Teamwork makes the Dream Work?

Brianna Myers

Throughout my career in college,I have been blessed to only have encountered a few group projects. They have just recently started picking up in the past couple of semesters. Group projects sound like a dream come true in high school: This means less work for the individual. “Let’s split the work up, send it to one person the night before it’s due and they’ll put it in a PowerPoint.” In college it’s not so simple.

The projects here can’t have one person just putting it all together. There’s usually too much work and then that one person can end up ripping you to shreds on the group evaluation because they feel they carried the heaviest load. Now, you have to find time for everyone to meet up so that it’s all equal. With internships, jobs, other classes and maybe a social life… that’s HARD.

I definitely understand the benefits of working on a group project. In public relations, there is a greater possibility of working with others than not. This is not going to be an occupation where the job description can come close to “sit in corner cubicle all day and only come out for lunch.” Working in teams allows an individual to find out the best role they play and how to execute that role without being too pushy and too silent. In “7 Tips for Surviving a Group Project,” the first tip is about how to pick your group. Sometimes you cannot be that fortunate and certain people are thrust into your life and work space regardless if you want them there or not. My advice for that is GET OVER IT. Your paycheck or grade depends on it. When my money is on the line, I can set stuff aside.

Although Buzzfeed accurately describes the exact emotions of how we feel doing a group project, you just have to look at the long term benefits.

#MoveEquity

Brianna Myers for Race, Gender and the Media

This week I participated in a tweet chat called #MoveEquity. It was a discussion about how can we encourage the youth of today to walk and bike outside without subjecting them to street harassers. Children are expected to have 60 minutes of physical activity a day. Walking to and from school would be a great opportunity to achieve this requirement, but some children (especially young women) do not feel safe in doing so. In the tweet chat we talked about who is usually the target and what we can do to help.

The discussion on Twitter provided very good information concerning this matter. We talked about programs that are designed to help, walking in numbers, getting local government involved and even hosting forums for the actual kids to talk about what would make them feel safe. Towards the end of the discussion we got to what really needed to be handled: talking to our young boys and teaching them that it's WRONG.

Obviously yes, we should have measures to take care of when it does happen. We should be educated on how to be a proactive bystander and know when to intervene if we see street harassment occur. Lets face it though, most street harassers are of the male gender. Why are we not pounding it through our boys' heads that this is not something they should be doing. Although I'm sure they've seen it in 50% of the movies and TVs that they watch.

This made me think about the discussion we had in class about the new driving service that's for women that only allows women passengers and women drivers, including people who identify as a woman. Have we completely given up on education the male generation about how to treat a woman? Not just because she's a woman but because she's a freaking human being! Why oh why is this okay? I understand that these programs are necessary because it's starting to look like a lost cause for a portion of the male generation out there and if these programs save lives, well then let's keep them coming.

Women in Gaming

Brianna Myers for Race, Gender and the Media

When it comes to video games, I like to stick the basics. It's crazy because although I tend to gravitate a little to everything that is popular, video games have just never been my thing. I love Mario Kart and I used to be obsessed with this game called Crash Bandicoot that my brother never let me play when we were younger but that is the extent of my knowledge. Whenever I see a video game compared to another one, they don't look at all similar so watching the video in class this week about the common themes spread across various games really took me by surprise.

The one theme that really struck a nerve with me was that they are consistently using the death of a women to somehow give the male main lead some sort of emotional death. Why does the mom or lover have to die? Why can't it be his father or his best childhood friend. A woman's life is not even seen as valuable. The "value" it has to offer is some sort of background for this character's vengeance. Although we did talk in class about how there aren't many studies that show that it is hard to put a direct line of video game play leads to certain behaviors in everyday life, I find it hard to believe that somewhere back in the subconscious NOTHING is being affected.

When trying to do research about this I searched "video game playing women hate" which I thought would give me the results that I needed but instead a bunch of articles popped up about why women hate men playing video games *insert eye roll here*. The fact is, even with women being consumers of the gaming world, they are still not as accepted and the themes in popular games seem to keep enforcing this. I speak only as a heterosexual woman but why in the world would I want to look at the ONE woman in the game die or prance around in flimsy clothing? It does not make sense; but it's like if a close-minded man doesn't want a woman in the workplace what is she supposed to do at home all day?

Should We Risk It, A discussion of Crisis Communications

Brianna Myers

Successful public relations practitioners define a crisis as something you prepare for but hope never occurs. I believe that the way that a company handles a crisis really defines them. So then I started to think. Wouldn’t it be crazy if a company caused a slight “crisis” but then already had a sure fire way of recovering? The recovery could possibility boost sales or services and prove to be more beneficial.

I think this applies a lot more to celebrities and publicity stunts. One day, the news is that two musical artists are feuding and the next thing you know they’re at the same event together and they’re both releasing projects on the same day. This article talks about the best PR stunts in 2014. In those cases, it worked in the favor of the brand to create a discussion or buzz about them. Is it worth riding the fine between success and disaster that could potentially create a crisis and have to go into damage control (which is what shouldn’t be your focus, because an effective crisis communications plan would take care of the damage)?

So there is a difference between doing something to bring attention to your brand by taking a risk and just creating a full blown crisis. But, if a crisis does occur, here are some tips to keep in mind.
1. Get information out early

2. Get that information out yourself
3. Get it out on your terms.

It’s very important that you are communicating with the public as early and as often as you can. That is why it is called a crisis communications plan. In times of struggle, it’s not just fixing what went wrong in your business, it’s about being as transparent as you can to your audiences without jeopardizing your brand. Honesty will always be something that should take you far in your personal life and professional life. In the occasion that your business is dealing with something controversial or has potential to harm your company, people are looking for truthful answers of how it happened and how it is going to be fixed.

Creating and maintaining that trust with your publics and stakeholders is what is going to keep you afloat. Once that trust is compromised, it is impossible to get back. That is why it is vital to the success and longevity of your company to focus on being something that can be relied on.