While I didn’t take much time off (Christmas Eve Day), the convenient placement of Christmas and Boxing Day preceding the weekend was quite enough. Enough time in fact, to actually sit down and read a book. Sometimes, this takes a while, but in this case, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers had me picking it up every chance I got. I’d recommend it to anyone and even talked about it so much my mom asked if she could read it (Mom doesn’t normally have time for reading and usually prefers to watch Oprah if she has spare time).

Anyway, in Outliers, Gladwell discusses all of the factors he feels contributes to a person’s success in life. I’ll let you read the book to find out all of the factors, but the gist is that all of the factors combined, often equal success – although not always.

So with the New Year approaching, I started thinking about the factors that have led to my success (let’s not forget that success is relative to each individual – I’m merely looking at my accomplishments compared to my goals). As I really started thinking about how I got where I am, it occurred to me that it is a result of one long and twisty web of circumstances. In short, one opportunity led to another. Or, in some cases, I wanted something and I created my own opportunities.

In my time since graduating high school alone, I have been involved in student politics and leadership development, worked as an Employment Counsellor/Workshop facilitator, freelance writer and a Marketing Coordinator. Now I’m a PR Account Coordinator. It’s quite the mish-mash of experiences, but I have to say each and every one helped me get where I am today. That, and a little bit of interest in social media which came completely out of the blue.

So, after reading Outliers, and considering my own path, I’ve come to the conclusion that success is a combination of personal drive, opportunity and coincidence.

Am I wrong?

What’s your success story?

I can’t see out my office window.

Usually, I have a wonderful view of downtown. I can see the skyscrapers, the CN tower and normally, a pretty snazzy sunset. Today however, I see white. Lots of white. We all knew it was coming.

The weatherman all told us to stay home today, Environment Canada issued their Winter storm watch, and somewhere along the way this storm started being referred to as ’snowmaggeddon’…which has now also shifted to ’snowmafriggenggeddon’. In fact, Air Canada even offered travellers the option to switch their flights before the storm hit.

Twitter is a blur with talk of the storm (#snowmageddon) The National Post is live blogging it and there’s sure to be an awesome collection of YouTube videos cropping up. (Here’s a few so far)

All of this craziness makes me wonder if we’re really as Canadian as we think. It’s just snow people. Okay…a lot of snow. But in reality, I think we’ve just been spoiled the past few winters. I still know that at the end of the day, I’m going to zip up my parker, put my scarf and mitts on, then I’m going to go home like any other day. On second thought, I may feel differently if I get stuck on the TTC for 3 hours, I’ll keep you posted though.

The end of the world is not here – just the end of grass and cement until Spring…might be a nice change.

Let’s just hope Miller doesn’t call in the troops.

Even though I’ve only been with TFC for a mere 3 months now, I have to say, there’s been quite the learning curve. The biggest thing for me has been learning about media relations. Given my background in Journalism, I think I had ‘some’ idea how it all worked, but considering the last month especially has been all about holiday pitching, I think I have a lot better understanding now. Here’s a little bit about what I’ve learned:

Do some research – If you have the time and your budget permits, do a quick scan for similar articles or writers who have covered the topic before. It helps to be able to pitch a writer and say “I noticed you’ve written items on this topic before and I thought this might be of interest to you…”

Media Lists – Before the pitch is even written, it is extremely important to have a good media list. And by this I mean, making sure that you have the right people on your list, their contact information is up to date and it includes everyone you think you message will appeal to.

Know your audience – When you’re making up the list, one of the key points to think about is: Will my pitch suit their audience? For instance, an assignment editor at CBC might not be all that interested in the newest beauty product your client is launching. It might be better to focus your efforts on outlets where you’re more likely to receive coverage.

Writing the pitch – From what I’ve seen so far, the most effective pitches are short and sweet with a descriptive subject line. Given the number of emails journalists receive everyday, something needs to stand out and make them open it first. Then your wonderful words will hopefully persuade them you have something they want to cover. Oh, and bullet points are good to – gives them a glimpse of what you have to offer, quick and easy.

Following Up – This is probably the most nerve-whacking part of the job. Picking up the phone and calling up the journalist only to hear them say “Sorry not interested.” But, then you get the “Oh ya, I saw that, I was meaning to get back to you…” and jackpot, your client’s in Saturday’s paper. Key pointers for following up: Be confident, be cheery, know your pitch and don’t feel get down if they say ‘no’ – it’s nothing personal.

Relationships – Last but definitely not least, remember that all contact you make with the media is about relationships. Building a rapport with media takes time and patience, but eventually you’ll be able to write or call someone and say “Hey, I know you wrote about this before so I thought you might also be interested in this…” If you offer good story ideas and follow through with them, you’re off to a good start.

So, that’s what I’ve learned so far – Does anyone else have thoughts I might have missed? I’m sure there are LOTS more out there.

This post is inspired by a number of events but is applicable to all facets of our lives whether it’s the social media realm, the employment world, our own emotions or even the salad dressing we choose. That’s right folks; this post is all about choices.

A few days ago, I read Ed Lee’s post about Setting Goals and Expectations. He links to this video of Barry Schwartz speaking at TED about the Paradox of Choice. Considering my own life lately, this presentation was quite thought-provoking, and left me pondering the choices we make and how we feel about those decisions once we made them.

One of Barry’s basic points (if you have 20 minutes worth of time, it’s an interesting talk all around though) is that because of all the choices we have, we are actually less satisfied. But shouldn’t we be happier now that we have so many options to choose from? Instead, he suggests that it is because of the vast amount of choice we have, that we will almost never be happy with our decisions.

His logic is this: Since we have so many options, there is much more room to regret the choice we didn’t make. Even though what we choose may be good, we are often left wondering if maybe there was a better one – a perfect one.

He suggests this could be one of the reasons for high depression rates. We’ve now gotten to a point where our expectations are so high as a result of so many choices, that anything less feels like a failure. And because we had a choice and made the decision, we are left with no one to blame but ourselves.

Given the few weeks I’ve had, this logic makes good sense to me. Maybe not perfect, but pretty good. But now that I see this logic, maybe it’s a chance to turn it on its head – no regrets, just be happy with what I’ve got.

Are you happy with lots of options or do you wish things were a bit more simple?

Side Note:

Schwartz mentioned that there are over 175 choices of salad dressing in one supermarket. Wow…decisions, decisions.

I recognize the need for advertisers to get creative with their methods in a time when consumers encounter ad impression thousands of times a day. But my personal pet peeve has become the gigantic pop-up ads which are now appearing on major news outlet sites. I visit most of these sites almost daily, and am continually greeted by some huge ad of which I can barely find the ‘close’ button. I think I liked the pop-up windows better!

Now, this is annoying to me, usually because it takes a few seconds to close (when I can find the button) and well, I don’t like things popping up at me that I didn’t click on. But I find myself thinking about my mom, a technologically stunted individual who loves her hotmail, but was completely lost when MSN did a redesign not long ago. (I love you mommy!)

I think if these ads were to pop-up at her, she’d fall off the chair and give up the internet forever.

Are they really necessary?

Maybe companies should look into taking the cost of their pop-up ads and investing it into an effective PR program.

Right now I’m smack in the middle of working towards a Master of Arts in Communications and Technology. Lucky for me, much of my learning and studies are applicable to my job, for example, the consulting course I am enrolled in. For one of our assignments, we were required to select a chapter from our text and write a discussion paper about the content. I chose to look a chapter about women in consulting. I thought this was an interesting topic because of the growing number of women in the public relations field (over 70% now).

The author of the chapter suggests that women are particularly good at consulting because we understand the value of relationships and emotions. Now, that’s not to suggest that men aren’t good at consulting or that they don’t understand the value of relationships and emotions – simply that women tend to come by this more naturally. Women are biologically hardwired to want to make connections with people and build relationships on trust and mutual respect, an important skill in consulting.

The chapter also suggested that women are well suited for PR because they are able to balance work and home life by recognizing that we wear both hats, all the time. We are able to look at our lives as a whole and realize that we can’t exactly just break off pieces whenever we choose. This is also important because work and family life teaches us effective multitasking, allowing us to apply work strategies at home and home strategies at work. Ever worked out a critical path for your week including dinner, after work events, cleaning, grocery shopping etc etc? I have.

And the last very important point I enjoyed in the chapter was the value of women learning from other women. In the consulting world, because there are so many women now, there is an opportunity to learn from lots of amazing, strong and smart women. So in my opinion there really isn’t a better place to meet these women, observe them and learn from them!

First, I’d like to apologize to all of our faithful readers. Our site has had some issues and wasn’t accessible for a little while, but we’re back up now and ready to roll – PS – if this happens again, please let us know

So, now that all the techie stuff is on par again, I’m thinking it’s time to get posting again – regularly. As the newest member for the PR Girlz team, I will be taking it upon myself to ensure there is at least one new post a week – it may not be most engaging post you’ve ever read, but it will be interesting, informative and from the perspective of a PR Girl. So be warned, this might be a link to an article, a video, or anything else we’re in the mood for, but we hope you’ll enjoy it.

I’ll also be doing my best to rally the troops around here with a little positive reinforcement to get the Girlz on your good side again!

Looking forward to it  

-Kerri

Well here I am. It’s taken a little while to get here, but I’ve finally landed my first job in public relations as an Account Coordinator for Thornley Fallis Communications. I’m working primarily on health industry accounts, but like everyone else around here, I pitch in on just about anything whenever I’m needed.

While I’m a total newbie to agency life, I would say I’m more of a novice in the social media world. I know a little, but I’m still learning. I’ve blogged since January of this year quite consistently and have taken to reading more than 60 or so blogs in my feed reader. I attend speaker sessions on social media and technology like Third Tuesday and Toronto Girl Geek Dinners, and I’ve slowly been building my Twitter presence. For me, it’s about baby steps; I want to learn as much as I can about one thing before moving on to the next shiny object.

All in all, I’m definitely fascinated by the intersection of new technologies and the social world that occurs when we use platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Wordpress and the likes. And of course, I’m interested in looking at the ways in which these technologies can be practically applied to public relations.

I guess maybe I’m a hybrid of sorts: a PR Girl and Geek Girl all rolled into one!

Hope you enjoy my posts.

Just a few quick words to get this off my chest…a lot has been made in the States (particularly among Republicans) that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. I have to say that in the name department, the guy got the short end of the stick from start to finish. Even his wife, when she first heard of him, said “Barack Obama? Who names their child Barack Obama?!” I also should add that lesser men would cower away with a name like that and stay out of the limelight and considering the man’s brilliance, we’d be worse off for it. So I give him kudos for embracing the name and going with it. Lately Sarah Palin (who shouldn’t throw stones about questionable religious practices) has been using his name in rallies, leading to supports yelling disgusting and stomach-turning chants I won’t repeat on this website. There are republicans blogs out there who simply refer to him as “B. Hussein” to further demonize him and feed the fear mongering.

The man isn’t Muslim – his grandfather was. He saw his father all but a handful of times in his whole life and never met his paternal grandfather. He was raised by a white woman from Kansas and her white, Christian parents in Hawaii. It is believed that religion is passed through the mother anyways, so it’s really a moot point. But the fact that I have to explain that or rationalize it is what REALLY gets me. Because…who CARES if he’s Muslim? There are radicals in every religion; radicals are dangerous, no matter their beliefs. To think that every Muslim is someone who wants to bomb the US and terrorize freedom-loving citizens is so blatantly stupid and ignorant, I don’t even have the words to describe my disdain. To say that because someone is Muslim makes them a terrorist is like saying that all Germans want another Holocaust. It’s cultural naivete at it’s best. And it makes me angry and frustrated, but above all that, it makes me sad.

And that, right there, is the reason that so many people outside the US (even when they’re Americans) look at them with shock and disgust.

That is all. For now…