It’s the sense of self-gratification you feel when you, and only you, know just how far you’ve come and how hard you’ve worked to get to this moment. And it could not have been done without a support group of friends, family, mentors, thoughtful teachers, and unsurpassing strength from God. So many memories, so many hours, so many lessons learned. College is not just about going to class, studying and meeting friends. It’s also about growing in responsibility, maturity, and stature.

I can still remember leaving the driveway from my house at 18 yrs. old on my way to college with the Black Crowes blaring through the speakers, all four windows rolled down, and sunglasses on. I can remember the rush of freedom I felt that day. I was free to do whatever, whenever, without the parentals over my shoulder watching my moves. I could buy beer, stay out late, and do the freedom-like things I wanted to do.  But that was freedom then, and now, I feel a new sense of freedom. Freedom that comes from completing something I didn’t know I would be able to do at one point. I had some real tough times during college, but I stuck with it, fought hard, and stuck my chest out and ripped the finish-line tape.

Now there is a new race to be run. I am now 24, and after walking across that stage, I will have new goals, new obstacles, and new lessons to be learned. But, what will help me is the confidence, strength, and wisdom I have gained over these past few years that will be with me wherever I go.

I am currently awaiting my second interview with Executive Advertising and Associates, a promotional marketing firm located in Jacksonville, Fl., and I hope to start a career there soon. Just this Wednesday I had my last day of internship with The Colonnade Group. The final report is below.

I will keep this blog active, mainly for my own sake. I’ve found by expressing my ideas in words, it helps to identify your own opinions and create new ones to explore. 

I want to thank my parents for facilitating my dreams, my brothers at the Sigma Chi fraternity for their sense of loyalty and good times, Dr. Fitch-Hauser for admitting me to the PR program at Auburn University, teaching me the fundamentals of public relations and kind words about me in her recommendation to future employers. To Robert French, for making class fun, career-driven, and convincing me that writing your thoughts down is a good thing, and expanding my mind to the world of PR globally through the use of social media, (Robert you better be at the Liberal Arts graduation party next Thursday in Tichenor Hall!) and to my girlfriend Adriana Segura, for getting me though these last couple of years with words of encouragement, kindness, and love.

War Eagle to you all!

-MS

(final report to Ric)

  Since the beginning of October, when I sent my last report, the events have gotten bigger and my time with The Colonnade Group has, once again, given me tremendous experience in event planning. I can honestly say I was both physically and mentally challenged as our company approached its busiest time of the year.

 The month of October gave Auburn three back-to-back home games, which meant I worked Friday through Sunday in Auburn setting up our corporate hospitality event for the Auburn Network, and Tuesday through Saturday back at the office in Birmingham planning the upcoming Iron Bowl event, as well as both the SEC and ACC fanfare events and their own hospitality party. If you don’t recall, Jane Mitchum and I organized the events in Auburn, which featured a private party with caterers and upscale entertainment.

 When October ended, work slowed down only for a second before it picked back up with the Auburn vs. Georgia game. This particular event was the biggest in terms of capacity and time devoted to planning of the season. We had four 40 ft. by 60 ft. tents, over a 1000 chairs and tables, professional landscaping, and caterers from Longhorn’s at each tent, just to satisfy the 800 guests that arrived at 9 a.m. in the morning on Game Day. It took some planning and back breaking, but the event turned out well, and all the while giving me more confidence in handling larger events for the future. Right after Georgia was the Iron Bowl and another big project. The Quad in Tuscaloosa is where all the events that our company does over there are held. This time we set up 10 sponsor tents, a live band and vendors for the fans. We also set up a signage tent where former Alabama football players could sign items for fans, and the Crimson Tide Network radio booth for the pre-game show. We started preparing and loading the Tuesday before the game and worked until Saturday when the game started, which left me enough time to catch the game at a TV downtown and watch our Tigers win five-in-a-row!

 If this event seemed big with all its planning, labor, and many details, I was quickly misled. I had been working off and on for the development and operations of the ACC FanFest and hospitality party during the days I was in Birmingham. Once Auburn’s regular season ended, we turned our attention fully on the ACC Championship event. Among the many events we provide service for, none could be more big then the SEC and ACC FanFest and hospitality parties. While some of the staff from The Colonnade Group went to Atlanta, GA. to work at the SEC event, myself and others drove to Jacksonville, Fl. to work at the ACC event.

 Although it was a weeklong process, I have never had as much fun doing work as I did for this event. I was truly fortunate to have experienced this project, and I know after playing a large role in its success and completion that its affect on my career is already being shown. I was responsible mainly for the assistance of planning the hospitality party located at the club level of Alltel Stadium. As the official corporate hospitality sponsor of the ACC Football Championship, we provide an exclusive and upscale pre-game event featuring live musical entertainment, lavish buffet, bar and access to the club level inside Alltel Stadium. To make this party feel exclusive, it had to look exclusive. We met with a lady from the Freeman Co. who specializes in exposition services. We brainstormed some ideas and in the end, red carpet was laid for the entry to our party, complete with black drapery, matching tablecloths, and flowered centerpieces on each table.

  It was an amazing thing to witness. All the preparation and hours it took to plan came together on Saturday, Dec. 2 from 9  – 11 a.m. Having something that doesn’t have shape, like an empty room or field, and watch it take shape as you plan, arrange, and execute was something I told Amanda Corum, the director of hospitality, in my interview that I love about event planning. This event, as much work as we put into it, turned out great. The party looked extravagant and all the guests thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

 I think one of the best things the Dept. of Communication and Journalism has to offer is its required internship on the curriculum. What better way to fully instruct and guide upcoming graduates than to give them hands on experience in their field? I hear so much from people that they wish they could have done an internship before graduating. Obviously there are internships that, for whatever reason, do not work out so well for some students. But in my scenario, this internship has taught me so much and I’m now fully engaged in this practice, and hope to pursue a career in event planning using the organizational and practical skills that I now confidently possess. Even while I was in Jacksonville, my hard work during my internship proved to be beneficial, as I was referred to a company that specializes in event coordinating and planning about a position for hire.

  This internship experience has been just that: an experience. I have learned to handle most situations in the office with poise and purpose in mind. I have strived to be always on time and let my actions reflect the academic success that I’ve been taught at Auburn through this department.

 I believe internships can offer learning, experience, and fun, if you want them to. I believe strongly in the principle of taking advantage of what’s before you. You can coast by, not learn as much and probably still get academic credit, or in my case you can still get credit but you can also get so much more, if you work for it. In every sense, my internship gave me valuable tools that will help me with the career I want to have.

 I have a couple suggestions to the Auburn internship program. One would be to gather the students signed up for upcoming internships to maybe meet once a month with their faculty advisor and bring in past students that have already completed their internship and have them speak to the students about their individual experience. I think a question and answer time with these students also would be helpful. I know I would have been inspired listening to the different stories and advantages internships can offer. Another suggestion is to maintain the flow of communication about internship possibilities to students looking for places to work. An email was sent out regarding this internship with The Colonnade Group that’s how I found out the opportunity and eventually was hired.

 Thank you so much for offering this to us. It has been the most fun semester I’vehad so far, because there are no tests! I’m graduating in just a couple of weeks and I’m taking what I’ve learned during this internship and the many skills I’ve been taught at Auburn with me!

WAR EAGLE!
Matt Simpson

Well, it’s been about three months since my last blog entry and I’m fully rested and willing to crank it up again. “Why where have you been MRSIMPSON? What have you been doing all this time?” my little split personality asks. After turning in my Style and Design CD complete with my interactive resume, and walking out of Robert French’s lab for the last time on that unforgettable August day, I was reminded, by my split personality again, that I wasn’t required to post ever again in my blog! I enjoy posting, however, just not four times a week on top of other class assignments. So, i quit for a while and will finally will be able to have the luxury of posting for fun at my leisure. Ahh!

Well, here is a quick wrap up of what I have been doing at my internship since I left Auburn for The Colonnade Group, an event and sports production company in Birmingham, AL.

The report was submitted to Ric Smith, who is my internship advisor at Auburn University, for our midterm update that he likes to call “a letter home.”

          When I first arrived at The Colonnade Group, I have to admit I was still unsure of what my daily responsibilities were going to be. I knew it involved traveling to Auburn to help with corporate hospitality before football games, and event planning in general, but what I have practiced and learned so far has been a better experience than I could have imagined.   

           If I could describe this internship experience in one word it would be exposure. It has exposed me to different elements of the workplace, and a better picture of the myriad of details that are needed to produce a successful event. The company that I, and Mary Beth Reynolds, another intern from Auburn, have been working for can be labeled as an entertainment and sports production company. The company focuses mostly on hospitality and skybox programs for collegiate sports in the South. In the fall, it puts most of its attention towards college football.

           I have been working with Jane Mitchum, who works with The Colonnade Group for events in Auburn, to produce corporate hospitality on game days for sponsors of the Auburn Network. In a broad sense, I have helped coordinate and manage this elegant and upscale pre-game experience. After hours in the sun, using the physical labor side of event planning that I am now familiar with, a tent is erected, tables are in line, and each umbrella, seat and flower are in place. When the tent opens three hours prior to kick-off, I am ready to welcome and assist the guests that provide proper credentials. These credentials the guests casually wear have been punched, strung and tied for hours by us at the office, but is a detail that I have learned is just as important as everything else in events. During the time the guests are there, and until they leave, I make sure the caterers are not having problems, check satellite connections for the four TV’s we have in the tent and watch the generators to see if they are running smoothly. Basically, I’m ready for anything and anyone needing assistance. When the tent closes, it’s back to the labor as we take down signage, break down tables, chairs, porch rail and anything else and load it in to the Penkse truck that I drive to storage and unload until next week. And this is just on the weekends!

          During the weekdays I handle other business that goes on outside of Auburn. Just last week I formulated a quantitative analysis sales report of the hospitality packages that we are selling for the ACC Championship Game in Jacksonville on Dec. 2, which I will be going to. Rob, who handles the operations and business development of our company, asked me to put the numbers we have for the event so far into a report. I used some of my computer skills and created an impressive report that was sent out to the president of the Gator Bowl Association.

           I have also have traveled to meetings at different schools with the CEO and vice president of our company. I went to Knoxville, Tenn. to sit in on a meeting to discuss a skybox proposal with the University of Tennessee’s business developer, and to Tuscaloosa, AL. to visit our skybox and suite level that were just renovated.

           As an intern, it has its advantages and disadvantages. But, what others view as a disadvantage, like traveling, long hours and low pay I view as an opportunity to learn. Because I am an intern, I am handed different things by different people everyday. These tasks, although sometimes boring, teaches me diligence, perseverance and how to deal with people in the workplace. I know in advance that no matter what job I take when I leave here, this behavior of getting up everyday, shaving, coming prepared to work, doing what is asked with a good attitude will have to be practiced wherever I go if I want to be successful in my career.

          Obviously, I hope to accomplish through this experience a better “personal resume” than when I came here. By this I mean that my name and my actions that I have portrayed through good work will, hopefully, be spread in right directions through the connections that I have made here. I hope to obtain a great recommendation that I can pass on to future employers, and a reference that will better my chances among the post-graduate applicant pool. Through this next half of work, I will remain committed to my work and take advantage of every opportunity I can to learn, and will use my natural and learned skills to represent myself, and the School of Liberal arts at Auburn University, the best that I possibly can.

(end)

So, since I have been ignoring my massive fan base for so long, and at the request of their thousands of emails that flood my mailbox everyday, I will try to post more often to update them on my internship and post-graduation plans.

And on a special note:

Here is another one for you Robert French. I’m another statistic you can use to show your students that sometime a few of us take up blogging even when we don’t have to!

Cheers, and much respect for all you do for us students.

-Matt

 

            

What I thought was going to be a typical class assignment, turned out to be so much more. I had the opportunity to converse with Lee who lives in Adelaide, Australia and is an internal and online communications/PR specialist and Allan who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark and is a PR/advertising/communication consultant.

The podcast can be heard here,  downloaded here or you can click here –> 

The synopsis for the podacst on The Café’s site reads: Matt Simpson, soon-to-be graduate of Auburn University, drops in on Lee and Allan to throw out some questions about advertising and PR. Listen in to living proof that two old fogies can handle tough questioning with a fair amount of aplomb.

After asking Allan and Lee a couple questions each, my duty on the podcast wasn’t done as Lee told me I couldn’t “sit on the sidelines and not contribute” and that I’m now a part of this conversation. So I joined right in on the major topic they wanted to discuss which was when celebrity bloggers move to a new place, how much of their brand is the new employer buying? Recently, Robert Scoble moved from Microsoft to Podtech and Allan and Lee question how much is Scoble adding to Podtech or are the just buying his mystique of being a famous blogger. We each had similar, but different opinions on the situation. Honestly, I didn’t know to much about the move but knew enough to chime in a little.

Overall, the experience was great to be a part of. I never knew I would feel a rush doing a podcast. Maybe it was because I was up at 3 a.m. and a little out of it, but I believe I’m starting to love PR and everything about it. I’ve begin to read numerous blogs a day, wanting to interview more PR practitioners, and blogging myself more, not just for class, but because I enjoy spending my free time learning and writing about this industry.
I hope I will continue to have more opportunities like this as I approach the threshold of public relations when I graduate this December.

Ciao!

So what do you do in Robert French’s class when you finally get done with your first podcast?…That’s right, start another one!

I am hoping to do one this morning at 3:30 a.m. with Allan Jenkins and Lee Hopkins who are contributors to our Marcomblog site. (Allan lives in Denmark, that’s why it’s so early for me) They have a podcast show together, and Allan insisted on me joining them rather than do one with just himself. So, gladly I accepted. Wow, these guys are some of the top PR practitioners in the world and a great opportunity arose, with just a simple email to Allan.

I am thinking they want to do a conference call using skype and I will then record our conversation and make a podcast from it. I was planning on just interviewing Allan, but since they invited me to their podcast, hopefully I can ask Lee Hopkins some questions too.

Well, I better get some rest. I have an interview at 3:30 in the morning! I will have this podcast link along with the first one shortly.

-Matt

This will be pretty fun. Robert told us how it should sound as if to be played on NPR: an introduction, a quote or message from the source, a follow up, another quote, and then a wrap up. Since I worked for a radio station one summer, and was a lab tech and anchor for our high school tv station WBGI, this sort of stuff should come natural to me.

I am thinking of interviewing my cousin Mike Davis who is a publicist for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at fingerprint inc. and asking him how big of a role he sees public relations in NASCAR. I’m sure he is pretty busy, so if I can’t get him my friend Sam Williams who is the Marketing/Creative Services Manager at Opelika-Auburn News. He always helps me out because he is my mentor for the Auburn University chapter of the PRCA. I have interviewed him once for a class assignment similar to this awhile ago, but I’m sure he will have some different answers as PR continues to grow each year. Once I am done editing with hotrecorder, I will place the podcast on my blog for all to listen.

In the meanwhile, you can check out how my friends Katie Irwin and Danielle Lee are using their podcasts to inform the public of a great place called Camp ASCAA. A MUST SEE!

Till next time, Matt

So I am taking PR Campaigns and Style and Design courses this summer. This site will contain two separate blogs: one for each class. This past week in Style and Design we were learning HTML language. I have heard it before, but never knew how to use it. We had an exercise to write the head and body of a page. It was pretty simple to understand. Then when I completed some tutorials online, simple turned into complex. There were tags for everything, bold, italics, alignment, sizes, widths, yadda yadda. I thought there were toolboxes for that to help you out!

But if you are going to do it from scratch, which we are in Robert’s class, then I better gbet used to it. It’s good to know, because we as a generation are ahead of the curve and will be an asset to any company with our savvy technology skills. I am interested to see how I progress through this semester with HTML. Right now it’s like learning the ABC’s, but by the end I’ll hope to have a whole new vocabulary.

Till then, Matt

Till then, Matt

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Abstract

This research was conducted by nine undergraduates, of Auburn University, on behalf of the Society of New Communication Research, with the assistance of Phil Gomes, Giovanni Rodriguez and Robert French. Our goal was to learn the difference between online and print trends of newspapers by reaching at least 50 of the top 100 news publications in the United States. The response pool for our survey consisted of 48 online representatives. These representatives consisted of online newspaper editors, site developers and staff members. From these representatives, we were able to contact them in order to derive the necessary information needed for the survey. The survey research results will be used by the Society for New Communication Research to study the emerging trends of online publications in top 100 newspapers. This paper contains: the results from the research, the methodology we used and the conclusions we drew from the results. This paper will also give the problems our group encountered as well as the many revisions we made throughout the research process.

Introduction

Our project began with our initial goal of completing 50 surveys out of the top 50 newspaper publications in the United States. We started by dividing the top 50 newspapers among our group, with each member getting either 5 or 6 papers to contact. However, this proved to be more challenging than we had previously expected. As a result, halfway through the project we changed the number of our respondent pool from the top 50 newspapers to the top 100. Our first draft of the survey was 12 questions and was created on . However, after creating 10 out of our 12 survey questions we encountered the problem of having to pay to put our two additional questions on the survey. We then switched it over to with the help of Robert.We developed a system of emailing multiple employees of each newspaper asking for the best contact. Then, regardless of whether or not they responded back by email, we started calling employees at each newspaper and asked them if they would be willing to participate in the survey With the help of Robert, Dallas, Monica and Katie created a script to use when calling the publications. In the script, we stated we were doing research on behalf of the Society of New Communication Research (SNCR), but soon discovered that most newspapers were more willing to participate when we said we were students at Auburn University. Our hypothesis for this, is that that the newspapers feel less threatened and more comfortable with college students than they did with a big name like SNCR. With the addition of the 50 more newspapers and the modified script, we were able to complete 48 out of 100 surveys.

The purpose of this project was to find out how newspapers are adapting and adopting to online business models, how newspapers are providing online access to their traditional print newspapers and how a newspaper’s online publication measured up to its print publication.

Our overall goal was to determine the newspaper’s opinions concerning their decision to provide online versions of their traditional print newspaper. Although this was a class assigned project, this tested our abilities to go beyond the Auburn limits. We were able to put our name out there and earned the respect form some of the editors and managers of 48 of the top 100 newspapers in the nation.

Methodology

We began our research by contacting editors and managers of the top 50 newspapers in the United States. We researched every newspaper’s website by seeing what each individual website offered. We looked for wikis, blogs and various other social media, within the newspapers website. In addition, we looked to see if there were cost-walls, subscriber fees and pay-per-story features. Because we expanded our response pool to the top 100 after some surveys had already been implemented, we did not have the time to research the second 50 as thoroughly as the first.Due to the nature of the survey and that no other surveys have been done on this topic, we were faced with having to create our survey from scratch. We did not have any idea how we were going to first approach our survey. However, with the help of Robert and through contact with Giovanni and Phil we were able to better understand our topic and how to create a successful survey.When we created our first survey, we had a total of 31 questions. We talked to Giovanni, Phil and Robert and decided the survey needed to be no more than 15-20 questions. We narrowed the questions down to what we thought would best derive the necessary information we needed. As a result, our survey went from 31 questions to 12.

We had to find a website that could track our results, so we decided to use Survey Monkey. After we started to make the survey on Survey Monkey, and discovered we would be charged for any survey that was more than 10 questions. To avoid being charged we split the questions into two different surveys with 10 questions on one and two on the other. We knew this wasn’t an effective way to have a survey, so we had Robert help us change it to Formsite. Since Robert already had an account, we did not have to pay for our survey and were able to create our 12 question survey. This really helped simplify the survey process.

We decided to e-mail every contact we found for each newspaper asking them who was the best person to complete a survey concerning their online content. We did this as an attempt to try and cut down calling time. We thought that newspapers would e-mail us back with a specific person and their contact information so we would know exactly who to call. After we received no responses to our e-mails, we decided that calling people to administer our survey was going to be the most affective way.

After completing two surveys, we ran into a problem with one of the questions. Our first question asked if the newspaper was publicly or privately owned, and some newspapers said they could not answer this and did not wish to complete the survey. Robert decided it would be best to take this question off the survey and replace it with another one, asking how long the newspaper had been online. In our results we only have 46 responses to that question because two had already been completed without that question.

To contact our newspapers, the members of the group used a Skype account, calling cards and personal cell-phones. When we had meetings with Phil and Giovanni who live across the country, we also used a Skype account to contact them.

Our group worked together as well as individually on this project. We met weekly in the library and used allowed class time to plan and discuss the progress we were each making. We stayed connected with each of the members in the group by exchanging contact information and personal schedules for convenient times to meet. We sent e-mails to each other and called each other’s cell phones in order to remain united on what we wanted to accomplish for the project. Every time we met in the library we discussed how the survey could be better, how we were going contact these papers and ideas on when to call and what to say. We asked each other questions, received updates from members and reminded each other of the main objectives and goals that needed to be accomplished.

Most of our respondents had busy schedules, as did every member of the group. It was often times difficult to reach someone in one try, so we called people multiple times and left messages with secretaries and on machines. We spent weeks calling each of the top 100 newspapers. If we could not get a hold of them on one day, we would try the next. Some of the respondents were easier to get a hold of than others. As shown in the final results, the top five newspapers in the United States were unwilling to participate.

Results:

Of the 48 newspapers that we were able to complete surveys with, the vast majority (85.4%) offered more information online than in print. The reason that more information is offered could be that the online version can be updated continually, while the print version can only be sent out once a day. According to the survey results, 83.3% of newspapers update their online content as news develops.Though the online version is updated more frequently and has more information than the print version, the print version still receives the most readership, with 66.6% of the newspapers surveyed saying that print was still more widely read.

The survey results also dismissed any notions that newspapers have developed more of an online presence as a result in the decline in print subscriptions and sales. One hundred percent of newspapers said that the start of their online version did not have anything to do with a decline in print readership. This can also be proven by the number of years that newspapers have had an online presence. More than half of the newspapers surveyed (67.3%) have been online for 10 to 11 years. This precedes the assumed period of decline in print. Also, most newspapers (79.1%) believe that their online publication does not have any effect on the readership of their print publication.

Findings:

We stopped calling newspapers on April 26, 2006. This was after weeks of calling and e-mailing the top 100 newspapers. We found that the top 10 papers were the most difficult to get in touch with. We didn’t survey the top five because they refused or never answered our phone calls. Out of the top 100 newspapers, we had 48 take the survey, one started but stopped in the process and refuse to answer anymore questions, 13 declined to take the survey or said they didn’t allow surveys and 38 never returned our phone calls, voicemails and e-mails.Before we started conducting or even created the survey, we researched the top 50 papers in the United States and formed the questions after seeing the trends and models of online media. Through our research we found that the top five, though we never could get confirmation from the papers, were setting the bar for what papers are and will be offering online. We believe that they will be the trend-setters for the rest of the newspaper market when it comes to their online services.

In our hypothesis, we predicted that we would find many newspapers adopting blogs, mainly blogs that allowed the public to interact. In our findings, we concluded that blogs are not as popular as we thought. The blogs we did find were staff blogs that only allowed staff members to post comments. Out of the 48 surveys we were able to complete, only two listed a blog as a feature on their website. Since we were not able to be go more in depth with our survey questions, we are not sure if that means a staff blog or one that is open for anyone to post on.

We started this survey with the idea that online newspapers are one of the reasons for the decline in print media. Our assumption was that print media was dying. Our survey concluded that none of the papers we got responses from indicated that print in fact was dying. The question, “Did you start your online services as a result of the decline of print subscribers?” received a unanimous no. The other question related to this topic asked, “Which version, online or print, receives the most readership?” We defined readership as either circulation or site traffic, but to our surprise, 66.6 percent of the 48 papers said their print version received the most readership.

A problem we have with this finding is that print media is very restricted to who can see it because of where it is distributed. But online, anybody can look up a paper from across the country. The potential public is so much larger online than on print that we are skeptic about the results of this question. The clarity of this question may have been an issue.

Recommendations:

Because we could not get in touch with anybody from the top five papers, we recommend further research on these publications. Perhaps people other than students, like a more professional method or business, should conduct a survey on just the top five or 10 papers. This could evoke more detailed responses.To try to get an idea of what is currently being implemented online by the top papers, we recommend to look at communication groups, blogs, news postings and the ability to respond to news postings. We feel that most newspapers will follow the trends that the top papers are and will continue to set.

We recommend more surveys to be conducted in the future. We could not get as detailed as we would have liked with our questions. We believe that many more surveys could be created from the results of our survey.

Conclusion:

It is evident that more research needs to be done, in order to fully and completely understand the exact relationship between print and online newspaper content. We, however, feel confident in our research and as a result are confident in our generalizations stated above.Although we ran into a few issues with regards to our methodology, we were able to overcome them and present a thorough survey report on 48 percent of the top 100 newspapers in the country. While 48 percent was not our initial goal, we feel that this number was a good reflection as to what the general consensus was, concerning newspaper content.

We feel, had it not been our restricted timeframe, we would have been able to obtain our initial goal of 50 percent of the population. However, we are students and have other obligations to class and the work that comes with additional classes. In addition to our class schedule, the newspapers with which we were calling, have certain hours of availability. With both of these combined, we were faced with limited calling time. Although we were able to contact almost half of the top 100 newspapers, our research was only able to skim the surface of the information available on this topic.

Taking the information we have provided, we feel that numerous additional surveys can be created to find additional information. We believe that this survey is only the first of many that should be conducted in order to fully grasp the transition between print and online newspaper content. With more time and more detailed surveys, supplementary information can be reached.

Our group met yesterday to begin analyzing our findings start writing the final report. The first group presented to the class and representatives of WEGL, their client. On Wednesday the mall group will present with their clients attending the presentation as well. That leaves our group to present Friday with our client… oh wait Phil Gomes and Giovanni can’t be there because there in California! 

Long distance communication and was one of the many obstacles our group had to overcome. We were able to use a Skype connection with them a couple times but we still had some questions we had to answer ourselves. We knew getting 100% of the respondent pool in the top 50 markets was going to be tough. It was. That was the reason we expanded our target audience to the top 100 newspapers. This gave us a better response rate because they were a bit more willing to help.

We agreed that our no more surveys were going to be conducted past 5 p.m. cst. A full report will be attached to next Monday’s blog entry, which will be my last for this semester. Knowing Robert, when I take PR Campaigns and Style and Design with him this summer, I’m sure I will continue to blog real soon!

Till then – Peace in the Middle East 

 

I was reading an article written yesterday from Bill Shaikin of the LA Times (read here) and it referred to a consumer study done by Davie-Brown Talent, a Dallas-based marketing agency that advises companies interested in using celebrities in advertising campaigns. It’s objective was to give respondents, which was anybody, to rate the attributes of athletes, actors, political figures and so on.

Of the 1,500 celebrities in the study, Bonds ranked No. 1,486 in likeability, No. 1,488 in trust and No. 1,485 as an effective product spokesperson.  He was recognized by 61% of the respondents, which I guess means a lot of the people felt capable of scoring him because they knew who he was.

What does this show? Well, when major league executives look for corporate sponsors to follow the all-time home run race and showcase Bonds as the greatest slugger, they’ll be hard to come by. I’m sure that no company wants to fork over millions of dollars in media time to sponsor an athlete, say “Wheaties,” when the majority of baseball fans dislike him. It’s better that they just leave that to some other risky company.

Surveys show feelings attitudes, glimpses of the future, and financial guidance on when to buy and when to sell. From surveys like these, companies are not buying to sponsor Bonds fame right now.

(from the article) “When a brand partners with a celebrity, they’re borrowing that celebrity’s equity,” said Jeff Chown, president of Davie-Brown Talent. “Right now, consumer opinion of Barry Bonds does not support a brand partnering with him. Consumers are saying they know who he is and they don’t like who he is.”

Because of our respondent pool being in the top 50 markets, they were busy and a lot of my attempts reached voicemails. Who do they think they are being so preoccupied with managing their top newspaper so much so that they can’t sit down at their desk and hope to receive a call from undergraduate students. (I’m kidding)

We knew from the beginning of our project that we would have to be persistent in getting people to respond because of their busy lives.

I did talk to the business editor of USA Today, but he was in the middle of eating a sandwich and told me to email him about what I was jabbering about. Pretty funny huh?

One redirected my call to someone who was more qualified to answer questions about their company, but after he did that another voicemail. ugh. For those that I didn’t contact today I will try tomorrow.

It is pretty fun doing role play and acting like an important surveyor. Other groups have had success with their surveys, but I still feel ours has a higher degree of difficulty and therefore, when we complete it, will yield more value to our clients.

So our survey is up and running on formsite. But I can’t give it you, because you could take the survey and ruin the results – unless your the editor of USA Today and reading my fascinating blog then go ahead! (doubt it)

So the survey is complete and now we are just nagging some people at their news desk to take it.

Till then.

Hmm. Hey, look! I found one! On the About.com website I saw the headline “Spring Break is Potentially Life Threatening” – Parents Concerned About Drinking, Unprotected Sex, and I just had to read. It was so obvious parents would be concerned that I wanted to read just to see what “fascinating” facts and statistics they found that I didn’t know. Not much, but it’s worth taking a look at.

The survey, which was done by the American Medical Association in 2004,  polled 500 parents on a “Matter of Degree” , as the AMA called it, to see how strongly parents felt about Spring Break behavior.

The major trend the poll found was that 56 percent of parents were completely unaware that tour companies market spring break destinations directly to college students, emphasizing heavy drinking and sex. 

“The tourism and alcohol industries promote heavy drinking and sex, creating an environment that can lead to rape, fatal injuries and death by alcohol poisoning,” said J. Edward Hill, MD, AMA chair-elect.

I guess after the parent respondents knew of this marketing it lead them to think this way : 91 percent say it’s time to stop spring break marketing and promotional practices that promote dangerous drinking.

If it was done like this, asking them if they knew, 56% say no,  and then telling them what do you think now? 91 percent say stop then I think this survey is flawed. It seemed to me that these were lead-in questions.

Also, just because they are parents doesn’t necessarily make them credible. What about parents with newborns, they could take this survey but it doesn’t concern them at this time, right? It was unclear if the survey selected parents with certain age kids like 15-22.

To correct this they should have written a branching question like – What age are your kids? That way you keep the respondents who fit your target audience and throw out ones that don’t matter.

These were just some of my thoughts on this survey. I could not find the complete survey, but here are some of the other results they found: ( if you are interested)

• More than 80 percent of parents said they were concerned about college students drinking alcohol during spring break. Topping the list of concerns were students having unprotected sex (71 percent), students driving while intoxicated or with a drunken driver (70 percent), and female students getting raped (68 percent).
• Eighty-eight percent of parents said they think that spring break is primarily a problem of underage drinking, because many college students are younger than the legal drinking age of 21, and 61 percent believe that underage students are more likely to drink than 21-year-olds.
• 77 percent of adults and 68 percent of parents say that alcohol companies are using spring break in Mexico to introduce underage students to their products.
• The beer and liquor industries say that they are not promoting underage drinking by encouraging alcohol use at spring break locations in Mexico, but 64 percent of parents agree that this practice takes advantage of American youth under 21 and influences them to drink.
• 70 percent of parents say they are unwilling to pay for their child’s spring break.

The survey found that although web blogs are popular among the American work force, so much as 5% maintaining personal diaries, only 15% of employers have specific policies addressing work-related blogging. The policies debate over regulating off-duty blogging such as writing at home about one’s work environment, products, management or customers that might damage the company’s reputation and other issues. Hirschfeld says “There is intense debate over blogs, but no debate over the need to have clear blogging policies.”

The telephone poll was given to 1000 adults with a confidence level of +/- 4%. It revealed that 

• 59% of employees believe employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate workers who post confidential or proprietary information concerning the employer
• 55% think employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate employees who post damaging, embarrassing, negative information about the employer
• 23% support fellow workers being free to post criticism or satire about employers, co-workers, supervisors, customers, or clients without fear of discipline

These were just participants that didn’t have company policies on blogging. The ones that did, the poll showed

• 62% say the policy prohibits posting any employer-related information
• 60% say the policy discourages employees from criticizing or making negative comments against the employer
• 58% say the regulations deal with all blogging regardless of content.

The survey did not release any documents of company blogging policies. I would kind of like to see one. But, this is just another point that shows the surge blogging has made in the work-place. I believe as blogging becomes more popular, and businesses see the pros and cons of blogging and the effect it can have on the entire company, there will be a higher percentage of companies that will have policies pertaining to this issue.

Click here for the pdf website that show these numbers and graphs in detail.

I found this one yesterday from an Oregon State University sponsored site. I read the questions and the format critically and thought it was overall a well-written survey. It had a variety of questions ranging from Qualitative/Quantitative, Open-Ended questions, Likert-scale and even knowledge-based questions.

I really haven’t come across a survey this unique in its question format before. I have seen ones where they use only one format, maybe two types, but not a variety like this.

Before clicking on a button to see the survey, the respondent will see information and the objective of the survey:

This survey is designed to obtain data about important features of celebration.  The information you provide will only be used in the aggregate.  You have the right to withdraw from the survey at any time.

This is important in gaining the respondents consent and freedom while participating in the survey.

The questions are categorized using different terms than the ones in my textbook. They are written in simple language to give respondents a better understanding of the survey. (one of the key points to consider when writing survey questions) For example, Quantitative questions are in a heading under “Descriptive Information.” Open ended questions are under “Fill In.” Likert-type questions are under “Ranked,” or “Scaled.” I thought this was pretty unique from the other surveys I have read this semester.

The first couple of questions they used to categorize its respondent pool. This helps because after the first two questions answered, the researcher will find out the person’s gender and age.

(side note) Our teacher, Robert, told us to be aware when writing our own surveys that “some” people declare themselves a different gender than their sex. (as evident here) Some can be a female but her gender might be gay. So this survey’s first question is written

1. My gender is:

• Male
• Female
• No Response

This helps in the validity of the respondent’s answers.

Another important thing I found in this survey, and a point In read in my book, was that it had an equal number of degrees for each Likert-type question. In question 7 describing Most Frequent and Less Frequent, it has 8 boxes to check from one side of an emotion to another.

On the Fill In questions on number 11, it has a box for answering “What is it you like most about participating in celebrations?” And for number 12 “What is it you like least about participating in celebrations?” This adds to the fairness of questions I found in this survey. 

I will definitely use some tools I found in this survey for our own group’s survey of national online media we are conducting in the next couple of weeks.

Here is the survey’s site again if you would like to check it out.  

-Matt

Of course it is important because first of all, we will be working with the Edelman group and we want them to have an overall favorable opinion of us when we are done and say, “Hey those Auburn students did a pretty good job.” One of those Auburn students is myself, and I would take pride in that coming from PR Week’s Agency of the Year.

Secondly, this will be each of ours first survey to be in charge of and since we are all new to this, this guide will be our play book to look at.

So what’s in this “play book.”  The titles of each section are

• What do we want to do – This describes key points of what we need to focus on throughout the survey. Key points like, discovering/defining behavior, choices, actions, the importance of the hypothesis, etc. This will be used in our survey when we try to discover trends, adapting/adopting of business models and consumer acceptance of online media of national publications.
• Questions – This gives a list of some question formats we can use. Fixed Alternative, Nominal-dichotomous, Likert-type, Open-ended. I believe our group will be using variety of these formats. I will know more of which ones we will be using when our group meets again Wednesday with Robert.
• Format of Survey – This section asks questions regarding the structure, the positioning of the demographic questions, and writing questions in a way as to weed out the respondents we don’t want. We will collaborate as group and as intelligent PR majors, come up with the best strategy to use for our survey.
• The art of asking good question – This lists things to watch out for that could cause you to get bad results like, avoiding leading questions, double-barreled questions and personal questions. This is going to help us because we want the best results and this shows us what works, and what doesn’t.
• Pretest your questions – This shows ways of sequencing your questions. Having similar questions together, unharmful questions and combing out questions in the beginning are just some of the things to consider when positioning your questions in the survey.
• Sampling – This is going to be done near the end of our work so we know after we have our questions, which sampling method is the best one to use for our survey. They are all great methods (random sampling, convenience sampling, etc.) but we have to use the best one that fits for us. Another good way to pretest is to give the survey to each other so we can do it ourselves. This helps to show what questions to toss out and ones to add.
• Administering the survey – Lastly we need to know in what way are we going to be giving out the survey, when to do it, who are giving it to and where. We will be using email to send out the survey to our respondents working in the top 50 markets of newspapers.

This will help us get started and please keep coming back to look at our progress.

 There are three groups in my class and each is doing a survey for our professor and our clients. One is doing a survey to help the Colonial Mall in Auburn, Ala. have better business (i guess) the other is doing one for our local radio station in Auburn called WEGL, and mine is doing one through the Edelman PR firm to study trends of social media and online publications. Why national media or even local media (USA Today, CNN, Opelika-Auburn News) are using online material, what do they hope to accomplish, how much reliance they have with their readers, are just some of the questions my group will be writing in the next couple of weeks when we perform this survey.

Like all communication, we need to understand our audience. Our audience is the anyone that works with newspapers that are in the top 50 markets of the U.S. or anyone outside that market segment that could benefit from this survey. We will researching what business models are out there and how they have adopted or adapting to them , what are consumers willing to accept and recommendations to the news outlets that might work.

Phil Gomes who works for, the Edelman PR firm, and will be helping us with this survey said in a skype interview “This is important in that, well, it will be our first such published survey (Edelman). We noticed that there seems to be a strong lack of creativity when it comes to newspapers’ online publishing models.”

Gomes and others will be helping us write some questions for the survey. We will probably be using more quantitative than qualitative questions for the respondents.

This should be a lot of fun because for one it is my first survey that I will be credited with helping in, and also we have some members of the best PR firm in the US helping us. We are in the beginning stages of researching and writing for this survey but I will be posting updates to inform any readers of the progress that has taken place. And yes, I will post the survey when it is complete, or at least how far I have come when the semester ends in May because it could be handed over to Edelman for them to complete if we haven’t finished in May.

Now it’s time to glutton myself for FAT Tuesday. I’m thinking of giving up blogging for lent. What do you think Robert?
 

 

Good questionnaires are easy to read, easy to answer. You should write your questions so that everyone can understand them the same way. Don’t be too wordy and make them as short as possible, leaving just the necessary information. Throw out questions that you don’t think will matter. You should never write a lead-in question.

“Why do you love Auburn football” A. it’s tradition B. the fans C… assumes already they are an Auburn fan. (which they should be)

I think some of the best surveys I have seen that give a true measure of attitudes/opinions are questionnaires with both qualitative and quantitative methods. For example open-ended questions will reveal emotion, points-of-view and liability. And closed-ended questions will give you the most accurate and precise observations of your audience. One is not better than the other but both can be used for a better survey. However, if your going to use quantitative questions make sure you balance out the extremes evenly so that you get a better question, such as in a Likert -scale.

An example could be this: Describe you feelings about graduation:

• extemely excited
• excited
• don’t care
• nervous
• extremely nervous

I chose this because although there could be other emotions you may experience, it’s safe to say you either look forward to it or not look forward to it, or don’t even care. Try your hardest not to make it a lead in.

An example of a qualitative question is: Why did you want to come to college?

This gives the respondent room to just write what’s on their mind, which is what you want when using this method. Also, recall questions can be confusing for respondents. Why make it hard for them to answer? Don’t give questions that ask “ How many times do you fill you car up with gas in a year?” That would take me forever to figure out.

Although there lists and lists of guidelines to follow when writing research questions, and these are just a couple, I believe the best rule to follow is to edit, review, rewrite, and then like all teachers say “write it again.” It will be a waste of your time and the time of your audience not to have the most clear and purposeful questions in your survey. It may take time but it will give your survey credibility and merit.

(quotes from “A Few Good Men”)

Well the truth is, some people become fooled into quickly forming opinions about what America is thinking. MSNBC and other online media use Live Votes, polls and surveys to show what side or “bandwagon” an entire population is on. However, although their methodologies seem right , they still do not produce reliable answers. The question is then asked, “Why put it out there then? Is it just for fun to see what bubble unintended respondents click that day?” But, then again MSNBC admits that their live votes can’t be a scientific sample of national opinion.

On this website, it tells readers about the differences between polls and surveys. It also says how the best way to poll is through a random selection of the group being targeted. Agreed. It then gives an example of a poll that used random sampling. NBC-Wall Street Journal did a poll to see if President Clinton should leave office.

Two thousand and five adults were surveyed by the polling organizations of Peter D. Hart and Robert M. Teeter. (website content) The poll was conducted by telephone and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. The result was that 34 percent thought so. They used a randomly selected a number of geographic areas and then telephone numbers were generated in a way that allowed all numbers in those areas (both listed and unlisted) an equal chance to be called. Only one adult in each household was then selected to answer the poll. While variation can occur depending on what questions are asked and how they are asked, similar questions tend to yield similar answers. One way to account for variation, however, is to ask the same question over a period of time. (end of website content)

I learned in class the other day is that evidence can be flawed when the poll is not done the same way every time. They should not have had ANY variation to account for. This leads to skewed results. How do they know they are yielding similar answers? The questions should be asked with no variation 100 percent of the time.

The site then addresses online surveys. It describes how MSNBC’s online surveys (Live Votes) may reflect the views of far more individuals, but they are not necessarily representative of the general population. They are counting on a group of people that have an interest in a topic to respond. They say that although some participants in a Sport Live Vote may overlap into a Politics Live Vote, each group of respondents are likely to dominated by people with an interest in a topic.

That’s crazy!

You can’t assume that a golfer is going to stick to sports questions only. Or an elected officer to only do political based questions. Anybody can click an online survey at any time. This can not be accurate. They are basically saying that the people that respond are heavily engaged readers that care deeply about this topic. Well, how then do you know what people care more than others?

They say it’s not a scientific sample. Good, thanks for being honest. But, why then show it? What’s the use? It’s not accurate. The only purpose it serves is to buy time when they run out of news.

 

 

 

 

 

There is: What is Qualitative Research (obviously), Conceptualizing Research Questions for Q.R., What Counts as Data?, Ethics in Q.R., and so on. A simple and straightforawrd website that covers this topic is www.qrca.org (Qualitative Research Consultants Association). According to the website QRCA is a not-for-profit association of consultants involved in the design and implementation of qualitative research — focus groups, in-depth interviews, in-context and observational research, and more.

These guys do a great job of confining QR in their drop-down list of sections on the website. To them Qualitative research is designed to reveal a target audience’s range of behavior and the perceptions that drive it with reference to specific topics or issues. It uses in-depth studies of small groups of people to guide and support the construction of hypotheses. The results of qualitative research are descriptive rather than predictive.

They go on to describe why QR works, when to use it, how to approach it, different types of methods, FAQ’s about QR and even advice for respondents!

You wanna know about QR? Check out this page and walk away better informed.

Enough free advertising.

If you by chance read my previous blogs, I lean towards this type of research, as opposed to quantitative for a couple of reasons.

• I like to see the feelings, values, and perceptions that determine the behavior of respondents. This can only be done by open-ended queries as in QR.
• Forming the right question to use can be challenging, but when you get the results you wanted, it can be rewarding.
• (from website) They generate ideas for improvements and/or extensions of a product, line, or brand.

I used the last one is deciding one which pair of tennis shoes to buy the other day. I read customers that were satisfied and dissatisfied with a pair of shoes I was going to order. I saw there were stars that indicated how much they like/dislike the shoes.  This was probably the result of a quantitative research question: Please rate this pair of shoes out of 1-5 stars.

Yes, that did help me a little. But when “qualitative” research was performed I was able to get a better understanding of how previous customers felt about this pair.  There the respondents listed what they could have done better, parts that were impressive, how long each pair lasted, etc. 

Like I said, I was able to get a better understanding and “feel” of personal experiences that helped me by using QR.

However, the only down side about QR is the amount of time and capacity it takes to code all the answers in these methods. Focus groups can sometimes be flawed, telephone numbers are not easily accessible for phone interviews and internet responses can be slow.

I will soon be working in a group with my class in which we will be in charge of conducting a study using both qualitative and quantitative research. I am eager to find out which type of method will be more helpful. I hope “this” was helpful and I will share what I found with you in another blog.

Till then, peace in the Middle East

Matt

Ok. So Wiki 101 is now in session.

This short post is basically a never-ending gobstopper about the life of a wiki. It is small, but with lots in it, and the wiki’s life span will never end.

Like most of my classmates, I’ve never heard of wiki until I enrolled into a Survey and Research Methods class. There the word was tossed around and I would give my occasional head nod like I understood what it was. I’m still new to the subject but, with the help of experienced people, I will explain what a wiki: 

• is
• what it’s good for
• how it can help most people, including myself perhaps

The actual word ”wiki” is defined by Hawaiians as meaning quick, fast or to hasten.   According to wiki.org, Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. It also can be described as the actual type of website that features collaborative efforts from anonymous users. The list goes on, but in essence it is an online notepad which varies from wiki to wiki on the amount of freedom one can edit or contribute to information that is useful. You can highlight, scratch out, paraphrase, or delete from this “notepad” however you like.

The advantage? Tons and Tons of information easily accessible from across the world open to anyone. It can help businessmen, movers, students, tour guides and whoever else with fast and valuable resources. The disadvantage? Who is supplying this information? It doesn’t take much to rewrite history with wikis. With the punch of four keys you can change the date of World War I, and be credited with giving a kid a D on his paper because he/she believed what you wrote. Scary.

The great thing though is wikis can help anyone. The concept of it can be skeptical, but businesses worldwide and everyday users can benefit from them tremendously.

I found a helpful presentation online that features this topic. Nick Finck, Mary Hodder, and Biz Stone came up with a list of how wikis can help both externally and internally. One was for product based companies, Wikis can focus user’s desire to share ideas, feel involved, and share problems. This open forum relationship is great. It helps consumers find answers about products and companies find ways to improve. They also find that wikis encourage people to share knowledge in writing that were previously reluctant to share due to the difficultly of sharing and the feeling of apathy or uselessness. 

 I’ve found that possibly in my career wikis would be a help to me too. I would like to do event planning when I graduate this December. Perhaps if I was touring with a band and I needed information on a venue such as location, population, parking, security, wikis could offer some info that would help. I could then share my knowledge with others and provide and receive feedback that would also help in the future.

I guess the lesson today is wikis can help you only if you search and then search again on information that you need. I know I’m not gonig to trust the first thing that pops on the screen, but only after your own effort to see the truth it can be of service to you.

Dismissed.

Below are the survey’s objectives that were clearly defined on the beginning of the report.

1. Assess the overall health and strength of the public relations profession.

2. Identify trends and emerging issues based on year-over-year comparisons of GAP data.

3. Compare the manner in which the PR profession is practiced and organized among companies identified as “Most Admired” by Fortune Magazine as compared with all others.

4. Assess the perceived importance of the PR function relative to other organization functions.

5. Determine how organizations perceive the value of, use, and organize their in-house PR departments, and how they work with external public relations agencies.

6. Ascertain current Generally Accepted Practices (GAPs) and explore “Best Practices” for PR.

7. Identify gaps in knowledge requiring further investigation.

8. Provide PR practitioners with practical, applied research that will be of immediate use to them, thereby helping them to improve their effectiveness.

The survey was sent via mail to approximately 8500 organizations and a total of 347 senior level practitioners responded to the 34-question survey, either on line or in hard copy.

It was from this scenario that questions were answered using practitioners budget figures, PR salaries and also opinions of PR importance in their corporations using a Likert scale type of format. (e.g. Respondents were asked to describe the appropriateness of their reporting line by selecting a number from 1 (“Strongly Agree that it’s Appropriate”) to 7 (“Strongly Disagree that it’s Appropriate”)

(tap, tap, on the podium) Ok. So it’s time for my grade. This survey receives an A-, and if you read my Edelman/Technorati blog survey analysis, you know my criteria is always the same:

• Pros and Cons of the survey
• Transparency and evidence of methodology being clearly revealed
• The survey’s instrument that was used
• General analysis of the value of the research, such as what was learned and what was missing

 Pros: I thought this survey was thorough, valid and gave a good indication that PR is becoming widely used in corporate decisions, behaviors and practices. Cons: Like almost all of surveys, the response rate of 4% should be higher. Also, the projections they were proposing, such as the budget of PR on the rise and jobs increasing, seem promising, yet are unreliable given that these are speculations crafted from only 347 respondents.

The methodology was aimed at getting answers from people that mattered. They accomplished this with targeting senior level practitioners in PR companies as well as “Most Admired” companies by Fortune magazine. They allowed respondents to complete the survey on line or by mail. This was helpful because it gave the respondents the option to fill it out at their leisure.

The used a variety of questions to get clear answers. This was probably the best practice used in this survey. They asked for PR budgets, reporting lines, salaries and other critical, and often hard-to-get-to, information. This allowed them take off their blinders and see the big picture.

In general, their report summary can be found on line here, so I’m not going to mouth off what they found.

What ”I” found was that overall the PR industry looks bright. When it was just starting out, people, CEO’s, and worst of all PR practitioners could not clearly define PR. It started to grow, get more credit, and become more used. Today, as seen with these findings, PR is arguably the most important part of the organizational function, even more so than marketing, legal and finance. It’s role is expanding and it is becoming more widely used in today’s organizations.

I think this report was conducted well, and if they come out with a fourth annual survey then we will see just how reliable this survey truly was.