Event Planning at UO

Ideally, at some point in my life I would like to have a career in event planning. I decided this was what I wanted to do my sophomore year in college. Unfortunately, the University of Oregon does not have a major in event planning so I settled on public relations. What I have found interesting in my public relations courses is how many of my peers also want to pursue event planning. This is especially demonstrated by the fact that the PR Campaigns course this spring for the Senior Experience is going to be centered around event planning. I have chosen to stay in Eugene for my last term, but am disappointed that this type of opportunity is not available here. 

The other thing I am disappointed in the School of Journalism and Communication, is that it does not encourage students to consider the University of Oregon Festival and Event Management program in addition to the public relations focus. I stumbled on this program by accident the summer before my junior year and decided to pursue my certificate immediately. The program offers a certificate program which requires you to attend workshops, take a ten week course, complete a project and do a practicum all centered around event planning. When I asked my advisor back sophomore year what my options were for event planning, this was never mentioned, which is a shame. I hope my public relations teachers learn about it so they can encourage their students who are passionate about event planning to look into this option. It would also be remarkable if teachers teamed with some of the lead lecturers and coordinators of the certificate program to present about event planning. 

 

The other great thing as well, is that the program is run through the Continuing Education center which means even if teachers don’t reach their students until senior year, if they are staying in the Portland/Eugene area, they can still consider this option. Also, many of the workshops I have taken were full of people whose companies paid for them to go. It is all around a good stepping stone for University of Oregon students to get some knowledge of event management, even if they can’t major in it. 

 

My New Friend in India

Today I had my first memorable conversation with an international call center. My roommate and I had not been able to get online because our Netgear Wireless Router was not working. So I decided to call Netgear’s support line. I was at first impressed to see all the different ways they allowed customers to contact them for help. They have a User Forum, which seems like a great way to offer feedback about products or for Netgear to see things that their customers don’t like. It reminds me of a blog simply focused on the feedback aspect. Because our problem was time sensitive, in other words my roommate and I had projects and neither of us enjoy going to the library, I decided to use the Regular Phone Support. After about 20 minutes on the phone with a very friendly agent, my problem was fixed with little frustration on my part. Yes, it was at times difficult to understand what he was saying, but he was always polite saying “yes ma’am” and “wonderful ma’am.” While we were waiting for my router to reboot, he asked what state I was from and I asked him where he was from. We small chatted about the time difference between Oregon and India and I told him about the beautiful spring day we were having here. It was a pleasant experience, and in no time my internet was back up and working.

 

I’m not only writing this post because The World is Flat 3.0 spends a great deal of time talking about call centers in India, but also because of the reactions so many American’s have about these call centers. So many people hate call centers because they hate not being able to understand someone when they have a problem. I know, it’s frustrating to repeat yourself and have someone not understand what you are trying to say. However, if you are patient and go into the phone call with enough time you might just have a pleasant experience.

 

I wonder if soon we will see a PR campaign to help American’s adjust to international call centers. I would be interested in what type of campaign would be effective? 

Blogging To Do List

My learning how to blog to do list:

I have always been obsessed about being organized. I am that person who color codes her calendar, creates hourly time sheets for her days and yes, is completely addicted to To Do Lists. I have decided to create my Blogging To Do List in hopes to commit myself to learning how to improve my knowledge of blogging and skills with blogging. So here is what I would like to learn how to do before spring break in three weeks:

 1. How to make WordPress recognize my paragraphs, without having to type in the code. 

2. How to place pictures in different locations in my posts, as well as how to make them the size I want them. As you can see by my large picture, I could use some help with this one.

3. How to change the header picture of my blog to a personalized picture. This way it will be more personal to my blog, instead of just the widget form.

4. How to have my text wrap around the pictures that I place in blog.

5. How to put a Twitter update on the sidebar of my blog.

6. How to place a Recent Comments sidebar on my blog.

7. How to add a Search feature to my blog.

8. How to get FeedBurner to recognize my blog and keep track of its stats.

9. How to get pictures of a website that I can post in my blog. A lot of times other bloggers post about how something is formated or a particular website and they have the picture of the website which is a great way to show what they mean without having to link to it. 

10. How to add and manage additional pages on my blog. 

I know several of these items simply take time to sit down and play with WordPress. So that is why I have committed them to a To Do List and a time frame. If anyone has easy directions on any of the items, I would greatly appreciate the help!