There are several different publicity options to choose to globally promote a favorable image for our country. So, of all the options you have to choose from why use a Disney video? Does a screen full of happy people really change an individual’s perception of the United States? Well, it’s worth a try and every little thing counts, so why not test the waters with this new publicity ploy.

The new video is a convenient method of grabbing the attention of a culturally diverse and mass audience. According to an article on located on prweek.com entitle, “Hughes’ legacy goes under microscope” the video is currently being piloted in the Dulles Airport in Washington and the Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Just glancing at a video may have a larger impact on an individual than some may think, especially when you are viewing hoards of smiling faces accompanied by welcoming gestures. Maybe a different, more complicated approach wouldn’t be as effective. I feel as though the simplicity of the ploy is really the main focus. An individual who has just flown for 13 hours and has heard opinions about the U.S., but really doesn’t have any idea regarding what to expect upon arrival. The person then sees this happy video as soon as they step foot into the U.S. and make a conscious or subconscious connection with it. This connection then contributes to the overall image they develop for the country.

This new video is just a small part of the country’s attempt to project a more favorable image to the rest of the world. It still is a proactive means of publicity. The nation will still have to enact more drastic measures in order to cause a substanial change in perception to occur. But for now, this video seems to be a small step in the right direction.

When did the holiday season transform from a little over a month to a full-blown three? Red and green decor begins showing up earlier and earlier each year. Retailers just can’t get the Halloween items out of the store windows fast enough. Doesn’t it seem odd that a dancing pumpkin is replaced by Santa and his reindeer less than 24 hours later?

Retailers don’t seem to find anything odd about this concept given the fact that it’s their fault society has begun jump-starting Christmas at the end of October. Stores usually begin revealing their holiday specials on the famous Friday after Thanksgiving, but the recent rise in the cost of living caused a recent rise in the retailing competition this holiday season. According to an article entitled, “Post-Thanksgiving discounts begin early,” corporations such as Wal-Mart and KB Toys are hosting their huge sales starting today. In addition to the nation’s current economic conditions, the early start is also due largely in part to the fact that there are no new must-have products this year, so retailers are going to have to begin offering jaw-dropping deals on regular products. For instance, today starting at 8:00 AM Wal-Mart is selling laptop computers for the amazingly low price of $384.

Is this how it’s going to from here on out? Are consumers expected to start buying their Christmas gifts before they even think about the ingredients for their Thanksgiving dinner? The holiday season is the way it is today because of the retail industry. The closer it gets to December 25, the more clutter that is generated throughout the peaks and bounds of society. Adding an entire month to this season is unnecessary and a little over the top. People need time to breathe before the winter chaos ensues. Unfortunately, due to the decisions of a handful of retail CEO’s that breathing time has been cut short, real short and the rest of the nation is forced to keep up with this new holiday pace.

Within the last two years time, Bob Woodruff has survived a roadside explosion in Iraq, a 36-day medically induced coma, and a complete loss of memory. He is now fully recovered with a good physical condition, his complete memory, and a full time job that allows him to travel to several places a month.

Woodruff is a correspondent for ABC News, specifically its World News and Nightline programs. He suffered through severe head trauma from an attack while reporting from the war in Iraq. Woodruff has gained a considerable amount of fame from his personal tragedy. Although his struggle is what made him receive this public attention, what he has done with this attention is the real heroic part of his story.

In result of his experience, Woodruff has created a fundraising campaign for wounded soldiers, particularly those who have suffered head injuries. According to a NY Times article entitled “Recovering From Injury, Returning to TV, Speaking for the Wounded,” the main event of his campaign is a benefit concert that will take place on November 7 at the Manhattan Town Hall featuring Bruce Springsteen, Robin Williams, Conan O’Brien and Lewis Black. The event is called “Stand up for Heroes” and is predicted to raise over $1 million. The majority of the money rasied by the event will be donated to the Bob Woodruff family Fund, while the remainder will be directly given to soldiers and support services.

In addition to the concert, Woodruff has found another effective means of publicity for his campaign. He has contacted President Bush and Bill and Hilary Clinton to serve on an honorary committee. Woodruff’s wife Lee, who has solidly stood by his side throughout the whole experience, has begun lobbying politicians to support bills that cause proper health care to become more accessible to returning soldiers.

The ultimate goal of public relations is to promote goodwill. Bob Woodruff has put forth the maximum amount of effort to accomplish this goal. Without doubt, his story will be an example for many PR case studies in the future. When Woodruff looks back and reflects upon his experience, he views it as sort of a blessing. He has taken his unfortunate circumstance and placed it in a positive light in order to reach out to other individuals who have endured through the same if not more amount of pain and grief. His way is one of the best ways of practicing public relations that I have yet to see.

Looking for an outlet where you can voice your opinions, be heard, and have others support you in your efforts? Don’t look any farther then your computer screen. Thepoint.com is the kind of outlet you are looking for. The Point is a website created by a team of developers, thinkers and entrepreneurs located in Chicago and is privately owned and funded.

The goal of the website is to allow individuals to collectively express their frustration with problems in their community or the world and initiate the creation of campaigns to solve them. The Point includes four main concepts in their belief statement. The first concept being people care. People want to find a feasible way to make a difference and with support, this hope becomes a reality. The second concept is people can solve their problems, if enough people want it to be solved, corrective action will take place. The third concept is people can count on each other when they feel needed, meaning that people will only take action if they know they have reliable support from others and an effective solution is going to result from their effort. The last concept lies within the website’s goal is maintaining neutrality. The Point strives to serve as a non-partisan facilitator of an outlet where people can freely discuss topics that hold a high level of importance to them.

The Point is a resource you can use to communicate with and connect to people all over the world that share your same views. The way the website functions is it allows individuals to post a campaign regarding a problem you have. For example, some of the newest campaigns posted on the website are about putting Aquafina in biodegradable bottles, stopping Starbucks from using hormone-injected milk and trying to get CNN.com to separate human interest stories from actual news. Once your campaign is posted, you attempt to gain support from other users by having them commit to tipping the point. Once a point is tipped, then the entire support group can take action towards solving the problem.

The Point is a new and appealing way for individuals to express themselves and take collective action on important issues. The website’s popularity is growing and it continues to attract a significant amount of new users on a daily basis. So I encourage you to follow the link and check it out. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Everyday thousands of college students are unknowingly being targeted by credit card companies with promises of free food and other appealing giveaways. The companies set up shop on college campuses and lure students into participating in their account-draining and credit-damaging scheme. A student will see a sign for a free pizza and b-line it across campus to take advantage of this unbelievable opportunity. According to an article found in the Chicago Tribune entitled, “Project targets credit cards on campus,”76 percent of undergraduates have credit cards and the average outstanding balance on these student credit cards was $2,169. If 76 percent of students have a credit card then most likely a good amount of those students have been victims companies participating in the credit card scam.

The sad part is that a lot of the students who sign on the dotted line are 18 year-old freshman who have no clue what their getting themselves into. They adopt a mentality of becoming a responsible adult now that their in college by getting their own credit card, not knowing that in a few years they are going to be over a thousand dollars in debt with bad credit and no way of paying it off.

What can be done? Some college campuses such as the University of Illinois at Chicago, mentioned in the above article, are becoming part of the campaign funded by the Ford Foundation that counter markets educational materials on 40 campuses across the nation. The goal of the campaign is to let students know that credit card companies are trying to take advantage of college students. Representatives from the campaign go onto college campuses and hand out brochures. In addition, they have created a Web site that contains information about the scam and what can be done to avoid being a victim of it.

Although credit card companies are going to continue to market college students, there is at least preventative action taking place. Hopefully someday their manipulative tactics will end. But, until then students need to be aware of their intentions and the notion that they’re only out to get you.

Wal-Mart has decided to become active in the attempt to produce their products in an environmentally safe manner. According to a New York Times article entitled, “Lead, Follow or Move Aside” Wal-Mart is trying to get it’s suppliers to measure and regulate their greenhouse gas emissions. Since China is one of it’s main suppliers, they are the ones receiving the most pressure and attention to adapt to the change.

What is Wal-Mart really trying to prove by promoting this new green label? I feel as though the main goal of the whole campaign is to create a positive public relations image. Wal-Mart has taken some heavy hits in the past regarding numerous issues in the areas such as unfavorable employee treatment practices, poor cross cultural marketing, and unsuccessful community relations. According to an article entitled, “Has Wal-Mart Peaked?” Wal-Mart’s mistakes are what are preventing it from global expansion. The Wal-Mart craze may have spread like wildfire in the U.S., but overseas their not buying it. Can you blame them? The problem with Wal-Mart is that they don’t conduct their business in a respectful manner. They act to gain the greatest amount for themselves and don’t take into consideration the effect their actions have on others, whether it is an elderly employee or a member of a small German community they are trying to invade and build an over sized store.

So is Wal-Mart going to make up for some of it’s bad press through their new green label campaign? It may gain some good publicity after they put forth enough effort to reshape their image, but a complete turn around is highly unlikely. Unless it totally rebuilds itself from the bottom up Wal-Mart will continue to keep those skeletons in it’s closet.

When posting any type of information online it automatically becomes a free-for-all, no matter what type of security measures seem to be put in place. Often times the information that is posted is private, distasteful or insulting against another individual or an entire group. This statement particularly holds true in the case of social networking Web sites. Facebook, MySpace and all other social networking sites are big offenders when it comes to personal and offensive information being spread all over the Internet. A recent article posted on PR Week entitled Risk comes with social media’s rewards addresses this issue of unfavorable commentary being found on these Web sites. What can be done? It is close to impossible to monitor all of the offensive material placed on the Internet, therefore the general public needs to stop trying to rely on new and innovative online monitoring and security measures to fix the problem. Instead they should begin to accept the fact that you are putting yourself at risk and exposing yourself to inappropriate content when posting and viewing personal information on the Web.

When addressing the issue of Internet security, individuals should start to become more aware of what and where their posting private information by paying close attention to what type of Web site their on and if they are releasing this information to a trustworthy host. An article found on the International Business Times Web site entitled, Social Networking May Lead to Hacking, Identity Thef :Report draws the public’s attention to the fact that the wrong people such as hackers and identity thieves can get a hold of someone’s personal information and use it to their advantage. Once you put something online it is out there for anyone to see, especially those individuals who posses extensive knowledge of the interworkings of the Internet and are looking for it.

Although there are numerous benefits when it comes to social networking and being able to utilize online services, there are also the downfalls that are accompanied by the risk factor. People are going to make posts or create Web sites that others do not agree with. Internet usage is only going to continue to progress in the future and will eventually become completely unavoidable. Use the Internet to your advantage, but keep in mind the fact that it is a free-for-all and the Internet will always be a risky business.

New York City’s Health and Hospital Corporation is taking the initial step in hopes that others will follow their lead. According to a New York Times article released on September 7th, all 11 hospitals in the NYC area will begin posting data on the corporation’s website, www.nyc.gov/hhc that will reveal infection and death rates. Mayor Bloomberg’s intention is to make improvements in patient safety by publicly exposing and targeting the areas of health care that hospitals need to work on. In addition, Bloomberg would like for the hospitals to be able to decrease it’s amount of errors by comparing itself with the other 10 hospitals in the city.

How will this new method of improvement affect a hospital’s image? In a negative way. Not all publicity is good publicity. Most of the time, companies try everything in their power to prevent any public leakage of their errors. In this case, the hospitals are actively making the public aware of their faults. Who would want to seek medical attention from any institution that has high infection rates and possibly evidence of malpractice? People want to have faith in and be able to trust the hospital that provides them with health care. This is why hospitals have yet to release statistics such as death rate and the amount of preventable bloodstream infections to the public. These types of statistics scare people away from using the facility and causes them to search for a new hospital, one that doesn’t post negative information about itself on the Internet.

Until a large majority of nation-wide hospitals begin reporting their errors and national comparisons can be made, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation should consider easing up on what they post online. At the moment, they are basically causing themselves to be the subject of a substantial amount of criticism while other hospitals are solely practicing good publicity.

Click here to view the New York Times article, “New York City Puts Hospital Error Data Online.”

For many, the Internet has become their only means of tuning into global, national, and local news. Whenever an individual needs to find information on a particular topic, the first place to search is the Internet. What they are looking for is most of the time guaranteed to be found on the Internet over any other informational outlet. Can you blame them? The most appealing factor of the Internet is its convenience. Almost anything you need can be retrieved from a single machine, sitting on your desk, right in front of your face.

Other forms of informational mediums are not so pleased with the concept. Newspapers, magazines and various other publications are experiencing negative effects from the Internet’s increasing popularity. Now that there is a new means of getting the news out and promoting advertisements, the readership levels and ad earnings are experiencing a steady decline.

The shocking part is that this isn’t just a temporary slump for the newspaper industry. The Internet will continue to expand with more and more ways of obtaining information the public once relied upon newspapers to provide. Real-estate, classified ads, movie times, local event listings, and even the games you find in the newspaper can now all be found online. The damage is permanent. According to an article posted on prweek.com website industry-wide revenue was down 8.6% in the second quarter and if this decline rate continues, newspapers will be broke in three years.

So are the days of flipping through long pages of smudgy print over? Could the Internet really cause printed news publications to become extinct? It’s too early to tell right now. But, the threat is definitely in place and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Numerous outlets for social networking have been developed over recent years. Some of the most popular ones being various blogging websites, Myspace, and Facebook. This summer I had the opportunity to experience networking not online, but in the workplace. My summer position was an intern for the federal government under U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Office of Congressional Affairs. During the time I spent working in this office, I was exposed to a lot of inner and outer office networking and began to grasp its level of importance in the workforce.

To further explain what I mean by networking in the office, I will use the concept of who you know and what they can do for you. When meeting individuals in the workplace, often times people automatically think of what type of connection they can form with an individual that will prove to be beneficial to them in the future. This is the technique a large amount of government employees use to get promotions or find a job in a different field. Networking, for the most part, can be seen as a two-way street. Both individuals involved are looking to gain something starting at the occurrence of the initial introduction. Some of these network relationships are long-lasting while others can be short-lived. For example, I met a man who has been gaining from and offering opportunities to a colleague he met over 20 years ago and their connection continues to be strong today.

For the last couple of months I spent working in the Congressional Affairs office, I met many people that can aid me in finding a job once I graduate. I plan to keep in touch with these individuals in hopes that the connections I made will provide me with future opportunities.