They split us into groups based on the preferences we indicated on our registration form and we rotated through three sessions on three different sectors of public relations and corporate communications.

I ended up in Group C: Crisis Communications, Agency and Corporate/Internal Communications.

A lot was said in the three hours but here are the points that stuck out for me:

Agency:

• In an agency, you’re surrounded by people who do communications too.  This can be a valuable experience and may bring a sense of community that you may not feel in a small communications department for a corporation.
• Tasks as an entry level practitioner may include: creating media lists, doing media calls and pitches, organizing meetings and staff events, doing research and doing media and online monitoring.
• 25% of your tasks will involve researching about the client and anything related to that organization or project.
• One of your other main tasks will be media monitoring,  so know the media and love the news.

Internal Communications:

• Most people believe that internal communications is just about writing the newsletter, but it can more than that.  You can be the coach who mobilizes and engages employees.
• You can work with upper management to develop plans that will engage employees and ensure that they are aware of, understand and believe in the organization’s brand.
• People spend most of their lives at work and you get to make them love it.  You help employees feel pride in where they work and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.

Crisis Communications:

• Every plan is just a plan. It needs to be flexible and adaptable in any situation.
• There are early warnings for crises – they don’t just drop from the sky, so plan ahead and pay attention.
• Take time to look at how your organization or other similar ones dealt with crises in the past.  Learn from these examples.

I left the event with a lot of notes and was impressed with how things rolled out.  The only negative thing was that I would have loved to participate in all the other groups too, such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Media, Media Relations, Non-profit and Financial.

Either way, it was a well-organized event. Thank you to all the speakers and the student steering committee for doing a great job.

Photo credit: oooh.oooh – Creative Commons Licence (BY-NC-SA)

I’m not an expert on Twitter yet, but from reading various blog posts and talking to enthusiastic users, I am learning how Twitter allows people to build relationships, share information and interact in real time.

I mentioned to the class that on the night of the US Presidential Election, I followed the election.twitter stream.  I was in awe as I watched hundreds of people tweet their immediate reactions to Obama’s win and it really hit me then that this was a moment I would never forget.  That’s when I started to realize that there was something special about Twitter.

Yesterday, there were two great examples of the power of Twitter:

U.S. Airways flight 1549 crashes into the Hudson River

We were in our Media Relations class and our professor, Barry Waite, was showing us examples of media relations in the news.  When he opened the CBC page, we saw that there had been a plane crash in the Hudson.  He then opened Twitter and asked his followers to say hi to our class.  A few minutes later, someone responded with a link to a story on how Twitter broke the first photo of the plane crash: http://ad.vu/2hrc. The class was amazed.

Toronto’s West End Blackout

I was at home working on the computer when all of a sudden my Tweetdeck (which I had installed only a few hours earlier) started making a lot of noise. I didn’t have the TV on or the radio, and so it was through Twitter that I learned that part of the city was without power.  Quickly I picked up that people were using the #darkTO hashtag for the conversation and I began to follow it myself. People were posting TTC service updates, Toronto Hydro updates, phone numbers for help, and even supportive messages.  An hour after it began, CBC posted this story: Twitter Shines in TO Blackout

What both of these examples showcase is the power to reach a group of people and share information instantaneously using Twitter.  Media outlets were watching streams on both events and not only were they adding information, they were also using information from other tweeters to build their own news stories.

Here’s another story: A friend of mine ran to work in the morning because her apartment was freezing.  A few hours later, she tweeted to #darkTO and asked if her area has power yet or not.  She received a faster response (telling her no) by tweeting than if she had gone searching around the web for that answer.

Are there any other examples of how and why Twitter is so great? In what ways is it not?

Photo Credit: ComicBase – Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA)

I know I haven’t posted in a long time and this is because school has been hectic. I just finished the craziest week of the semester (so far) which included something due every day of the week.

One of these major projects was my Media, Information, and Technoculture honours seminar project. I am enrolled in the The Art of Commentary: Editorial Cartooning and the Role of Dissidence in the Press seminar class in which we study editorial cartoons and the history of cartooning. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the class but it is now one of my favourites. We not only look at editorial cartoons, but we also learn about the political and historical events that were occurring at that time and see how the cartoonists engaged in political commentary through their work. It’s amazing how powerful and strong the cartoonists’ messages can be.

Along with attending lectures, we each worked on a research project throughout the semester and then held a half-hour seminar for the class to present our work. For my project, I looked at the topic of genocide – something I became very interested in and passionate about since I took the Century of Genocide class last year. I started by researching all editorial cartoons that deal with genocide and then slowly put together a theme.

I ended up talking about the phrase “Never Again”. After each genocidal event starting from the Holocaust, we (the public, the international community, and the United Nations) said “Never again”. However, we all know that genocide has happened and is happening again and again.

What I found through my research is that editorial cartoonists criticize the United Nations, the western nations, the western media, and the public for their lack of interest, lack of action, and inability to do something to save people (an inability that comes from conflicts of interest, veto powers, etc). It has now gotten to the point where the cartoonists look straight at the words “Never Again” and show how empty the words are. “Never Again” is just rhetoric.

In my presentation, I used these themes and worked through information and cartoons about the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Darfur. I was nervous about not giving the topic enough time because it is very important but I feel like it went well. I want to highlight here two of my favourite cartoons, both of which I think have powerful messages:

And finally, I finished the presentation with the following animated editorial cartoon (you have to click through to view the flash video). I look forward to your comments.

Tonight, when you sit down for some political TV, are you going to watch the Canadian Prime Minister candidate debate (English) or the American Vice President candidate debate?

My guess is that most people will watch the US debate and just read about ours tomorrow.

What does that say about political debates, our candidates, and us?

(of course, I realize that many people will watch neither…)

I traveled for 24 hours and didn’t sleep for 30+. I spent my time on the plane talking to a fast-talking, unable-to-sleep, 9-year-old-girl while everyone else could sleep. Then when I got home, my parents rushed me out the door to go to my cousin’s wedding reception.

And thus, I am really out of it right now.

I just found out that I just barely missed a massive earthquake in Japan that measured in at 7.1 (read the article here). That’s scary because I actually woke up in Kanazawa, which is in the Ishikawa prefecture, and it’s from there that we traveled to Tokyo for our flight home.

It’s also troubling to see all the pictures of destruction because I was just there and it’s such a great place.

It’s also scary to think that I could have been there at that time too…

The highlight of the night was when Rahul Singh came on stage to give a speech. What started out as a light-hearted talk ended up being emotionally moving for an entire audience, and Rahul left the stage to a standing ovation.

Rahul is the founder of DMGF, a non-profit organization that goes around the world to help people who are in need of disaster relief. Immediately after news of a disaster reachers their network, DMGF sends out an emergency response team made of firefighters, EMS personnel, and police officers who travel on their own dime (and using their own vacation time) to the country in need. Once in a disaster location, the team rushes to provide clean water, medical care, and save victims from buildings and homes that have been destroyed. They also try to provide that local community with the skills and supplies needed to continue on after the team leaves.

On top of all of that, the organization tries to send out medical packages and training to third world countries, and teams have gone overseas to help train people to locate and handle mines. DMGF has worked with war relief, hurricane relief, flood relief, earthquake relief, tsunami relief, and more. The team has traveled to Sudan, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, Guatemala, Grenada, Iran, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Cambodia, Nepal, Mexico, Thailand, and most recently: Lebanon.

DMGF tries its hardest to minimize costs and ensure that the majority of the money that is donated goes to aid. This is why no one in that organization gets paid. That money is better spent on helping someone survive.

What really got to me was that these people spend every day of their lives trying to save people in their local community. They work hard to get through cultural and language difficulties to help people. And then, when something disastrous happens around the world, they immediately start to put together a plan of action to help even more people. They take time off from work and using their own money, fly there to help save lives. They must work through some of the most intense conditions but they do it because they know that humans, other humans just like you and me, need that help.

Without their help, so many more people would die. I know there are many organizations out there that do many things to help people around the world, but this story in particular really struck me. When something disastrous happens – whether it be a tsunami or war – knowing that people from around the world actually care and would want to help me, would make me fight even more to get through it. It would give me renewed hope about the world and the people in it.

People like Rahul Singh and his team inspire me so much that I can’t really express it in words.