Person in Charge of Getting the Word Out

I'm starting to settle into my new job at Askinosie Chocolate,

and I'm just smitten.

It is the perfect job for me.

However, I am constantly asked:

So what do you actually DO?

Do you get to eat chocolate all day?

Are there oompa loompas involved?

Well, 

I am a public relations professional for an artisan bean-to-bar chocolate factory, where I do get to eat chocolate frequently and there are not oompa loompas.

I adore my actual title:

Person in Charge of Getting the Word Out.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

I'm a storyteller,

an event coordinator,

a social media peep,

a listening ear for customers,

a idea factory for journalists

and simply an advocate for the company.

A wise professor once described PR as three things:

reading,

writing &

relationships.

I love all of those things.

My outfit for my first day of work!

Being the Person in Charge of Getting the Word Out,

you all will be hearing much more of Askinosie's story in posts to come,

but for now that is all.

Hopefully, you understand what I do a little better than before.

Indulge in yummy chocolate always,

Coffeegirl

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Chocolate Girl

This Coffeegirl is about to become a Chocolate Girl, too!

If you keep up with my blog, you may have heard of this wonderful local chocolate factory in Springfield that I adore,

Askinosie Chocolate.

In fact, I counted earlier this week, and I have mentioned them in 7 blog posts.

I may be a bit obsessed.

Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch chocolate manufacturer located in Springfield, Mo., that sources all of their beans directly from the farmers. Shawn Askinosie, the founder, works directly with the farmers and source cocoa beans for his yummy chocolate. They also go above and beyond Direct Trade by investing the farming communities and the Springfield community. They have dug wells, set up food programs and taken high school students to Africa.

Well, this week, I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime.

Starting the Monday after graduation, 

I will be the new PR girl for Askinosie Chocolate.

Words cannot express my joy over this new adventure.
I cannot wait to learn more about the chocolate industry
and to make the world a little better by telling Askinosie's story.

This job combines everything that I love:
PR, Spanish, Speciality Food and making a GLOBAL impact.
It could not be more perfect for me.

Mallory and me celebrating with lunch on C-Street!

On a personal note, Shawn will be receiving an honorary doctorate from MSU as I graduate in TWO short weeks as well as giving my graduation commencement speech, which is really exciting for me.

I will also have the lovely opportunity to work with one of my lovely friends, Mallory Roth.

I'm about to enter the professional world, and I could not be more thrilled. 

I promise to share lots of fun chocolate tidbits as I learn them!

-Coffeegirl

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4 PR Tips from Andrea Harp

Through PRSSA, I recently job shadowed Andrea Harp, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator at Ozarks Community Hospital. It was a fun experience. I was so thankful that Andrea took time out of her busy schedule to let me get to know her better and learn more about PR in the real world.

I thought I would share with you 4 of my favorite tips she gave me:

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1. Never Underestimate the Power of Tagging:
Andrea manages the blog, and she said that since OCH started using social media, they now come up before Cox Hospital (a super large hospital in Springfield) in the Google search engine. She said to tag every blog post well because it truly increases your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and therefore your online presence and traffic.

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2. Introduce Yourself to Your Co-workers as a New Employee:
As a PR professional, it is important to get to know your co-workers in all departments right away. Don't be afraid to go around and introduce yourself. To quote Andrea, "everybody poops", so don't let titles intimidate you. Knowing your co-workers on a personal level helps you professionally especially if you need their cooperation to generate social media content like for a blog.

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3. Be Aware of Rules in Your Industry:
Andrea works in a for-profit hospital and health care provider. Because of this, there is a lot of red tape and procedures she must take to follow the law. For example, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) restricts release of patient permission. Everything is confidential. They must not even email about a patient's condition because the lack of security. In order for Andrea to gather patient testimonials, she has to ask for permission in advance, so it is not harassing the patient. Also, they have to be careful that no patients are accidentally photographed when taking pictures. These are some of the rules for the health industry, but every industry has their own set of rules, and it important to know them.

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4. Ask People How They Want to Contribute:
When Andrea came on, she introduced herself to her co-workers asked them if there was a specific way they would like to contribute to social media content. For example, some of the doctors like to write blogs for Andrea, while others are comfortable talking with reporters, and other go on camera for YouTube videos. By getting others in the organizations involved, it gives the community an expert and takes pressure off you.

I had a fabulous time chatting with Andrea and her boss Carrie. Everyone at OCH was so friendly. I highly recommending shadowing someone with a job your would like to have one day. For me, it only solidified my passion for PR and social media!

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Reflecting on PRSSA National Assembly 2011

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Last week was a blur. Coming back from Seattle had me hitting the ground running leaving little time for blogging, which makes me sad because I have so many exciting things to share with you lovely people. :)

First of all, I was absolutely honored to represent my Missouri State Chapter at PRSSA National Assembly 2011 in Seattle, WA. As you all probably know, I was a bit apprehensive going to a National PRSSA event for the first time on my own with no context for the event, riding in an airplane for the first time on my own, and being with some of the top PR students in the nation.

All of my fears and worries were unneeded. I had a fabulous time as you can tell by all my photos. I want to really share and process this amazing opportunity with you all. Bear with me as I still am experiencing jet lag and sleep deprivation.

I do not know how to describe the instant connection I seemed to make with people there. Making friends seemed effortless. We all had many things in common: we are passionate about PR, love PRSSA, and want to succeed in our education and careers. And PR people LOVE people!

Friday was incredible. A lot of it was simply talking to other PRSSA members and seeing how they do things differently. I asked everyone "How do you set up your eboard?" "How do you organize your firm?", etc. Often conferences can be so jammed packed with important speakers, it leaves little time to engage with your peers at the conference. This was not the case at National Assembly.

People were oozing at the seams with ideas, and it was contagious to be around such passionate people.

Some ideas I have for my Chapter include:

1. Having a fundraiser expo on campus charging businesses to be there, 
2. Going to more National activities, 
3. Having a social media calendar to give our Chapter a specific voice,
4. Creating committees to support the e-board instead of having specific chairs,
5. Establish lasting connections with our supporting PRSA chapter by possibly having a Professional Advisor.

The one item I took away from the entire experience is being a part of the election process. Watching my peers run for office, voting for them, and then see them become our new National Committee was priceless. I feel comfortable contacting any one of them about my Chapter because I established a personal relationship with many of them at Assembly.

As great as Seattle was, coming back to Springfield was harder than I anticipated. This past week it is almost as if I have experienced reverse culture shock. After being surrounded by such passionate PR people, it is difficult to come back to a diverse group of people and try to explain my experience and my ideas. Everyone has a listening ear, but some experiences have no words to describe them.

And jet lag doesn't help. :)

But I am feeling more like myself again, and ready to tackle the end of the semester!

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5 Ghetto Tips on Looking Professional

While I was packing for PRSSA National Assembly in Seattle,

I started to realize lots of little shortcuts I take to make myself appear professional.

Let's face it.

I am a college student.

I am working on developing a professional wardrobe,

but sometimes the cash is just not there.

So I thought I would share 5 of my Ghetto Tips to Looking Professional:

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1. Sharpie Shoeshine:

Do you ever have scuffed black pumps? I am super clumsy, so I have this problem frequently. I should probably buy some shoe shine, but right now I am satisfied with black sharpie. Just color in the scuffed marks with black sharpie, and your shoes will look as good as new. This tip actually came from Dr. Wood in Communication Careers.

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2. Safety Pins Fix Everything:
"Dang it! My button fell off my pants!" Never fear, safety pins fix everything from necklaces to black pants. Just safety pin, your pants together and wear a belt over it. No one will know the difference.

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3. Steamy Shower Straightens Fabric:

If your shirt is wrinkled and no iron or dryer is to be found, a shower will work. Yes, you heard me. I actually heard this tip from my roommate at Assembly, Veronica Adamcik. Hang up your wrinkled article of clothing in the bathroom and let the shower on hot. (Not in the water!) Occasionally, pull the clothing to make it straighter.

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4. Fill Holes in Hose:
This tip is more common, but if you rip your hoes ladies, never fear clear nail polish can fix it in a jiffy. A small tip that can save your life.

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5. Hiding the Melted Mess of a Shirt:
Have you ever ironed anything that wasn't supposed to be ironed? I have. At a Speech and Debate tournament. I freaked about it for a while until I realized my cardigan covered up the crazy mess. No one was the wiser.

Hope these tips help you navigate disasters at professional conferences!

I will keep you updated on the Assembly as well!

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Build Your Own Cathedral

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One of our speakers at PRSSA Day last Friday was Ryan Knapp, Digital Manager of NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches Association of America). He gave some invaluable tips on using social media to build your personal or business brand. (Although, he said that the phrase "building your personal brand" rubbed him the wrong way). He was an incredibly engaged speaker with a lot of content directed at social media.

5 Social Media Tips from Ryan Knapp:

1. Social Media is not free. Yes, it is essentially free to utilize; however, in order to use it well, it takes time, which is cost. So it is important to know what social media outlets would give your company value (benefit over cost).
2. Make the networking come to you. He shared a story about how a young guy created a place for soccer people to discuss things online bringing the networking to him.
3. Don't just send a resume. Make a full "I want a job" campaign. He shared another story about a lady who used the hashtag #IwanttoworkforDR (Digital Royalty). She would post blog posts to Twitter and tweet things of why she should work there. She works there now. 
4. Social Media can be utilized for "Social Good". It is a great way to promote and bring people together for a cause.
5. It is just a tool just try something. Do. Tools should play off your ability to do. Social Media is like legos. There are instruction booklets out there, but you need to build your own car. (Hence, the awesome Twitter graphic made from legos!)

Knapp also shared a great story of a man named Don Justo. A man from Spain who built a cathedral out of nothing. People thought he was crazy, but he continued to "build his own cathedral". 

That is what social media boils down too: tools that allow you to Build Your Own Cathedral.

My favorite power point image used:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

I hope you laugh at this picture as much as I did, and don't leave rude commentz...unless you want to. ;)

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PRSSA Day 2011: Social Media

PRSSA Day was on Friday.

It was a HUGE success!

It essentially is a student planned PR conference at MSU.

We had key note speakers like Ryan Knapp & Tressa Robbins, social media panel, & networking.

This year's theme was Social Media.

Yeah!

Not to mention GREAT FOOD!

And only for $12! 

(Well, $15 for me because I registered late.)

Here is a picture of our awesome executive board who made it all happen this year.

Sara McClendon, Sara Gwin, Lindsay Van Quaethem, and Daniel Ortega

I will share what I learned in more detail soon!

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Elsie & Emma of Red Velvet

Exciting news!

This past week, I had the privilege of interviewing Elsie & Emma of Red Velvet about how they use their blogs to promote their business.

If you have never checked these girls out online, 

you SHOULD!

They are so adorable.

And if you live in Springfield, you should check out their shop on Commercial Street.

 Red Velvet is a vintage & hand-made things boutique that also sells cupcakes! 

 I had so much fun doing my first "Broadcast Journalism" project.

If you want to check out my team's story on Social Media in the Springfield community, click here.

Also, here is the video we made:

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Social Media Boot Camp with Sarah Evans

Today, I attended a Social Media Boot Camp with Sarah Evans and Social: IRL. It was incredible. Sarah Evans is a PR and new media consultant at Sevans Strategy and a guest writer for Mashable, a prestigious social media blog. She also has her own blog at PRsarahevans.com and is a "social media freak", and her Twitter is @PRsarahevans and leads a Twitter chat called #journchat.

Photo here

 Here are my 7 Social Media Tips from her today:

1. Hone in your passion when blogging. If you care about what you are writing about, it will show.
2. Twitter is all about the "re-tweet". Always leave room for others to "re-tweet" your tweet.
3. Always create a Facebook Fan page for business NOT a personal profile page.
4. Every moment is a PR moment. "Tweet" about news breaking news you experience such as earthquakes, and journalists may come to you.
5. Make Social Media Releases that are SHAREABLE with strategic time releases.
6. Blog headlines are for search engines, and "Tweets" make it attractive to click on.
7. Do not "pitch" Bloggers, but partner with them and establish relationships instead.

It was a great event, and I left with lots of ideas and networking opportunities. The Coffee Ethic even catered the event, so I baked the muffins for the event. Coffee and Community really did collide for me today! I also got to spend lots of time with my classmates and my former internship supervisor, Lindsey Neddenriep. My fellow Bear Communications member Doug and I came up with some great ideas for Urban District Alliance. I appreciated Ben Smith of Social: IRL to bringing such a reputable social media guru to Springfield, MO.

Extra tip from Sarah: Share a little "link love" with others. Link others and sometimes they will link you back. It's about the relationships you create online and continue offline.

Do you all have any tips for Social Media and PR users? Pin It

Urban District Alliance

I briefly mentioned this in an early post, but I have exciting news.

Missouri State's PRSSA, Public Relations Student Society of America, has a student PR firm called Bear Communications. This semester, we have a new client: Urban District Alliance, and I am one of the account executives for one of the teams.

Urban District Alliances is essentially Springfield's community development organizations. They work a lot with downtown. (Which I love!) They want us to create an entire PR campaign for them. I have an awesome team that I met with today for the first time including Megan Haeffele, Doug Gaehle, and Bryan Milbach.

I am looking forward to working on a real life PR project with my fellow classmates and get to invest into an area of Springfield I love. Pin It

I Got a Pen

 So I got a new pen this week...

This doesn't mean a whole lot to any of you, but the reason I got the pen means a lot to me. 

I am a PR student, as you may know. This semester, I was in Dr. Dyer's Public Relations Writing Class. We got "clients" to write our pieces on; mine was AIDS Project of the Ozarks. And Dr. Dyer always encouraged us to get our work published.

Well, this past Wednesday, I had my first PR piece published in the Springfield News-Leader.

Dr. Dyer promised a pen if we got published. It says: 

"Personal Excellence Award

Dr. Dyer says: Well Done".

I have had pieces in the paper before, but not like this one. The News-Leader did not ask me to write it (nor did they pay me for it); I annoyed them until they put it in the paper. Well, annoy might be a strong word--you get the picture.

Do you know what the best part was though? The first person to congratulate me that I did not tell was my former supervisor at Ozarks Food Harvest. Lindsey Neddenriep tagged me in a her Facebook status, and it made my day.

The best part of the pen is it lights up!

If the coolness of this pen is any indicator of my future in PR, I would say it is bright! ;)

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Community Relations for PRSSA

.

So this year, I have decided to get more involved on campus at Missouri State. I mean, I am junior, so it is now or never.

Last year, my lovely aunt, who is a PR professor at Belmont, paid my membership for PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) for Christmas. And this year, I am co-chair with Andrea Lensing for Community Relations. I am so excited!

This job suits me so well because I am already plugged in the Springfield community and want to help a of these non-profits any way I can, and now, I have an outlet for that.

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Basically, we want to help volunteer at a different non-profit event each month, to get our organization's name out there and get more involved in the community. This Friday, we are volunteering at "Halloween Night at the Museum" at the Discovery Center. We get to dress up and help kids have an educational, fun Halloween.

Next month, we are also planning to help Ozarks Food Harvest's Fashion Show. This one is dear to my heart because of my internship with them this summer. I am excited to be a part of them in a small way again.

This chair position has also made me realize that I could potentially love working in Community Relations for an organization. So if non-profit PR doesn't happen for some reason, I have something to fall back on. :) Pin It

AIDS Walk 2010

Through my Public Relations writing class, I have been writing with a partner, Kim Perry, for a local non-profit organization, AIDS Project of the Ozarks. They are such a great organization providing relief for HIV positive individuals in 29 counties through Southwest Missouri. Their services include medical help, financial aid, non-perishable item pantry, counseling, etc.

This Saturday, I participated in their event, AIDS Walk. It was so fun like one big family block party including a bounce house, face painting, and red hair extensions, of course.

Around 10, everyone gathered for the walk, which was phenomenal. It is hard to describe. I was all alone amongst this tight nit community. Watching all of these people with a deep connection come together as a community and walk together proudly was breathe taking. I was so honored to be a part of that.

I also ran into a Coffee Ethic regular, Casey Cox, who introduced me to much of the staff of APO. It was great to talk to him and learn about all of their needs as an organization and what they are doing in the Springfield community.

After the walk, there was the Dog Parade. Oh my goodness, there were so many dogs dressed up in the most adorable outfits. Here are just a few:

The experience as a whole was amazing. I walked, met new people, got a T-shirt, and some red extensions! I hope that next year I will be able organize a group to walk. 

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PR Challenge for Coffee

I am a Public Relations student, right now, at Missouri State. I recently did a project in my PR class about the life of Doris Fleischman, Edward Bernay's wife. Bernays is the self-proclaimed "father of PR". And although that may sound a bit self-righteous, he did make some rather major alterations to American culture through PR tactics. 


Did you know he is the reason that Americans enjoy a hearty breakfast as opposed to a pastry-heavy breakfast in Europe? Let's just say he worked for the pork and chicken industry.


Did you know he is the reason why it is culturally acceptable for women to smoke? He created an entire campaign around Easter Sunday that had attractive women smoking at the parades. He called them "freedom sticks". Because of this PR campaign, an entire generation changed their values and saw it acceptable for women to smoke.


If Bernays can do all this with PR, why can't specialty coffee professionals do the same. 


That disconnect of treating all coffee the same, like I discussed in my last post, can only be cured by baristas around the country. It is our job to change people's opinions and behaviors about coffee. Public Relations is all about promotion, brand awareness, and education. That is what the specialty coffee industry needs if anyone will be able to know the difference from a cappuccino at a gas station and a traditional cappuccino. Or to know the difference between a Starbucks machiato and a traditional machiato. 


Starbucks changed our culture once before just like Bernays. Now, it is the third wave coffee shops' job to do it once more.


It will take education, research, dedication, patience, and the willingness to listen. Snobbery about coffee is not the answer. As baristas, it is our job to make sure the customer understands what they are ordering and to serve the best product we can.


It will take intentional events, classes, and making information accessible to the average Joe. We need to make learning about coffee an easy option.


Sure, sometimes we will have to encounter people who may treat us rudely or even worse--like every other barista they have encountered. But if we treat people with respect and kindness, we can create a culture revolution just like Bernays.


One customer and one smile at a time. 

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