-I'm-Back-

Hello World

I have decided that my break from writing needs to be over.  I have been away way too long!
Quick recap of my life recently:

- I start my last term of college EVER today.
- Derek returns from a three month stay in Africa tomorrow!
- We leave for Mexico in May to watch our beautiful friends get married.
- Derek is looking at different grad schools across the nation so moving this summer will be in order.
- I get the privilege of traveling to Europe this summer where I will get to spend a week with Talia!
- We are hoping to add an addition to our family within the next year (a puppy, not a baby)

I'm excited to enter back into the blogging world and share my life adventures with you all. 

-Busy-Bee-

I just wanted to write a quick post before I head out for the day.  I have a busy day and a lot to get done.  It is going to be a little crazy, but thankfully I get to spend my morning with these two so it makes it worth it.

-Summer-

Now that school is over for the summer, I no longer I have to blog for my class.  This means back to my old ways of writing about food, fashion and whatever else I feel like.

This week Derek and I are working on moving into our first place together. This means style compromise.  I'm not too excited about this especially since he told me I had to "get over this flower thing."  Here are a few things I'm hoping we can agree on, I might even be able to sneak a few flower 'things' in.

{via}

Candles in hurricane jars for above our t.v. cabinet

 

{via}

I love this idea!

 {via}

Adding fabric or colorful paper to the back of bookshelves

{via}

Hanging baskets to store towels

-Blogging-

 

A look at what motivates individuals to find a blog credible

Blogging is one of my passions. I love reading blogs like Cupcakes and Cashmere

and Studded Hearts. This week for my PR class we had to read an academic journal article and I found one on blogging. The following article is the one I read:

Kaye, B.K., & Johnson, T.J. (2011). Hot diggity blog: A cluster analysis examining motivations and other factors for why people judge different types of blogs as credible. Mass Communication and Society, 14(2), 236-263.  

Journal Topic

Kaye and Johnson examined how users compared seven types of blogs – general information, media/journalism, war, military, political, corporate, and personal blogs – to be creditable. The study used a two-step cluster analysis and identified four groups of users.  This means the study used a two-step process to break down the pool of people into four separate groups called clusters based on their preferences.

Survey

The researchers recruited blog users for the research study by placing a survey URL on 70 general interest blogs. Participants in the survey shared information about their blog preferences and views of credibility. A total of 1,989 people participated in the online survey. 

Purpose

There were several reasons for the survey:

1.     Examine credibility based on genre

2.     See if certain blog genres were more credible than others

3.     Examine if the demographics and characteristics of participates relates to credibility  

Method

The main focus of the survey was to look at the credibility of blog types.  Researchers coined credibility as involving four areas: believability, fairness, accuracy, and depth of information. Participants then rated these four areas with a point scale of 1-5.

Participants were also asked to answer and rate questions involving:

·      Interest in general news and the Iraq War

·      Political party and ideology

·      War support

·      Blog use

·      Trust and self-efficacy

·      Demographics

·      Blog use motivations

Results

The four cluster groups had the following characteristics:

·      Cluster 1- Blog Confidents

o   Deemed all seven blog types as credible

o   Dominated by Republicans

o   Said motivation of group feelings is “because blogs provide the most up-to-date information”

·      Cluster 2- War and Corporate Blog Doubters

o   Deemed war, military and corporate blogs not credible at all and other blogs somewhat credible

o   Half affiliated with Democratic party

o   Said motivation of group feelings is “for depth of information”

·      Cluster 3- War Blog Faithful

o   Deemed only war and military blogs highly credible and other blogs not credible at all

o   Dominated by Republicans

o   Said motivation of group feelings is “because I don’t trust traditional media”

·      Cluster 4- Blog Averse

o   Deemed all seven types of blogs not credible

o   Divided more evenly among conservative, moderates and liberals

o   Said motivation of group feelings is “to get a wide variety of opinions”

Limitations

The method used to gather information was self-selected, meaning participants were not selected but volunteered to be part of the survey. The second limitation was the snowball method, having participants forward the survey onto fellow bloggers. 

Conclusion

This survey taught me a lot about why people find blogs to be creditable or not.  It helps reshape how I want write on my own blog.  It is important to me to open my blog up for conversation.  I have to focus more on a target audience. I found my target is people who share the same interests as me and are looking for an entertainment purpose out of a blog. 

-Diverse-Workplace-

In college, I have been exposed to so many different types of people.  This has helped me realize the importance of having diversity in our communities. If we were all the same, the world would be a boring place. I think this is an important outlook to take into the workplace.

The Multicultural Advantage website discusses how having a diverse workplace adds to the variety of points of view. The collaboration of differing viewpoints can expand your knowledge and foster your creativity. I have found this to be so true, especially when working in groups or as a team. Having everyone share their ideas helps build new ideas off of old ones.

Diversity goes beyond just sharing ideas. I found a neat story on Insperity, a business performance site, about one man's point of view:

A Bronx nursing home held a diversity-sensitivity workshop. Bruce Hurwitz was one of the participants that was called on to discuss the statement: "Race matters in interpersonal relations."  Hurwitz was the only one that responded that race mattered to him. His coworkers did not understand why Hurwitz would say such a thing. Hurwitz explained, "If race doesn’t matter, then race means nothing; there is no Asian history, there is no Hispanic history, there is no African-American history, there is no Muslim history, and none of you has any special culture. If you were to say that about me, I’d be highly offended and consider you to be anti-Semitic."

I think that giving recognition to diversity in the workplace is a good way to help promote and expand diversity within other companies. There have been several PRSA chapters that have won awards for their efforts to incorporate diversity into their companies. It can be as simple as the Miami Chapter's wine tasting and professional development workshop. The Chapter recognized the need to incorporate the Hispanic community in the professional world of public relations and this event fostered this notion.

Kaiser Permanente has also been recognized on several occasions for its effort to create a diverse workplace. Some of the places they were recognized by are DiversityInc., the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, Black Collegian magazine, Asian Enterprise magazine, Workforce Management magazine, Latina Style magazine and The California Diversity Council. Kaiser has 181,000 employees and 74 percent are female and 56 percent are people of color.

It is inspiring to see so many workplaces recognized for their efforts in creating diversity. I love hearing how people have overcome negative attitudes toward diversity and grow from their experiences. It helps me strive to work at a place that has a diverse work force.  

-What-I-Want-To-Be-When-I-Grow-Up-

Whenever I tell people I'm getting my degree in journalism with a focus in public relations and advertising, people look at me strangely and ask, "So what do you want to do with that?"  The truth is I don't really know.  I started out with my focus being advertising but after taking a few public relations classes I started to gain interest in the field.  However, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my dual degree but I think I'm starting to make headway.

The niche in public relations that interests me the most is integrated marketing public relations.  It takes both worlds I love, advertising and public relations, and combines them.  This is where public relations controls all the sources of messaging for a product, so there is more message penetration. 

For those of you who are not in the journalism world, this means I get to work with advertisers, marketers, and even promoters of a product to make our message to customers more clear.  This is super exciting for me.  I get to use all the tools from both advertising and public relations to work on a brand.  It makes spending five years in college seem more worth it.  I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, well at least a glimpse of what could be the light at the end of my college career.

-Waves-of-Change-

I have been writing on this blog for a little over a year now and if you don't know me personally then you probably don't know much about me.  I'm studying at the University of Oregon, working toward my degree in journalism with a focus in public relations and advertising.  For one of my public relations classes, I was asked to start a blog.  Since I already have this blog, I thought I would start blogging about my career interests in public relations.  This is a new adventure for me and I'm about to share it with you.