You Make Me Sick

I hate people who are uneducated and till voice their opinions. I think it is redic that people can't differentiate between Obama and McCain yet claim to support one over the other. I really hope people like this don't vote. Please check it out because they are not voting for the right reasons. People died for our right to freedom and to vote. Americans should not vote for who is more popular, or younger, or more hip. They should vote for whose beliefs they support and who they think would better this country. God, people make me sick!

Ohana

My sister visited last night. Right now, she is standing across the room doing her hair before she has to drive to her new house in Illinoise. Her husband is in the Air Force and got orders this summer to move from Jersey out to the mid-west. Let me tell you, she is none too thrilled. She decided to stop here to break up the 17 hour drive and I think last night was the first time we got along in a long time. We never argued or anything. She's nine years older than me and it's usually hard for us to see eye to eye. We grew up in very different times and she always takes on a more motherly role, but not last night. I'm not sure if it's cause all of the DZ's were around or what, but she was a lot of fun! I even dragged her to the PAC lab and introduced her to the PR kids :) She thinks they are all super nice and quite funny. I even took her to the place some of us are looking at for next year and she loved it. I don't necessarily need her stamp of approval, but it feels good to have her enjoy the people I have been surrounding myself with at college.

Her latest idea as of last night was to get tattoos that say "ohana." In Hawaiin, this means family. It's something her, my mom, and I all say to each other. In theory, I think a tattoo would be sweet, but I always talk myself out of it. Now I need to talk my sister out of it too!

What Did We Do Before This?

After reading this week about search engines and such, I realized how privileged I feel our generation is. In the past, people had to go to the library, search through old-school book catalogs, and do all of the research for their papers and homework themselves. Today, I can just sit in my dorm room, listen to music, and use the Web to find anything I need. I really see this as really spoiled. The fact that I can get my hands on anything with a click of a mouse is insane. Search engines are such a crazy concept. You type in a statement or a word and thousands of results surface.

Our generation has taken things further by using social media. When reading, it was like a light bulb. Not only can we use the the Internet for school research, but for our professions. We can google topics and find blogs and public opinions. We can even discover target audiences. And now with things such as digg.com and technorati.com, searching for these things is even easier.

As much as I curse social media at times, because it is overwhelming. And as often as I yell about the Internet, because it never seems to find exactly what I want. I know I would be lost without the ability to just sign onto the Web and find the answers to silly questions, research topics, and target audiences. I guess, deep down, below my hatred for the Internet and social media, I really do like it and it's really growing on me.

Tweet Tweet

As everyone knows, I have bashed Twitter week to week in class. But after reading a webinar on the Fahlgren-Mortine Web site, my mind has changed. There is so much you can actually do with Twitter. It reminds me of AIM in a sense. Twitter is like having a conversation with multiple people when they get around to it. I can post a question and multiple people answer me, but on their own time. I should have given Twitter more of a chance from the beginning. At least now I know better and am going to start taking this page a little more seriously. I feel there is a lot to learn from people on Twitter, not only about social media, but news and PR in general.

Maybe Not So Easy

I just signed up for FriendFeed. As predicted, I am unsure how to use it. Hopefully someone else will read this and sign up. And then we can figure it out together :)

Creeping Made Easy

First, there was the news feed on Facebook. Where you could find out what all of your friends were up to. Then there was Twitter. Where users update their statuses everytime they start something new. Now, there is FriendFeed. In this week's PR Tactics, writer Claire Celsi discussed this "one-stop social networking" site. She even quoted some avid social networking users when claiming this site is "Twitter on steroids." The whole idea of FriendFeed is to have one site that will update you on all of your social networking accounts. All of the updates on Twitter can be seen through this site along with Facebook and even blogs.

I decided to check out the site since it was sounded like the next big thing. And much like Twitter, it seemed overwhelming. I quickly closed out of the sign up page and tried to look around the site some more. Celsi did say that it took time to get used to and that you needed to weed out what you didn't want to read, but I am still apprehensive about signing up. I feel like this might be another site I won't use and will curse at. There are just so many social networking sites that I am signing up for, I'm afraid I won't keep up with most of them. Yet, this site claims to link them all together, like a data base. So part of me thinks I should give it a chance, cause I can always delete my account. Like many of our speakers have said at PRSSA, you need to be on the cutting edge with this stuff to appeal to potential employers. I guess I should stop thinking so much and give it a try.

Polar Bear Nation

Way to go VisionCommunications! Not only have we created a page for Polar Bear Nation on Facebook, but we also have made it into the Toledo Blade and the Lima News promoting both Polar Bear Nation and Steve Amstrup. PBN is extremely pleased with what we have been doing so far and we need to keep it up.

On a less exciting note, the table tents that were supposed to be placed in the napkin holders in MAC are too big. This is a huge bummer because we were really banking on these as a promotional piece. But instead of letting this get us down, Katie and Brandon thought of a superb idea. We are just going to hand out the papers at MAC during the busy lunch hours. Tomorrow, Brandon and I are meeting with Carol to discuss the Web site and will make sure it is okay with her before we start handing them out.