INK PUBLIC RELATIONS

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions. I just never thought of them as very motivating. Of course, I would love to think that I will lose 10 pounds (a goal of mine probably since junior year of high school) or save more money over the course of the year. If I actually made these resolutions, however, I would immediately go have a cheeseburger and fries, then sit on my couch and do some online shopping.

For me, I think it’s because I’ve always thought of resolutions in the form of statements that are restrictive and very specific.

- I will run 1,000 miles this year.

- I will get married and have 2.5 kids this year.

*Trust me, these are NOT my resolutions.

I think INKers have the right idea about professional and personal growth in 2012. See Blair and Rachael’s blog posts below. It isn’t just about achieving one specific resolution. It’s about the various possibilities, experiences and things you will go through in the next year.

As Blair mentioned, each INKer chose a word to define our goals and experiences for the year. I like this idea because it’s not confining and can encompass anything you want it to include, personally and professionally.

My word is CHALLENGE. What this word means for me is that I want to challenge myself…

- to step outside of my comfort zone

- to take on different things that I would usually step back from

- to push myself and not just do the things I am comfortable with already

(“Uncomfortable” could have also been my word, but that’s not very positive J)

The reason I chose “challenge” is because I often feel like it’s easy to just be comfortable with what you know, what you are used to doing and to maintain the status quo – to stay exactly the same because you already know what that’s like. However, when things become too comfortable, you may find yourself in a rut.

Challenging yourself means change, and change is often times uncomfortable and scary. It’s hard – making that leap of faith, going outside of the box and taking the road less traveled. When we do challenge ourselves, it doesn’t have to be big, extravagant displays but instead, steady and small movements forward.

Professional Challenge

Tackling different projects – For me this means, taking on projects beyond building media lists, editorial calendars and monitoring reports that I already know I can do well. I’ve already gotten off to a good start with writing a byline, putting together a case study and handling social media channels for two weeks.

Stepping up to the plate without fear of striking out – When I start off in a new job, I often shy away from certain tasks because I think someone with more experience should take it. However, as of March of this year, I will be at INK for a full year. I know that I have a good foundation and knowledge regarding my clients, because I’ve learned from the best around me. So when I do see those to-do’s come along, I can assess them and realize I have the qualifications to accomplish them.

Networking – Good relationships with clients, media and others leaders in the industry are important in growing yourself and your company.  CES 2012 was an excellent opportunity for me to get to know my clients (Bluetooth SIG and Gemalto) better, meet different media and analysts and challenge myself to be more than just a name on an email or business card.

Personal Challenge

A big reason why I like this “New Year Word” is that it can apply to anything. I’ve started using this word in my personal decision-making and personal growth

Work-Life Balance – One of the things I love about working at INK is that they get this. I know it’s really easy to just go home after work, lie down and watch TV but there’s a lot to learn and do out there. My challenge is to do so. I would like to volunteer. Check out this great list of opportunities from Austin360. I would like to continue my education and learn more skill sets that are fun and just good to know. UT offers several informal classes. I’ve signed up to take an InDesign class in February (this one is a work challenge, too J).

Make time for family and friends – I’ve realized in the past year how important family and friends are. Yes, it takes time. Everyone is busy and traveling is expensive, but it matters. I can make an effort to call my Dad more often (though I’m not a fan of phones), I can make plans to have dinner with my sister and see her adorable puppy (she lives just 15 minutes away) and I can talk to my cousins and friends online. I’ll be heading to Florida for Chinese New Year’s with my grandma and to Chicago in April to see several friends.

It’s always easy to say I’m going to X, Y and Z but then never get to it. Having a new year word means having a driving force behind my thoughts, decisions and actions.

The challenge to my challenge will be to keep this going through 2012!

Volunteer.

To some, it’s a scary word. To others, it is what life’s all about. To me, it’s a way to dive into in my community, to befriend new personalities, to learn and to donate my resources.

A few months ago I decided it was time to start volunteering here in Austin. After poking around and weighing my options, I decided to get involved with the HOPE Farmers Market, an ideal combination of Sunday Fun-day, food, music, art and creative people.

My first time helping at HOPE I hung around the merchandise station to sell posters, t-shirts and water bottles. I had a great time chatting up strangers about HOPE’s parent organization, mission and artwork. I even ended up buying a few posters for myself (which look fantastic in my apartment, I might add).

A week later the volunteer coordinator approached me with the question, “Do you have a smartphone?” “Yes.” “Okay, great. I’ll make you a Facebook admin for our page.”

It was brilliant! The PR and media flack in me was thrilled that I could bring my professional skills and resources to the table. After all, I spend much of my day discussing social media strategies for clients anyway, and I enjoy breaking out my DSLR for freelance photography projects—why not incorporate these skills into my volunteer work?

Since then I’ve been using my phone to update HOPE’s Facebook directly from the market, posting photos and videos of vendors, market-goers and live music. I’ve been taking photos with my DSLR camera for use on Facebook, the HOPE blog and even local ads for the market. And just last weekend we put together HOPE’s first ever market photo booth, complete with veggie props and burlap. Next on my list are website and blog recommendations.

Applying professional skills to personal interests. Is this volunteering of the modern world? As it turns out, I’m not the only HOPE volunteer with the idea. Young bike connoisseurs have established a pop-up fix up shop at the market, a part-time caterer runs the tasting booth and cooking demos (pictured below bottom), and the owner of an Austin landscaping company facilitates the community compost (pictured below top).

Maybe we’ll soon see award-winning chefs behind soup kitchen counters and urban architects building playgrounds. What skills can you offer your community?

Join me at the HOPE Farmers Market – Sundays 11 AM – 3 PM, Pine Street Station at E. 5th and Waller St., Austin, TX.

January 23^rd is Chinese New Year! This is a very special holiday for me because it’s a really neat part of my Asian heritage. It’s also kind of an extension of the winter holidays but with an Asian flare!  I would sum up the holiday in three words: food, booze and MONEY! Okay, okay it’s not just about the money, I actually do love all the traditions and meanings that go along with Chinese New Year.

Red Envelopes to put under your pillow for luck.

A little history…

*There’s quite a bit. It’s culture over 5,000 years old. I’ve grown up with it and I’m still fuzzy on the details, but I’ll do my best to sum it up.

- Chinese New Year is also known as “Lunar New Year” (農曆新年) because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar. It’s also called the “Spring Festival” (春節- Chūn Jié) as it signals the start of the spring season.

- In the western calendar, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, usually between mid-January to mid-February).

Fun Fact: In 2010, Chinese New Year fell on Valentine’s Day and the day of the NBA All-Star Game!

- The festivities last for 15 days with various activities each day, depending on the country and traditions.

- Why is there so much RED? In Chinese culture, red symbolizes joy, luck, truth, virtue and prosperity. (Ex: In traditional Chinese weddings, brides and grooms wear red, not white.)

-According to my childhood stories, the beginning of Chinese New Year started many, many eons ago with the fight against a mythical beast called “Nian” (年).  This word also means “year” in Chinese.

Nian would come on the first day of new year to eat livestock, crops and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, people would make lots of food and put it out at the beginning of every year so Nian would have something to eat and not attack the villages. Nian is also scared away by the color red (why red is the official color of Chinese New Year). People also used firecrackers to scare the best (why firecrackers are used in celebration of the new year). From then on, Nian never attacked again.

- This is the Year of the Dragon (龍) – Each year coincides with one of the 12 Chinese zodiacs. If you were born in the year of the dragon, congrats! It’s your lucky year!

Read about your zodiac at your local Chinese restaurant.

Dragons are Magnanimous, stately, vigorous, strong, self-assured, proud, noble, direct, dignified, eccentric, intellectual, fiery, passionate, decisive, pioneering, artistic, generous, loyal. But can be tactless, arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, intolerant, dogmatic, violent, impetuous, brash.

The Schedule:

*This holiday is a full 15 days of activities so I’ll give you the highlights. In Asian countries, school and most business are closed for extended amounts of time.

Leading up to the New Year celebration:

1. Clean your home, sweeping away all the bad luck and things from the previous year to welcome in the good fortunes.

2. Buy new clothes, shoes and even get a haircut to symbolize a fresh start.

3. Hang “Chun Lian” (see below).

"福" (fu) means happiness. You hang the word upside down because the Chinese word "upside down"(倒-dao) is homophonous with (到-dao) "arrive." So now the sign means “the arrival of happiness”! Clever.

New Year’s Eve: (除夕- Chú Xī) is when families gather for an annual reunion dinner. Traditionally, firecrackers were lit to scare away evil spirits with the house doors sealed, not to be reopened until the new morning in a ritual called “opening the door of fortune.”

And…red envelopes!!!

Red Envelopes/Packets (红包) – or Ya Sui Qian (壓歲錢) which means “the money used to suppress evil spirits” – Packets that contain cash, usually given by elders or married couples to children or those unmarried.  You keep them under your pillow for good luck.

*So the key to getting more money on Chinese New Year: Don’t get married for as long as possible. Adopt some kids.  And the more relatives you have, the better – lots of aunts and uncles, married cousins, family friends count too and if you have multiple sets of grandparents (just kidding).

Day 1: Welcoming of the deities, lion dances, etc. Also, I’ve always been told not to wash my hair on New Year’s Day because you don’t want to wash away all good luck and fortune.

Watch a lion dance HERE.

Day 2: Traditionally, this was the day married daughters visited their maiden families.

Day 3-14: Various celebrations commence including celebrations of deities, paying tribute to your ancestors, going to temples, family gatherings and other customs and traditions.

Day 15: Chinese New Year ends with the Lantern Festival (元宵節 – Yuanxiao Jié). You light paper lanterns that you can hang or carry around and you solve riddles in lanterns.

The Food: Everything you eat for has special meaning.

- Dumplings: They’re shaped like money back in the old days, symbolizing a year of wealth.

Traditional Chinese money "Yuan Bao" look like dumplings.

- Fish: In Chinese, the pronunciation of fish (yu) is the same as “surplus”, meaning you will have plenty in the new year.

- Noodles: They must be uncut, because they represent a long life.

- Nian Gao (年糕): these words sound the same as the meaning “year high” (年高), meaning you’ll have a good year ahead.

- Tang Yuan (湯圓): sweet glutinous rice ball brewed in soup eaten on the last day in celebration of the Lantern Festival.

So basically Chinese New Year is about having food, new things, longevity, luck and wealth! Sounds good to me!  Actually, it’s a really fun holiday about family, appreciation and tradition.

So Happy Chinese New Year or in Chinese, 新年快樂, “Xin Nian Kuai LE”!

Hope everyone had a good time at CES 2012 and that you’re recovering from your week there.

Not only was this my first INK business trip, it was also my first tech trade show and it was my first CES (Consumer Electronics Show, as I had to explain to many of my friends not in tech or PR).

Talk about doing it big for a lot of “firsts”. I’ve heard about CES since my agency interning days in college.

The things I had heard people say about CES:

- Your feet will hurt.

- You don’t get much sleep.

- It’s massive. It’s crazy. It’s hectic. It’s a lot of cool, new gadgets and technology. It’s a spectacle. It’s a lot to see in just a couple of days.

And yes, it was all of the above.

First things first, the CES checklist:

*Personal note that I must share because I am so proud of myself: Usually it takes me hours to pack, because my method is to take everything I own and throw it on my bed and then slowly weed out things I don’t like. Packing for CES took me just ONE hour!

- Learn everything you can about CES and what your clients are doing there: read those web sites, memorize the briefing book and if you need help, I hope you are as lucky as I was to have colleagues and PROS like Helen Rodriguez, Allison Glass, Blair Poloskey, Starr Baker and Kari Hernandez to show you the way!

I was truly amazed and impressed at how these ladies handled themselves, kept it together, carried themselves with confidence and knocked everything out of the park – using the INK spirit, creativity and hard work to secure top-tier meetings and make some happy clients.

What does SUPER mean to you? INK PR, of course. Artwork thanks to Allison Glass.

 

What I learned from my first CES:

1. You will do as much talking as you do walking.

2. Take those CES maps everywhere – Though even with them, I still managed to end up at the opposite end of the show floor from where we needed to be.

3. You tip the valet when you pick up the car, not when you drop it off. (I’m such a newbie to this elite lifestyle.)

4. Always have water – Vegas is in the desert and the water supply could run out at any time.

Stepping onto the CES show floor.

5. Lots of moving parts and coordination – schedule of what INKers and clients are doing each day, who will have the vehicles, who will be where, when and at what time… wait say that again!?!

6. Prepare, smile and have confidence – It’s all about presentation and after repeating the same spiel a couple times, you’ll get it.

7. Learn from the best – Listening to your clients and colleagues do their thing is a great way to soak up some knowledge.

8. Bond with your clients and co-workers – Meals and trips are great opportunities to get to know your clients (and even your colleagues) outside of meetings and work environments.

The best thing I saw at CES that I need to have. I am accepting birthday gifts early.

9. What you’ll see at the show: lots of iphone, ipad and computer cases, smart phones, tablets and laptops, cameras, headphones in various shapes and colors and countless huge, 3-D TVs!

10. Technology innovation galore: remoteless TVs controlled by motion or voice, interactive shopping, headphones for mobile gaming to talk with fellow players, smart appliances, connected cars and ultrabooks.

11. Oh and no one told me that CES is the hot place that celebrities hang out! Justin Bieber, Ryan Seacrest, Justin Timberlake, Will Smith, 50 Cent, Dennis Rodman, LL Cool J and Snooki!

Who’s ready for CES 2013?

I read a pretty fabulous post by Tolly Moseley a couple weeks back about choosing a word to define her goals and experiences for the year, rather than setting resolutions. I thought this was a pretty brilliant idea (turns out I am not the only one) and encouraged everyone at INK to do the same.  These are the words we chose:

Starr: learn

Kari: order

Blair: open

Micaela: cultivate

Helen: confidence

Allison: lead

Candice: challenge

Jessica: embrace

Rachael: emerge

Adrienne: focus

Just a couple weeks into the year, I have already seen the team tackle work differently based on their word choices. For example, Helen just rocked CES. I mean rocked it hard. Her first CES in the roll of lead-coordinator-and-general-big-boss-of-every-possible-situation – and she did it with the utmost confidence. I never saw her balk at a situation or stutter-step. It was pretty incredible, and, as the person usually playing this roll, SO COMFORTING. Her confidence, whether feigned or real, certainly put me at ease, and allowed me to be open to someone else being in control – Look Ma, I am playing along too!

Candice also rose to the challenge (you see what I did there?) at CES this year – tackling her first major media event, first business trip with INK, first time shuttling media clients around the busy streets of Vegas in a Tahoe (that she essentially needed a running start to even get into the drivers seat of) without batting an eyelash. She even shipped a TV to Korea – I know shipping logistics might not seem like the most insurmountable hurdle, but for those of you who think that, you have clearly never tried to ship anything from the business center at Treasure Island.

This year is bound to be another banner year for INK – and hopefully, by the end of it, we will be able to look back and say that we addressed work and situations that came our way differently (and better) than we would have before due to this exercise. We’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, what is your word?

It’s January and you know what that means.  A new year brings the desire to create new resolutions – those goals that we strive to incorporate as a regular part of our lives.  Oftentimes, I find that people focus their resolutions on their personal lives, failing to realize that making improvements to their professional lives can be equally important.  What’s more is that many of the things I would like to resolve to do differently in my work life can be easily transferred to aspects of my personal life.

If you’re interested in trying something different this year, why not strive to incorporate these suggestions into your professional resolution list?

-Increased engagement in social media: The age of social media is upon us (Don’t believe me? Check out Mashable’s list of 2012 Social Media Predictions). These days, there are hundreds of different social media channels available to us – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Digg – the options are seemingly endless. It’s not enough to just have a Facebook page or a Twitter account anymore.  While there is no need to join every channel out there, you do need to be both active and engaging in order to encourage activity among your followers and to ensure you get the most out of your selected sites.  This year, vow to join a new social media channel and spend an additional 15-30 minutes every day interacting with your followers/friends/contacts. By making this small change, you can gain followers and your continued engagement will establish you as an influencer in your channel.

-Build out your professional networks: As in most professions, a successful public relations career can be partially attributed to a well-developed and ever expanding pool of connections.  Frequently, I find myself getting caught up in my own office, entirely forgetting the vast network of public relations professionals that live in my area. I know networking can be an uncomfortable experience for anyone, but this year, try to step out of your comfort zone and attend one networking event in your area each month (and talk to a stranger).  It’s always nice to meet other industry professionals in your area and you never know when one of your connections can prove useful.

-Continue your education: You might have a steady job, but that does not preclude you from further education.  As professionals, we should always strive to improve our knowledge and expertise in our own field as well as other areas.  Personally, I would like to improve my writing and public speaking skills.  Toastmasters International provides great classes throughout the country to help improve one’s public speaking and leadership skills.  To find a club in your area, just click here.  Another great resource for professional development classes is Star 12 Seminars. I’ve already registered for two skills seminars this year and can’t wait to broaden my skill set.

It’s Day 1 (or -2 from an official standpoint) here in sunny (and slightly cold) Las Vegas. On tap for INK today – picking up reporters from the airport so they can skip the massive cab line, and we can get face-time for client Bluetooth SIG along the way. This program, in its 5th year now, continues to be a successful way to get time with the media at this ridiculously crowded show without the budget-busting cost of a booth.

When I have them trapped – as this program allows – I like to get some info from our media contacts as well. Today’s question: CES Unveiled, Pepcom, or ShowStoppers, and why? Here’s the synopsis:

- Reporters like to go to CES Unveiled at this show (there’s also a pre-holiday event in NYC that is less attended) because it’s the FIRST opportunity to get their news. This is huge advantage, of course.

- That said, they all also like to go to Pepcom. While they feel they have to go to CES Unveiled (not sure why, but okay), they actually want to go to Pepcom. “We’ll see a couple of good things at CES Unveiled, but will be working all night at Pepcom,” said Eric Zeman of Phone Scoop. The caliber of companies plus the food, booze, and stellar organization were all cited as positives of the Pepcom experience.

- The consensus on Showstoppers? Smaller companies (“that I don’t cover”), not a well-run event, not the newsworthy stuff, not worth my time was the consensus of the media I spoke with. Taking place on the night of the first day of CES is also a pretty big strike against the event (the good stuff all happens pre-show it seems).

So if you’re wondering which media event to participate in next year, consider the above. We’ve been big fans of Pepcom for our clients for many of the reasons listed above and will recommend them again.