Tuesday was my first day of work and I spent the whole week in orientations and going through files on the computer trying to acclimate myself with the different Healthcare accounts I have been assigned. I’m not really sure what my day-to-day tasks will be for each of these accounts because last week was all orientation meetings. Starting this week I will begin receiving assignments; I’m pretty sure it’s just going to be a lot of research and account management tasks. Have to start somewhere!

I did manage to have fun last week though! Tuesday Aunt Joanne met me at Jeff’s in Hoboken for dinner. It was great to see her after such an overwhelming first day. Wednesday I met up with Peppercom friends for dinner/happy hour, and Thursday/Friday my “friend” Matt and I went out to dinner at some really cool places. Saturday we had brunch at Pastis and then explored the West Village. We tried to get tickets to see Will Ferrel’s play but it was sold out so we had dinner and then I went out with a bunch of my girlfriends for an old Peppercom intern’s birthday.

It was so great to see all of my friends this weekend because it was very hard for me to leave Atlanta again. I fell back into my comfort zone while home for 2 ½ months and the idea of leaving all of my friends/family again was very unsettling. However knowing that I had existing relationships up here made it much easier and after spending time with them all over the past week I’m confident in my decision.

After growing up in the south my whole life I’ve learned we have a sense of “southern charm” you won’t find anywhere else. Since I am so fortunate to have a dad that works for Delta Airlines I travel to the northeast many times a year and typically come home thinking “Northerners are so rude and obnoxious.” I had a long talk during my drive with my Jersey-raised dad because I didn’t know if I should keep my friendly ways in the city and let people assume they could take advantage of me. He told me, “Jack, just because you’re moving somewhere different doesn’t mean you have to change who you are.” So when I came into the city last Monday morning I was prepared for people to run me down on the sidewalk and for no one at work to learn my name or talk to me (a lowly intern) until I proved myself worthy. Boy was I wrong!

I could not be happier at Peppercom. The moment I walked in the door someone greeted me and spent the morning showing me the ropes. He took me to lunch and introduced me to every single person in the office. Each person I met said “Let me know if I can help you!” in some form. All week I received Google Talk messages from various people asking how things were going and if I needed any help. I received an email my second day from Peppercom’s co-founder, Steve Cody, after I commented on his blog telling me to “stop by” and meet him. Needless to say I was shocked! Maybe I’ve watched The Devil Wear’s Prada one too many times. Whatever the case, I packed some tough skin to come work up here and I’m so grateful I haven’t had to use it…yet.

I have also discovered that people on the street aren’t all that different from down south. Yes, they may be wrapped up in their Blackberry’s and many won’t look your way, but I have encountered many helpful people. I even had someone offer to help carry my suitcase up the stairs the other day and another ask if I was lost (which I definitely was!) and needed help on the street. I’ve learned that if you ask anything with a smile and that “southern charm” I know so well, people are usually happy to help.

Now don’t get me wrong, not everyone has met me with a smile and open arms, but I am so happy to be here and to remove the stereotype from my mind. I get so very frustrated when people assume all southerners wave Confederate flags and drive pickup trucks; I’m disappointed in myself for being just as guilty by stereotyping Manhattan people.

Note: I will NEVER consider myself to be a Yankee, but as Mary Tyler Moore would say, I think…

“I’m gonna make it after all!”

It was hard speaking to an audience that you couldn’t see. I’m a big eye contact person and didn’t like not being able to see people’s facial expressions. However, this also challenged me to be more confident in what I had to say, so that was really good.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:      

David Shavzin, 866-930-8336 x 201, dshavzin@safeteendrivingclub.org                    

Allan Ramsay,  866-930-8336 x 202, aramsay@safeteendrivingclub.org

Safe Teen Driving Club Welcomes Ms. Jackie Holmes as Spokesperson

Atlanta, Feb. 27, 2008 – The Safe Teen Driving Club welcomes Ms. Jackie Holmes – Auburn University Senior, Miss America Contestant and passionate ambassador on teen driving safety issues – and appointed her this week as Club Spokesperson.  In her new position Ms. Holmes will take an active role speaking to students and parents on behalf of the Club, and making her unique perspective on teen driving safety known through the Club’s newsletter to its subscribers nationwide. Ms. Holmes chose teenage driving as her personal focus after six of her peers died in car accidents throughout her high school years, each in a crash that could have been prevented.  She counsels teens that “knowledge is power, and with more knowledge students will be given the power to make intelligent decisions behind the wheel of a car.”

Ms. Holmes shares her message that safe driving saves lives by traveling throughout the state of Georgia, speaking to students and parents. Teachers, PTA representatives, youth groups, parent organizations and others are encouraged to contact Jackie to arrange speaking and educational engagements. Her clear and compelling point of view on teen driving captures the attention of teens, who suffer more injury and fatality from driving crashes than any other cause.

Ms. Holmes competes in the Miss America Organization and is the current Miss Rome Georgia (www.missrome.org). Each contestant in the Miss America Organization must select a community service platform about which she feels passionate. Jackie has been promoting Teenage Driving Safety and Awareness through her pageant activities for the past four years.  Ms. Holmes is a senior at Auburn University majoring in Public Relations with a minor in Music. She began competing in the Miss America Organization after high school to earn money for college.”We are overjoyed to have Jackie helping to spread the word and educate teenagers on driving safety issues,” says Club CEO Allan Ramsay. “Her enthusiasm for working with teens and her unfortunate experience in losing friends throughout high school gives her real credibility with young people. She’ll certainly have a positive impact on those who meet her and hear her speak.”

About Safe Teen Driving Club

Safe Teen Driving Club helps parents protect and safeguard their teen drivers with the goal of reducing driving crashes and fatalities. The Club provides a suite of educational material, and products and services proven to reduce crash rates. These enable parents to establish effective driving rules, monitor their teen’s driving behaviors and track compliance with those rules. The Club supports the Joshua Brown Foundation, a 501c3 working to enhance driver’s training; provides fundraising opportunities for non profit organizations; and, provides an employee discount program for partner companies. For further information on Safe Teen Driving Club, visit www.SafeTeenDrivingClub.org. 

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According to Frymier and Nadler, receiver characteristics in persuasion “refer to aspects of the target audience that influence how persuasive messages are processed and ultimately the success and/or failure of those messages.” These characteristics “help us understand how to influence receivers and how different aspects of receiver experience affect responses to persuasive messages.” Receiver characteristics can be discovered by basic audience analysis, which is “essentially about gathering relevant information about your audience.”

Before you speak in front of any kind of audience, whether a persuasive speech or not, you must analyze your audience. For example, if I was speaking at a Red Hat Club convention I would not talk about the wonders of Facebook. Nor would I speak to a group of college students about how much fun women have in the Red Hat Club. You must research the four receiver characteristics: psychological, demographic, physiological, and environmental.
The Apple Company is a perfect example of defining receiver characteristics before creating an advertising campaign. They do this primarily by analyzing the demographic characteristics of their target audience. Demographic characteristics include: “sex, age, educational background, and cultural aspects of the targeted receivers.

First let’s define the stereotypical “Mac” owner: young, college student, artsy, technologically savvy. Most of the designs have great eye appeal and they are very small and easy to throw in a backpack and bring to class (hence young, college student). Mac’s also offer many artistic options with photo editing, iTunes, garage band, etc. and Apple is always offering the latest technology and upgrades.
So if these are the receiver characteristics, how do you create a persuasive message that targets that exact audience? Apple found the perfect solution in their Mac vs. PC campaign. All of the commercials in this campaign feature a stiff, unattractive, older man with glasses and a hideous suit acting as “PC.” Next to him stands “Mac” in a t-shirt, skinny jeans, and converse shoes. Without even speaking a word it is obvious that the Mac is supposed to represent the young, hip college guy and the PC looks like he just stepped out of a banking agency.
In the commercial “Work VS Home” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot9Jp6-mB-8&feature=related the “Mac” says right away “I’m into doing fun stuff like movies, music, podcasts, stuff like that” and the “PC” responds with “I also do fun stuff like time sheets and spread sheets and pie charts.” This drives home the point the PC is known as the office computer and Mac is known for its entertainment functions.
For the past two years I have been a very happy owner of Tivo and never watch commercials. However, when I see Mac VS PC commercials I stop my Tivo and hit rewind because they just crack me up. I represent their target audience and I am enthralled with their commercials. They have analyzed their receiver characteristics and created a very successful persuasive advertising campaign and I am a very proud owner of Apple products.

 Of course this did not happen.

 I got everything set up and then sent out a very detailed email with directions on how to set up an account and write a post. One person signed up. No one has posted. They all say they don’t understand how to do it and to that I say….MY 79 YEAR OLD GRANDMA BLOGS!!

Yes that’s right, most of you have heard about the mommy bloggers….well I have a granny blogger! My uncle and I set up a family blog back in September to keep my very large extended family in contact with each other. We would get frustrated when people would send out email updates to only a few people. So now everyone in the family updates on the blog and whoever is interested can go to the blog to find out what everyone is up to. GENIUS! I was absolutely floored when my Grandma and very technically challenged uncle picked up on it very quickly. Why can’t my coworkers???

In four months I will no longer be working there (moving to the big apple….YAYYYY!) and either the blogs will die or they finally give it a shot. Luckily Robert French taught me about SnagIt in class the other day so I think I’ll make a tutorial on how to do it. We’ll see what happens!

This past October, I gave a presentation on marketing with a small budget during a breakout session at the Alabama Community Healthy Marriage Initiative’s State Conference. My audience consisted of state employees with a mean age of about 40 years old who needed to learn cheap ways to market their educational services and state programs. After spending several months in Robert French’s class, I was obviously very quick to tell them about all that social media has to offer. The conversation and questions eventually led to Facebook and MySpace as tools to use when marketing to people under the age of 25. Before I knew it, my boss and I were put on the defense because someone who had worked for the state school superintendent told us that it was unethical and hypocritical to market to young people on those sites because they tell them at school not to get on the sites in order to avoid online predators.

In this situation, we were talking about relationship educators, youth group directors, etc. and how they can get on the social networking sites for free to connect with their students. A colleague of mine made the point that if there are online predators on the sites then we need more educators on the sites to combat the bad people. The kids are going to be on there regardless of whether or not the school tells them not to do so.

So this poses a very important question for public relations professionals: what is the code of ethics for social networking sites? Especially when your public is under 18? Any input?

To say that the past three days have been a blur would be an understatement. As many of you know, my sorority sister Lauren Burk was killed on Tuesday night. Since then, we have heard about tragedies in North Carolina, an Israel massacre, and a suicide in an Alabama high school. Despite learning about these horrific acts and grieving over my fallen sister, I have been more than amazed at the hearts and generosity of the Auburn community and Greek life organizations. From a public relations standpoint, I have noted all of their generous acts and how grateful my sisters and I are for their kindness and support.

Greek life frequently gets a lot of negative publicity and very rarely do you ever hear about the many wonderful things a Greek community can offer: friendship, sisterhood, fun, opportunities to participate in philanthropic events, and more than anything…support. My sisters and I have been through a roller coaster of emotions. When my roommates and I found out the news we immediately flocked together and our feet then seemed to lead us to our chapter room where we were able to be with the only other people that knew exactly what we were going through…our sisters. For those of us that didn’t know Lauren very well the only thing we knew to do was comfort our younger sisters that were close to her. The room was full of shoulders to cry on and arms to hold each other close. Support.

However, support has not only come from the sisters that share my same name this week, but also support from the entire Greek community. Our chapter room looks like a flower shop and smells wonderful. Almost every sorority or fraternity (social and honor groups) has done something to reach out to us.  The sisters of Sigma Kappa sent us a tub of cokes and waters and tins of chips and candy. The Interfraternity Council has gathered all of their men and have signed up in shifts to monitor our C-Zone parking lot from 7 PM to 3 AM from now until we leave for spring break. Talk about some great PR!

Chic-Fil-A has once again amazed me with their community outreach. On Thursday afternoon they dropped off two trays of brownies and a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a very sweet note. This was not anything that they were “obligated” to do. They saw an opportunity to reach out to a group in the Auburn community and they took advantage of it, which left quite the impression on my sisters and I.

I talk a lot about Facebook in my blog and for the first time I am writing about it that has impressed me. 90% of the people from Auburn on my friends list have “Praying for the Burk family and the sisters of DG” or some form of that phrase for their Facebook status. I have received wall posts from people who I have not talked to in years telling me they are thinking of my sisters and I. So many people have also changed their profile pictures to the Delta Gamma Greek letters, Auburn University logos, and Lauren’s name. This has also been hard to see at the same time because almost a year ago I was seeing similar groups, posts, and pictures for Virginia Tech. I never thought something like this would ever happen in our small town of Auburn.

My public relations brain has been working hard the past three days. Dealing with the media, assisting our spokesperson, having to lead a prayer vigil (public speaking) under the difficult situation of having my grieving sisters in front of me and media behind me, and planning an event at my home in Atlanta after the memorial service on Saturday. Now I am trying find a way to take advantage of the fire that is currently lit under everyone to increase campus security. I have tossed around ideas of a scholarship fund and a fund to increase and purchase security equipment on campus.

Never before have I ever felt more sure that public relations is the perfect fit for me and I know I will learn so much more in the coming weeks.

Keeping up with all of the latest blogs, Twitter updates, headlines, etc. is an exhausting job and people do not stop writing on the weekends. It really bothers me that you can get Twitter and blog updates sent straight to your phone now. I don’t want to know that “hottie98 is stressing over a test” while I am out with my friends.

My dad is a pilot for Delta and took a management position three years ago. This position also came with a Crackberry, I’m sorry, a Blackberry. My dad’s job did not end at 5 PM. It woke him up with e-mails at 2 AM, called him during dinner, and forced him to respond to emails and answer phone calls while lying on the beaches of Greece on a family vacation. I loathed that damn phone. The whole family called it his Crackberry because he never put it down. The worst part is, its not that he didn’t want to be with the family or get away from work…he couldn’t! With Blackberry your work is always with you.

My point…I do not want to become one of those parents or a spouse who cannot leave the job at the office. With all of these social media advances I am starting to think that is going to be an impossible desire if I continue to want to specialize in social media. So here is my question to all of you current PR social media junkies…is it possible to leave the Crackberry at home? Or do you really need all of those Twitter updates coming to your phone and do you really have to check your Google Reader on a Saturday afternoon?