GE Medical and Z2 Marketing

Last week, our class had the privilege to hear from not only one, but two professionals. First off, we met Melissa Bohl. Melissa graduated from UW-Whitewater in 2006 and is now working at GE Medical. Melissa thoroughly explained to us not only main features of GE, but also her project that she has been personally working on, AssurePoint Services.  GE Medical offers a variety of internal and external vehicles to keep in contact with their consumers and customers. GE Medical holds numerous internal communications for their company such as GE connect (which is similar to blogs), Yammer (resembles Facebook), Support Central (Internal Department/ Websites such as Intranets).

Cory Zimmerman was our other speaker that came to our class. Cory discussed many of his numerous accomplishments; one was the development of his company, Z2 Marketing. Cory discussed his upbringing and described his family life being brought up poor and also born deaf. Cory told us about the numerous obstacles he had to overcome and how his business came about. I felt that Cory took a much more laid back approach to describing his business to the students. Melissa more or less described the company she worked for, and Cory gave us plenty of background information on his life and how he became the businessman that he is today.

                I was pleased with both of these presentations, and overall they were very complimentary to one another. As I stated earlier, Melissa took more of a business approach and Cory took a laid back approach to presenting his company. I enjoyed the differences between the two presentations and it really gave me the feel for how a large corporation functions and how a business owner runs his business. One approach that Z2 also takes is their avid use of Twitter. It is best to explore each of these sites to also notice the numerous differences all on their own.

Linkedin Extraordinaire; Katie Felten

On March 1^st, PR Tactics 2 class had the guest speaker, Katie Felten. Katie is a Linkedin expert and taught us students some new tricks on how to better our online presence. Some new material that I learned from Katie was that when having numerous social media platforms, keep your headshot the same for each one, it will be easier for your followers to identify you in person and on each site. Katie also uses numerous social media sites such as Twitter @Katie Felten, Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiefelten , and also another project she is heavily involved in, www.hashable.com  Another great tip that I learned from Katie was to give a brief description about the company that you work for, in case some people that you are linked with do not know exactly what your company does this is an easy way for them to find out. My favorite part was how Katie recommended that we join interest groups as a way to start a conversation with other professionals. I had never thought of that idea, and it is very clever. Katie is a great asset to the PR fields in the sense that she is very knowledgeable about social media, trends, technology, and overall a great connector. I was very glad that I had the opportunity to meet a professional that was so passionate about her work, and was able to clearly demonstrate that to us students. Katie was a very inspirational speaker, and I can only hope to be able to accomplish the online presence that she has.

BMA Event in Milwaukee

Along with many of my classmates, I attended the speed interviewing event at ManPower in Milwaukee on Tuesday evening. Overall, I enjoyed the event. To learn more about BMA you can also visit http://www.bma-milwaukee.org The speed interviewing portion was the most useful for me personally, out of all the stations we visited. A lot of the information about social media seemed to be common sense to most of us Tactics 2 students, although I really did enjoy the social media presentation, I felt as if I knew most of the information that was shared with us. @HayleyLandsman and @Apiwarun did a great job coming from more a younger standpoint, but I was definitely taken back when after the presentation, a woman made a comment about how UNIMPORTANT social media was? It was ridiculous! She continued to argue with these professionals saying that Twitter and Linked In didn't really matter in today’s workforce. I rolled my eyes, I do not believe one thing that woman said! Checking out the Facebook page for BMA, http://www.facebook.com/pages/BMA-Milwaukee/143605512066 completely contradicts what that woman had mentioned. I definitely tweeted @bmamilwaukee during the entire event and attempted to be put on the Twitter screen for everyone to see, unfortunately that didn't happen!

The PR Student

Well, I’m not really sure how all of this blogging works, but it looks like I am going to give it a try. First off, we’ll start with ME! My name is Kaitlyn Duffy; I’m 20 years old and currently a junior in college. I am attending UW-Whitewater with a major of Public Relations and minor in Marketing. So far my goals for my future are very broad. After college, I plan on getting a job within the PR field and hopefully traveling as well. As a PR student, I am absolutely fascinated by social media. I enjoy using social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, Loopt, 4square, and now the world of blogging. With today’s technology I believe that the introduction of social media has made such a significant impact on today’s society. I do not believe that social media is a fad, and I hope to have the privilege to incorporate social media in my future career. Along with a potential career, I would love to have the ability to travel with my job as well. I would love to have the opportunity to travel abroad for work, and see how other countries use PR as well. Overall, I’m very open to any career in the PR field or even Marketing. I’m not sure what the future holds for me, but I am excited for the ride.