Bryon Riesch

A remarkable man, Bryon Riesch, came to UW-Whitewater to share his views on communication and how to communicate with the disabled population.  Bryon opened his speech by what I thought was going to be sentimental and emotional but this is what he said,  “This morning I woke up and was thankful to be alive but also still wonders why god let this happen to me, male pattern baldness sucks!” 

            In 1998, a 19-year-old Marquette student survived a life threatening accident.  Bryon was severely injured at a college get together when he took a what seemed normal run at a slip and slide to find himself laying feeling less from his neck down.  He is now a C5 quadriplegic after snapping his neck at the fifth vertebrae of his spine.  He only has use of his shoulders and biceps.  Bryon spent three months in the hospital and 27 of those days were in the Intensive Care Unit.  He was on a venalator, had tubes coming from all parts of his body, and on many medications.  Life was not easy after this accident.  He had to learn how to talk again after being on a velalator for so long.  Bryon did know that he wanted to go back to school and surprisingly back to Marquette of all places.

            Bryon’s first class he decided to take was Spanish and then took another semester of his and started to build his work load of classes back up.  He received his degree in Information Technology and Marketing in five years at Marquette.  His first company he worked with was Goodwill Industries.  The company helps disabled people get jobs.  Bryon is an advocate of Goodwill because they teach people with disabilities how to deal with their condition, market themselves in the job world, and how to make people feel comfortable around his disability.  He also worked five years at Northwest Mutual.  He currently works for R & R Insurance as a project manager.  Also, he started the Bryon Riesch Foundation in 2001.  His foundation raises money to help find the cure for paralysis.  They work with Frater Medical College to help fund medical research for the spinal chord, spinal chord injuries, Parkinson’s, and ALS. 

            “Everyone has a disability,” Bryon believes.  Being disabled himself; Bryon knows that communication is key when it comes to interacting with people who have a disability. The most important tips when communicating verbally and non verbally with disabled people are; be respectful, don’t stare, don’t be scared to ask questions, talk normally, introduce yourself, when introducing yourself talk directly to them, be friendly, and don’t pet their guide dog if you haven’t received permission.  Also, gauging what’s appropriate in every day life such as the work environment to not ask if the person needs help multiple times.  Most disabled people in the workforce will tell you what they can and can’t do and when they need help.  The majority of people with disabilities can do pretty much everything that a person without a disability can; they might just have to participate a little differently.

            Overall, I really enjoyed Bryon’s speech.  Bryon is a remarkable person considering everything that’s happened to him and what he has dealt with in his day-to-day life since his horrific accident.  It amazes me how much Bryon is able and willing to do even with his disability such as, being a project manager, running his own foundation, and living life to the fullest.  In his free time he enjoys watching television, playing sports, attending sporting events, fantasy football, bars, movies, fishing, and gambling.  Bryon still goes on living life as if the accident never happened.  Hearing Bryon speak about his life reminds me that there’s always someone worse off then you.  Just because someone is disabled doesn’t mean they live less of a life than others do.  Bryon’s philosophy about life, “You have to have a dream.  Don’t be scared to dream and to hope that it will happen.  Live a reality today and work towards your dream coming true.”  He is an inspiration and gives hope to all people who have dreams no matter what condition one might be in. 

Trish Skram

            Trish Skram who graduated from UW-Whitewater 5 years ago made a visit back to her old stomping grounds in the communications department. Skram is a Media Specialist and Public Relations Manager for Mercy Health System.  Her presentation today was called Blogging Your Brand.  She is the owner and brand visionary of PR Gal.  Skram is a professional blogger for the Janesville Gazette and Wisconsin Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society.  She does freelance work for the Wisconsin Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society.  Skram had a lot of good tips and incite on making your brand and blogging.

            Skram’s first three tips about social media and blogging strategies will be very helpful for my future in social media. 

1.  Grow your network of the people you know and want to know.

2.  Social media helps to improve the public relations and communications industry.

3.  When tweeting or blogging talk about what you know and love, be personable.

Some great statistics she included for us were:

-55% of corporations use social media to seek job applicants

-60-80% of bloggs are abandoned within one month

-58% says that they are better known in their industry because of their blog

-95 millions tweets are posted on Twitter a day

-77% of Internet users read blogs

-More than 133 million blogs were indexed by Technocratic since 2002

            Skram brings up the question, “Why blog?”  Blogging generates more content for the web and the brand you are trying to create.  It establishes expertise, helps grow networks, offers a place for people to engage, gain valuable knowledge, helps your keyword search ranking on the web, and blogging gives information to share via social networks.  Blogging boosts your brand!  Skram explained that blogging creates connections and builds relationships with customers, stakeholders and future costumers, optimizes your website for improved SEO or page rank, and establishes the brand.  Some people do have fears of blogging like Skram once did about looking stupid, missing information, time, and not knowing what to write about.  One can overcome these fears by understanding people do make mistakes, know your audience, and don’t be scared of making mistakes, which Skram explained.  Blogging and social media are all about building your brand.

            Skram’s 8 ways to build a brand:

1.  What do you want to get out of it?

2.  Know your competency (relate to readers).

3.  Listen and learn about your audience.

4.  Add your own personal touch.

5.  Encourage engagement.

6.  Research key words.

7.  Can people actually find you?

8.  Be consistent.  

“Social media is not a numbers game, it’s about engagement in the relationship you are building,” believes Skram.  The code of she uses is say what you want, don’t offend others, don’t personally attack anyone, be yourself, post often, use photo links, don’t use copyright materials, respond to comments, comment on others blogs, and promote your posts.  I think Skram had a good idea that you can use twitter to headline or showcase your blog so other people can connect through twitter if they don’t have a blog account.  Her best advice she feels when creating your brand is to share your passions and goals in life, knowledge, participate, and don’t be scared to make mistakes or put yourself out there to the public.  I agree with Skram and understand her viewpoints on social media and blogging.  Her presentation was very interesting to listen to, even though we have a lot of speakers who go over the same topics all of them after different tips and experiences to share with us.  

Former UW-Whitewater Student Enlightens Class

Amy Paul, UW-Whitewater grad, describes her journey as a college student to post graduation life.  Amy graduated from UW-Whitewater in May 2011 with a major in Public Relations and a minor in Music.  Amy, like most college students was undecided with what she really thought was her true calling in the professional world but figured out after a few years of jobs and internships where she fit in, which was in the public relations profession.

            Amy currently works as a Public Relations Assistant at the Milwaukee County Executive Office.  She started working there July 2011 and already has taken on many tasks. Some of her duties include; social media management, press releases, monitor media coverage, and website management.  Her first major assignment that she was completely in charge and had one month to plan was this year’s tenth anniversary of September 11, 2011 event.  This event took place at the war memorial next to the lake in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Over 400 people attended this event honoring veterans from around the area.  She also made the logo for the event that has received recognition from plenty of people and press.  This event not only featured war veterans and current military but remembering September 11 with a very large piece of steel recovered from the wreckage.  Amy was in charge of communicating with media outlets throughout this entire event as well.  Due to all of her efforts, perfect organizational skills, and problem solving skills throughout the event she was responsible for Fox News 6 taping and You Tubing a piece from the event.  Amy is clearly proving herself at her new job and is now working on a tree lighting ceremony set for December.  Her success in her current job has come from all of her past jobs and internship experience.

            I have found through classmates, teachers, and social networking that experience and internships are the key to getting a successful career when you’re done with school.  Amy has a very long list of jobs and internships that accumulated through her college career.  Her internships include: Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, UW-Whitewater Development Office, Qdoba Mexican Grill, and the Milwaukee Admirals.  She was a special events and fundraising intern for the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.  As a UW-Whitewater student she worked as a student assistant in the University Development Office.  Her favorite and most memorable internship was with the Milwaukee Admirals as the communications intern.  She grew up enjoying the sport of hockey and loves the sports field overall so she hopes to get a sports related job in the future.  Amy’s senior year Qdoba opened up right off campus and were looking for people to spread the word of their new restaurant so she was hired as a brand ambassador.  On top of having two internships a year that all overlapped each other at some point she had two regular jobs to cover school expenses since all of her internships were unpaid.  Amy does believe that unpaid internships are the most rewarding since she wasn’t looking for a paycheck every two weeks but the experience she got out of it.  Other on campus involvement included PRSSA secretary, insight editor, professional development chair, regional activity coordinator, and PRSSA 2010 National Conference.  Amy knows and is an advocate for on campus involvement and or volunteer work and getting as many internships as possible.

            Amy covered many helpful tips and gave a lot of good suggestions for beginning to post grad college students.  Her four top recommendations are internships, networking such as Twitter, involvement, and never give up.  As Amy talked about her internships she always referred to making the most of all of your experiences and never be scared to ask questions of those more experienced than you.  I know that networking is a major part of getting a job in the future as Amy reviewed with us various times and how to maintain connections.  Also, a major part of your college experience is to be involved and stay active on campus and or in the community to get your face and work ethic out to the public.  Amy’s last piece of advice was to never give up, at times your job or internship can be frustrating but she found she learned a lot more working through the rough patches. 

            Overall, I really appreciated and enjoyed listening to Amy’s journey from student to a professional.  I did have the opportunity to ask Amy a question about her past experiences.  I asked Amy, “As an intern what was the biggest project or problem you had to deal with?”  Amy responded, “My internship in Madison at the Children’s Hospital when I was fundraising for the Herma Heart Center from Milwaukee.  My job was to make calls to sponsors to make donations to our cause and it was difficult to get the public involved to due the economic hardships.”  It was interesting to know that her biggest hardship wasn’t necessarily public relations oriented but fundraising based.  Amy had great feedback to all of our questions as well as was open to all of the questions we threw at her.  I appreciate the time we spent with Amy and will continue to improve my communications skills and building my resume so I too can have a job within a month or two after I graduate.

Fall 2011

Hi Everyone,

            School is back in swing so it’s time to update everyone on my current goals and ideas for the new school year.  My Name is Anna Fagerli and I’m a senior but will have one extra semester after this year.  I’m back living in Whitewater just a couple blocks from campus in hopes to meet more people and enjoy my college experience a little more than last year.  I’m still an International Studies major with a minor Public Diplomacy and I’m really enjoying my classes, which are really getting more in depth as the courses get more difficult.  My goals for this year are to save my money so I have more opportunity to travel and get another internship by the end of the year.  I plan on staying an active member of PRSSA and this year I will be the charity coordinator for our club.  I’m really excited because last year I really enjoyed Polar Plunge and would really like to run other fundraising events as well for different charities.   I will be crazy busy these last three semesters but I hope to make them count by being a more active student on campus.  You can follow me on twitter travelendaworld or if you know me you can always find me on facebook.  I also have professional websites, which include Linked in and weebly.  The next year and a half I plan to really build my resume and experience as much as I can.   I’m currently working for Mercy Health Systems as their Marketing and Public Relations Intern.  I’ve never worked in the health industry so I thought this would be a great opportunity to see if I enjoy it.  I would really like to try a sports internship soon because sports have always been a big part of my life as well as a passion.  Overall, I’m looking forward to wrapping up my college career and hopefully finding a successful job when I’m done here at UW-Whitewater.

Yours truly, 

Anna

Alumni Video Review

         I think overall watching the videos was very helpful for future PR jobs.   The videos that caught my attention the most were the couple I could relate to because they emphasized social media and they liked how diverse their job is.  I feel that all the social media and real situational projects we have worked on in PR Tactics two has been very helpful and by the words spoken of the alumni they agreed to that aspect of classroom work as well.  A lot of the video also stressed getting out and meeting people and being involved whether it’s been at school or at your job, one can never have too many connections.  Ms. Janusz talked about how she had a variety of jobs and got hired at those jobs because of previous connections she made.  Networking is very important if you want to find a job especially in the field you want to work in.   It’s very common that the majority of people get their current jobs because of networking.  I’m very excited to continue my networking skills outside of the classroom and hopefully in a real world setting very soon.  I enjoy networking a lot because I’ve kept in touch with so many wonderful people who already have told me they would refer me to companies if I needed it, and I really think communication is important and find that the more I communicate the better off I am. 

            The last video I watched was Mr. Kohlmann’s.  I think that was a really good video to end with because he is one of two or three people in the videos I watched that has been around for more than ten years.  He really pushed getting real world experience, which included paid and unpaid internships.  It’s very true, the more experience you have the more likely it is for you to get a job right when you graduate. 

            I liked hearing about all the different aspects that go into most PR jobs.  There are such a wide variety of them from mortgage to agricultural companies.  Watching the videos made me realize how much opportunity there is in this field and that there’s a place for anyone in the PR.

  Top Three:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJ9ppK3bFM

            The first video I really enjoyed watching was for Forward Janesville.  I’m from Janesville but I didn’t really ever know what it was about.  It was very informational to hear what goes into the event planning process by this group.  Ms. Krajeck sounds very passionate about what she does.  I really liked how she mentioned the volunteering aspect of her work.  Forward Janesville will be an even bigger success since they did choose to use social media such as facebook for their events.  It's great to hear her mention UW-Whitewater and all of the great experiences she had there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efux5MmLWQM

            The second video I enjoyed watching was Ms. Janusz. I like that Ms. Janusz has worked in PR for a variety of different companies.  I'm glad to see that she's not scared of change and new experiences that come with the new company she works at.  I like that she received all different types of situations at the various companies so she has more to build her resume up with.

  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU6z0LJ9Qzg

            The final video was the most helpful and positive for me as a PR student. Mr. Kohlmann has had a lot of years as an account representative and is further along in his career.  I like hearing about his goals he has for his projects, it shows the organization and motivation he has for his projects.  He emphasizes getting involved on campus is very important, which I do agree is a necessity to make good connections for your future.  Paid and unpaid internships are a necessity to make the right career path by the time you're ready to graduate. 

Social Media is the Newest Trend in PR

Social media has become a huge mass movement around the globe and the newest trend in the PR industry. Types of social media include: facebook, twitter, blogger, Linkedin, weebly and many others that I personally haven’t looked into yet.

I personally have made a lot of PR business connections through my LinkedIn account and hope that by keeping communication lines open I will find a job that pertains to my interests.  I have also heard that a lot of people are getting jobs through connections made on twitter.  I want to gain more experience with these sites to further my interests in life and gain a better understanding of how all of these work. 

I have found that I can keep up with various interests such as world news, sports, food and fashion in an instant through my twitter account that sends me updates every hour.  It’s very interesting to be connected to the whole world through these websites.

The trend of social media has really started to become bigger part of my life since I started volunteering for Tomorrow’s Hope. http://www.tomorrowshope.org/about_us

Tomorrow’s Hope is a non-profit organization in Jefferson, Wisconsin that donates money to the benefit of public care, support, research and education for those affected by life-limiting illness.  I hope that everyone will check out this website and facebook in hopes to make organization bigger and more beneficial to even more people in southern Wisconsin.  Tomorrow’s Hope is a great example of using social media for PR.

BMA Event

Tuesday night I attended the BMA event in Milwaukee.   It was a great experience getting to meet new people and try something I never have before.  Even though this event was required it turned out to be well worth it event.  I feel I came away with a lot of useful information and tools for the professional world.  My favorite part of this event was the lightning speed round interviews.  I felt I got the most out of this session of the night.  It was really helpful to get at least four different interviewers with four different opinions of how you interview.  It was tough and somewhat of a challenge to adapt to some questions and always having a well thought out answer.  I found I need to think about my answers a little more and not just try and rush through the interview question it’s always the quality not quantity of the answer.  After doing this interview activity I found a lot of useful tips such as targeting your answers to the actual goals of the company you are applying for which may take time before you go to your interview by researching a little bit of history about the company.  Overall, this was a great experience and I met some really great people to network with. 

The one information session that is useful to all people in the current business world or will be in the future was the social networking session.  We not only met three professional networkers but came away with great tips about what to put and what not to put on your networking sites.  This session was a review for me because I just learned about social networking and the dos and don’ts in my public relations class but it’s always nice to have a reminder to help realize that you should be professional when you put yourself out to the public.

I enjoyed meeting with Bonnie from The Nova Group who reviewed my resume and Mike from Seroka that was one of my interviewers in the speed round interview session.