Zappos.com

I recently did a project on Zappos.com, an online shoe company, which has an outstanding corporate culture. In my business ethics class we were assigned to choose a company who we believe is ethical and do a presentation for our class. I originally saw Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh on Oprah prior to the assignment. As many people know I have a not-so-secret love affair with shoes, so this topic is right up my ally.

I knew this was a great company after seeing the oprah interview but my love for this company began with a youtube video I watch while doing research for my presentation. Hsieh spoke about their unbelieveable customer service and the culture of the company. I have never heard of a company quite like this one. Hsieh is not your typical CEO who hides in his enormous corner office and owns 20 designer suits. He wears casual clothes each day where he works alongside other employees in a CUBICLE.

In order to enhance the Zappos atmosphere they frequently have office parties and parades! Hsieh prides himself in making a workplace where employees actually want to be there. The reason I chose this topic to blog about is partly to share how fantastic I think this company is but also to talk about social media. One of the ways that Zappos creates a family culture and great relationships is through their twitter. They post about the company, random things that are happening in their lives, and jokes. While reading their twitter page I smiled because I enjoyed what the employees had to say as well as Hsieh. I can proudly say that I am follower of Zappos on twitter and they are following me in return.

I will honestly admit that at first I was not a huge fan of twitter but now that I am emersed in it, it has 'tipped' for me.

Blue Thunder

Is GCSU Baseketball on the verge of tipping? I do not know the answer to that yet, but I know what I saw on Friday night. My Pr Administration class is doing a campaign for the Basketball team in hopes we will change the culture of the games and promote some attendance. Well, the average head count for the games in 2006 was around 700 people. The last game a few days ago obly had 300, but our Blue Thunder game had 1170! To say the least we were thrilled at the turnout.
It was actually a lot of fun promoting the event because of the blue tie dye on campus that everyone really seemed to enjoy and the body paint outside the game. I cannot say that I ever thought I would paint a stranger's body blue but in fact now I can.
When we first realized how many people had attended the game, my first thought was, "Is this a coincidence?" Then I looked at the crowd and the majority of the fans were wearing blue. Well our promo's told attendees to sport their blue gear so I think we really did make a difference. At first the campaign was another school assignment but after seeing changes starting to occur I am really getting thrilled about promoting the junk out of our next event!

Wedding Guest List

I was searching through wedding blogs to find more useful information on my future career of Wedding Planning and I ran across how important a guest list is in the course of planning. Susan Southerland's Blog explained that most other aspects of planning have to do with the number of attendees. The reception, ceremony, and caterer all depend on the head count. On her blog she gave a great site that can be used to electronically enter each guest with all of their information.

After the wedding, thank you cards for gifts will be easy because you have each guest's information easy to reach. Giving brides simple resources like this will make them appreciate you more as a planner because it will take stress out of their lives. I want to be a planner that makes a wedding fun and not a headache by being experinced and a fountain of wedding knowledge.

"Tip" me over and pour me out

I bought a copy of the "Tipping Point" at the school bookstore thinking it was just another textbook. After turing through the pages I realized that this book really has a significant point. This book refers to the "tipping point" which is the moment that sets into motion an epidemic. These epidmics are initiated from different triggers but they all lead to a spark that will catch to quickly head in another direction.

What the book refers to as "the power of context" set into motion a change in New York's terrible crime rate. It was not fighting crime head on and putting people away for violent crimes that caused the sharp downward spike in crime; it was something different. The power of context relies on the evironment to shape people's actons.

New York's subways were trash and graffiti ridden. When William Bratton took on fixing the subway system he revamped the inerior and trains because it was the environment that was the spark that triggered the violence. This is synonymous with the broken window theory and once the graffiti was wiped clean and fares were paid a change occurred. This epidemic is explained in the fact that "behavior is a function of social context."

By relating this to us as college kids I think I can better keep the attention of my fellow PR bloggers, I will take an intermission from the complexities of the tipping point and relate it to High School musical! I think that in the movie the tipping point is Zack Effron. I am sure most of us agree that he is rather attractive and I think that if it were some other boy up there shaking his bon bon it would not be the same at all. I think that we all admire his dance skills as well as the back pockets of his jeans (win,wink).

Back to a more serious topic... Other than an environment effect in society, there are also types of people who may cause a tipping point. A "connector" is an important type of person who is influencial to those around them and they have to ability to trigger a new wave. There are also salesmen, and mavens who lead as influencers of society. If I labeled myself as one of these types of people, my personality most relates to a maven. If I ever have insite in an opportunity or a deal I share it with as many people as possible. For example when I go to Kroger and hummus is on sale 10/$10 and it is regularly $3.99, I let all my roomates know. Also, if there are sales on websites I tell anyone who I think my be interested so that they can benefit from it as well. I never thought about this quality starting any kind of epidemic but maybe to some degree it has. After reading this book, I am led to believe that perhaps I have lead to a tipping point at least to some small degree.

Our "One team, One spirit" campaign could tip this semester because of what in the book is the golden box factor. We do not have an interactive ads persay, but the Thunders around campus are definitally a converstaion starter. A way that we might further tip this campaign would be via the stickiness factor. People become interested in something depending on how "sticky" it is. We must make our events sticky like the example in the book of the creators of Blue clues. As much as we as PR people do not want to be labeled as marketers, knowing our target audience is the way to giving an idea stickiness. We need to make sure the ways in which we are not only advertising to our students is sticky but also the events themselves. Without stickiness we cannot create traditions.

I feel that Twitter has tipped to many of my fellow pr students. For me, twitter is gradually becoming more interesting. At first I felt like it was just one other thing that I had to check. Now, I feel like I know my classmates better and I am happy to know what they are up to and I think we can relate to each other besides just working on projects with one another.

I think that social media in general has tipped. A lot of social networking through media outlets is in large due to the success of facebook. Facebook was much more sticky than myspace I think partially because of the power of context. Facebook has cleaner content and pictures and started out as only a college network. This factor elimninated many of the creeps so it had a better environment which caused the huge tipping point.

After reading the book if we look around at popular examples like Blue Clues, the New York crime rates, as well as facebook we can see that these epidemics all having crutial tipping points initiated by a nontraditional cause.

Fashion Week

Many fashion seeking women thrive on New York's famous fashion week where all the top designers congregate to show their lastest trends. I have newly discovered that there is a actually a bridal fashion week were designers Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Badgley Mischka, and many others put their wedding collections on the runway.

New York's bridal show was in April of this year right before the boom of wedding season. Brides flock to the show with the idea to splurge on a couture gown for this special day or just get be inspired by the impecable designs.

Some gowns that were showcased were traditional gowns that you would see in any wedding, but some include color and interesting twists on Bridal dresses. To attend New York's bridal fashion week as a soon to be bride would be the epitomy of perfection to be surrounded by the excitement of fashion inspired by love.

I would be in awe to attend one of these shows and would suggest every bride to at least search the collections. I feel that many bridal gowns begin to look the same after a while and I think these leading designers bring a fresh perspective to tradition.

PR Open Mic

I feel like Pr Open mic is the facebook of the PR world. I am really glad that Carter introduced us to this site because I am already become increasing nervous about finding an internship. As of yet, I haven't seen any opportunities for wedding planning but I will be looking! Also, I feel like open mic will be a better fit for me than twitter for PR news and networking.

What I am most excited about pr open mic is the side bar with different blogs and pages that you can access. Things like internships, pr blogs, and important links are put right there when I have been searching for this on google all semester. I am not the most techno. savy person by any means whatsoever and I think this site is super user friendly.

Each week I am really starting more and more to feel the weight of graduating, finding a job, and becoming and adult. I know that if others are not saying this most of us are feeling it. I think that this new networking tool may help to alleviate some of these fears. I think now more than ever these fears are very real because our economy going in such a downward slope. It may be hard for new grads who have no job experience to enter into the market. Hopefully some good networking, hard work, and prayers will do the trick!

Budget tips for Weddings

I am starting to get really interested in finding out as much as I can about wedding planning. I found a website that has an article with great price cutting tips. I feel that as a future wedding planner one of the most important aspects of my job will be to give couples who are on a strict budget an insider's scoop. I plan to educate myself on all the best price cutting strategies so that people can get more for less. I think that as an event planning professional it is our responsibily to strech dollars and make every penny count.

In this article there are tons of money saving tips for weddings in the day or at night. Also, some of these tips could be used for multiple events. For example, it talks about where to spend your money that will make the biggest impressions on guests. The event program is an item that may make a big impression on guest especially since they may keep these.

I know that most of my knowledge will come from actually interning with a wedding planner or at a venue that hosts many weddings. I would like to keep finding meaningful articles like these that will help me have some idea of what to do before I job search.