As a public relations graduate student and a very active (annoyingly so? please don’t tell me ) social media user, I’m always interested to learn more about both fields and the neat things we create using social media.

Enter Help a PR Pro Out (HAPPO).

HAPPO is designed to help connect PR job seekers with employers looking for top talent.

The conversation has really taken off on Twitter. Using the #HAPPO hashtag on designated dates as well as on a regular basis, public relations job seekers and employers are benefiting from each others’ participation.

I’m preparing to do a graduate study on the uses of the #HAPPO hashtag. Please help me out during the initial phase of the study by answering one question: Regardless of how frequently you use Twitter or participate in HAPPO, Why (for what purpose) do you use the #HAPPO hashtag?

Submit your answer(s) in the form below. If you use the #HAPPO hashtag for more than one purpose, I want to know all about it. Feel free to be as concise or elaborate as you’d like. All answers are confidential.

THANK YOU!

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This was a guest post on “The Buzz by Mike Schaffer” this week. Mike writes about public relations, social media, pop culture and sports. Mike is AMAZING. Stop by his blog and follow him on Twitter. Tell him I sent you!

Two years ago, my best friend came to visit my home country of Ecuador for the summer. One night, we went to a bar because an Ecuadorian soccer team was playing the semifinals of the 2008 Copa Libertadores. The final score was 0-0, which helped Liga de Quito, the Ecuadorian team, advance to the finals where they destroyed their Brazilian opponents and won the cup. Needless to say, this was the most anticlimactic day of my best friend’s life. And to this day she can’t understand how it can be possible for people to get as rowdy as we did that day when, for 90 minutes, not a single point was scored. Basketball has spoiled her.

In 59 days and less than 10 hours — give or take — the moment I’ve been anxiously waiting for four years will finally be here. And my friend couldn’t care less.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is the greatest sport tournament in the world to me. And after a semester in my “Global Public Relations” course in graduate school I finally have an argument to support this statement that is not, “because soccer is the best sport in the world… and shut up.”

For those of us in public relations and social media, the world matters. Others matter. The beautiful thing about culture and diversity is that they make the world we live in a lot less boring and predictable; however, that is also the greatest challenge we face.

The FIFA World Cup gives us the rare opportunity to learn more about other cultures by either observing or, in my case, participating in UBER fandom. I’m talking body-painting, screaming, perspiring, crying, drinking, cursing… fandom. You might be thinking, “umm, it’s called the Olympics! Hellooo!” But to that I say, nay. The thing about soccer is that people live it and breathe it. Back home, in Ecuador, businesses shut down for it. Additionally, the researcher in me thinks that the World Cup is our chance to see all attributes of all the different cultures under the influence of a single variable — soccer.

Public relations and social media professionals should pay special attention to what will go down in about two months. In fact, start paying attention now to how FIFA is communicating about this event and turning it into not just a soccer tournament, but a global public relations phenomenon and case study:

Por ejemplo:

(a blog post AND a Spanish lesson?? You’re welcome)

• FIFA has a hospitality program set in place, ready to welcome everyone who comes to South Africa for the World Cup. This the the first time an African nation is hosting the World Cup and FIFA is making the most of this opportunity by showcasing a culture and embracing everyone who will come into contact with it for the very first time.
• Over the past few years, the most amazing stadiums have been built for the soccer matches. South Africa’s infrastructure has benefited from this event. Jobs were created. Tourism will bloom. And that, folks, is how a soccer tournament becomes a public diplomacy mission.
• Although the World Cup is a competition, if everyone has fun it doesn’t matter who wins in the end. Ok… I’m not even buying that one. Still, it’s interesting to see how FIFA and the fans deal with rivalries while still promoting togetherness.
• Coke and Hyundai, two major sponsors, have already launched worldwide initiatives with crowdsourcing and digital/social media components. The values of cultural diversity and togetherness are both present in these campaigns. Global public relations FTW.

I leave you with the official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Now, if this doesn’t inspire you to take your public relations practices to the next level and think outside of your own culture’s box, I don’t know what will.

PS: The guy singing in Spanish is David Bisbal, a winner of Spain’s “Operación Triunfo” (a.k.a. American Idol). Boom. Right when you thought I would end without a global pop culture lesson.

This semester I’m taking “Public Relations Publics” at university of Maryland, which focuses on what matters (or should) the most to public relations practitioners — the people.

We discussed the difference between the terms “stakeholders” and “publics” and agreed that stakeholders are those who are affected by what the organization does and have stakes in the results of those actions. Publics are not only affected by organizations’ actions, they also have the potential to become involved in those actions and to influence organizations that way. This concept of publics comes from the Situational Theory of Publics, developed by University of Maryland Professor James E. Grunig (yay Maryland).

The idea behind this theory is that individual members of the public exercise problem recognition, constraint recognition and level of involvement with organizations to different degrees. The publics who exercise these three factors to the greatest extent are considered “active publics.” Active publics seek and process information to a greater extent and, should they ever decide to coalesce, these publics have the potential to affect an organization. According to the theory, it would be wise for organizations to dedicate their resources to those who will affect them the most.

That makes sense.

Then, Obama came up. He has been criticized for campaigning for the Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts, where a republican was about to (and did) take Kennedy’s senate seat, and not being in Haiti, where an earthquake had just shattered the nation and where help was still taking time to get on its way. My professor spoke about public opinion — a prime example of what happens when publics coalesce. She said the Obama administration was catching so much flack from its publics because it failed to recognize that they were very much active and — here is where I had to chime in — active publics can create problems for organizations, which is why organizations have to keep a close eye on them and make sure their needs are met.

Enter social media. I see publics as SOLUTIONS, instead.

When news about Haiti broke on Twitter I witnessed IMMEDIATE response. People like Danny Brown started to raise funds through 12for12k, people like Ed Shahzade were making sure that everyone trying to help and donate had their facts right. On Monday, I also found out all about CrisisCamp, which extended to 12 cities in only two weeks.

Publics can be a problem if they allow themselves to be that way. Regardless of what was happening in American politics and what Obama should or shouldn’t have been doing… what I saw coming from social media were SOLUTIONS.

If publics are the solution and organizations empower them to be so… more people win.

Flickr user Just Sarah

It is here.

My first big project of my first semester as a public relations graduate student is here and I’m excited to dive right into it. The only problem is I need your help.

I will be conducting a single case study research on the topic of digital media and organization management. Specifically, I would like to study an organization that has seen its internal organizational structure change due to the addition of social and digital media-related functions to the organization’s communication department.

• Have organizational hierarchies shifted?
• Has the managerial role of the top communicator changed due to the new technical skills he or she is required to have for the job?
• Have technically adept professionals (web developers, Twitterers, social networking experts, etc.) been hired to take on the new digital media functions?
• Do internal communications take place using new media (Twitter, Yammer, Facebook, Mobile, Wikis, Forums, etc.)?

This is me brainstorming research questions to warm up before I get started, but if you know of (or you are!) an organization that is using social and digital media, particularly in the communications or public relations function, please email me at anarvaez [at] umd [dot] edu or send me a tweet @andinarvaez. I would love to find out more about your organization and the changes taking place within.

Thank you in advance!

Photo credit: Mark Rauterkus

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*It's a blog!*

That’s the WordPress default title for the sample post that comes published with every new WordPress account. On the surface it’s a rather generic, upbeat greeting. Underneath the surface it’s an open invitation to allow yourself to run wild and to unleash your inner blogging beast all over your brand new, endless white canvas.

If you scroll down you’ll come to realize that this is not my first post. And yet it is.

What used to be “Andi Narvaez: Down and Across” is now “Andi Narvaez: Re-learning PR.” Welcome to my refreshed blog.

I lost a couple of hours of sleep here and there thinking about my new life in Maryland (Although I just call it D.C.) as a public relations graduate student at University of Maryland and how I wanted the content of my blog to reflect that new life. And one night it hit me (and then I hit myself again when I realized how simple it was).

It’s no secret that the Web, technology and – to a very significant extent – social media are changing the way we used to do pretty much anything – business, education, religion, media, family… On “Re-learning PR” I will reflect on how much or how little communications and public relations theories and concepts written in ancient textbooks (I’m talking 2008 editions) and taught in the classroom differ from what professionals are currently putting into practice. My personal theory is that what I’ll be re-learning in class and from blogs, research, books, professors, colleagues, etc. will be the kind of stuff that would make Edward L. Bernays’ eyes jump out of his sockets.

Get it?

*

Flick user andycarvin

This blog post (and the 30 more to come) is part of ProBlogger’s “31 Days to Write a Better Blog” challenge.

Feel free to judge.

Write an Elevator Pitch for Your Blog [Day 1 -31DBBB]

A mutant offspring of the 20th and 21st century I have a multitasking sort of background in public relations, marketing, social media, writing, design and advertising. I have an undying passion for reading news, blogs and books and I force feed myself more mainstream media, brands and entertainment than anyone likes to admit most of the time.

This blog is about communication and the way it is evolving our society. Not unlike my mind, this blog is scattered, but it gets its focus back by extrapolating from current events, other posts, news articles, etc. to determine how – one way or another – they all integrate to essentially point out the same thing. Of course, that’s not always the case and that’s when things get interesting.

I believe it’s the way to go.

Today, Sean Wood, media specialist for KGBTexas Public Relations / Advertising, and i made a presentation about social media to our company’s PR team and a few other co-workers who are interested in hearing what we had to, humbly, say about what is quickly developing and changing our industry.

We discussed making connections, networking, participating, experimenting, applications, opportunities, challenges, privacy, commenting and whether or not to let the doors of two-way communication swing wide open, which our very own account executive and publications manager, Melanie Thompson, blogged about today as well. The question is – what now?

Now we hit the ground running. 

With research under our belts, knowledge about who we want to reach out to, who we want to serve and once we sit down to discuss what we want to accomplish initially and the strategies that will get us there… we are going to, in the words of Sean himself, “unleash the beast within.”

Much like all other aspects of life, planning is necessary, strategy is required, tactics are a must, however, at the end of the day, all the planning in the world isn’t enough to do away with the unknown that lurks around every corner. The best we can do is make sure that we are ready to not only face it but make friends with it. 

As I mentioned in my previous post – the key is evolving. And not only is it key, it’s what makes this fun.

* Follow Sean, Melanie and KGBTexas on Twitter.

As of Tuesday, November 4, 2008 the country has been in an uproar. And with good reason.

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Tomorrow is the big day. And people are not just going to elect a new president.

I was the “Market Crash” for the office Halloween party this year. This weekend I wil be the Corpse Bride. I consider this a great success and I thought I would write an update on that. You never know who is reading your blog and anxiously waiting for some follow-up.