Value

Something that has started to bother me is our value. Our value as friends. Our value as lovers. Our value as relatives,  and so on.

Lately, my value as a partner has undergone much scrutiny. There is a certain respect I have for women. Mainly from awe at how illogically dangerous they have the capacity to be. Other than that, what respect do I owe women? And men for that matter, too.

Anything given freely, garners a level of respect. Money, pussy, lasagna, A’s… When it’s traded for something of similar value, different respect level.

You don’t respect someone you can hustle.

And the hustle I’ve been played by is an unequal exchange of time and energy… for the possibility of having sex.

Casual conversation is equal to casual sex. It’s that simple.

The witty conversation the woman is engaged in makes me a suitor.  The conversation I’m maintaining (by saying interesting things and making a woman smile) tells the woman she is a suitor.
(generally speaking. I know this isn’t every conversation)

This is an equal exchange. Anything more tips the scales and becomes a hustle.

My value as an employee has taken a new perspective. Until people come to a business with value,  businesses will be free to do as they are. There are people put in places to benefit the business. They’re already working a job that belittles they’re time. Why would I think they would tend to the restoration of value in others?
A business,  ideally,  doesn’t give a fuck about the employee. Many do,  but that’s at a loss to the business. Many bigger businesses do only what they have to. And many are below that standard. It’s all about what one can get away with while making the most with the least

Where would I be if I didn’t shout out 

This is the team responsible for all the interesting things I can do with my iPhone. They’re amazing. #thatisall

Find them here.

Being a Liger in PR

Our Professor Nixon had a chance to interview Martin Waxman, co-founder and president of Palette Public Relations, Inc. In the interview, Mr. Waxman was asked to impart some knowledge on our youthfully vigorous class about what an aspiring Public Relations professional should be equipped with while on the job hunt.

“A great understanding of traditional media relations,” is one of the things Martin said that really stuck out to me. We’re all here trying to make sure our blogs are up to par and making sure our social media image is tasteful that we tend to forget how media relations were before the social media era. To be a part of Martin’s team, one doesn’t necessarily have to blog constantly or have a Twitter account, but one must know how they function. There will be a time where both are necessary and having those tools are ideal. Being able to connect or be aware of social media “giants” on Twitter that contribute to the professional community and to show that you’re using Twitter intelligently.

With that being said, I want to harp on a very important story Mr. Waxman shared with us. Upon viewing a student’s blog, there were a bevy of “typographical and spelling errors…” With being a college student, especially a soon-to-be-graduating junior or senior, these are inexcusable. There is no reason to have these kinds of mistakes on an ONLINE BLOG. It either shows a disregard for material or a genuine ignorance of the English language.

The interview was interesting and it has be reviewing my blog posts to double check on my own mistakes. Thanks for taking the time out Mr. Waxman!

PR Open Mic Review

As PR Open Mic becomes a popular site amongst PR professionals and students, many interesting things have been added to it. PROpenMic.org is a site dedication to the convergence of those who practice Public Relations. Students and professors, freelance PR practitioners or actual professionals in the Public Relations realm helping students gets connected and get ahead of the curve by learning from the experiences and mistakes those in the industry and trying to break in may make.

At first, I found PR Open Mic (PROM) to be a sort of PR chat room. There were really not too many places for information to be posted and shred. There also weren’t too many contributors so new information took a while to get to the page.

In the last couple of months, there was a surge. New students asking questions and posting Twitter names for a constant connect sprung up and there was much more traffic at the site. The site also changed appearances and it grew in number. The New Age feel of the site did wonders to being there. I would actually take the time to browse through many tabs and profiles. Events quickly became my favorite tab just to see the creative events many have come up with here.

Despite I haven’t been a frequent visitor of the site, I’m constantly seeing suggestions and information that’s posted on the site. PROM was a great idea and it helps us students stay on task and in touch with other students. We can gauge how our organizations are doing against the same organizations in other schools and be critiqued by professors at both schools.

PROM is another social site that works well for those interested in that field of work. Making a pseudo-Facebook site for a major that’s as interactive as PR is a great idea and we’re benefitting from the growth the site is experiencing

Podcasting

Podcasting is quickly becoming the way many people get just the information we need. There is a podcast for nearly any topic one could imagine. From politics to poultry recipes, podcasts are many times, commercial free and there is no need sifting through news unrelated to the podcast.

I’ve started using podcasts in the morning time to take the place of watching the news when I wake up. My alarm goes off and the podcast starts and recaps the news in areas of the world I’m interested in. Before podcasting, it would be a bit more difficult to follow the news on Apple’s 4g iPhone specs or the unsigned MCs coming out of Miami and New York.

Podcasts are our own little news channels that we can tune into whenever we want. The information will just sit there until we so choose. Episodes can be downloaded and saved to a computer or music player and listened to on the ride to work or class. These are the most opportune times to get the news you want to get and not filter through news of other topics.

This is a great way for companies to get reviews and new products out to those interested. Sites like Gizmodo and Engadget have podcasts that preview and review different phones and mobile devices. They speak about the specs and overall feel and look. For the tech junkie, a podcast like this would be perfect. There are times when one just isn’t afforded the time of battery power to peruse through a site to find and compare different devices they find interesting.

Podcasts are definitely a growing way to get information on any topic and it gives the public the power to share.

The Lowdown on FourSq(Where)

Foursquare is an interesting way of connecting with businesses and updating people on restaurants, garages, and just about any other place where money can be exchanged. This is an easy way of gauging customer satisfaction if you’re the business, great way to report opinions of the establishment if you’re the patron, and suggestions and locations if you’re new to the area.

The best thing about the application is it makes mini-travel a game. I can cheaply compete with friends or anyone new to the are that needs a certain service. Becoming mayors of different places also encourages traffic, which all companies need. I’ve found myself at the library and WalMart more often times to maintain my title as Mayor than to actually utilize those locations.

Of course there is always a danger to have the public know your whereabouts. There are the Ocean’s 11 that will friend you on FourSquare and find out when you leave the compound so they can stick a tail on you and ransack your estate. I see no real threat in having something like FourSquare become and active part in our social networking lives. The risk is there but until something extraordinary occurs, FourSquare will maintain is danger color: beige.

This application will join in making #tweetups more fun and we always can go for some competition, especially amongst people we may not know.

A Slice of Kai

As my guest speaker for the week, I chose Kai Taylor. Kai is also a GSU student and her thoughts on life in general, move me. I enjoy how she puts her words to screen and paints a pretty detailed picture. Enjoy it here.

The Good Kind of Viral

The thing that makes viral videos catch on so quickly is, many times, they are real life situations caught on camera. Shows like America’s Funniest Home Videos cashed in on the fact that we love seeing candid events. That’s another reason why things like seeing a son hit his father’s pitch right down the “middle” will always be funny. In SitComs, we expect this behavior and may chuckle at it but in real life, they are precious gems.

In comes YouTube, the site that lets you watch as many of these types of videos as possible. From amazing motorcycle stunts to goats sounding like people, these are the rare real world situations that won’t be missed or the negatives too old for one to properly see the images.

Two of my all-time favorite viral videos are: daft hands and The Landlord. I loved Daft hands when I first saw it simply because of how much time went into getting it correct. The commitment was serious and the outcome, phenomenal. The Landlord was another classic simply because of Pearl. She makes the video. Not much else can be said

Widgets vs. Badges

The primary difference between widgets and badges are the uses. Badges are mostly used by someone curious in seeing how much traffic their site gets via link from other site or even search engines. This gauges them against other site in the same realm of interest and governs what sites they should perhaps purchase link space. Badges can keep track of visitor and show where the visitor came from to get to said site. This is a great tool for site for something like health food. If their site is getting more traffic from BurgerKing.com or NowandLater.com than GNC.com or WebMD.com, they are more likely to withdraw from the healthier site and go to where their audience is.

Widgets are downloadable desktop applications that help someone do an assortment of things. From scrolling through one’s picture album to finding out stock information, there is a widget for almost anything you can think of: games, news, gossip, twitter, etc.

The best way I think a company could use a widget would be a site like CDNow.com. There is a growing number of people that hear a song or an artist, and automatically open up iTunes, go to the iTunes store and search that artist. The widget would be a nifty was in curbing a couple of seconds off of your search, especially if there is more than one artist one is curious about. The widget could be right on the desktop and as the web viewer scrolls through pages, she can quickly type the artist’s name and have that pop up in a new window instead of having to switch back and forth between Internet browser and iTunes.

Seth Godin: Tribes

This is a book review of Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin. If you navigate to slideshare.net, you’ll be able to see some of the notes included in this slidecast.

Enjoy.

Godin

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