Reflective Writing: Assessing the Project

I enjoyed the project a lot. The outcome was perfect and some things took a little longer than expected but it was just about everything we had planned. I learned how to use wordpress and got to see all the different stuff it can do.

I feel that we did well on the project. We had video, sound, pictures, information, and our personal opinions. We covered all the things we needed and did more, so I think we did a good job on the project.

My favorite part of the project is the visuals, the pictures and videos. I got to share a lot of photos I had and the videos we made from our previous project and then a new video I made as well as a old video I had. Another part I like is the opinions, we were able to share our thoughts along with misc. blogs and sites.

My least favorite I think is the front page, it doesn't seem as exciting and maybe a little boring. Yes, it has a few photos, yet it doesn't show everything the site has to offer. Maybe next time I would spend more time on this part.

I would recommend this project for other students because it is a great way to put everything we learned throughout the semester into one project. From visual to design, the project covers it all. It is a great learning experience.

Weekly Post

This will be my last "Weekly Post," with today being our last day of class. I checked out Twitter to see what all the fuss was about. My thoughts so far.....ehhh it's okay. I'm not really sure what the whole point is. Just writing where I am at the moment or how I am feeling....and that's about it; at least to my impression. I won't give up on it yet, I will cruise around to see if I can find some people I know that use it.

I tend to check my Facebook more often and add more applications to it when I can. Before I just checked it about once a month. As for Myspace, I usually check it a few times a day. Today I wanted to see what different social networks were out there that I haven't heard of yet, and there were tons. I searched social networking and got the wikipedia source and a long list of different sites and the countries which they are popular in. I checked a couple of them out and still seem to enjoy the one's I am currently in, it could be because it is easier to not change. But times change and fads change. It should be interesting to see what sites become more popular or if they will fail because Myspace and Facebook have taken over.

Reflective Writing: Checking In

Time is ticking and the semester is almost over! Only 2 more class times left. The semester flew by and I learned a lot of great and handy things. So far my project has been going pretty good. I thought I might be doing a little more each day , but with the semester coming to an end I find my self not finding the time. I have a week left to buckle down and get it done. I don't think I am off track or am lagging behind on the project, I just think I would've had more time to do some stuff.

I have learned a couple things this far into the project. I have learned that I am still getting use to Wordpress and what it can and can't do. It took us a little longer to get our pictures and sound up, but we looked around on the website I figured it out. The only problem is taking the time to look around and see all the abilities it offers.

Generally, I think the project is turning out how we pictured it. Yes, of course we imagined maybe it had a bit more "pizazz!" but overall yes, it is turning out to what we expected. We have pictures, sound clips, interviews, and more.

As for the amount of time it will take us to finish the project, I think it will be done by this Tuesday. With the weekend approaching, a lot of it will get finished up then. I'm looking forward to the finished product!

Weekly Post

The cyclone that hit Myanmar a couple days ago is becoming more devastating as time continues and the death toll increases. I first read this story yesterday morning and it was said that 4,000 people were killed, 3,000 were missing, and 10,000 were estimated to have been killed. Yet, only 24 hours later the death toll has increased to 22,000 with an estimate of 41,000 to have been killed. These are drastically different than numbers within just 24 hours. I asked myself how can we get such different numbers within such a short amount of time? Our media and intelligence is so great yet we are unable to make a correct hypothesis of such a devestating storm? It still boggles my mind; are we in denial? do we want to rush the story and sart saying numbers which are completely wrong?

This isn't the first time which the numbers are totally off from the beginning. When the tsunami hit in 2004, we heard devastating numbers yet it continued to increase day after day. No one was prepared for hundreds of thousands to have been killed.

So I am still left with the question, how can we be so wrong and impatient to release numbers that are nothing close to what the outcome is? How is our intelligence so far off?

Lastly, I have not heard yet about this cyclone on whether or not the people of Myanmar were warned. Being that it is a cyclone, which is very similar to a hurricane, they must have known a storm was coming. Like Katrina, I could understand how people would stay thinking they could outlast the weather, yet for 41,000 people estimated to be killed, did they have warning? This is a topic that I have not read in articles, and hope for the media to touch on.

This was a horrible storm that mother nature has put on the people of Myanmar and hopefully the rest of the world will continue to come to their aid. And I hope the numbers stop increasing and I will keep the people of Myanmar in my heart.

Weekly Post

Social media is becoming the "it" thing for our generation. Almost everyone you know has a MySpace or Facebook. I myself have both, I got a MySpace my senior year of high school and a Facebook my freshman year of college. I have come into contact with so many people I haven't seen in a long time, from elementary school to people who were on sports teams with me. I find it a great way to connect with people, those I know and those I have never met. I personally enjoy MySpace much better. Facebook seems to have a lot more pointless items, such as all of the poke, superpokes, and items to buy. My friend told me how it is perfectly when she first signed up, "why do I want to pay a dollar for a picture of a bunny?" Yes, this seems absolutely pointless, and I didn't get it either. Plus everyone is always sending notifications, "join and be a pirate" or "join and see what type of Barbie you are." I always find myself "ignoring" it all. So, my personal opinion is MySpace, it's easier and your page can be simple or if you want you can spice it up. As for other social places I heard of the website Virb and checked it out. I didn't seem to like it and notice very few people have them. Those who did have them didn't have very many friends and they didn't seem to work on their site very much, as if they made it to see what it's about, yet never returned. So I think I will stick to Facebook and MySpace. I also may check out Twitter and see what that has to offer. I haven't really heard of it until these past few weeks, so I plan to check that out at least.

Reflective Writing: Getting Started

Our final projects for class are getting started and I will being doing mine with another girl in my class, Tanja. Our final project includes many different types of media like videos, sound, pictures, blog, podcast, etc. We chose to do ours on the San Jose Sharks. We chose this because we are both hockey fans and have done our previous videos about the Sharks. We got started this past week and have decided to do our website through word press because it will be easier to work on out of class and we can do it from home.

I expect to accomplish a good amount from this project. It will ultimately show if everything we have learned from class has been sketched into our brains and we are able to get good results. I think it is different from other projects in class because we will have more time on our free time, yet we won't have the ability to ask questions right away, we will have to work harder for answers. This can be a good thing, because when exploring the the site and figuring things out, you are also able to see things you might not have seen before and get more information. It also helps that I will be doing this a group. We will both be able to work off of each other and use each other's knowledge. We plan to divvy up the work load with different pages. We also plan to both work on misc parts online when at home. I personally am able to attend all of the Sharks playoff games and am able to gather pieces for our site, from sound to video and pictures. I expect our project to turn out very well and looking forward to it.

Weekly Post

Do bloggers belong in the locker room? That is the question I was given for this weeks post. (www.mcom63.wordpress.com) At first before I even read the article given, I thought, no way! There are a couple ways I look at it. Bloggers can be seen as either fans or average people that just want to share their opinion. The other way bloggers can be seen is a journalists. The average blogger is just an average joe wanting to talk about what they think. So I don't believe bloggers should be let into the locker room. If they are professional journalists that blog on the side, then yes, they should be able to be in the locker room or be on the field. After reading the article, I still feel that bloggers should be left out and watch from the view of an outsider. This view is also the view that will get them popular, if they do so. People like to read about what they see as well and be able to relate with the blogger. Having bloggers in with the media in sports I believe will be like fans and misc. people being in with the players and that will distract the team. As it said in the article, they might as well let fans, kids, tours, etc. in with the media. If bloggers were let in it would make it more difficult to hold people from being let in. Everyone might see themselves as bloggers after they write one entry and there would be more tension. Overall, I believe bloggers should stay out of the locke room and give their perspective from the outside, and grab the attention of their readers with the ability to relate with them.

Weekly Post

I was trying to think about what to write about for my weekly post, whether to write about a hot topic of the week or so forth. But I thought of something better. There is only one month of this semester left and I have learned a great deal of things from this class. Most recently I have learned how much I love making videos. I already knew I enjoyed doing it, but when the final piece was done, that's when I decided how much I enjoyed it. Seeing what I made in the end was exciting. All I can think about now is what other ideas I could turn into a video. Not only do I enjoy learning about how to make a great video, we have learned how to make a website, play with sound, images, make a newspaper, play with photoshop, and last but not least, a blog! This will be a class I will miss taking next semester. But it's not over yet, one month left and I can't wait to put everything we have learned into our final project. I really think it will turn out great!

Video Project

As I had said in previous posts, I went down to Anaheim over spring break and also took a lot of photos and some video. I have put a lot of them together to make a video for my class project. Here it is!! I enjoyed doing this project a lot because it was related with what I did over break and I can use this video to send my friends. I had a couple problems doing the video, such as finding music that won't be in copyright laws. So I wasn't able to get music that I completely enjoyed, but it ended sounding good. I thought the process overall was pretty easy. I was able to change the timing of movies or pictures and add and a couple effects. This project was fun and I am looking forward to doing our final project that includes all of the different types of media that we have learned.

Weekly Post

This post will be covering the website Hoopshype.com and an article written on it that was in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120605508959553157.html?mod=djem_jiewr_JM). Basically, the website is all about the NBA and everything surrounding it. It talks about individual teams, scores, trades, and rumors.

I myself do not follow the NBA very much, but as a sports fan I see how many NBA fans like to get their information from this site everyday. It covers a lot of info and rumors; the rumors is key asset, because many other fan sites don't contain this as much.

The article was pretty interesting, especially since I have never heard of the website before. But hearing how it started and the effort that has been put forth and what it has become, makes me believe that this website is something to check out. The article gave a brief background of the website and its founders. It was very shocking to read the founders have collectively only been to 3 NBA games. It shows that with proper research, one can share and become something more.

Questions:
1. I think Hoopshype has become successful because of the founders persistance of information and they are continuously posting info whenever they can. One may believe that if the players and coaches themselves turn to this website, then it truly must be good.

3. The success of the website shows that sports journalism is growing and growing fast. Journalists no longer have to be part of the game. Also that journalists and companies are banding together to use each others info. Sports journalism may be taking a step in the right direction or even the wrong direction. The personal side is being lost, especially finding out that these writers have not even seen 5 live NBA games.

Weekly Post

We are back from our spring break today, it's always hard to start up school again after a little break! I was definitely needed though! As I said I was heading to Anaheim for the end of break. It was a great trip and we all had fun. I also got great pictures and a couple videos for my next project. I'm looking forward to doing it.

Today I was also able to finish a quick extra credit project of making a postcard for the bay area. Here it is!!

Weekly Post

It is Spring Break right now and I just thought I would check in with this and write a little post. So far my break has been pretty fun! I turned 21, which is always thrilling! Then Easter with the family, never a dull moment with the family! I will also be going to LA at the end of this week. A couple of my friends, my sister, and I are driving down and going to Disneyland and a Sharks/Ducks game. Since I will be going on this fun trip I figured it would be a perfect idea for my next project for class. I will be taking photos and video from our trip and will put in a nice format. It should be a fun trip and a fun project!

Project

Here is a video I did for class called "My Lunch."

Weekly Post

I watched and listened to Thomas Friedman speak about his book, The World is Flat during a speech at MIT (http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/264/noreal/). He talked about the way he came across the name of the book. Being told "the global economic playing field is being leveled" and Friedman took this and came to realize he was being told the world was being flattened. That is how he came upon the name of the book.

He spoke about about globalization and how there have been three main era's. Globalization going through the country, the company and individuals. Right now we are going through the third, which is about individuals and small groups being able to make globalization. Globalization being the spread of culture, news, products, etc. The collaboration of people coming together is flattening the world as well as outsourcing and off shoring according to Friedman.

As he describes the different collaborations that flatten the world, such as outsourcing, collaborating, and off shoring, he describes these different things very well and how intricate everything is all the way down to UPS drivers. Each person has an affect on others and the products you buy are from corporations that are connected with others and the big name may not even have to even deal with the customers. I never thought of this before, when it is probably very true, but we tend to not think about these companies.

Friedman's speech is very good because he relates everything he says to the students he is speaking to the those listening. He uses examples that we as a society can understand. I enjoyed listening to his speech.

Weekly Post

Wikileaks is a website that I have never heard of until this past week. They have been under scrutiny as of late, but just recently Swiss Banks have dropped cases against them. Well first off what is Wikileaks? It is a website filled with documents and information leaked to the public. All of these documents are verified by many people. This website is very intriguing to me because it is another form of journalism. This website digs and finds what governments and companies don't want us to know. I am still trying to understand how the website completely works, but seeing how many different things have been leaked is mind blowing. Plus, the website offers different languages and a look into different countries. People all around the world can benefit from this website. I will continue to search around on Wikileaks and read about the different information that personally may affect me and things that affects those across the world.

Weekly Post

As I read a post from one of the blogs I am following, 101 PR (which is linked in a past blog), it has gotten me thinking more about blogs and their affects. The blog that they had written talked about how blogs have become a new place of journalism. It may not follow the usual journalism ways, but it has gotten viewers involved. The blog wrote about how bloggers have gained a great deal of readers and followers so much as or more than journalists do. Being that I am a beginner with blogging, I am just learning how bloggers continue to find other bloggers and read their posts. I myself was surprised how quickly I got responses from my posts the first week. Hearing back from readers, this surprised me because I figured only people you know would read these. But in fact, there are people looking for different opinions to read about and understand. Blogging has become a huge success with readers and writers and I am very curious on how it will grow.

Class Assignment: Parsing the Future

The link that I found the most interesting was for EveryBlock (http://sf.everyblock.com/). This is a good website for my major in PR because, we need to know what is going on with the people. PR needs to stay connected with the people and what they are doing. With this website, we are able to find out what is going on in the area or abroad. From business reviews to crimes that occur, we are able to look at what is going on. This website gives PR another way to see what people are doing at the time, and how it relates to their business decisions.

This also relates with #56 from the Cluetrain Manifesto, “These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other's voices.” As said before, there needs to be a connection between the people and the PR agencies. When working together there can be success for both sides.

This website not only helps PR connect with the people and see what they are up to, but it can inform them. People are often looking for things to do or places to go, this website can inform people and it gives great publicity to companies.

I think this website can expand and people will be able to use it on a daily basis, but they need to first know about the website and what it does. With the publicity of the website, comes publicity of many companies.

I found this website great for PR and for the rest of society.

Cluetrain Manifesto

After reading the 95 thesis' from the Cluetrain Manifesto, I felt that many were confusing and hard to relate to, but there were also a great amount that are very relatable. The most interesting one that I found, was #12, "There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone." I thought this was a great one. It is very true in today's world more than it ever was 10 years ago when this was written. Our access to the internet gives us the oppurtunity to talk with people that have used the products and have either liked them or not. We are able to get a breakdown. Going to company websites gives us the ideal look of what the product may be, but searching further about this item gives us the true answer of whether it is good enough. All the big items that I buy, I research about them a little bit. For example, I just purchased a new cell phone. It looked cool on television, on the website and in the store, but was it worth the money? I searched around on th internet and found awesome results. It helped me stray away from certain phones and help me choose the one I would get my money's worth. Another example would be Ratemyprofeessor.com. Going into a new semseter is always worrisome, but when you are able to get feedback from previous students, you get to know the professor more and decide if you want to take their course or not. This thesis is a perfect one becuase we often find ourselves looking for the answers that the corporate world wants to hide from us. Talking to other consumers gives us the true answers, sometimes goo and sometimes bad.

My major of PR was brought up in #26, "Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets." I would have to disagree with this because the job of public relations is looking out for the greater good of the public. They are helping the companies work and share their products with the public in the correct and healthy manner. Public relations is not afraid of the public, they are there to get close to them and understand them.

This manifesto was good to read and look at something that was written a good amount of time ago when computers were just taking off. These are still relatable and useful just some are understood a little differently.

Header

Here is a web page header that I made in class today. Hopefullly I can work on it more or make another one with all the information I gathered in class!

Blogs I'm Following

The two blogs that I will be folling for this class will be a Public Relations and Publicity Blog (http://101publicrelations.com/blog/) and another public relations blog with PR tips (http://www.sspr.com/blog/category/pr-tips/).

And the Winner is......

Hillary Clinton and John McCain took the state of California on Super Tuesday. It was an exciting night filled with winners and losers from not only the candidates, but the voters too. Voters in Alameda County had one very big problem. They ran out of Democratic ballots in many locations. Some places had people using ballots of different languages or photo copies of the ballot. This problem led to many issues. A judge decided to open the polls to a later time, 10 pm. Many people were told the wrong information via internet, radio, and television that it was open all over instead of particular places. Some ballots were accepted in places and others were turned down. There seemed to have been a lot of confusion with the workers. Not only was there confusion in this situation but with the ballots themselves. There was not electronic voting or whole poking, but rather connecting the lines. There were some misunderstandings with voters. This is was a new way of voting and some were not informed on how to do it correctly. Instead of connecting the lines, many people circled the candidate or checked next to their vote. The country was filled with a lot of voting throughout the day, which led to big surprises and obvious wins. It was a thrilling day for the country and we shall wait and see how the rest of the country continues to vote!

Photoshop Part 2

Today in class we worked a little bit more with photoshop. This picture was slightly altered. Being that it is older and has many spots we cleared a section of spots, cropped it, and changed JPEG to TIFF and then back to JPEG for this blog.

Photoshop

This is a photo of the DBH building that I lightened up a bit. There isn't too much change to this photo.







Here is the original:














Here is a photo of one of the statues on campus that I resized and changed the brightness a lot. This photo was extremely dark and could barely see the statue. Now we are able to see the statue and still get the great effect from the sun behind it.













Lastly, this is the MLK, Jr. Library. I changed the brightness/contrast and the resolution.
This is the before photo:

The search is on...

I began searching for some public relations blogs to follow and I found it harder than I thought. There are so many different blogs to follow. I came across a lot of good one's and a lot of bad one's. I want to get something out of reading these blogs; something I could use for my future and career. I want to be able to take what people have to say in their blogs and use their examples and see how they got to the level of achievement and hope for the same or even more success. I found a couple that I will be checking out on a regular basis to see if I enjoy them and also continue to look for others.

A Little About Me

My name is Tricia, I am currently going to SJSU and am learning how to blog for the first time in this class. The only experience I have before this class is pretty much Myspace.com and a few things here and there, otherwise I am starting fresh! I'm pretty excited about learning all this new stuff! I'm taking this class so I can learn how to do the basics and also credit for my PR major. This class should be fun!