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 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…

Social media ROI has been an ongoing debate ever since those who were dabbling in the space realized that they needed to come up with something measurable in order to convince reluctant executives that social media was a worthwhile investment of their organizations’ time and resources. Unfortunately, number of page views, clicks, conversions, tweets, mentions, fans, blog posts, etc. are all examples of products, not processes, not outcomes, and not necessarily long-term.

Processes refer to things like relationship-building and outcomes refers to the quality of those relationships (Grunig, & Grunig, 2001).

A few days ago, my friend @AlanWeinkrantz tweeted:

The types of data we are used to capturing are numbers; we need to capture conversations and more importantly, streams.

I couldn’t agree more. I also think that words like “measurement” and “metrics” are stifling. I agree with scholars and think “research” and “evaluation” are a better fit. The idea is that organizations are conducting investigation that is purposeful, systematic and rigorous in nature and that they will use the results of said investigation to evaluate strategies and tactics.

So I’m sorry for using “measurement” to title this post. Dang SEO keywords, rankings, and the very vicious circle I’m trying to argue against.

To clarify, I don’t think measuring products is a waste of time. I think we need to pay more attention to the processes and outcomes dimensions of social media research and evaluation. If we conceptualize social media as what lies at the heart of the Web 2.0 phenomenon – user collaboration, networking, sharing, and interaction; then it makes sense that in addition to counting the number of “X”, we research the quality of what is being said about our organizations’ efforts, programs and campaigns. Because quality is in the eye of the beholder, interpretative, and subjective in nature; the key is to know who you are, what you’re looking for and what you will do when you find it.

Super Bowl XLIV is in just a couple of hours… I’m SO VERY MUCH looking forward to Brand Bowl. The companies that spent gazillions of dollars on those commercials are going to get all sorts of ratings charts, bar graphs, and spreadsheets with numbers on them in the morning. The numbers will be huge and the companies may decide to buy ads in next year’s Super Bowl… But the kind of qualitative feedback they will get from listening to viewer’s *actual* conversations might make them reevaluate their approach (think Pepsi).

REFERENCES

Grunig, J. E., & Grunig, L. A. (2001). Guidelinesfor Formative and Evaluative Research in Public Affairs: A Report for the Department of Energy Office of Science. Department of Communication University of Maryland.

Michaelson, D., & Macleod, S. (2007). The Application of “Best Practices” in Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation Systems. Public Relations Journal. 1 (1).

Image credit: http://futureperfectpublishing.com/2009/02/

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

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.

As an undergraduate I read my share of public relations and marketing text books, sat through lectures and took tests to eventually earn the degree that now lets others know that I probably know something about the Uses and Gratifications theory and the four P’s of Marketing. But theory is best learned when put into practice. My interships allowed me to truly see what I was getting myself into in context.

I know about social media because Facebook launched when I was a freshman in college and ever since then it has been second nature to me (also I am very curious). But what I think we are coming to, finally, is the inevitable – the writing of social media textbooks and the acknowledgement of social media as not only a field in communications but perhaps an industry in and of itself.

My alma mater taught courses on Web design and virtual reality games while I was still in school, Syracuse University managed to establish a New Media Studies graduate program but ended up dissolving it last semester (the courses are still available as electives) and more universities are offering new and social media courses to complement existing communications programs. Here is a description of Birmingham City University’s social media M.A. program.

Here are my questions:

1. If or when degrees in social media become widespread and standard, how will universities ensure that students get the amount of hands-on experience that this field requires?
2. Where does a master’s degree in social media leave the self-taught?
3. If social media is best learned through practice, how do we even out the playing field for future generations?
4. Will social media also lead to the reinvention of academic curricula (I must admit that’s the first time I’ve used the word curricula) with less time spent in class and on theory and more time spent “out there” and on practice?
5. Will social media degrees only be offered at the graduate level so that students can first learn a more traditional trade?
6. Can we think of the books, blogs and analytics that are already out there as the first pages of the new social media textbooks? Will they only be available to students on Kindles?
7. If Edward L. Bernays is known as the father of public relations, who is the father of social media?
8. Who is the mother?
9. And, generally speaking, shouldn’t it be mother instead of father seeing as how the mother literally births and nurtures the child? Just a thought.

If you wish you were back in school raise your hand.

Flickr image user, 100 watt dream

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)

More: Green attire is encouraged, but entirely optional

Got 15 minutes? Come meet a bit early at Vela Wine Bar

(right next door to Paloma) to munch on snacks!

Anything else?: Please spread the word and see you there!

THANKS TO:

Donna J. Tuttle from the San Antonio Business Journal for the momentum.

Joe Ruiz from KSAT for jumping in but letting the ladies decide

Melanie Thompson from KGBTexas Public Relations / Advertising for the first step.

Nan Palmero for tweeting all the way from Las Vegas to join the action.

September 19, 2009 update: SAMPRB is now The BMPR. Check it out.

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.

My problem in giving the blog a proper name was that I wasn’t sure what exactly I was writing about. Guilty. I’m a hit-the-ground-running sort of person (on a somewhat relevant note I also eat pizza the other way around and start with the crust) and failed to follow the step-by-step procedures for blogging that make it clear that you shouldn’t start writing before finding a purpose based on the audience you are reaching out to. I knew this much – I enjoy writing, I read a lot of what others write, I watch / listen to news and I’m really (shall I say ricidulously?) interested, curious and in touch with the ongoings of social media, the Web and the changing technological landscape that is reinventing the communications industry and our society.

I realize that this describes a lot of people out there so I knew it was important to find my own voice and reason for b[log]eing within such a broad scope.

It hit me the other day when I was watching TV with my friends. To make a long story short, I annoyed them (and I say that in a loving way) when I mentioned something about Twitter, that I had read on Mashable that sort of related to what we were watching.

“One track mind”? Nah. That wouldn’t have been a good name because I try to be well-rounded. It just happens that I’m the token geek in the group and the only one that knows Twitter isn’t a mixed drink.

I did realize that I like to take things in and any time I see/watch/hear/you-get-it something – anything – I find a way to tie it all back to communications, the Web, social media, technology, public relations, my life… those things I am most passionate and make an effort to learn more about.

I thought about “Taking it in” but decided against it two seconds later when I noticed how many inappropriate connotations it could lead to. Some people clicking on my blog from the results of a Google search may have been quite disappointed.

flickr user: etohaholic

I let the subject go for a moment and picked up The New York Times crossword puzzle. As usual I worked my way through it. I filled in the words I knew and guessed the words I didn’t know the clues for by using the letters of seemingly unrelated words to help me out. Eureka.

I once wrote that my favorite words were collaboration, sharing and drank. Well, throw integration in there.

I find it fascinating when I see how much integration happens at all levels and all aspects of life and how much it helps us make sense of our society’s “big picture.” I”m talking “Beatiful Mind” sort of stuff here… minus the conspiracy part.

This post hereby makes it official, “Down and Across” is the blog’s new name and it’s just the right amount of ambiguous so that I may still write about all the things that interest me from (hopefully) an original point of view (my point of view, which explains why I kept my name on there) and that will make it worth wrtiting and taking the time to groom and improve on it more and more.

The best part? Crosswords. Newspapers. I love that I found a name that references something I am hugely fond of and have great respect for.

On Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009 I came to my office desk to discover a small white box sitting on my desk, on top of my pile of files and papers. In the mystery courier’s defense, my desk was a bit messy and it has been a busy couple of weeks, which left nowhere else to set the box down but atop my pile of mess.

In the box I found a set of brand new business cards with my name on them and I must admit, I smiled… wide.

On Feb. 15 I celebrated my fourth month with  KGBTexas Public Relations / Advertising, a full-service agency based in San Antonio, Texas, and I’m happy to say that I  still get up at 7 a.m. every morning and go to work, gladly.

I am overwhelmed by how fortunate I am to be able to do what I love every day, to still be challenged, to continue to learn new things and to work with a great group of talented, experienced and incredibly personable, friendly people.

One time (not at band camp…) I was watching Chris Rock’s stand-up show “Kill the Messenger” and he did a bit on the difference between a job and a career. His bit was about his job, scrubbing dishes at Reb Lobster, being terrible  in comparison to his career as a comedian – of course he didn’t just say that. He pantomimed and did special effects for the whole thing.

Mine is not a job. I am happy that I am on a solid path to a solid career.

I truly empathize with the hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs in the current economic recession and I hope that times will get better soon.