Andi Narvaez: All of the above

Yesterday I got up at 6:30am (an ungodly hour for me) in order to make it to the first day of BlogHer’s 6th Annual Conference in New York. I have met and had great conversations with many of the women here and picked up some great tid bits of knowledge from the sessions, but I honestly don’t think I could summarize or try to encompass all of it in one post.  In lieu of that, I grabbed links to useful BlogHer ’10 resources and the live blogs.

But my job is not done.

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.

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!

This weekend, I read a few articles on public relations research that got me thinking (I think that’s what my professors were going for ) The general consensus is that public relations research is often limited to the evaluation of the products of short-term communication programs when what it should be doing is evaluating the products, processes, and the outcomes of both short- and long-term programs (Grunig & Grunig, 2001; Michaelson & Macleod; 2007). Of course, this statement assumes that organizations are conducting research in the first place…

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).

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?

*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.

A post on Mashable today, reposting the news about  Birmingham City University’s new social media graduate program got me thinking about the implications of more universities offering courses in new media, social media and all of the above.

I have a great passion for education and, especially when it comes to communications, I believe there is nothing better than when scholars’ work goes hand-in-hand with that of those who pratice the profession in order to improve best practices.

My longest post title yet!

A little story – A co-worker was meeting a fellow Twitterer for real-time lunch. I was sad I couldn’t join them so I tweeted that I may just crash their next lunch date….

Actually, I’ll just let Twitter do the talkin’

Don’t you just love how Twitter makes things happen?

Announcing the San Antonio Media / PR / Business St. Patrick’s Day Tweetup!

(Hint: Click this link for the official TWTvite and to RSVP)

When (exactly?): Tues., March 17 at 12 p.m.

Where: Paloma Blanca Mexican Cuisine (map below)

This post was in the works from the moment I created this blog.

I finally found a name for the blog that is something other than my name. I know, my name is still on there… I can explain.

My name was a good place to start off with for the blog in order to bring my Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook… you-name-it accounts back to the same place and have it all make some sense. But never, for a moment, did I think that it would be  the sole thing to let those who might read the blog  know what it was about. Assuming, of course, that anything I might have to say would ever interest anyone.