Posted Notes An Effective Way to Develop a Mission/Vision Statement?

As a future public relations practitioner, I've been told countless times I would have to write a mission or vision statement for an organization either for a non-profit or for-profit company. Now it's time to develop one. 

In a meeting today at 2:30 p.m., I was told as the PR exec I would need to develop a new mission and vision statement for the SGA Web site. Ironically, in my PR Research and Campaigns course , professor Bill Handy was lecturing about setting goals and objectives for your clients and ways to write these statements. Perfect timing. 

But wait, it gets better. 

Earlier this morning, I was discussing my senior thesis with assistant professor, Gina Noble, she wants me to develop a mission and vision statement for the Journalism and Broadcasting Ambassador Program as part of my thesis. She told me a great way to your team and client involved in developing a mission and vision statement. 

So take notes, it's a great idea. 

First, you pass out posted notes to each member of the group. Second, you ask them "What's your vision for the specific program or organization?" and allow 10 minutes for them to brainstorm and write down their answers. After, each member has written down their answers you put the responses on a board of some sort and seek some commonality among the group members vision for the program or organization.  And that's when you take everyone's ideas and develop a mission and vision statement. 

A great idea? eh? Who would have thought. It's that simple. 

At our next SGA exec meeting, I plan to do this exercise and hopefully develop a mission and vision statement for SGA. 

Another day, another enlightment. You have to love communication.

Until next time, 

GPaul 

A Weekend Crisis Resolved In a Matter of Seconds

It's Friday morning, and I said to myself,"I've made it through week one." But of course, I started to celebrate a little too early.


I received an e-mail via Blackberry stating that the new member applications for the College of Arts and Sciences Student Council had different times for turning in the application. The application reads "deadline 4:30 p.m.," while the OSU Headlines reads "deadline 5:30 p.m."

As the vice president of council, I'm in charge of new membership recruitment. I thought, what am I to do in this situation?

I thought about my SGA crisis earlier this week and from the advice I received from an OSU alumni and accredited public relations professiona, Sam Sims, regarding my last crisis, which he said "never stop communicating and remember your audience."

I decided to take action with the public relations officer for the Arts and Sciences Student Council, who happens to be a PR major and a good friend of mine. We never stopped communicating.

We edited the OSU Headlines with the correct time, sent a mass e-mail out to all of the students within the College of Arts and Sciences and we also used the College of Arts and Sciences homepage to notify future council members.

Speaking with our adviser, she said we have time since applications aren't due until Sept.4, but we needed to inform our audience, which are the students within the College of Arts and Sciences, of this minor mistake.

I learned yet another lessoned about communicating effectively and knowing how to handle a situation of that magnitude that could have potentially turned into an issue in such a short amount of time.

Stay tune for what's next to come in "When Reality Hits, Am I Ready?"

Best,

GPaul

Lights on Stillwater Postponement a PR Crisis

As I'm going through the motions of the second day of school, Aug. 19, and ready to leave campus for the day. I receive a phone call from the Student Government Association vice president that its premier event "Lights on Stillwater" had been postponed until further notice. My first thought, "we have a PR crisis on our hands." Why would that be my natural inclination? Not only am I a PR major at Oklahoma State University, but also the public relations director for SGA. 

"Lights on Stillwater" is an event hosted by SGA, which brings in local businesses within the Stillwater community located on the OSU-Stillwater campus, more specially Library Lawn. Generally, more than  80 businesses attend the event. Local businesses have the opportunity to "showcase"  their products ad services to college students who are operating on a "limited budget." The event is always the first Wednesday of the fall semester. But mother nature had another plan. 

My first question to the SGA president and vice president, "Do you have a back plan already in place due to bad weather?" Of course, I receive puzzled looks. And I thought to myself, this is a test to see if I can apply what I've learned thus far in my public relations courses and apply it to a real crisis. Side note, I'm currently enrolled in a crisis communications course at OSU, perfect timing I might add.  Within five minutes we had five SGA executive team members calling all of the vendors notifying them of the postponement and when they would receive notice on the new date for the event. Luckily, we got a hold of all the vendors. But as a gut feeling, I decided that we should send e-mails to all of the vendors just as a friendly reminder. 

So I thought, what's next, notifying the student body. However, the postponement occurred on Tuesday the day before the event so how could we reach our target audience? The Daily O'Colliegan, our student-run newspaper, we were lucky to catch them in time before the paper went to print, well most of it. They ran a story on the front page discussing why the event was canceled because everyone reads the O'Colly, which I was later sadly mistaken. When I thought it was over, it wasn't. 

We forgot to pull the ad for "Lights on Stillwater," which ran in today's paper, Aug. 20. But the event postponement was clearly on the front page, however, there was still confusion. The situation was resolved due to word-of-mouth among the student body. 

So what's the lesson behind this PR crisis? Plan for the unexpected, know your target audience, know which form of communication is best suited for reaching your target audience and ALWAYS have a backup plan. 

As I evaluated the situation, I could have sent out a Facebook message to all of the members if the SGA Facebook group, sent out a mass e-mail to OSU students, faculty and staff and posted the event cancelation on the OSU homepage. All of these things could have been done if we had a plan to execute for such a crisis, but we didn't. 

So when reality hits, am I ready? I'm not quite sure yet, but with lessons such as the "Lights on Stillwater" postponement I think I'll be ready. 

Best, 

GPaul