Grow Yourself Through Volunteering

 

Originally I was determined to dig up a huge catalog of PR-development online resources for all PR-lovers. Then I re-discovered that this had already been covered by my professor, Bill Handy. To save all of us from needless rambling, read what Bill has to say about various free resources that each of us should check out and utilize.

Instead of online resources, we’ll discuss free PR-development opportunities, specifically volunteering. Be prepared to be blasted with the importance of volunteering to your professional and personal development.

Volunteering with an organization, specifically for PR or not, helps you develop your professional skills, teamwork abilities and overall well-being. How so?

Understand Your Audiences

While you may love your current position, working in the field or being a student, volunteering gives you a better perspective of the members of your audience. Sometimes as practioners we forget that our audience members are more complex than simply people who fit our target profile.

Each of us has our struggles and triumphs that we don’t always share with others. Volunteering typically puts you in an environment to learn more about others through conversation; starting opportunities. The more you understand others, the better you can learn to communicate with them.

A personal example of pro bono PR work success can be found here.

Network in the Community

Not only does volunteering for a community organization or club help you better understand your audiences, you also network with these individuals.

For instance, in my internship with the local YMCA, two other staff members and I started a Biggest Loser-style program for members and non-members. Throughout the program, I contacted several business leaders, reporters and participants.

The experience gave me an opportunity to network with others in the community for a purpose. It was refreshing to make meaningful contacts while helping the community. Those who helped the program had integrated goals and we had a reciprocal relationship. These contacts have been helpful as I’ve planned our second Biggest Loser and other non-YMCA related events.

Gain New Experiences

Sometimes as students and professionals, we don’t always get the opportunity to try new activities that interest us. Volunteering offers an avenue to try the stuff you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t. A list of suggested ideas can be found here.

Get Happy

Helping others helps you feel better. Science proves it. Benefits of volunteering include an increased sense of well-being, decrease in insomnia and an improved immune system. More information about health benefits can be found here.

Plus, you feel like you’re doing something that’s improving your nook of the world, and the feeling is incredible. Why not volunteer?

What are your thoughts on pro bono PR? Any suggestions for volunteering resources and opportunities?

My weakest muscle

Last night one of my public relations professors spoke to my living community about life in the public relations field. Bill shared his own experiences in the field, suggested ways to hone our skills and encouraged us to find and focus on a niche. He also emphasized developing our strengths and not freaking out about our weaknesses.

I was relieved to learn that my future isn’t completely dismal because I’m not Miss Super PR Girl.

I’ve finally accepted that my skills in design and layout are lacking. I can stare at a computer screen for hours and try to make a publication look professional, crisp and modern. The end result? Possibly one or two text boxes and a lot of sent e-mails.

I admire those who can joyfully spend hours at the computer and make several fliers during that time. Their creative instinct with design and layout is fascinating.

Words offer me the creativity and freedom I can’t find with pictures and clip art. I’m honing my ability to link several words and phrases together to tell a story and deliver a message. I don’t know why, but pens, paper and books excite me more than photo albums or clip art ever have.

I salute those who can tell stories from images and angles. You have a creative muscle that may always be my weakest strength. In the meantime, please pass me the dictionary and thesaurus. My muscles are aching to work-out with the words.

The Internship Search

Lately my whirling thoughts won’t leave me alone, so the best option is to write them to the world or e-mail them to friends and family. My friends and family need a break from me.

Like most college juniors, I’m searching for a summer internship. I’d like to find one with plenty of opportunities to grow and learn more about public relations. My qualifications for an ideal internship?

• Well-organized and directed. I’d like to learn from the experts, partly because much of my experience has been self-taught. I also know that I have a lot to learn in the world of public relations.
• Makes a difference. Why work for a company or organization unless you believe in its mission? If you don’t, you’re wasting both your employer’s and your time.
• Experience. Yes, this is a resume-builder, but an internships are more than that. They train you for the field you’re going into. I want to be an asset to employers as a competent, passionate practitioner.
• Fun and passionate co-workers. The people you work with can alter your entire experience.
• Somewhat close to family. I rarely see my family during the school year and would like to enjoy more time with them, even if it is just during the summer. Selfish, but true.
• Paid. Another selfish point. Just enough to survive, even at the bare minimum, would be fantastic.

Finding such an internship is difficult, but possible. In the meantime, I’ll keep searching via Google, Monster, PRSSA, intern.org, Fastweb, OSU… a never-ending list.

Audiences & Practioners: So many types…

Does PR actually have multiple facets, including a wide range of audiences and practitioner styles? Let’s think about this…

To generalize, public relations certainly has two primary audiences to appeal to:

active audiences who already care about the issue and are doing something about it,

and passive audiences who really aren’t doing anything but easily absorb what the media tells them.

Public relations also have different styles and types. Practitioners can work in the non-profit or for profit sectors. They can communicate to multiple types of audiences or focus on a few specific target audiences. Some may communicate best face-to-face, whereas others do their best work through writing (blogs, news releases, etc.). It varies from practitioner to practitioner.

Part of the problem is putting yourself with your particular style in the proper public relations facet that suits you best. Perhaps that’s one reason why those in the media (newspapers, broadcast, radio, magazines, etc.) are frustrated with PR practitioners. We’re not using our skills so that they shine best. In result, we try to use our skills in the way we feel most comfortable but don’t really suit our field at all.

Or perhaps, like most fields, there’s a herd of black sheep marring our breed. The few unscrupulous who invariably seem to represent the whole group.

Another reason is that people make mistakes. It’s shocking, but true. Unfortunately, some people in the media may not be willing to let others make mistakes and hold it against the whole breed of PR practitioners.

The verdict: Work in a branch of PR that suits you best. Be fair, be smart and check for mistakes. You can’t please everyone but you can certainly give your best to your job.

PR’s future: Just Flip a Coin

After sharing the deep and wise thoughts of a not-yet-but-almost-there PR practitioner, we need more than simply an inexperienced opinion. After a little research, I found that the argument over PR’s future is simply a coin toss.

According to John Paluszek, the senior counsel at Ketchum, PR has endless possibilities. We’ve grown so much in the past few decades that our future is so bright we need sunglasses. He emphasized that we need to remain focused on our professionalism, PR education and development, ‘protean’ point of view, the business of PR and its globalization. If PR professionals “stay the course,” we can only get better. Right now the coin’s head is facing up and we can only win.

However, PR professionals only seem to manipulate the system, according to Amanda Chapel. We’ve become so focused on promoting the casual approach and interactions that we’ve lost our ability to communicate effectively in our writing. We’ve simplified it to mindless, pointless clutter focused on getting as many people at once as possible, yet neglecting the relational apsect to our profession. Tails up – we’re losing and losing big.

It seems that wherever you look PR professionals are either improving or running to media-hell as fast as they can. We’re focusing too little on the relational aspect or too much. We don’t know how to write effectively, and we write to too many people. We’re adapting to new medias and using them efficiently, or we’ve adapted but have manipulated them beyond their usefulness. Depending on which side of coin you’re on, it’s either heads or tails at any given moment.

A lot of it has to do with the wide range of personalities and clients in field. One PR professional can’t represent the whole field, but often we pin all of our problems or hopes in public relations on that one person. Many media personnel have been burned by poor PR choices.

One prime example is Chris Anderson on his blog Sorry PR people: you’re blocked, a list of blocked PR practitioners &/ spammers after a few too many e-mails and no relief.

Yet surely not all PR communication is spam is it? We must still serve a purpose somehow, right?

We need to find the balance between reaching as many targets as possible and actually knowing who our targets are. We need to write clearly, concisely and effectively to successfully reach our audiences. We need to remain focused on maintaining high ethical standards of the business and within our own lives. We just can’t lose the professionalism in public relations – our future depends on it.

Now, is the coin heads or tails? You decide.

PR through a crystal ball…

I’m preparing to be a PR practitioner. I’m taking classes, garnering experiences and searching for internships. Yet do I really have any idea what PR will hold in the future for my colleagues and I? What will it be all about? Technology? Relationships? Traditions? Will it even be needed in the future?

From listening to my peers, I think the majority of young professionals are pleased that we’re using more technology. However, the majority of us don’t think we should depend solely on it. Yes, blogs are great. Yes, Web sites offer a seemingly endless wealth of knowledge for the media and community. But it seems that most of us would rather emphasize developing relationships the most.

Technology will help us reach more audiences, freshen communication approaches, enhance our audience’s understanding of our organization and prepare information in a clear and understandable fashion. However, if we don’t have the human touch, our efforts are in vain. It doesn’t matter that our information is polished and sheens with modernity and corporate know-how. People just don’t care if we don’t reach them with our hands. A keyboard and screen can sometimes make our communications impersonal.

We’re at a point where the diverging roads of technology and PR basics meet. We realize that we can’t just plow ahead without maintaining a basic human approach: to actually meet our publics, speak with them and listen to them. We know we need to establish a real visual and alive presence, not just a highly interactive Web site. At the same time, we need technology to keep up with the rest of the world, keep our audience interested and engaged, and interactive.

PR professionals are vital to the development of an organization or corporation’s image and communication with the public. They establish the positive relationship that can’t be done with only technology. They provide the human touch.

I’d like to work for a non-profit, though I have no idea what. I have no doubt that in the non-profit sector, public relations professionals are more important than ever. Who cares about our cause unless they know our face and know our organization? Exactly – no one.