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

PR Around the World

In order to fully understand public relations, it is important to have some knowledge not only of PR in the U.S, but of PR practices in other countries as well. PR is different all over the world because each country has its own publications, its own culture and its own languages and a good understanding of these three topics is essential to becoming a good PR pro. In order to broaden my horizons, I did some brief research on PR in three different regions. Here are my findings:

PR in the Middle East is substantially different than in the United States. Its monarchies and governments are very restrictive and control most of the media market. For example, The UAE has "free zones" allowing economic deregulations and editorial freedom, but outside of the free zones the government censors anything that threatens its image or the country’s religious beliefs. In Dubai, where the mass communication industry is primarily located, there are fewer than 20 PR firms and ethical standards have yet to be established and practiced.

Europe, our friend across the seas, widely practices PR, but never refers to it as public relations. Instead, Europeans use the term "communication management" or "corporate communication." Because Europe consists of so many countries, European PR practitioners can not treat their region as a single market, this means they have to pay even more attention to each specific market and make sure they are not stepping on any cultural toes.

Public relations in Latin America has been greatly influenced by the U.S. Following the 1990’s Interamerican PR Confederation (CONFIARP), other Latin American national PR associations have seen a wane in their influence and prestige and now no longer have the power to legitimize and control PR in their countries. In most PR organizations, journalists exercise the role of PR practitioners, something that is different than here in the U.S. where the two are considered separate professions.

I have the great opportunity of traveling to Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the end of next month. I will be studying communications, media and PR there and will be visiting with the B.A. Edelman office to see how it conducts PR in the Latin American world. I’m very excited to get some first-hand experience with international PR. Hopefully I will return as a more culturally aware PR practitioner after my stay.

-Amy Graham

The Politics of PR

When President Obama visits most foreign countries, airports shut down, traffic is jammed for hours and millions of citizens gather around televisions and public squares to witness the popular dignitary. In Russia however, he couldn’t even make headlines.

The lackluster reaction to his recent visit to Moscow was a little surprising for Obama aides who are used to such rave support and attention throughout the international community. Germans, for example, find Obama more popular than their own prime minister, Angela Merkel.

But the problem isn’t that Russians don’t like Obama (well, hopefully). It is more a problem of a giant cultural and communications barrier the size of…oh, I don’t know… a wall, or a giant iron curtain. Perhaps though, Americans can help bridge this gap by trying a bit harder to speak the Russian language, so to speak—by practicing a more Russian brand of PR.

The first step is identifying the target audience. Vladimir Putin, for example, is a night owl. He stays out late, sleeps in late, and is quite the angry beaver before 11 am. That is why Obama shouldn’t blow off dinner with the Prime Minister to instead request an early breakfast meeting.

The second step is deciding how to communicate to the target audience. Russians have faced an indescribable history of war, conflict and famine. Obama’s smooth metaphors and tactful oration won’t get him very far in a country that takes everything with a grain of salt.

The final step in achieving good public relations is building stable, continued relations with the target audience. Hopefully, President Obama’s attempt to reach out a hand to our strained allies will achieve this very goal. As with all things in international relations, only time will tell.

-Mike Scigliano

Staying Organized with Today’s Media

In the last few years, the way our society gets news has changed drastically. Traditional media is falling by the wayside and social and online media is at an all time high. Because of this huge change, media personnel are jumping from one paper to the next, freelancing or, worst case scenario, finding themselves unemployed. In order for marketing, advertising and PR firms to keep up with the constant shift of today’s media, it is important to organize media contacts, stay on top of one’s media connections and maintain a structured, organized media tracking system.

As the media relations intern here at Frause, it is my job to continue to keep track of media content by organizing and sustaining media contact lists and editorial calendars so that they are easily accessible to Frause employees.

One of my most crucial tasks is to maintain the Frause internal database created through Microsoft Access. The database is shared amongst all Frause employees on the company’s server. As the intern, it is my responsibility to update the contacts sheet when we find a new publication or befriend a new journalist or freelancer.

I also carry on the job of collecting and systemizing editorial calendars for the 2009 year in an easy to find place on the Frause server. This responsibility entails working with publications’ advertising and sales staffs to maintain accuracy of editorial files and updating fellow Frause teammates on notable new publications and story plans. This organization effort allows Frause to know the schedule and plans of publications which makes pitching a story a little less hectic.

I am happy to know that the media relations skills I am acquiring here at Frause will help me stay ordered and prepared in this new and crazy media world. I will be all set to establish my own media contacts and to keep track of the relationships I build with traditional print journalists, bloggers and “social media gurus.”

-Amy Graham

New Study Achieves PR Awareness

A new study by Lisa Fall and Jeremy Hughes was recently published in the spring 2009 edition of the Public Relations Journal. The article, titled “Reflections of Perceptions,” compares before and after perceptions of the public relations field among a population of nationwide non-PR Major students taking a public relations management course. The results are particularly positive.

The study conducted before the course began found that the majority of students had enormously different views about the specific purpose of public relations. In fact, Fall and Hughes found that the profession of public relations was largely “misunderstood,” and the term “public relations” itself presented a “Pandora’s box of preconceptions.”

Such complications however were greatly overshadowed by the success of the course in promoting PR education and transforming the views of people towards the PR industry.

After completing this course, students’ overall impression toward the public relations field significantly increased. Their perceptions about how the industry serves the good of the public also increased. Moreover, students discovered the very practical link between their everyday activities and the field of public relations.

In many ways the results of the study provide an interesting insight into the world of PR and communications. Not only does continued education make PR more transparent, but it helps people realize the relevance and necessity of public relations. Since I have started interning here I have found public relations to be involved in many of the things I do. From simple networking to carefully (and slowly) negotiating transfer credits with my university, it seems that “public relations” is a term that affects many people, both in and outside the industry.

So move over misinterpreted terminology, PR is on the rise!

-Michael Scigliano