A Week of PR Professionals..

Last week my PR class had the opportunity to listen to not only one but two UWW alumni PR professionals. After listening to both PR professionals I found myself very inspired and excited for the future in the business world.

The first PR professional that we heard from was Melissa Bohl from GE Medical. Bohl spoke about how she was lucky enough to work with such a well known and established medical company. It was interesting to find out all the traveling she is able to do, even though she is in the PR department. It seemed like even though she was apart of the PR department at GE Medical, marketing was still heavily integrated into her job. Bohl informed us about all the different internal and external communication channels that GE Medical has. From internal newsletters and blogging to external communication that is highly filtered, the way that GE goes about their communication channels are very intriguing. She explained Yammer, a social networking site that can be compared to Facebook, as well as the use of different blogging between employees to keep the communication flowing throughout the company. I think it is safe to say GE Medical is doing a great job of working together with its employees to keep the communication throughout the whole company open.

The second PR alumni that we heard from was Cory Zimmerman, founder of Z2 Marketing located in Pewaukee. Zimmerman told us different stories throughout his presentation, but the most intriguing thing I found about him was the fact that he at many points fell short of success, but he never gave up. From being deaf at one point in his life to coming from a background of poverty, he has had to work for every piece of success that he has seen. One main client that Z2 Marketing has is the Milwaukee Wave. Within Zimmerman's presentation, we were able to see many different pieces of promotional material that Z2 Marketing has done for the Milwaukee Wave Team.

Both Melissa and Cory's presentations were very intriguing, I felt that Melissa's was more of a corporate feel where she had to watch exactly what she had to say whereas Cory was able to express his emotions and stories in more of a laid back way. Melissa explained more of what GE Medical is all about and the technical descriptions of what she deals with day in and day out whereas Cory talked about his general background and how the failures he endured has gotten him to the point of success that he is at now.

LinkedIn Guru; Katie Felten

From tweaking your search-ability to connecting with professionals, LinkedIn guru Katie Felten knows it all. On March 1st, Katie Felten stopped into my PR Tactics II class and gave us some helpful tips on how to stand out in a crowd, use LinkedIn to our professional advantage, and told real life stories on how her LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiefelten, has positively impacted her company.

She first explained all the different ways we are able to transform LinkedIn from a simple template and throw some personal twist into it. An example of this is when one has a website that is linked to their LinkedIn. Instead of having the bland "my website" she showed us how we are able to personalize this section and instead have our website link say "Sydney's Website" or "check out my website". Another little twist of personalization that she showed our class was with the searchable words in our headliner. By putting words that we are able to be searched by, Katie explained that we are more likely to be found on LinkedIn and therefore the greater possibility of getting recruited for a job.

Katie told my class a time where just being a part of different groups on LinkedIn has landed her very important clients. She said that by connecting with organizations or individuals on a personal level because of their interests is a great way to get to know the "real" person behind the LinkedIn and ultimately creating a personal and professional bridge.

As a promoter and strategist for MKELIVE365, Katie is very well known PR professional in the Greater Milwaukee Area. She extended her knowledge of not only LinkedIn and how it can professionally advance an individual, but just in the short amount of listening to Katie I was able to establish that she has a passion for not only social media but for her job as a whole. Since listening to Katie in my classroom, I have started following her on her twitter and find most her tweets to be quite interesting, entertaining, and informative. Because of her love and drive that she has for the PR field, Katie has inspired me to reach for the stars and start networking with the big wigs- one connection at a time!

The Big Girl World

Well folk, I've officially have gotten over the "What am I going to do with myself after college?" faze and have entered into the realm of "I can not wait to get my butt out of here and get a Big Girl job"...almost.

Last night I attended BMA- Milwaukee's event called Lightening Round Speed Interviewing which was held at Manpower Headquarters in Milwaukee (picture of the headquarters shown above). While at the event I was able to connect with many different professionals, listen in on an great informative seminar presented by Fullhouse, and even had the chance to take part in speed interviewing and resume building sessions.

When at the Fullhouse presentation, @Apiwarun, @haleylandsman, and @stratocasting gave helpful tips on how young professionals or aspiring college students should network by using social media. Of course we have worked with social media in the classroom and even had assignments utilizing social media, but until you hear that you can actually get a job because you send a direct message to the right person at the right time on Twitter- you don't realize the impact social media is having on today's society.

Now when you think of speed interviewing, think of speed dating on steroids. Picture 30+ professionals sitting at individual tables waiting for the next Marketing and PR Wanna Be's to sit down in front of them. Although intimidating at first, after the first handshake I felt right at home. I learned through the speed interviewing that it is best to just stay confident in who you are, prove you deserve to be where you are today because of your experience, maintain a positive attitude, keep smiling, and everything else will fall into place. Sure there may be someone that will criticize how you said something, or possibly give you in site on how to better approach an answer - but in the end isn't that what the event is all about?

Not only do I feel that by going to this BMA event I was able to leave with some great connections, I also feel that by going to this event I am even more confident that I can make it out there in the "real world". I am ready to take the world by storm, one interview at a time.

Hello Bloggers!

The name is Sydney Kuspa. Yes, my first name is conveniently spelled the same as the beloved city in Australia. I am a Public Relations major at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater, and extremely proud to say that I only have a few daunting classes left before I get to emerge myself into the “big girl world”. I aspire to work as an event and entertainment coordinator with a major company that I think a few of you may have heard of, the home of Mickey Mouse, the Disney Company.

Why am I choosing to blog?
After long deliberation- I have decided that blogging is not only a necessity in today's culture that is captivating social media but also because I was never able to keep a diary and maybe because this is in the land of Facebook and Twitter, my attention span of a nat will possibly grow.

What am I all about?
Well. I have hated eggs practically all my life.. I despise the little suckers with a passion but in the past year I have found that omelets are a delightful way to start off the day- with a heavy dose of cheese, bacon, green peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms. I am also a exercise fanatic, but let’s set the record straight- I am not too keen on running. I prefer taking a jog here or there or even taking an hour stress relieving session on the elliptical, but the word “run” rarely even enters leaves my mouth. I believe in Karma more than anything in this world. The saying of “goes around comes around” has definitely went around me a time or two.

Although you only know about what I like in my omelet, my lack of running, and my firm belief in karma- I would have to say there is way more to my life that I must share. But in order for you to tap into my creative juices and understand my sarcasm, you have to be UNLIKE me. You have to have more than an attention span of a nat- so stay tuned.