First Mill City Press Release

ER Grazefest Press Release

Happy National Vegetarian Week

So it just so happens to be National Vegetarian Week and one of my blog friend's Health & Wellness Week (check her out here and you should participate too!)

Molly invited bloggers to give input and blog about what "inspires you to be a better you." My take and personable philosophy is about healthy eating. Like I mentioned in my about me page, I have been a vegetarian for my whole life.

I truly believe that a vegetarian diet not only provides a healthier life and a more energized me-but also helps issues I support-such as animal welfare and sustainability solutions.

veggie love on Prezi

Above is the Prezi I made for my PR writing and tactics class for an in class speech. Check it out!

Some of the interesting sources I found were this NYTimes article about meat industry's impact on the environment. This site has a ton of info of the health benefits.

If you have any questions about vegetarianism, feel free to contact me!

And thanks Molly for the great idea of sharing individuals' health and wellness philosophies!

-Edwina

Rainy Farmers Market

(One of the first pictures I sniped of my favorite, CARBS)

This morning I headed out to Mill City decked out in my raincoat, yoga capris, and my watermelon colored crocs (did my dreams come true and I found a work place where it is socially acceptable to wear my favorite outifit?! I think so!)

My job today was to manage the day of event twitter (first time @mcfarmersmkt tweeted pictures! check 'em out), take photos of the market, and help out where needed.

(Best raincoat award goes to this cutie)

(One of my favorite pictures of the mom and daughter watching our food demo. Just epitomizes what the market is all about)

Who would of thought that "helping out wherever needed" would have meant the craziness that was a huge rain and thunderstorm that swept through MPLS. I helped the volunteers, managers, vendors pack up everything, break down tents, and high tail it out of the monsoon. I have never been so soaked.

Before the torrential downpour I really did have a great time getting to know vendors, find out about their newest product, why they love the market, and even exchanged some twitter tips!

(WANT this dress. Workers get a discount...)

(Here's me cheesing! The balloon art guy comes every week right outside the Guthrie and gave me this beautiful piece of art)

-Edwina

First Social Media Breakfast

(And yes I do still take notes on this thing called "paper")

Yesterday morning I bused out to Concordia for my first ever Social Media Breakfast. The topic was Education & Social Media. Just wanted to share some takeaways I got from it!

• The first thing I noticed was the whole audience with their smartphones out, tweeting away. The twitter back story from the audience was entertaining. Everything from quoting speakers, adding comments, and even complaining-"get a move on" and "I'm tired of this topic!" were pretty popular at one point.

Glad I had my snazzy phone to keep up. Click here to find the dialogue on the twitter feed.

• One member of the panel was the MKTG guy for an online college. We discussed whether secondary education would move more online rather than traditional "brick and mortar" universities.

Personally, I see positives and negatives from both sides. As I said on twitter, online classes require participation-I've had JOUR classes where I was required to use chat rooms on Blackboard. On the other hand, another huge part about going to an actual university are some experiences that have to be done in person, such as networking, relationships, growing up, and independence.

• I loved what the panel said about connecting with their students on where they want to engage. The PR people from Augsburg and St. Catherine's really emphsized the importance of retweeting and showing the students work. The ROI from universities using social media is to measure students interactions and tone, help students enter the university, and eventually graduate.
• An audience member came up to the mike and said that when he taught he implemented required blogs. He said that the writing quality improved and students' personal lives were incorporated with their education-which I'm guessing, they actually took pride in their work and cared about it. I totally see this and why it works. I am writing this blog for my own use and I never will know who might see it so I want to represent myself well!
• Twitter in the classroom? My boyfriend took a new media class at the U where students tweeted with the class numbers hashtag and the professor and students were encouraged to discuss and post interesting news stories. I think this is a great idea. Especially as a journalism major graduating in a field that utilizes social media so much, I feel that if classes are not utilizing these tools, we will be unprepared. This article from NYTimes was mentioned. I don't know how I feel if students were to use twitter in class instead of actually discussing in class out loud...It was hard enough to pay attention to both the panel and the twitter feed at the same time, I don't know how I could do it in class. But I do think that discussions facilitated outside of class and incorporating blogs, twitter, or other social media into a journalism major is essential. I do wish a panelist from a social media communications post from the U or the School of Journalism and Mass Comm was there so I could pick their brains of how they create a media connection with over thousands of students!

Click here for my twitter and insights or just check out the screen shot below.

-Edwina

A in Strategic Comm. Cases

Just got my grades for last semester up! And got an A on this Punch Pizza project! Check it out. Also, if you guys haven't used Prezi before, definitely look into it-makes those boring powerpoint presentations way better.

PUNCH on Prezi

I just uploaded the written document and the timeline on Scribd-never used it before but I think I'm going to like it!

-Edwina

Bittersweet Goodbye to K102 and Clear Channel

I just finished my first semester long internship with Clear Channel where I was the promotions intern for K102 and KOOL108.

For our last day, all eight interns and our bosses went out to Rojo-where the atmosphere, margs, and vegetarian tacos were to die for.

My semester working with my favorite country radio station had some ups and downs but I learned so much about myself and the radio industry as a whole.

(Gretchen, another intern, made us all personalized cookies!)

THE PERKS

• Bragging rights to all my fellow country music lovers.
• Worked with one of the largest media companies out there-CLEAR CHANNEL.
• Had informational interviews with the Public Affairs guy for Clear Channel, sat in on a Marketing Mash/social media discussion, and my boss set me up to get coffee with her aunt-who is the PR person for MOA.
• I loved driving the huge Tahoe around that had Taylor's face 10x bigger than normal on the side.
• Saw The Band Perry, Luke Bryan, and Tim McGraw for FREE!

(The boy and I before Tim came on stage)

THE WORK

• I organized all of the prize packages-mailed, called winners, etc.
• A big part of my job was to represent the station at events with clients across the Twin Cities. One of my favorite events was the Snobowl at Hamlake-I was by myself with all my KOOL108 gear and witnessed people being pulled by sleddogs, a vintage snowmobile contest, and did I mention the whole event was on a frozen lake? Oh, how I love Minnesotans.
• Responsible for taking pictures of our onsight set up to show to clients.
• Worked with other interns where you quickly find out to if you clash or work together seamlessly.

SKILLS

• Interacting & engaging with people in person. You had to be stellar at this to rock this job. Sometimes it was a blast to randomly bond with a stranger about the newest Lady Antebellum song (listen here and thank me later) and sometimes it was just a pain to force people over to our beautiful K102 table at events. WHAT?! Who wouldn't want to register to win tickets to WeFest?!
• Learning to work with whatever is thrown at me. During office hours, I experienced a lot of ambiguity (aka random) tasks that had to be done fast and efficiently. I learned what it meant when people said interns must "wear many hats." I helped create a comprehensive list of karaoke bars in the MPLS area (my personal favorite is still good ol Blarns), updated the "Midwest Family Fun" events for the website, and organized applications and due dates for parades around the cities this summer.
• Working well with others is a must. My personal mantra is that you can make anything fun. As Honest Abe once said, "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." I try to make any job, event, office cubicle as fun as possible. If you are going to be sitting with someone for an hour to drive out to Watertown or walk in the St. Paul Parade together-just share random stories, laugh, and have fun.

(Annie, me, and Gretchen working a promotional event for Winstock)

I overhead this at the station during office hours once and it really stuck with me-

K102 needs to have a consistent image-whether you are listening to it on your radio on your commute to work, blasting it out of a boom box at a backyard BBQ, or while talking with some interns at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar.

I am so happy I had the opportunity to help build relationships with listeners with a great station like K102 and help maintain their image to what a great country radio station should be-happy, fun, and all about the listeners :)

(Only the cutest little cowboy ever)

-Edwina

Oh, Hi Again Blogger World!

I decided to create two separate blogospheres to interact with. I have a Tumblr account that I will repost my favorite pictures (usually of cute dogs and kids) and other random inspiration.

On this blog, I will post musings on being a PR major (and almost graduate eek!), observations of current PR stories, stories I find interesting, things I'm learning in my senior year at the U, and try to keep track of all the fun stories (and hopefully skills!) I'm learning at my internships.