Friday's Orange Letter Day: OSUF Launches a Campaign for OSU

The entire OSU family is invited to tune in this Friday as the OSU Foundation hosts the launch of the campaign for Oklahoma State University. I've been looking forward to this event for a while (although not as long as my friends at OSUF). It's going to be so exciting!

The main event will be on the Stillwater campus in the Student Union at 11 am, but each of our branches is hosting a watch party as well. If you can't make it to one of our campuses, you can watch it live at www.witnessOSUhistory.com.

As an event planner myself, I love the opportunity to sneak a peek at other people's parties. This one is sure to be packed with fun ideas. There will be a big unveil of the campaign theme and logo (very top secret until then!), and our campaign fundraising goal (game changing! dare we say "audacious" Burns did). There will be a major gift announcement. I'm so excited about this one, I might just bust. It is so inspiring, so generous, just so wow. And, the OSUF will be announcing the winners of the OSUccess.com contest.

I was super honored to be called in as a last-minute preliminary judge for the OKC and Tulsa text entries. And just as exciting, I'll be pushing out the social media content on behalf of the Foundation on Friday. If you are looking for tweets, twitpics and Facebook updates from me during the event, you'll find them on the Foundation's account. Better yet, as you are watching live, run a twitter search for #okstate, so you can see what everyone has to say about it.

APR Flash Card: Characteristics Promoting Adoption

In grad school, I was fascinated with adoption theory. It's really interesting (no really!), and you can read more about it here. It also makes an appearance on the APR exam. Here's the first of three flash cards on adoption.

Category: Theory
Front: 5 Characteristics Promoting Adoption

Back:

• Relative Advantage-does this innovation do something better than what I am already using?
• Compatibility-does it fit in with my current activities/needs/life
• Trial-ability-is it easy to experiment with it? Can I try it out?
• Observability-can I see other people use it? How does it work for them?
• Complexity-how hard is it to understand/learn/implement?

Think about the latest gadget or activity you really bought into. Maybe it was a different cell phone or a fancy kitchen gizmo. Chances are, several of these characteristics had to come together before you really adopted whatever it was.

For me personally, I find relative advantage and trial-ability are often the most important. Does it work better than what I already have, and is it easy to test it out before I commit.

Which of these characteristics is most important to you?

APR Flash Card: 10 Components of a Plan

There are 10 key components to a comprehensive PR plan. I've found everyone nestles these in a slightly different order within the 4-step process. And, most of us combine/collapse a few because really there is quite a bit of overlap. But for the purposes of the exam you need to know all 10.

Category: Planning
Front: 10 Components of a Plan

Back:
1. Goals-desired end results
2. Audience-groups with whom you communicate
3. Objectives-phrased in terms of audience, outcome, attainment level, and time frame
4. Strategies-how in concept objectives will be achieved
5. Tactics-how to use resources to carryout strategies
6. Activities-specific actions to perform tactics
7. Evaluation-how you know if you achieved an objective
8. Budgeted Items-out-of-pocket expenses
9. Materials-what will be produced or purchased
10. Time Table & Task List-who does what when

If you're wondering about my choice of order, I list them this way because I use the phrase "Great Aunt Olga sometimes tells Alice 'Eat more buttered toast!'" Silly, yes. But 10 items is a lot to remember come test time.

APR Flash Card: Audience

We talk a lot about "audience" but your PR plan needs to define what exact you mean by that.

Category: Planning

Front: Audience

Back: Groups or sub-groups with whom you need to communicate

Consider

1. who need to know and/or understand
2. who needs to be involved
3. whose advice and/or support is needed
4. who will be impacted

This Week I Heart: OSU Foundation's OSUccess.com

My friends over that the OSU Foundation are full of interesting ways to secure donations and then pass those dollars on to students. This newest project is so fun, I'm kind of a little obsessed with it.

OSUccess.com (see already how clever it's title is?) began last week and runs until Feb 20. Students enter for 10 chances to win a $1,000 scholarship. Students answer a question "How do you define success at OSU?" with a 300 word blog entry, a 30 second video or a high-resolution photo.

Easy, right? Where were these kind of scholarship applications when I was in school?

Winners will be announced on Feb. 26 (more about this special orange-letter day, later), and they receive the scholarship that day. So, even graduating seniors can enter. The best-of for each category will be selected (3), then one randomly drawn entry from each campus (4), then the remainder are drawn randomly from all entries (3).

Here where the obsession comes in. You can watch the entries as they are submitted via a live feed. Too fun.

Photo Feed

Video Feed

Polish Your Presence with the PRSA-SW Student Post-con

The PRSA-SW District Conference is coming to OKC in 2010. This is typically a great conference full of wonderful speakers, networking and events. I may be a bit bias (I'm on the planning committee) but this year is going to be especially fantastic.

The conference is April 15-17, just in time for graduating seniors to network their little hearts out. And obviously, all PR students are going to want to take advantage of the extra low student registration rate. But wait there's more!

There will be a special post-conference session on Friday designed just for students. Polish your presence with a luncheon session designed to help you make the best of your first impression. Then learn from both your peers and the pros during small resume breakouts led by seasoned OKC-area professionals. Bring 8 or more copies of your resume and see what sets you apart from the crowd. Each post-conference attendee will also receive a packet of exclusive content on the job hunt process.

The 2 1/2 hour post conference is $50 for PRSSA members and $65 for non-members and includes your lunch at the Bricktown Brewery. If you can't make it to the full conference you can still register for the post-conference. Registration opens soon, so mark your calendars and plan to be there!

APR Flash Card: Strategy vs. Tactic

Strategies and tactics are probably the two most often confused terms in PR. Many people use them interchangeably. While they are very similar, they aren't the same thing.

Front: Strategy

Back: How in concept an objective will be achieved; how you will approach a challenge; devices you will employ; core messages

Front: Tactics

Back: Specific activities that put strategies into operation; how you will use resources to carry out a strategy. There may be multiple tactics per strategy.

Example:

Strategy-Utilize outposts to drive traffic to the blog

Tactics-

1. Install RSS application on Facebook page
2. Post blog entries in Twitter update
3. Post blog entry in Facebook update
4. Post career, APR, giving, and PR posts in Linked in profile.
5. Link back to One Bonnie in comments on other blogs