Life on a Timeline

Hello Everyone,

As I mentioned last week, life has been hectic preparing to leave early for IAAPA, but as I always say, everything happens for a reasons.

So just to give you an update on my student life. For the record, I think this is the most challenging term for me ever. As I've mentioned, I have three group papers, a graphic design class with random assignments as well as three classes with finals and two presentations, all still due in the next three weeks.

If that wasn't bad enough, the convention for the National Broadcasting Society is just a week away and time is of the essence for EVERYTHING! Ahhh!

As I was complaining to my friends mom the other day, she asked me what I was going to do about it and I was dumbfounded. She said, the only time you should complain is if you're going to do something about it, so she looked at me and said, are you going to do something about it? I said yes, and started writing a list of things to do.

My point being, I'm done complaining. Back to work :)

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Feeling the pressure, summing up the week

Hello Everyone,

Saturday was our first Open House of the year. It was very awesome to see so many people out and about. Keep your eyes out for information on the next one, which will be November 12. You'll hear from administrators, admissions, get information on all the academic programs, a tour the school and more. Let me know if you have any questions.

On Sunday, I lectored for church for the first time at Mercyhurst. Then we had an All Hall (Residence Hall) Program where we played corn hole and bought a ton of pizza. It was a good time. Finally, my dad and I were fixing my brakes (I'm due for inspection) and one of my brake lines burst. Sunday turned out to be a quiet ridiculous day.

Monday, my mom pick me up from school (I sound like a preschooler) and I went home to help my Dad work on my car. It's still not done.

So, yesterday, along with my three classes I got up at 6 a.m. to sit at a table answering a phone until 10 a.m. for a collegiate fundraiser for the local PBS station,  had a test in my night class and went to a corn maze for staff bonding with the RA's.

Today has been better, but I still have to go home and work on my car tonight. Ugh. The life of a college student.

Just trying to keep you up to date.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Trimesters or Semesters

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick update. So things have become a little heated on campus as a proposal has been put in place to replace our current trimester system with a more traditional semester system.

If you don't know, trimesters run three 10 week terms, as semesters run with two 15 week terms. Interestingly enough, the faculty senate has created and passed a plan which calls for two 13 week terms and one 3 and a half week term that would go around Christmas.

Moving away from trimesters has been suggested in the past, but the students can't get past the tradition. The new standards enacted on the college this year make class time lengths very long, which is why faculty are pushing for the change.

For now, students are gearing up to a grassroots efforts to keep the school with trimesters, which seems to be the way the student body is leaning. I personally think that as we potentially move to become a university and we are growing as we are, we must be intended to upgrade and adopt a system that so many universities around the world find success in. Interestingly enough, we have not always been a trimester school, but that doesn't seem to matter much to students.

Anywho, just so you know what's happening. Power of the people :-)

Thanks for reading,
Joe

PRSSA Conference

Hello Everyone,

As promised, I'm just going to give you a few details on the PRSSA. Just some background. The PRSSA stands for the Public Relations Student Society of America and is a sister organization to PRSA, Public Relations Society of America. PRSA is primarily an ethical institute that focuses on proper education of PR students and creates an ethical code for members to follow.

PRSSA is not so ethically driven, at least that is the sense I get. It's not that ethics aren't important, but it's just not discussed. All of the sessions and speakers were there to discuss their role in the industry and what the industry is doing today.

I am going to talk about my two favorite sessions, just so you can get a taste of what it was like.

The first guy was there to discuss social media, as you could imagine, a very hot topic in PR right now. The interesting thing is he discussed how important it is, but then ripped it down and said we overly depend on it. He said that it wasn't about the tools, but the tactics, which I just loved. He just had so many good quotes, so I'll list them:

1. Social Media makes small companies look bigger and big companies look smaller
2. The future of business should not be about technology
3. Social media is a touchpoint
4. PR should create a passionate conversation, not a product conversation
5. Movements have powerful identities
6. Campaigns should be beyond spasms of passion, but collective shouts

Now just image all of these quotes by a middle aged, eccentric and gray haired main who was basically in skinny jeans and bright red shirt. He was very cool. He backed all of his ideas with video examples and made the topic interesting.

The other session was by a Disney guy, Gary Buchanan, Social Media managing editor, who was there to talk about creativity. (See the Disney Blog) He stressed how important every idea was and how every idea needed to be considered before being thrown out. You can see some of the things he did below:

Anyway, its inspirational to know that there are jobs out there that aren't stuffy, but exciting and innovative in nature. Gary showed a ton of energy and loves his job, which makes me look forward to my future.


Until we meet again!


Thanks for reading,
Joe

Orlando, Florida

Hello Everyone,

While I remain pleased that I am going to go to the Annual IAAPA Convention, it means that I have a lot of work to do before I get there. Funny enough, this past weekend was fall break and I got to travel to Orlando Florida (Yes, I'm going again in three weeks) for the Annual PRSSA Conference (Public Relations Student Society of America).

 

Shamu bust'n a move

While the administration may not approve, I am going to talk about Orlando now and the conference later, because while the conference was good, lets face it, the parks we got to go to were much more memorable (though I have notes from the conference to help me remember that).

So, just discussing our adventures. Our plane left Pittsburgh at 7:50 a.m. on Thursday morning, which ended up being a blessing in disguise because the conference didn't start until Friday so we were able to use my free tickets I had from working at Busch Gardens to get the three of us in for cheap. So we got to ride the roller coasters and see the major shows. It was pretty cool!

Group in front of the Hogwarts Castle

Friday morning was conference intense, with more info coming in the future, but the afternoon was free so we were able to go to Universal Islands of Adventure. Of course, as a coaster junkie I enjoyed the Incredible Hulk and Dragon's Challenge, but I am also a large Harry Potter nerd (and proud of it). The detail of everything, most specifically the shops and food, more specifically Butterbeer, were great! The butterbeer is like a rootbeer, cream soda and butterscotch goodness. It's hard to explain, but simply delicious.


Finally, there was space actually reserved to visit Disney as Disney was one of the primary sponsors of the conference. My girlfriend Alaina, who was with us, had left over Disney tickets from the last time her family was there and we got us in FREE! So we spent a few hours at Magic Kingdom and an additional few at Epcot, since they were connected by monorail. We got to do Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Express at Magic Kingdom, as well as Mission Space and Test Track at Epcot. Needless to say, a great adventure for free.

Disney World, where else?

Thats all I got. You'll get to hear more about the educational side of the trip next post, but its great that the school helps us afford these opportunities. As you will hear from the next post, we learned a lot and had a great experience.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

IAAPA News

Hello Everyone,

I have great news, I was ACCEPTED to IAAPA! Oh how life has it's many surprises. Basically, I get to travel to Orlando for a week and a half, spend all that time at the world's largest amusement park convention and learn not only about the industry, but have a great lesson on convention management and many opportunities for networking.

Here is the story that was written by the Mercyhurst Marketing Department:

Click picture for link

 Life is busy, but I know that things like this make it all worth the chaos. I meant what I said at the bottom of the article. Mercyhurst is great and again, I thank Meghan Corbin for all the help and support.

Thanks for reading,

Joe

Mercyhurst Communication Department - My love of Mercyhurst

Hello Everyone,

As promised, here is a just a brief bitty on the happenings in the Communication Department.

NBS Group

Over the summer the department went through many changes, the biggest trigger of which was the department chair stepping down and moving to a different department. So another professor was appointed to chair and then re-appointed to dean and another professor was then appoint chair (lost yet??). Anywho, all of these changes, marked by years of neglect have honestly left the department in a bit of a decline.

This year, I am excited to say, has been marked with multiple student initiatives, which has created a lot of stuff happening in the department. Already, we had a Comm. Picnic sponsored by Comm. Board, a speaker by National Broadcasting Society, which will be repeated in a week by Public Relations Student Society of America, and finally a Comm. Dept. Townhall Meeting as an update to all the summer happenings.

So, my part in all of this is tremendous, which is the whole point of me telling you all of this. Any tour I give to perspective students gets a healthy filling of what I think is Mercyhurst's most exciting feature, which cannot be seen physically, just felt and played out. Student empowerment is key here and is the basis of me having the involvement in the department.

NBS is not only bringing in speakers. For the first time we are hosting the annual National Broadcasting Society Freedom States Convention, right here in Erie and right on campus. What does this mean? I means that our member not only get experience for going to a professional convention, but they also get to have their hand in every step of the process.

Check out the convention trailer on the left, which was created by one of our group members.

Up to this point, we have booked a hotel for our guests to stay at, secured over ten speakers to present at the event, secured food options and booked space on campus, and that doesn't include what needs to happen over the next five weeks. This is a great resume and portfolio builder for all of us.

Of course I obviously am biased towards Mercyhurst, but if you want a place where YOU will matter, and what YOU have to say makes a difference, this IS the place.

This is not me bragging, just simply making a point. If hadn't pushed for the convention, we wouldn't be hosting it right now and I would not being having this experience. I had an opportunity to have a say and now I am getting experience that will get ME a job one day. It's not a just about a degree, it's an education.

Thanks for reading,
Joe