In my most recent work experience, I am the Director of Social Media for an up-and-coming Portland company called Restaurant Tech – Waitrainer. I have implemented accounts on Twitter and Facebook as well as produced a customer service persona to interact with clients on a personal level. I work well both independently and in a team environment. I have been able to boost Waitrainer’s public awareness on social media sites including bringing in new clients and over one hundred new followers.

I gained experience in marketing and event planning while working for a company that owned a popular market, which oversaw many local businesses. This included planning and holding events and marketing them. Some examples of events I worked on are a summer wine festival, events surrounding the Olympic track and field trials, and several wedding receptions. My ability to think on my feet and problem solve independently were essential.

I have also worked as an intern with Nordstrom Inc., where I was able to fine-tune my leadership skills and work in a team-based environment. My experience in retail sales developed my great interpersonal and communication skills.

In my studies at the University of Oregon, I learned how to create strategies and tactics and write them into public relations plans where they were fully utilized and followed up. I also gained experience in social media tracks including podcasts, blogging and more.

I would be an asset to your company. Along with the usual Word, Excell, Powerpoint, and outlook skills, I also have graphic design experience using Adobe CS4, which I believe could be an asset. I have a driven personality and I love to constantly learn and grow.

I hope to schedule an interview at a mutually convenient time. I look forward to speaking with you.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Lauren Alkire

For the last blog for my PR writing class, I decided to write about something I have been hearing about a lot lately: celebrities backing politicians. I have been hearing about the different celebrities that are backing all of the candidates for presidency but one in particular has been in the forefront of the discussion. Oprah. She has so much influence on the people of the United States. The second she puts a book on her Oprah’s Book Club list, the book goes straight to the top of the New York Bestsellers list. The moment she mentions a product on her show, the shelves of the product are empty. The instant she raves about a restaurant, the place is booked for the next year. You get where I’m going with this, I could go on and on. So the question is, is it ethical for her to back a candidate when she has so much pull on the decisions of U.S. citizens?

I’m not sure I have an answer. It hard for me to decide because I like Oprah, and I like Barack Obama. It’s hard to say that all other celebrities should be able to back candidates except her. Should she be able to openly support whomever she wants? And where do we draw the line for celebrity endorsements?

One celebrity I can say is doing a great job is Hayden Panettiere.  She is not taking a side but instead is urging young people to vote. However, she is getting a lot of buzz around this in the media. Could her activism be a PR stunt? It reminds me of an incident in the last presidential election. Paris Hilton was wearing the “Rock the Vote” T-shirts and doing endorsements throughout the election. However, when it came to election day, a vote was never received from Paris. That sounds like a PR stunt to me…

I know that this blog is coming a little bit late, but I wanted to write about the Whoopi Goldberg story from the Academy Awards on February 28. Goldberg, who felt excluded, was not included in the montage of past hosts. While this normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal, this time, it was. Goldberg happened to be the first African American host, male or female. She is known for her hosting skills as well as numerous costume changes. There were many stories written about the incident. It was also pointed out that she is an Oscar winner for the movie Ghost.

Her comment as to what she thought about the omission? “Undoubtedly, I pissed someone off yet again!” she said.

I personally remember Goldberg hosting the Academy Awards in 1994 when I was only eight years old. It was obviously memorable to me.

So that is the situation, but there is also a Public Relations standpoint. There seems to have been a lot of publicity that came from this little mention on The View. From a Public Relations standpoint, looking back, one might think that it was a bad idea to not include Goldberg in the Montage. There are many reasons that follow: First, that she was a historical host, second, that she was especially memorable, third, that she is a host on a popular television show, and last, that she has won an Oscar. One that I didn’t include, but that may be the most important of all, is that she is known for her activism. This alone could be a reason to include her. (Especially seeing that Steve Martin was also not included in the montage and there have not been any comments from him.) This may be a lesson for the writers of the Academy Awards.

Don’t forget to check your history and analyze the situation!

Going green is no longer a new idea in companies around the world. It has become an essential part of every company’s PR campaign.

I remember growing up with my mom who was and is an environmentalist. Not just the type that tells everyone that she is but the type that does everything she can do to help the environment. When I was young my weekends often consisted of traveling with my mom to neighboring areas to drop off every item that came through our house that was remotely recyclable. My mom lived and breathed the mantra “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” My point is, this new trend of recycling is not at all new to me; it is just a lot easier.

It used to be that green living was only done by hippies who often spent much time and money into making sure they lived “green.” Nowadays being green has become a trend and a way of life.Recycling has been so ingrained in me it has come to the point that if I see someone put a yogurt top in the trash, I wince. Sometimes, when I see the amount of money companies are putting into PR campaigns to appear green, I feel like its a joke. So many of the “green” products we see out there are not green at all. And I get the awful feeling that a lot more money is being put into appearing green rather than actually being green.

I think that people are seeing advertisements that say that a particular company is doing “blank” to be green and are then buying products from them. However, one needs to remember that supporting a supposedly green company is not being green yourself.

Today in my Communication Economics class we learned where PR started and who had the initial idea. It was really interesting to hear what a non-PR professional had to say about PR. The beginning seemed quite a bit different than what I have heard from many of my professors from my PR classes.

Edward Bernays, who is also known as “The Father of Public Relations,” began many of the first seen public relations demonstrations. One that he is especially known for is the campaign for cigarettes had set up in 1920. The goal was to bring in more female consumers. His strategy was to show women that it was popular and acceptable for women to smoke. How did he do it? He started a mass demonstration of women parading down the street, all smoking cigarettes.

I found more information on this specific campaign. The women sent out were models and they marched in the New York City parade. At the time, people looked down on women who smoked in public. Edward Bernays called the cigarettes “Freedom torches” signifying the freedom for women to smoke in public. Press reacted by making a headline as follows: “Group of girl puff at cigarettes as a ‘Gesture of Freedom.’”

Another interesting fact about Edward Bernays is that his uncle is Sigmund Freud.

He seems to be the first Public Relations professional to call himself a “Public Relations Counsel.” He was also very adamant about the fact that what he did was very different than advertising. The Museum of Public Relations gave me a lot of the  information I have shown here. They say Bernays is the most important PR Professional of the past.

This man really does seem to be the founder of PR as it is today. The campaigns he did and the ideas he stood for are parallel to what PR professionals today think of as the definition of PR. This Who dunnit seems to be closed. What do you think?

Recently I have been seeing a lot of commercials on TV about traveling to different countries. One of the ones in particular I have been seeing is Jamaica. I have been hearing about Jamaica from so many different media outlets and I am wondering if this has anything to do with PR.

The first advertisements I started seeing just said “Come to Jamaica.” Then I started hearing about the Sandals resort in Jamaica. It has been showcased on many reality TV shows, including one of my favorites (Girls Next Door), are going to a Jamaica Sandals resort. I feel like this cannot be a coincidence. During the show the three girls go to Jamaica for Holly’s sister’s wedding. During the two episode long visit the girls do all of these amazing things and see the best part of Jamaica, all along mentioning the Sandals resort and Jamaica. I realize this has to be a PR campaign. I’m guessing that they had their visit completely paid for and Sandals and Jamaica got their free publicity

Then I started thinking about if I had seen this a lot before. I realized that several years ago the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island was doing almost the exact same thing. There was a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie called Holiday in the Sun whee the entire movie was filmed on the resort. They had plug after plug after plug of their name. I’m guessing that the crew was taken very good care of during shooting. Soon after that movie came out, Atlantis was again a celebrity destination. On the reality TV show Newlyweds Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson go to the Atlantis Resort for a trip.

All in all, this seems to be a really good PR idea, however, I would love to know how much this is practiced by resorts. What do you think about giving a celebrity a free trip in order to get people like you to want to go to a resort? Sleezy? Or just good PR…

I came to an epiphany this weekend while I was at home that I might want to be a wedding planner. Since planning and planners are definitely in the public relations realm, I decided to dig a little deeper into the wedding planning business. I want to know more about how the business is doing economically and what it takes to be a wedding planner.

There are many wedding and celebration coordinators in the Oregon area which are based mostly in Eugene, Pendleton, and Portland.

Some of the ideal qualities that a wedding planner needs, according to fabjob, are as follows: Experience in event planning or public relations, extremely, fanatically organized, good under pressure, good listener, naturally detail oriented, budget planning savvy, able to keep others around you calm, ability to continually project confidence and professionalism.

Wedding planning seems like a really fun job to have, however there is a lot of hidden and dirty work that goes into planning a wedding. When people think of wedding planing they think of sitting at a table with pictures and brochures and choosing what you want.  But, there is a reason why so many couples are now choosing to hire a wedding planner: It is a TON of work! And a lot of that work isn’t just choosing what color you want of something or where you want the reception to be. A wedding and its reception is like choreographing a dance where every person has a different thing to do and they can’t get in each other’s way.

While I am still interested in wedding planning, I have realized that the amount of creative ideas are far outweighed by the amount of actual organizing and planning.

To start off, I am not a “hater” on Valentine’s Day. It’s a fun holiday that people have to show the ones they love how important they are. I see nothing wrong with that.

BUT…

Valentine’s Day may have stemmed from nothing more than a month centered around love. There has always been a rumor going around that Valentine’s Day was started and continued by greeting card companies. I realized that if that is how Valentine’s Day came about, then whichever greeting card salesperson thought of it is a public relations genius. This genius may well be Esther A. Howland who began mass-producing greeting cards in 1850.

According to Valentine’s Day history the holiday stemmed from a festival that Pope St. Valentine began. However, since there are so many legends and folklore that go along with it, it is difficult to decide what is real and what is made up. Valentine’s Day cards did not become popular until the 1850s when Howland began mass-producing them. It is very possible that some good PR work made this holiday into what it is today: a day to buy cards, candy, chocolates, and flowers for your significant other.

Valentine’s Day is now a huge commercial success. Greeting card companies say that 25% of all cards sent each year are Valentine’s.  Now what do you think about Valentine’s Day?

Since there are so many blogs being written about the Amy Winehouse incident I decided that it is my duty to put in my own two cents.

If you watch the video of her performance during the Grammys you see that it was almost as bad as the Britney Spears incident. The fact that Winehouse couldn’t even get a Visa to come to the U.S. to perform at the award show is jut sad. He publicist should have done some major clean up after the last few weeks of bad publicity, however, all that we got was a very bad performance. There was also speculation that she was doing drugs between performances.

After she won the award for Best Record of the Year she started running around the stage screaming and grabbing anyone around. It was embarrassing to say the least. Her publicist probably should have explained to her that after you win an award, you usually give your thanks to the people involved.

All in all, as much as I enjoy Amy Winehouse’s music, I will probably not enjoy watching her perform anymore. And I can promise that I won’t be logging on to Perez Hilton to hear her most recent dumb decision.

The writer’s strike is something that anyone studying media should know about. It is affecting so many people including writers, actors, media industries, and, of course, what we see on TV. But this strike is also affecting the working class of media, such as the support workers, who have been out of jobs since October. So, what does this have to do with public relations, you might ask? Everything.

Since October, the Writer’s Guild of America, or WGA, has been using a PR campaign to gain support from the public. One part of this campaign was to put out a video on You Tube. Social media and especially videos have become an essential part of many PR campaigns. The video has many different links and the top one has over 500,000 hits. So the question is, who is the WGA fighting against?

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP. They have a similar PR campaign going in order to make their organization look good. The AMPTP answered the You Tube video by making one of their own. They also have a counter on their website saying how much money is being lost .

Both sides are looking at the same situation completely differently. Each organization is showing a very different goal. The WGA has the obvious goal of making sure writers are receiving a percentage of the money the industry is making off of their work. The AMPTP is arguing that this strike is losing money for everyone and hurting the little people the most, such as the support workers. Both have a goal and objective that they are trying to convey. Who will win? Who knows.

What do you think about the writer’s Strike?