Sharing the Wealth of Knowledge

A year and a half ago I would have never imagined I would be sitting on the other side of the table at an esteemed PR agency talking to fellow UW undergrads. It’s not everyday that you get to speak “office talk” with your peers.

Last Thursday students enrolled in Professor Kathleen Fearn-Banks' public relations and society class at the University of Washington came to visit Frause. The class teaches students interested in pursuing a career in PR of its history, ethics and practices. The class visits a different PR agency, corporate office and non-profit in the Seattle area and prepares presentations on what they learned in each sector. For weeks I was looking forward to the arrival of the UW students because I completed the same class two summers ago. I had the great opportunity to help conduct the informational meeting with Bob, chairman and CEO of Frause and Richard, senior vice president.

The meeting was great! Together we explained what Frause is and what we do and provided information about the internship opportunities that are offered. It was my responsibility to elaborate on my experience at Frause as the intern. I gave detailed descriptions of my scope of work and responsibilities and told the students what I have learned while working here so far. The students were also able to hear great insights on how to excel in the PR world from Bob and learned a lot about Frause’s client work from Richard.

A big thanks to the UW group for coming out to Frause. You guys had great questions and were a pleasure to talk with. I hope you learned something about PR from us at Frause. Good luck with your future internships and jobs. I hope to see you all as fellow PR professionals in the near future!

GO DAWGS! ;)

Making the World a Greener Place, One Neighborhood at a Time

Last week, I volunteered to help at the City of Redmond’s last of three Natural Yard Care workshops.

King County’s Natural Yard Care Neighborhoods program has been a client of Frause for eleven years. The Natural Yard Care program is a regional, community-based social marketing outreach program that promotes behavior changes in home yard care.

Community-based social marketing is a communications tactic that demonstrates that behavior change is most effectively achieved through direct initiatives delivered at the community level. Frause has been regarded as leader in community-based social marketing in the greater Seattle area.

The program provides people with five steps they can do to become more eco-friendly while building beautiful, healthy yards and gardens. The five steps are: build healthy soil, plant right for your site, practice smart watering, think twice before using pesticides and practice natural lawn care. The Natural Yard Care program is implemented twice a year, in fall and spring, in different neighborhoods around the King County area. This past spring, Auburn, Burien, Kirkland, Bellevue and four different neighborhoods in Seattle all hosted the three-workshop series. Federal Way, Kent and Redmond just finished up with their fall sessions a couple weeks ago.

For each neighborhood, the Natural Yard Care team at Frause works to package the educational materials for all sessions, create and distribute home mailings for recruitment of workshop participants, and coordinate door-to-door workshop promotion and recruitment efforts. To date, Frause and King County have managed over 200 Natural Yard Care workshops and more than 5,000 participants.

The workshop in Redmond was held at Norman Rockwell Elementary School from 7 to 9 p.m. last Tuesday night. At the event I worked with representatives from the City of Redmond, to set up for the event by providing the written materials, bringing snacks and refreshments, setting up the venue and signing people in. It was an awesome opportunity to meet some of the Redmond residents and experience their enthusiasm for the workshops and witness their appreciation for knowledge they received during the sessions. Numerous workshop participants praised the content and speakers and were encouraged to start making the necessary behavior changes needed for a greener neighborhood.

Redmond averaged over 100 people in attendance at all three events and now holds the record among all other participating neighborhoods for the most people at a single workshop, 117!

The Redmond event was a huge success and I gained tons of valuable information on how to build and maintain a green and beautiful lawn and garden. Now if only I had a yard…

-Amy Graham

Back in Action

Hola Amigos! I am back at the intern desk here at Frause after a month’s adventure in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The trip was a dream come true. The University of Washington program was structured so that all students were able pick what part of the Argentinean culture they wanted to study. Some focused on wine, art or food and others focused on public health, the economy or class identification. I decided to study public relations.

With the help of UW’s study abroad program we met students from the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE), one of the few private universities located in the heart of Buenos Aires. UADE has an elaborate PR program and just recently celebrated the one year anniversary of its Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). UADE PRSSA is the first and only international PRSSA.

It was an amazing opportunity for me to meet international PR students and to learn about PR in their country and specifically in their educational system. One of the PRSSA executive board members and I became quite close while I was there. From her, I learned about UADE’s PRSSA, its PR educational programs and its efforts to help students obtain internships and entry level jobs after college. We exchanged information about the classes we have taken and our internship experiences.

Learning about international PR and building some solid relationships in Argentina was the experience of a lifetime. I gained insights that will no doubt advance my future career in public relations.

Buenos Aires was an unforgettable trip but it’s good to be back at Frause amongst the lime green walls and smiling faces! I missed a busy month of new client additions and numerous accolades and I’m excited to get back in the swing of things. It’s going to be another great three months here at Frause!

-Amy Graham

Whidbey Island BBQ

Last weekend, Frause employees and their family got together for a barbecue bash on Whidbey Island. Frause CEO and Whidbey resident Bob Frause, and his wife Sue, opened up their home to Frause employees for some fun in the sun on Saturday afternoon.

The Whidbey Island getaway is a summer tradition and one of the most highly anticipated Frause events of the year! E-mails were sent over the server for weeks as Frausties announced detailed descriptions of the scrumptious food they were bringing.

The day was spent savoring the sunny Northwest weather and indulging in the good eats. The potluck was a delicious success, including of course, the basic barbecue necessities (meat, beer and wine), and the plentiful popsicles and soda for the kids. The highlight of the day was definitely the Frause softball game. Man do we have some athletes at Frause!

The day trip was the perfect escape from city life and was a great way for Frause employees to spend some quality time together. Thanks to Bob and Sue for opening up their home and hosting an awesome party. I have already heard talk for next year’s barbecue extravaganza!

-Amy Graham

Goodbye!

I remember my Frause interview like it was yesterday. I was on the tail-end of my spring break vacation and had just received a call from Nathan Hambley. He wanted me to show up at the Frause office at 8:00 a.m. sharp.

I was looking a little scraggly then, coming off of a two-week road trip around the American West that covered over 2,500 miles. I managed to squeeze in a haircut (more of a shearing really) before the interview and borrowed my girlfriend’s dad’s tie to look as sharp as possible. At 7:45 a.m. I pressed the up button on the 1411 4th Ave. building elevator and crossed my fingers.

A few weeks later I got the call I had so desperately been waiting for. I landed an internship at one of the coolest firms in Seattle, right downtown in the heart of the action. The experience has been exceptional ever since.

My internship here has been a crash course in public relations. I have been involved directly in projects, strategic planning, client outreach, and portfolio building. I have participated in board room meetings and have toured the offices of magazine publishers. I have also written press releases, communicated with editorial departments and have even had the privilege to see some of the projects I was involved with, like the Skanska UW Scholars program, transform from start to finish.

So I want to take this moment to thank everyone for such a great internship experience and a stepping stone in my professional life. In the fall I am off to St Andrews in Scotland and then back to Whitman to finish my senior year of college. I’m still floating around in the “I have no idea what I want to do with my life” category, but my internship here has given me some much needed guidance and insight into the fast-paced world of business communications and public relations.

Until we meet again Frause, it has been a blast, and as they say in Scottish Gaelic, “Mar sin leibh!” (So long for now).

-Mike Scigliano

Client Party Brings Roof-Top Success

This last weekend was a busy but fun time for the Frause bunch. On Thursday we hosted our very own client party atop Touchstone’s very new and impressive West 8th property. I was excited to attend the successful event which included food (the ribs!), drinks, music and a whole lot of networking.

Despite the record setting heat (upwards of 100 degrees), the temperatures could not keep nearly 150 people from attending our popular roof-top party. Beer glasses were filled and business cards were dispersed against the dramatic backdrop of the Seattle skyline.

The event was also a great way for unfamiliar faces to become familiar. Our clients had the unique opportunity to meet each other one-on-one and broaden our inter-client relationships. Amy (our other beloved intern) also brought along a gaggle of PRSSA students who had the chance to experience professional networking first-hand.

Even though the summer air felt more like Phoenix than Seattle, the event was a huge success and a highlight of the PR social calendar.

-Mike Scigliano

Piecing Together the Puzzle

When I started taking classes at the University of Washington, I had the high expectation that college would teach me everything I needed to know to become successful in the working world. I thought I would take a few classes, get a couple A’s under my belt and obtain a real world job with just a snap of my fingers. Little did I know that college was only one small piece needed to complete the large working world puzzle.

As my college career nears to a close, I have realized that many other experiences, besides receiving a college degree, have helped me get on the right track toward my future career. I am surprised to say that if it was just college alone, I wouldn’t be as prepared for real life as I am today. I love my school and I am leaving it more knowledgeable than when I first came in- thankfully. But I do wish UW could have prepared me a little more in my specific field of study.

Public relations students at UW are at a slight disadvantage in their education because UW cut its PR program a few years back. With only a few PR classes and one PR professor to learn from, understanding the tools, tactics and best practices of the PR trade can be quite challenging.
Luckily, with the help of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), UW students still have a chance to piece together the job market puzzle. PRSSA and PRSA provide tools and resources to students and help them find internships, meet PR pros and connect with other Washington State PR students. It’s PRSSA members and PRSA pros that have helped me get my hands on some great internships (Frause), in turn giving me a front row seat in the PR world.

UW gave me a great education, but a big thanks goes out to my fellow PRSSA students for their friendship and support and to PR professionals in Puget Sound PRSA for investing their time and effort into providing me and other PR students with real public relations experience. My experiences with PRSSA and PRSA really opened doors to the job world. Thanks to them I might soon be ready to tackle the working world!

-Amy Graham

Twitter Has Staying Power

The social networking service Twitter was a rather new thing to me when I started interning here at Frause. Unlike Facebook (which everyone, including my professors has) none of my friends at college have a Twitter account.

Yet despite this, Twitter is all the rage in the increasingly changing world of media relations and business. The spring issue of The Public Relations Strategist is dedicated entirely to social media, and there is a very interesting article about the role of networking sites either helping or hindering good business communications.

Despite the extreme popularity of Twitter, I’m surprised how many businesses continue to cling to the old guard of less progressive media communications. Certain companies outright ban networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and place restrictive media formats on internal email accounts.

Other companies have opted for an entirely different approach, creating their very own social media services independent of the larger, more established services. But are these actions serving to harm or help business communications?

Mark Kolier, a blogger on social media and president of Canterbury Graphics Strategic Marketing insists that, “social networking is what’s coming, and it’s what people want.” Long term studies conducted by the Public Relations Student Society of America also underscore a growing sentiment, that social networking sites are here to stay and are changing the way we communicate during the workday.

Whether or not this trend reaches higher education, it is certainly prevalent in business, and is an increasingly important tool in media relations, business communications and smart business practices.

-Mike Scigliano

Making Seattle a Better Place

Last Thursday, Frause held a meet and greet event for Frause friends, clients and community leaders in support of Jessie Israel. Jessie, a third-generation Seattleite, is running for Seattle City Council, Position 6, and is a friend of the Frause team.

It was an awesome experience attending the event. I had met Jessie another time about a month ago, when she visited Frause to talk about her positions, but it was a different experience hearing her speak to a crowd. Jessie’s dedication to our city and its residents was evident in her short address last Thursday, as well as her drive to get things done while moving steadily toward the future. Her understanding of the issues facing our city and the greater region and her passion for change were both refreshing and reassuring in our city’s current state of environmental and economic troubles.

It was great for Frause to show its support for Jessie in her candidacy and to help spread the word of her goals and priorities to improve Seattle. I am proud to work for a company that is so involved within the Seattle community and cares about its future. Jessie Israel, Frause and supporters of Jessie are on the right track for bringing change to Seattle which will in turn make the area a better place to work and live.

-Amy Graham

Frause Goes Green

If you are ever in the Frause Seattle office you will immediately notice all of the green. Green walls, green chairs, green business cards, green everything! Is all of this green a mere aesthetic coincidence, or is Bob Frause the mastermind behind a more covert, even sinister campaign for green? I have decided to get to the bottom of it!

Company employee Georgi craftily removed herself from any green-related responsibility, defending that “the green started before I did.” She also said that she has attempted to uphold the “company’s commitment to provide green in everything they do.” Likely story!

Sarah Murphy, who works in a purple office, is in complete green denial. “I never really noticed it before,” she puzzlingly answered. “I guess they’re just our company colors.”

At this point, my investigation was going in circles. I needed to get some answers, fast, so I decided to step up my game and talk to the big guns.

It wasn’t easy getting an appointment with company president Erika Schmidt; she is a very busy woman. Still, she took some time away from more important projects to give me a little insight into the groovy green trance that Frause has fallen under.

“The green came about two years ago when Frause re-branded” she told me. The green “popped out for a color choice and it fits our brand. It reflects our quirky, high-energy office, and the environmental work we do.” It all seemed pretty convincing. At least until I remembered that this is a PR company and Frause employees specialize in “crafting stories.” Was Erika in fact crafting a story for me?

My apprehensions however were quickly cleared away at a recent advertising meeting at Tiger Oak publications. The managing staff of Seattle magazine described how Frause has always stood out for its commitment to “green practices” and the environmental work the firm does on behalf of its clients.

Alas, it appears that Frause has no evil plan. Perhaps the green symbolism here is a little indulgent, but it is comforting to know that there is a reason for all of this lime opulence.

-Mike Scigliano