December = Party!

Event planning is a large and exciting part of public relations, especially around the holidays. From family "get togethers" to office parties, anyone and everyone has some reason to celebrate during this month.

As I spend most of my days in the back office of Oba, I have witness our event coordinator's stress level increase by 20 percent. Everyone is calling to book their holiday events and of course everyone waits till the last minute to do so. And of course most days were booked in 2007. With most calls, I have to tell the potential client: "I am sorry. Our private dining room is booked that evening." There is some confusion, usually on their end and we try to accomadate them as much as we can.

But it always leaves me wondering:
Don't people plan ahead?

I have worked the past four holiday seasons at Oba and with my personnal expierence I have created simple guidelines for throwing a succesful event.

• When hosting or planning any holiday event, the main thing is to be organized.
• Before you start calling around town for venues and/or catering, have a strong idea of what you want for your event. Not being sure of the date or number of guests will get you no where.
• Whether having a large or small budget, be aware of your cash flow when planning each aspect of the event. If your boss is forcing you to make the office party at Pizza Hut seem like The Ritz, use your thinking cap and think of creative and cheap ways to entertain your guests.
  
• Have menu options that work for all of your guests. Not everyone loves what you do!
  
• Have your invitations/emails/phones/text messages/whichever form of communication you choose make your guests RSVP. Having an incorrect guestlist costs time and money on all sides.
• Always. ALWAYS have a plan b. The world is not perfect my friend!

Some other helpful tips/sources/ideas:
PartyPlansPlus.com's Tips for Hosting a Holiday Party
Delish's Five Ideas for Christmas Parties
Morebusiness.com's How to Organize a Holiday Office Party

Wordpress vs. Blogger

VS

I have been thinking about Wordpress vs. Blogger as blogging platforms for the last few weeks.

Which one is better?
Which one works for me?

I am now in a position where I am blogging with Blogger for my personal and public relations blog. Having run my personal blog for over a year now, I'm pretty much up to date with the capabilities and tools of Blogger. Wordpress is another story (and challenge) for me. When I started my public relations blog, I intended to use Wordpress. But after 10 minutes of playing around, I got frustrated and came back home to my beloved Blogger.

Personally, because I'm not much of a techie, I prefer Blogger, as it's easy to use, the templates are a lot easier to change and personalize. But I re-iterate that I have not had any experience with Wordpress, so perhaps my view on this could be differently!

After researching both blog platforms, I decided to make a list of the sites different features:

1. Blog Import: In Blogger - limited availability to import and export only in the same blogging platform; in WordPress - you can import from several other platforms, including from Blogger.
2. Image Storage: In Blogger - 300 MB; in WordPress - 3 GB.
   
3. Static Pages: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - static pages can be listed in separate menus.
   
4. Post by Email: In Blogger - accepted; in WordPress - not.
   
5. Categories: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - arranged with no problem.
   
6. File Uploading: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - files can be uploaded.
   
7. Indexing Time: Here Blogger produces far better results, as due to the tight connections with Google, it can appear in the Search Engines very fast.
   
8. Blog Revune: WordPress has serious restrictions on the publishing ads, so if you plan to use AdSense, your preferences will probably lean more to the Blogger.

Let me know your thoughts on what platform you prefer and why?
I'm interested to know what works for others out there.

My Podcast Adventure

This week I created my first podcast! At first I thought that it would be an easy assignment, but once I finally got down to recording my material I got a little nervous.

I knew what I was going to say. I had my notes ready. I practiced more than I needed to. But when it came time to press record: I froze. Suddenly I couldn't talk for more than 15 seconds without getting my words mixed up or just forgetting what I was trying to say altogether. Luckily, after 75 takes I was able to dismiss my bashfulness and record into the mic like a pro.

Outside of the classroom, the only experience I have had with podcasts was listening to NPR's "Car Talk" while doing homework. (So to say I am an expert in clearly an understatement.)

I decided to record my podcast on social media measurement. My goal for it was to allow fellow bloggers to learn and explore how to find out who is reading your blog and why it is important.


SHOW NOTES: EPISODE 1

The World of PR According to Miss Horley
Who’s reading your blog?
(Social Media Measurement)

Introduction :0-:45

Why monitor? :45-1:18

Overview of metrics 1:18-4:56

Conclusion 4:56-5:46

Next week 5:47-6:14


LISTEN!

Agency Profile: Henry V Events

My career goal after college is to work in event planning. As the my graduation date becomes more in sight, I have been spending some time researching event planning firms on the west coast. Last week I ran into an old college friend who was raving about her new job at Henry V Events, so I thought I would look into the company and figure out why she loved her job so much.

Company: Henry V

Location: 6360 NE MLK Jr. Blvd. Portland, OR 97211

Year Founded: 1978

Event Types:
Private Party
Corporate Event
PR / Marketing Event
Meeting
Conference
Convention
Lecture / Speaker

Henry V is the largest and oldest event planning company in the Pacific Northwest. As one of the Top 50 event agencies worldwide, their clients include Intel, Adidas, RYKA, The North Face, Jansport, Dr. Martens, Disney, KEEN and many more.

The company considers themselves as "a one - stop shop," provide staging, logistics (full service), strategic planning, creative concepting, shipping, trade fixture development and maintenance and much more.

Henry V does public, employee and sales events for small and large audiences. Their task is to 'Make Things Happen' and with an approach that with every event is to plan for what the audience needs to believe, feel or know as they leave your successful event.

As I spent last night looking through Henry V's Web site,
several questions popped into my head regarding my future career:
Do I want to work for a company this large?
Do I want to work with an event planning firm?
Or be the event coordinator at a venue?
Or be the event planner at company, such as Adidas or Nike?

With the more I investigate, I am learning there are many ways I could go about this profession of event planning. I am excited to continue my research and find the answers for my questions.

Tweet Tweet in a Twitter World

When my class first started learning about social media at the beginning of this term, our professor, Tiffany Derville, mentioned Twitter.

Twitter is a social media site designed to allow members to answer the question, "What are you doing?" by posting short status updates. On the site you can subscribe to "follow" someone and watch them as update their status. Other than being "followed" and "following" people, I wasn't really sure what else you can do. At first, I thought it was completely pointless. With Facebook and MySpace both featuring a status update application, why on earth would I need a site completely devoted to announcing: "miss horley is tired!" or "miss horley has a case of the mondays!"? And realistically, if someone wants to know what I am up to can't they call me, text me or e-mail me?

Anyway, I never took the time to check it out, it seemed really silly to be constantly updating what I was doing all day for the whole world to see.

But then all of a sudden -- it hit me. The "Twitter bug". Two weeks ago I started playing around with the Web site and began to feel comfortable "tweeting" with my followers.

So now Twitter doesn't seem so silly and pointless. I realized that it's not necessarily about whether you are posting to your blog or updating Twitter, but rather it's about creating conversations and connecting with others.

My Twitter Page