Need a little help!
Hey if anyone bothers to stop by and read this anymore I'm looking for a creative and original name for a blog.
Yes I'll still post entries to this one on a semi-regular basis, but for school as a class we have to make individual blogs about our experiences in the field of PR (public relations).
So I'm open to your suggestions, just try to have PR or something with Communications in the title if you can!
Thanks everyone.
Oh, and so far on my own I've come up with a list. Not the greatest examples but here they are!
- PR Thoughts and Musings (creative no?)
- Two Sides of the coin (has to do with my taking journalism and having a little understanding of what goes on in the mind of a journalist)
- Spin Cycle (corporate communications is known for spinning a lot of its work to promote whatever the cause/company wants)
- BlogSpeak
- PReporting (just came up with that on the fly)
- Corporate PReporter
HELP!
Dealing with red tape
Writing internal communications publications may seem pretty simple to the person looking in; unfortunately it isn’t.
I used to think writing for an internal audience was easy because all you’re doing is promoting the company and the subject isn’t forced to answer any real hard-hitting questions. What I’ve learned though is that it’s not the interview itself that’s the hard part; it’s the getting of the interview. No one gets back to me when I need them to.
It’s worse right now in summer time when everyone, it seems, is on vacation. I call and get the machine; I e-mail and get no responses. It’s impossible to do my work when I have nobody to talk to.
Another major issue I’ve had to deal with of late is the union. When there is a volatile relationship between the managerial side and the unionized side, everyone seems to watch what they’re saying when everyone can read it or hear it. A simple newsletter article on healthy eating for employees has to be thought out a little differently, because if you have an expert recommending the employee has balanced meals throughout the day, you should be prepared to hear the union asking for more breaks on each shift.
It’s petty and it’s unfair to the employees in the end. When the work I have to create becomes so bastardized that it turns into some sort of propaganda piece, no one is benefiting from that.
One thing I definitely plan to bring up when I get into school is how to effectively manage labour relation issues when they arise. The issue comes up every few years and it should be implemented in every corporate communications course because it’s a tough curve ball to handle when you don’t have the glove to handle it.
To stop a beheading or not?
Around 1:30am in Manitoba, a 40-year-old man decided he'd proceed to butcher and behead the guy sitting beside him on the Greyhound bus.
The bus pulled over when the attack was noticed, and everyone on the bus proceeded to flee to safety out the front doors as this maniac repeatedly stabbed the other passenger up to 50 times according to witnesses. After he finished stabbing the guy, he proceeded to slice off his head with his large hunting knife, then take the head out the front door of the bus and drop it on the ground for everyone to see.
Now the question is, would you have done anything to stop it?
Today I had a conversation with my colleagues at work about this very subject. My boss said, while she would help anyone in need on the street, she doesn't think she'd be able to physically save someone from danger. My other co-worker said he would definitely have done something, especially if there were other strong people on the bus to overpower the suspect.
My reasoning was to get off the bus simply because if I took into consideration the time - 1:30am - so I'd be sleeping more than likely. If i woke up to that I wouldn't know what to do but follow the crowd off the bus. Also, chances are the repeated stab wounds had already done the trick, and if someone went to stop him, who knows what that guy would've done.
The coworker brought up a good point, though; what if the person being stabbed happened to be a frail old woman or a young helpless girl? Would you do something then?
It's weird how the human thought process works. With the man being stabbed you're likely to not care as much, but if it's someone society deems as weak, then you'd step in without thinking; at least I would.
What would YOU do in each possible scenario? Save the young man? elderly woman? young girl? Or would you run away like everyone else did?
Think about it...
