Student seeking a Public Relations internship for the Spring 2008 semester.

Student seeking a Public Relations internship for the Spring 2008 semester.

Austin, TX-- December 3, 2007

Experience
Aug. 2007- Present Media Technology Assistant, St. Edward’s University Austin, TX

• Troubleshooting and assisting faculty, students, and staff with technology problems and equipment in classrooms.

Consumer Marketing Intern, Texas Monthly, TX

• Composed written correspondence in response to customer inquiries, requests and complaints.


• Learned writing strategies for handling direct requests in a timely manner.


• Assisted Advertising Researcher; created excel documents summarizing advertising statistics and demographics; created PowerPoint for advertising staff, using graph layouts.

Sales Associate/Shift Leader, Double Dave’s The Woodlands, TX

• Provided quality customer service; supervised seven employees; handled sales/cashier transactions.

Activities & Recognition

• Dean’s List, Fall 2006 and Spring 2007


• SEU Public Relations Student Society of America- Local Liaison, 2007


• SEU Communication Society Member, 2006-present


• Double Dave’s Employee of the Month, August 2004

Skills

• Mac and PC user, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint

MULTIMEDIA ELEMENTS

• 
  View in YouTube
  PR for social media project
  
  

Lauren Doak is a senior at St. Edward's University pursuing her bachelor's degree in Communication. She has been on the Dean's List for the past two semesters. She hopes she can apply what she has learned in her Public Relation's classes and gain valuable work experience. When Lauren is not in class or working in the Media Services office at school she enjoys biking around Austin, traveling and experiencing new cultures, and reading a good book.

RELATED LINKS

Lauren's PR Blog
This blog was created as a project for an Internet and Social Media for PR class.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Lauren Doak
  Communication Student
  Email: ldoak at stedwards dot edu
  Blog: http://lauren-lalasblog.blogspot.com/
  

Technorati Tags: st. edward's university | internship | public relations | austin |

A woman who received an epidural about seven months ago has been blogging about how her insurance company would not cover it, even after paying $800 per month for health insurance. After some suggestions about what to do, the woman began blogging about it. In response the insurance company has written her a check to cover the remainder of her bill.

It is interesting to see how fast the insurance company responded to her once their media department found out about her blogging. I guess they didn't want to start a conversation among their customers much like the Dell customers did about "Dell Hell."

BrandWeek and Web 2.0

An article on BrandWeek's website discusses everything we have covered in class. In a way I think the author is months behind getting some of this information out but it is still important for others that do not already know to be informed. Anyway, the article covers blogging, word of mouth and the effect it has on companies and the right way they should deal with negative comments.

Magazine follows Radiohead's Idea

Paste magazine recently has followed Radiohead's idea of letting their customers pay as much as they want for a subscription to their magazine. A magazine to follow is Premier Guitar. Premier Guitar will be wrapping 10,000 copies of the December issue with a "pay what you want subscription card" that allows customers to pay anything they would like for their 12 months of reading. Their goal is "create exposure for a relatively new magazine," increase subscriptions and internet audience.

Hopefully this new idea that has proven success with Radiohead will show the same positive results with the magazines.

Blogger Strike

In response to the writer's strike in the entertainment business, some 21 entertainment bloggers will "go dark" this week in support of the writers.

"Some people thought we'd be against the writers because our favorite shows are going away, but we wanted to show that some things are more important than a few shows airing full season," says Glowy Box blogger Liz Pardue, who organized tomorrow's "blog strike."

AintItCoolNews has also showed its backing for the writers by posting a supporting petition that has 44,000 signatures.

The protests now are not just people with signs swarming areas of cities to get their point across. Their persuasion and activism has now spread to the internet making it easier for others to show their support.

Great Christmas Gift

As I was browsing the New York Time's news I came across an interesting article about a new cookbook that one can make online. Kamran Mohsenin, founder of Ofoto, took note of how popular customer made books and calendars are. Now, one can get online and choose 100 recipes to be included in a cookbook as well as a colorful cover. The recipes can come from their online site, your own personal recipes, or those from other sites. One can order a cookbook by going to TasteBook.com.

DEWmocracy

Mountain Dew is now turning to their consumers to create the next Mountain Dew in a campaign called DEWmocracy. In their consumers journey, they have the power to create the color, the flavor, name, logo, label, and tagline. When one enters the contest, they are taken through seven different chambers allowing you to meet characters, answer questions, and play games. Each chamber takes you through your creation of the next Mountain Dew as well as play games and join different teams whose drinks most closely matches your own. All teams will vote on other teams. Those with the higher amount of points will allow greater visibility for others to vote on it. Ultimately, the winners drink will be taken from an idea to the real world.

The way Mountain Dew has presented this campaign is interesting. They have created a story and made it more involved rather than just saying "go make a new drink." It looks like the target audience they are trying to address is definitely a younger, more internet saavy, group. I wonder what type of new drink will be created and marketed in stores. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this campaign and see what comes out of it.

A Shopping Feature Soon to Come to FaceBook

An article I found on Adage from yesterday states that the ever popular social networking site, FaceBook, will soon be adding a shopping feature. When a FaceBook member buys something they will be able to let their friends know about it, let them know if you like it or not, and possibly even send a coupon to you. The article states that "the service will bring a sort of easily tracked viral element to online shopping."

There were challenges brought up in the article as well. Dave Balter of BuzzAgent says that the application that would be put on FaceBook is only limited to online shopping therefore the number of products is limited. Also, he says that most people talk in person about products and that discussion is missing.


Although Balter's comments are respectable, I believe this is definitely a smart move for FaceBook and those shopping sites associated with it. I will agree that many people discuss and show products in person, but the amount of people conversing online is astounding. The word of mouth in person only reaches a limited amount of people who may or may not choose to pass it along. Your word of mouth online will reach numerous amounts of people that you may never know.

Student's Ad Gets Attention From Apple

18 year-old, Nick Haley, will now be able to see his itouch advertisement aired on TV.

Haley created a commercial based on one of the newest products Apple has released to the song "Music is my hot, hot sex." In the song there is a lyric that says, "My music is the spot I'd like you to touch." He first posted his commercial on YouTube where it got many comments and much attention including marketing employees from Apple.

Haley received a phone call and a deal from Apple executives. His commercial was made into broadcast form and launched last Sunday on television.

Haley's commercial is a good example of consumer generated content that company's, like Apple, are using.

Social Media Podcast

Social Media Podcast.

Copyrighting Online Material

The time has finally come when media and Web companies are begin to set guidelines for using copyrighted material online.

New Public Relations Class at St. Edward's University Explores Emerging Social Media Technologies

New Public Relations Class at St. Edward's University Explores Emerging Social Media Technologies

In a new class offered at St. Edward's University, students learn about the innovative techniques that are being used in the public relations field.

AUSTIN, TX--October 25

This is the first class to be offered at St. Edward's University in the social media area of public relations. The class aims to teach about the different technologies being used as well as the study of their application in contemporary PR practice. The students will not only examine these technologies from a theoretical perspective by reading scholarly research and writings from PR professionals, but they will also learn how to use and author content for such online PR tools ourselves. Topics that will be covered include social media and Web 2.0, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, viral video, social bookmarking, social media news releases, and other emerging web technologies.

As a result of taking the class, the students will:

Understand how the PR industry is incorporating new media and social media technologies into contemporary PR practice.

Understand the need to stay abreast of advances in communication technology in order to succeed as a PR professional.

Learn how to locate the information and the technical know-how to help you stay abreast of those advances.

Learn to create and adapt video, audio, and text for online PR tools.

Be able to produce webpages, weblogs, and podcasts for communications campaigns.

Be able to critically discuss the effects of the use of computer-mediated communication within the corporate and nonprofit environments served by the PR industry.

Founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, St. Edward's University has been named as one of America's Best Colleges for 2006 by U.S. News & World Report and was selected by The Princeton Review for inclusion in the guide Colleges with a Conscience. St. Edward's is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university of more than 4,900 students located in Austin, Texas.

RELATED LINKS

Course Blog
The class blog that is kept by the professor which updates about projects and important news related information.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Social Media For Public Relations (Agency)
  St. Edward's Univeristy
  Student
  3001 Congress Ave.
  Austin, TX 78704
  [Ashley's Blog]: [http://underwood04ashley.blogspot.com/]
  [Keegan's Blog]: [http://mkeeganwatkins.blogspot.com/]
  [Lauren's Blog]: [http://lauren-lalasblog.blogspot.com/]
  

Technorati Tags: social media | news release | st. edward's university | Blogroll

So long to record companies?

Just days after Radiohead dropped their record label and released their new CD via the web many other artists began breaking the news of dropping their labels as well. Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, and Jamariqoi are among the few that have said they too will only sell their CD's online.

The newest artists to make headlines with this drastic change is Madonna. According to the New York Times Madonna is soon to leave Warner Brothers Records and "is nearing an agreement with Live Nation, the concert promoter, that would pay her more than $100 million in exchange for three albums and the exclusive rights to promote her concerts and to market her merchandise in a wide-ranging partnership, according to people briefed on the talks." Instead of relying on CD sales, Madonna will depend (as if she has to) on concert sales.

It seems like many artists are jumping on the band wagon (no pun intended). What will happen to the recording labels in the future?

Why google when you can Stumbleupon it?

I was recently shown a new way of finding websites. StumbleUpon is a way to find websites that fit your interests. After searching, the site soon learns what the user likes and then suggests other websites that fit his/her likes.

If interested, all you have to do is add StumbleUpon in your toolbar, hit the stumble button, and begin searching. It's a interesting way to preview other websites people have stumbled upon. As you use it more and more often, you can begin to meet other people with the same interests.

Some popular topics are animation, art, video games, humor, bizarre, music, science and technology and computers.

The site has gotten much acclaim from major news companies:

"StumbleUpon is a brilliant downloadable toolbar that beds into your browser and gives you the chance to surf through thousands of excellent pages that have been stumbled upon by other web-users" -BBC

"Next time you want to wander the Web, forget about Googling it. Stumble it." -The Wall Street Journal

PRSSA

As most of you already know, St. Edward's, thanks to Corinne, has finally been approved for a PRSSA chapter. We have already had two meetings and have elected officers for this exciting up-and-coming year. Tomorrow we will be having another meeting to discuss goals, fund raising, and events to come. I invite all of you to come check it out. If you like it please feel free to join and spread the word!

Remember our meeting is TOMORROW, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9 @ 6:45.

Also, check out and join our Facebook group.

See you there!

"Corporate Conversations"

In Chapter 5 of The New Influencers, the authors talk about corporate blogging. It was interesting that fewer than 10 percent of CEO's in Fortune 500 companies blog. Many are unwilling to give up control, but for some it is a better idea for them not to begin blogging. On the other hand, it would be wise for small and up-and-coming companies to begin participating in the conversation. By joining, a company can build customer and media relations, tell one's story, tackle an issue, feed a frenzy, and promote a product. A reason a lot of companies are saying they are blogging is that "it's the thing to do." Like previously mentioned, some bigger companies are just not cut out to fit in. If they do decide to launch one, it is a good idea for employees talk. Their word is considered more credible.

In addition, the safest route is a company blog in which the company is the topic of the blog. Examples given are "Nuts About Southwest," Dell's "One2One," and "Taylor Made." A good way to think about these kind of blogs is like a bulletin board in which company's are able to tell about what is going on in the company and what is going to come of it and to let customers give feedback, hopefully positive.

Executive blogs are also written. These are similar to a journal of senior managers.

Company Wide blogs are those written by employees of a company. These involve more customer and employee interaction.

An alternative to blogs for corporations to think about is using podcasts. These are proven affective and can attract a large number of prospective and fanatic customers.

MINDCOMET

MINDCOMET is a mix between an interactive marketing firm and an interactive agency that helps build relationships with stakeholders via the web.

The company has a process known as Relationship Synthesis they use to "implement comprehensive strategies that create awareness, drive conversion, and increase the lifetime value of a relationship.

Many of the interactive marketing solutions they use include online experiences, traffic generation, conversion improvement, managed e-mail communications, eWareness, Loyalty programs, eLearning, and hosting.

This very Web2.0 site can give everyone insight into the direction companies are going.

MyTune.com

Attention all band members! There is a new social networking site for you. MyTune. com is a site devoted to music fans, bands, and industry professionals. Bands that have a competitive edge and are looking to make it big should become a member. The site is sponsored by major music labels including Universal Music, Interscope, Verve, Sony, RCD, Iceberg, and many others.

Just like Myspace, MyTune.com gives fans the opportunity to listen to and comment on bands music. In fact, fans are able to vote on their favorite songs and bands. Every three months the top three bands listened to and played will have their music heard by major record labels and are eligible to win prizes. The top pick will win $5,000 and the cahnce to record a demo. The four finalists at the end of the years will be further eligible to be able to compete in an online version of battle of the bands to win $25,000, a record deal, and the acclaimed title "Artist of the Year" on MyTune.com

I think the site will begin to eliminate the need to send out press packets to major labels. By becoming a member and making a profile on MyTune.com all a bands information and music are made readily available for industry executives to take a look. I think MyTune.com is a site to definitely keep an eye on if you are a fan of up-and-coming music. Become a member and get active in listening and voting. You could be part of making the next discovered band famous!

State Department's 'DipNote' Blog

As the blogging age continues to gain attention everyone is starting to jump on and take part, including our government.

The State Department launched a blog today known as DipNote, which is a name used for diplomatic notes that governments use to communicate back and forth with each other. Thought of by Sean McCormack and approved by Condoleeza Rice, the blog äims to give net surfers an insider's view of diplomacy and diplomats with informal chatty posts from key senior players in Washington and abroad as well as a younger generation weened on email for whom traditional cable traffic communication is foreign."

The blog is supposed to act as a tool to allow people to read about what goes on behind closed doors at the State Department and let people see the personalities responsible for handling domestic and foreign affairs. It is also aimed at allowing readers and subscribers to actively participate in a conversation about worldly events and to let openly ask questions regarding the department.

People can also find pictures, videos, and information about the State Department and their bloggers.

In addition to the blog, there is also a State Department YouTube channel that people can find briefings and interviews with officials.

The blog is aimed towards a younger generation as another means to be educated about our government. I would like to watch the growth of the blog and continue to monitor what comments are left by readers and further how they are handled and responded to.

What we have been talking about in class can be summed up with Mr. McCormack's quote from a Yahoo news article. "The blog will give them another source and allow them to participate in a conversation about that," McCormack said. "We want them to be active participants."

Utterz!

Today I was looking over the Steve Rubel Lifestream blog and noticed all the recent links he had posted. One of them caught my attention because of the name...Utterz "new micro blogging service."

Of course I went to the website to figure out just exactly what this new micro blogging is.

"Utterz is a new mobile blogging service, which puts your voice, videos, pictures and text on any of your web pages, right from your cell, for free."

At first, I was surprised to see such a thing, but after thinking about it for a minute I realized, "Why not?" With the cell phone technology and instant access cell phones gives us it makes all but perfect sense.

A micro blogger has a few options to get what they want on the web. First, one can "say." Someone can call into 712.432.mooo, (cute, i know), to share opinions, jokes, and general information to get posted. Next, someone can "text" what they want posted and in minutes one can find it online. Lastly, one can "pix and flix it." This option allows someone to match what they are trying to say by attaching a video or picture, send it to a link, and let the utterz staff take care of the rest. These different options allows users to use their utterz, that mashes all their sent information, and update their existing accounts on sites like Blogger, Facebook and Myspace.

Now, I can understand the convenience and ease of this new service in our fast paced world but I personally would never use it. These websites that they have listed to update for you such as Myspace, Facebook, and Blogger are, in my opinion, websites that can wait to be updated until you get home or access to a computer. As technology keeps growing people are not given an opportunity to be separated from it. What do yáll think?

Everyone Is a Publisher, Everyone Is a Broadcaster

Chapter 4 in Citizen Marketers is all about the democratizing self expression on the internet. Different tools have been created to allow this expression such as blogs, podcasts, RSS Feeds, and YouTube.

While the printing press has revolutionized the way information is written down, the internet has began to revolutionize the way messages are transferred. In the early 1990's blogs became accessible to online subscribers. Nowadays, they are even easier to use and more widely known about. Companies that use them are "creating real-time customer feedback system." Every blogger is a publisher.

Also, podcasts are emerging on the web 2.0 field. They are "digital files delivered automatically to subscribers as feeds." Many people are enjoying creating podcasts because the FCC can not regulate any of the content.

As we have discussed in class, RSS Feeds makes subscribing to things on the web extremely easy.
1. Feeds do not consume energy.
2. Feeds are free.
3. Feeds are almost instantaneous.
4. Feed subscribers are a tangible asset.

Finally the authors discuss the influential YouTube. There are six lessons about the site that everyone needs to know.
1. "YouTube was designed and built with community as its founding principle."
2. "YouTube made sharing content ridiculously easy."
3. "YouTube ws loaded with statistics."
4. "YouTube encouraged its users to personalize their public profile pages."
5. "YouTube's user interface was restrained and simple."
6. YouTube's search functionality...consistently bested Google Video's functionality."

At the end of the chapter, the author's describe challenges to these social network sites. Myspace for example has become extremely popular with our generation. However will it remain popular for the generations below us? What does it take to have such a site be on the top? It will be interesting to see how long such sites will stick around until the new wave of trends hit.

IKEA case study

IKEA has recently launched a new branding campaign and has jumped on the bandwagon of using social media. The company is now actively engaging in conversational marketing by sponsoring the new websites myamericaathome.com in the U.S. and notgoinganywhere.co.uk in the U.K. These websites are engaging people to speak up about their homes.

The goal of myamericaathome.com is "to capture the extraordinary diversity that makes up American family life, representing a broad range of economic, geographic, racial, political, and socially diverse lifestyles." Americans are supposed to submit photos of their home life that will be displayed in different segments such as "morning rush," "what's for dinner," and "evening family rituals." The purpose is not to look at how many IKEA products are found in the background of the pictures submitted but instead is to look at how people live their lives from day to day. The notgoinganywhere.co.uk website was created for people to celebrate their homes. "This site is for everyone who loves their home as much as we love ours, and wants to celebrate it for its happy memories, warm cozy rooms, and individual personalities…"

IKEA sponsoring the websites goes hand in hand with their new branding campaign "Home is the most important place in the world." IKEA is, what Brian Solis describes on his PR 2.0 blog as, "experimenting with new forms of media, not to gain fame or fortune, but to change marketing from a business of bullying, bullshit, and deception, to a genuine form of respectable and valued sense of service and personalization."

IKEA is attempting to break down barriers to begin to engage in conversations with their customers. People that will actively participate in these websites will bring to the table different experiences, culture, and preferences. By exposing their way of life IKEA is able to gain a different perspective of their target.

"Home is the most important place in the world" has a more emotional appeal to it than there past campaigns. The commercials seen on TV and on their website creates a sense of aw in a viewer. People feel good when they are at home and ultimately IKEA wants to be a part of that.

Fashion Week 2007

Ok guys, i know you probably aren't thinking that this is going to be the most interesting post but the girls might be a little bit more interested....

This week is New York's Fashion Week where it is sheer mania with up-and-coming fashion designers as well as well established ones with names like Calvin, Ralph, Proenza, etc showing their Spring 2008 collections. In the years past the fashion show coordinators make sure to seat the most notable and influential in the front rows of the fashion shows. Afterall, their word of mouth can make or break the designers line that season. Anyway, this year there is a new group of people that will be seated next to the famous guests, BLOGGERS. That's right. To keep up with the growing trend of blogs, many media companies have hired extra people to blog about this weeks fashion shows. A woman by the name of Fabiola Beracasa will be covering the shows for Elle and New York magazine's. In addition the magazines will also be employing top models Selita Ebanks and Maggie Rizer to blog for them.

Unfortunately the bloggers will not have access to the extremely famous designers who are known by their first name such as Marc, Calvin and Ralph. This in turn will leave a great advantage for the underdog designers to gain attention for their clothes lines.

This is a great PR move. If I were presenting my line at Fashion Week this week I would make sure to have my clothes looking extra special knowing the word of mouth via the internet is a lot more opinionated. Now, there it is not just reporters bringing the fashion news to everyday people but it is the blogs that people are more than likely to see and read.

"You Tube Studies"

Few people have heard about the small Pitzer College in Claremont, CA yet one professor is gaining attention for the intimate, private college by breaking ground for a new way classes are taught. Professor Alexandra Juhasz, from the media studies department, was not satisfied with the content found on YouTube and is now teaching a class based solely on and about the site. The idea is to film every class and post them online so other students and other people can watch the video and possibly post their own video responses.

I can not remember what we, as students, did without YouTube. In everyone of my classes it is used by teachers and students with lectures and presentations. As this is the case, no one can choose to ignore the site. Professor Juhasz is wanting her students to "think about cultural references, what makes a great work of art and how to define a truly democratic medium."

I think this idea of online video teaching was bound to happen at one point and through YouTube it has become possible. I personally think it is a great innovative idea. The professor makes a great point by saying we are living in the YouTube generation. She sees the importance of recognizing the limitations and taking in the culture of research. Not only should students learn to use the site they should learn how to make their own videos. This will allow people to actively participate in creative media production that could be beneficial in their future careers.

Since the class is being taught for the first time, it is being taught as a trial and error run. If the students don't like it towards half of the semester then the last half of the semester will be set in a more traditional classroom setting without the video cameras.

Professor Weisgerber said that there was a proposal to have a similar course taught here at St. Edward's University but it was rejected due to privacy issues. I can only predict that other colleges, depending on the success Pitzer has, will want to jump on board and add similar classes to their curriculum. Only time will tell...

How do you all feel about it?

If you would like to read the article the link is below as well as the University's homepage.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/06/youtube

http://www.pitzer.edu/
http://www.youtube.com/MediaPraxisme