PetVoice

The third chapter of Made to Stick is all about how to use concrete to get your ideas across. Concrete language helps make a message “stick.” However, concrete language is harder to achieve than I thought. For example the chapter introduces the story about the fox and the grape, and the message about “sour grapes.” Concrete word usage painted a clear picture in my head about what this story was about and it stuck with me. Same with the example from Elliot, the third grade teacher, she did an experiment with her students about prejudice by separating blue-eyed children and brown-eyed  children and took turns treating one group more superior than the other. Needless to say the experiment stuck. Concrete language is using key fact words such as bicycle, avocado, and chair, to express a message. Abstract language is words that can be inferred in multiple ways such as, love, justice, and lust.

Here is an example of abstract language:

"We continue to find for our insurance portfolios small
portions of really outstanding businesses that are available,
through the auction pricing mechanism of security markets, at
prices dramatically cheaper than the valuations inferior."

This long sentence has way too many words that could be more concrete and slimmed down to be easier to
understand and more concrete and "stickable." Basically this sentence is saying that they are
finding small businesses that are making great profit for them. The sentence can be easily cut down and made
 concrete and it would stick to the reader more effectively.

So! In class we are reading this new book called “Made to Stick.” It’s really a great book that captures your attention from the first sentence. The book starts out taking about a kidney Heist and than goes into why certain stories and ideas stick to people and why some don’t. It also talks about how important it is to get across your “core” message to your audience. What I find is really helpful is the idea that whatever you write should be simple and concise. In this day-and-age people do not have the patience nor the attention span to sit and read pages and pages of information, they want to get to the point and move on. This book really stresses how important it is to keep it simple and get your core message across concretely. It’s definitely a good read!

PETA has been known for its notorious fight for animal rights. They are thought of as extreme activists, often going to frightening lengths to make an impact on their beliefs for animal rights. PETA is against eating meat, animal testing, using animals to make clothes, and pretty much anything else that has to do with using an animal for any other means than to look at it. Although, PETA has made some great campaigns against animal cruelty, and have grown to gain attention and sponsorship from celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, Paul McCartney, and Moby, PETA is also know for its shady financial reports and unethical campaigns and rallying that go against finding cures for diseases such as AIDS. Supposedly Ingrid Newkirk, president of PETA, is quoted as stating that “Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.” This is a very harsh statement, and some people refer to it as being anti-human. According to Newkirk’s spokesperson and campaign coordinator, Newkirks words were misquoted and that Newkirk feels that animal testing has made little headway in the search for an AIDS cure and sees no reason to continuously torture animals for such insignificant results. Well, no matter how it’s put, Newkirk really seemed to have put her foot in her mouth for this one.

So, last class I was introduced to the PRX builder, which basically is the technology behind building a social media news release. Many PR agencies are now converting to this modern, electronic form of creating press releases. However, I must say that, all though I am not very tech savvy, the PRX builder had a lot of kinks in it that really got to me. For one, I was never sure If I saved something properly, and I think a few of my classmates felt the same way when their work got erased. Also, there were some complications with the media portion of the PRX builder. For example; trying to upload a video on to the press release was difficult, and I’m still not sure how to accurately upload one. One other aspect that I didn’t like about the PRX builder was that I couldn’t position the media and the words in the places that I wanted them to be. I had to stick with the format that was given to me. But with that said I think it was a pretty easy tool to use. I felt that everything was pretty cut and dry, if not for all the random technical glitches it was a pretty fun, and interesting tool to learn, and something that I can see would come in handy in the future.

In light of the social media news release I will be doing in class tomorrow, I decided to write about the PAWS DOGGONE FUN RUN.

The DOGGONE FUN RUN, in alliance with the AIDS WALK, will be going on July 20, 2008. It is a great activity that anyone and any dog can participate in. This is for a great cause, and will bring a lot of awareness to the fight for AIDS, as well as to the services PAWS provides to its clients and their pets. All donations collected by the PAWS team will go directly into funding for the services PAWS provides. This is a great opportunity to get involved one foot and paw at a time!

In class today we learned how to create social media news releases. This was a great class for me since I think that social media news release are the new, “up and coming” form of press releases. I also know that it is a great skill to have mastered since a lot of companies now are really looking for people who are experienced in making social media news releases. One thing that I feel is really great about these new forms of news releases is that it is much more interactive. The reader can simply click on the provided links to actually see what the press release is about. I also like how social media news releases allow people to comment on it, therefore, allowing immediate feedback. I think that it’s also just more entertaining to read most of the time.  Here is a link for a social media news release PAWS released for a Halloween event it held last year: http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200710/1191525066.ht

This social media release is not as flashy as some, but it is more interactive and has a place for people to leave comments. This new form of news releases are also more accessible, since everything is becoming so electronic. It’s also a quicker way to get information a cross. Therefore, I really want to master the art of the social media press release, since I do believe it is the new wave of press releases.

I decided to do a Fortune 500 Blog Review on Microsoft blogs. Microsoft has a community of blogs, and a number of different blogs within it. There are employee blogs, which I found interesting and insightful. The community blogs consisted of a lot of technical jargon, a lot of information on different soft ware programs, more than likely quite useful to people who are tech-savvy, but all a bit fuzzy for me. There is a lot of blogs from and about Microsoft, and as I stated above, many of them are about the technical advances in the soft ware. However, in the Microsoft community blog I found one that had to do with Higher Education and it was published by Microsoft. This blog had to do with Microsoft programs being implemented in universities. The most recent Higher Education Blog had to do with two live meetings to learn about how a software program called; Business Intelligence can bring benefits to universities through Microsoft Performance Point.

Microsoft has many blogs, and they are frequently updated, however, they only seem to be highly relatable to people who would understand the technical terms that are used in the writing. The responsiveness to readers seems to be lacking, and the majority of the blogs are not very engaging, or encourage dialog. The blogs are informative and brief, but seems specified to people who are already familiar with the technical terms that are used. Overall, I feel the blogs are not very engaging, and catered to a specific audience not the general public, the employee blogs are the only ones that I found had a personal, and engaging tone to it, along with information that could be relevant for the general public.

• Ease of Finding: 9 - Once I type in Microsoft into my google finder, I get all these different blog links associated with Microsoft. Also on the Microsoft website I can search for their blogs pretty easily too.

• Frequency: 6 - They are pretty frequent, but I think they could update more frequently. The last entry I read was 2 days old.

• Engaging Writing: 5 - The writing would only relate to people who are tech-savvy, or really interested in finding out updated information on Microsoft. Very catered to a certain audience.

• Relevant: 6 - Blogs are really catered to people who are highly into technology, not relevant to the general public.

• Focused: 8 - It is very focused on its software and technological advancements.

• Honest: 7 -I’m sure that the information on the technology of the software is honest, however, I’m not sure how honest the employee blogs or the education blogs are.

• Interactive: 3 - I don’t think the blogs are very interactive at all.

• Responsive: 3-Not very responsive, I don’t see any entries that really respond to comments that were left on the blog.

Who doesn’t have a facebook account? It’s amazing how this social networking site has exploded into such a popular way of communicating to your peers. It really has become a center for social networks. There are so many different groups, and fan pages you can join. Now it has connected with Uloop to allow students to know what different services Uloop can provide. It’s really incredible. However, what I find is the creepy, stalkeresque feel I get when my business and all my other friends businesses pop up on my facebook site.  I really think if someone is going to utilize a networking site like facebook privacy has to be something to consider. Also the annoying applications for things like “human pets” who knows what that is? And the most recent one with the weird looking cabbage patch doll creatures; I think they’re called garden pets or something, can really cloud up your facebook page and make it irritating to navigate.  Other than that I think facebook can be a really good way to network with other people and get the word out about what you’re all about.

How does this image impact you, if at all? This is an ad I found on Fredrik Samuel’s blog titled Adgoodness (http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/). There are two more ads similar to this showcasing the cruelty done to animals during cosmetic testing. I am honestly torn, in ways I feel ads like this one are compelling and creative, on the other hand I feel like it’s much to graphic and overplayed. I’m not sure, do ads like these leave a strong enough impact on people to really become aware of lab testing on animals, or is it overdone and in need of a new angle to impact people? I am still torn, but I can say that it is a creative ad and one that definitely caught my eye. (No pun intended)

Stop Animal Abuse is a great blog, and a really good source of pr for people who are concerned with animal welfare across the world. It has extremely graphic videos and pictures of animals that have been abused that makes it nearly impossible to ignore the types of maltreatment animals all over the world are experiencing. This blog serves as a great tool for people to utilize if they want to become updated on the latest happenings on animal maltreatment. I don’t believe that anyone could not be moved by the images and words displayed on this blog.

http://www.stopanimalabuse.blogspot.com/