your days.

As of late I have been constantly reflecting on wisdom. Contrary to popular belief, wisdom is not something one gains when you get old. You do not suddenly arrive at the corner of Wisdom & Wrinkles. Throughout your life, as soon as you are born, you are always learning new things. As you grow and take in lessons, pitfalls and successes, you become wiser towards situations. This applies to everyone. Yes, even you. 18. 25. 55. 7. You are learning.

If you have been following me on Twitter for a few years, you have seen me take on many lessons. You have seen me pull myself through situations and grovel blindly for the wisdom I could carry away from them. You have seen my highs and lows. Now that I have been through those situations (and continue to move through more), I am a new person. The wisdom I gained from those experiences have molded me into a strong adult, a better friend  and a focused leader. I can confidently say that my personal experiences have made me more qualified for positions than any professional experience I have ever had.

The point of this rambling is to say this – hold your eyes open. Seek out the wisdom in your situations. Pull out the lessons both from your successes and your failures. When you are worn down and you have been trying, trying, trying and you have no more effort to offer – sit still and reflect. You should not be afraid – ever. You are strong. If you do not feel strong, do not worry because the situation you are in is making you strong. There is wisdom everywhere, in every situation. Find it.

Be strong, friends. Grab the book mentioned above and read it. If you can’t buy a copy, let me know. I will give you mine to read. – Catherine

Gratitude & New Beginnings

Hello friends. Long time no chat. I take full responsibility, of course. I have redecorated a little here as I knew a blog post was in order. The photo above is not what I sat down to write about today. The original idea was to announce that I have officially discovered my dream job. More on that later. Given the season, my current situation, and the numerous life lessons I am constantly coming across, I thought a discussion on giving thanks is more in order.

It is the Monday after Thanksgiving. I trust that you ate (and ate and ate) and, hopefully, spent time with your loved ones. I hope that you were able to give thanks and dwell on the blessings you have received today, this year, and every day. If you’ve read this blog before or follow me on Twitter, you should know that I am pretty big on gratitude. There is always time to thank, just as there is always time to be positive instead of negative. Blessings (some call this luck) can come from anywhere but out of positivity and gratitude, blessings will rain down on you. I mentioned my current situation. At the moment that can be defined as “excitedly seeking new opportunities” (read: unemployed). We will not get into specifics but I can tell you that this, too, is a blessing. Be it in disguise or what have you, the opportunity to assess what you’ve learned at one place, move to learn even more in another place, and strengthen yourself throughout the situation is a blessing. Nothing more and nothing less.

Are you in a situation like this? How are you looking at it – positively or negatively? It might be easier to be negative but it is much better to be positive. Strengthen yourself. Strengthen your position. Maybe even strengthen your faith. Give thanks for the blessings you do have and the provisions you have been given. Scroll back up and look at that quote… At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings.

Both of those sound pretty good to me. Stay tuned, my friends.

If you are interested in connecting for advice or employment opportunities within the industries of public relations, communications, or history, please email me. Thank you.

Please Accept This Caffeinated Apology

Happy Thursday, friends. As the title says, this is a post of apology. I would like to apologize to our lovely local community for being hypocritical. Let me explain…

Most of you follow me on Twitter and know that I work for a small local brand. You have seen me, over and over, using hash tags such as #supportlocal #drinklocal etc. You have seen me tweeting and retweeting local restaurants, bars, business owners and coffee shops. I truly believe in the local movement. I believe in its ability to boost our economy, its benefit to our health & well being, and its deliciousness. I believe in the structuring of communities that has been used since the origins of the first great cities. I believe in the little man and yet here I am, spending all of my money at Starbucks stores all over the Atlanta area. For this, I am sorry.

For some, this would be a minuscule issue. For me, and the amount of coffee I consume, it is bigger. One or twice daily I am stopping into Starbucks locations to get a coffee, breakfast bite or tea. Do you know what that adds up to in a week, a month? I do…and I don’t want to talk about it. Ha! The amount is embarrassing but my point is that all of that money could be going straight to the support of our local friends, businesses and families. To the loving owners of Dancing Goats, Condesa Coffee and numerous others – I am sorry. I love y’all and what y’all are doing for – and bringing to – our community. I will be more dillegent in my quest to support local!

Hopefully y’all will, as well! Cheers, my friends.

Success: “Don’t Cry to Quit”

It’s about that time, folks. Fall semester is about to begin. More importantly (kidding…maybe), football season is about to begin. Maybe you’re even beginning a new job. I am actually doing all three. This fall semester not only marks my last year in college but also kicks off my term as @KSUPRSSA President. I begin my new PR Manager position at Jailhouse Brewing Company tomorrow. Lastly, I am (as any Southern lady is) a massive college football fan. I cannot wait to be calling those Hogs from here and cheering on the Yellow Jackets at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Here is the question: What do I want from all of this? What do I want to do as a Senior…as President…as PR Manager? What do I want to see my teams do this season?

Be Successful.

I want to make all A’s. The Dean’s List is nice and all but I know I’ve got what it takes to be on the President’s List. I want to lead my PRSSA chapter to be successful in all of our endeavors throughout the semester. I want to bring awareness to the brewery and grow our business through public relations efforts. I want to see my teams win their conference titles and reach the Top 10 in National standings. (Ahem: Arkansas will be at the top. GO HOGS!). I want to be successful. I want my chapter to be successful. I want the brewery to be successful. What am I willing to do to create that success? That’s right – create. I am not just praying for it. I am not just talking about it. I am creating it.

My boyfriend came across an amazing motivational video over the weekend. It is a speech about success given by Eric Thomas. The video is a very short documentation of a Yellow Jackets A-Back training for this coming 2012 football season. It doesn’t matter if you like the Yellow Jackets or if you even care about football. Listen. Listen to what he is saying about success. Watch. Watch how hard he is working and how it is paying off for him. You can’t just want success. You have to create it for yourself. The video link is below. If you really can’t stand watching a football video while you listen, here is the original video of Eric Thomas speaking.

How Bad Do You Want It?

Let’s all support each other and grow together this fall!

Catherine

Today is the Day

 

 

The last day is today. Everything I have weathered over the past 426 days (14 months, if you’re wondering) is ending today. The excessive stress is disappearing. My health is returning. My peace of mind is returning. Some of you do not know what I am speaking about. Some of you know that this has been my hardest year since you first joined my journey in 2009. To those of you that have stuck with me and encouraged me, I cannot thank you enough. 

Today I end my summer semester. Today I start to train again. Today I have a meeting for my white paper.
Today I am ready to rid my life of all the stress I have held onto for these fourteen months. Today I am ready to go.

I say: “Attraversiamo.” Let’s cross over.
– Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat. Pray. Love. 

InFocus: PRSA & Ethics Awareness in Social Media

How do you define ethics? 

Within the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) there is a Code of Ethics. Their members are encouraged to adhere to this code and spread it to their fellow public relations practitioners. Being ethical in today’s world, not to mention within the realm of public relations, is becoming more difficult by the day. Considering that, as a whole, Twitter users tweet 100,000 times each minute of every day, the chances of an ethics-related dilemma are high. 

Why am I talking about this? Well, for many reasons: The first being that I strive to grow as an ethical public relations practitioner daily. It takes time, knowledge and commitment, among other things, and I am in no way saying I succeed every day. I use the PRSA Code of Ethics as my guideline and I challenge myself to thoroughly think of everything I say and put into social media applications. Second, I am so interested in ethics that I wrote an “InFocus” paper entitled “PRSA & Ethics Awareness in Social Media” for my summer Social Media course (#pr4415). We were asked to recap our submissions in a multimedia outlet so, ta-da, a blog post was born! Third, I believe that each PRSSA member and PR student should become familiar with ethics and the PRSA Code before they enter “the real world”. With this in mind, I am in line to become a student advocate for placing an Ethics course at Kennesaw State University. Please contact me if you would like to see a course like this at your university as well. Lastly, I want to give you all a peek into this research because I have a made a big decision. I will be writing a white paper on this topic with hopes of completing it by my graduation date of May 2013. I will be researching on my own throughout the fall semester and enrolling in a Directed Study course in the spring to complete my writing. Now that, hopefully, you are as excited as I am, let’s continue…

“Here’s the thing: Google remembers everything. And by “Google”, technically I mean the web at large (by which I still mean Google, don’t I?). So, by extension, pretty much ALL business you do in social media can be “remembered” by anyone interested in what you’re doing, and where you’be been and what comes next.” – Chris Brogan

Author of chrisbrogan.com, Mr. Brogan puts the ethics issue into perspective with the above quote. The web remembers everything. As social media becomes more ingrained in our everyday lives as practitioners, it is imperative that PRSA continues to promote ethics as a whole on social media and also discuss ethics pertaining to social media use. PRSA has to stay abreast of the ever changing landscape of social media. They are doing a great job – check out the Ethics Month Tweet Chats they hosted last September during Ethics Month. Practitioners and students cannot simply rely on PRSA to be their guiding light in this matter. Every day, individuals must make a choice to practice ethically in their personal and business matters. 

Thanks for reading about my research. I hope you will all stay tuned as I create my white paper. Let’s wrap up with the question I posed at the very beginning:

How do you define ethics?

-Catherine

Fun with Numbers

Happy Friday, my friends! This post will be quick, slightly educational, and give y’all a glimpse into my obsession with Starbucks. I am taking a wonderful social media course this summer with Dr. Amber Hutchins. One assignment we have done this semester (okay, let’s be honest, I did it today) is a Social Media Audit of a Fortune 500 company. I chose Starbucks, which sits at 227/500, and targeted my focus towards their consumer engagement on Twitter. The analysis included an executive summary and a representation of our quantitative data. I want to give you guys a little peek into my submission…

“In an analysis of 7164 tweets, Starbucks Coffee Company issued only 125 tweets (1.7%). The largest portion of the sample, 80.6%, were replies to original tweets with the other 17.7% split among photos, retweets, mentions, and web links (Twtrland). If the [definition of consumer engagement] is employed, it can be determined that the consumer engagement encouraged by the use of Twitter is extremely beneficial to the company. A separate analysis of 50 tweets notes that one tweet from the Starbucks Twitter account reaches 25, 987 Twitter accounts (TweetReach). This gives the Company a possible boost of $51,974 in sales per tweet if each individual reached sought out a Starbucks and purchased one tall iced coffee. … It is suggested that Starbucks Coffee Company continue this positive consumer engagement on Twitter. The adjustment of the average tweets per day, from 5.7 to 9, is also recommended. This move has the possibility of bringing an additional $467, 766 to the Starbucks Coffee Company each day which would result in an annual accumulation of $170, 734, 590.”

I have got to give it to Dr. Hutchins – this was pretty fun. Don’t tell that to my Statistics professor…or my boyfriend! Check out Starbucks on Twitter and give me your opinion – do you think the company is doing enough to engage consumers online?

Lots of PR love,

Catherine

Iced Inspiration

Good morning! Happy Monday!

Did you have a wonderful weekend? How about your early morning? Did you have a good beginning? I got off to a rough start this morning. I woke up late (a rarity), I had some weird dreams (makes me grouchy!), and I dropped (ahem…not lost) the back to one of the new diamond earrings that DH gave me. Needless to say, when I got in my car, I was fussy! I made my way up to Kennesaw State and luckily had plenty of time to stop at Starbucks. Note: I can get ready in <30 minutes – win!

I ordered a blissful Iced Coffee Sweetened and waited at the bar. An Ice Coffee Sweetened with Cream appeared quickly so I continued to wait. Two drinks later, I’m still standing with no drink. I’m not sure if y’all have read the articles regarding the Starbucks “training” we all have received, but I have and I am always a little nervous to tell the barista that they have forgotten my drink or – gasp! – made it incorrectly. I did, though and not one, but two of the baristas said no worries, talked to me the entire time they made my forgotten iced coffee, and wished me a good day about ten times. The cherry on top? They offered me the unclaimed Ice Coffee Sweetened with Cream and said “Make a friend’s day! Take this with you!”

What a novel idea! Make a friend’s day or even…make a new friend! I’m not talking some random kid on the street – let’s be honest – but if you have met someone in your building or in one of your classes you want to get to know…extend a kind gesture their way! Who doesn’t love free Starbuck’s deliciousness? I did bring this extra coffee to my new friend, KH, and she was so grateful! Even a little excited! This absolutely brightened my morning. I personally made someone’s morning a little better all because someone made my morning a little better…see this domino effect? You try it! Maybe you didn’t get an extra (free!) coffee at Starbuck’s this morning, maybe you don’t have any brand new friends you feel the need to make, but think of how good you’d feel if you did…and how good someone else would feel if you made their morning! Just try a smile, a friendly “hello”, or a wave! I know it will make your day better!

Cheers, my friends!

Extend, Expand & Enrich

Good morning & Happy Friday! This time last week, I was preparing to fly out to Phoenix, AZ and attend the 2012 PRSSA Leadership Rally. As promised, here I am now giving you my favorite quotes & lessons from the weekend conference. 

First, let me say that I met some of the greatest people & learned some of the wisest lessons while at the Rally. I strongly encourage every PRSSA member to try and get out to as many national events as they can. I know they are expense, and honestly time consuming, but they are more than well worth it. Contact me if you have questions on how to financially support your trip. Now…the lessons! I want to keep all of these short so you can take them all in and it won’t overload you. Also contact me to expound on any quotes listed here.

 

• Tact is the social lubricant of effective organizations.
• You must balance taking risks with research & discussion. 
• Four ingredients for Leadership Success: Attitude, Appetite, Accommodation, & Advancement
• Leader does not equal the smartest on the team
• Have the confidence & maturity to surround yourself with other leaders that have had different experiences.
• You may delay responding to someone else but never delay responding to your peers.
• PR does not “fix” bad business.
• PRSA [and PRSSA] extends, expands, & enriches your experience.

One of my new favorite people, “Pritch”, told us to look up Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes. Wow! I couldn’t be more fascinated by all the things this great man said! Here are a few of my favorites plus my new tagline for life!

 

 

• A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
• I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will just stay as long as he is scared, then he is gone.
• Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

New lifelong, personal tagline: “Plans are nothing, planning is everything.”

 

You can find all the wonderful people that make up our new PRSSA 2012-2013 National Committee here on PRSSA’s website. We will be doing big things with PRSSA this year, both within our Kennesaw State chapter and on a national level so please either continue or begin your activity in your local PRSSA chapter! I raise my Starbucks cup and “Cheers” you for a great Friday! #prlove