Words or Numbers?

If you’re like me, getting out of high school and pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication meant not only following my dreams, but also saying goodbye forever to endless math homework and abstract mathematical concepts. That was true for the most part, because in order to meet the credits to graduate I only had to take one basic math class. Yet, when practicing public relations I’ve had to deal with numbers in a variety of ways. While I may never work with strange theorems, angles, and high-tech graphing calculators ever again, I still have found the need to understand the correlation between numbers, analyzing data and performing single math equations to fulfill adequately my tasks.

As public relations professionals, the art of storytelling plays a central role in our daily lives; and if you’re a seasoned PR specialist your ability to sway clients and your target market with your words should be astonishing. Nonetheless, we now live in an informational era, where each day our target market demands more and more information about topics and it’s our job as managers of our customer’s communication strategies to provide this information. Words are not cutting it for people anymore; they want detailed and precise information. This means numbers. Therefore, you need to know how to analyze data and come up with conclusions to include in our press releases and into our campaigns as a whole. We have to build the story with words and support it with data.

Career Kickstart

Kickstarter and other “crowdfunding” platforms have become extremely popular, taking the fundraising and social media scene by storm. This site is already even part of Time Magazine's Best Websites of 2011. That's because every week, thousands of people upload their creative projects to the website and pledge money with the hope of getting their dream project funded. The catch is that on Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before its deadline or the money is not given to the user.

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The imminent benefit of using this platform is, of course, getting the necessary funds to kick-start projects. Yet, Kickstarter is about more than just money; I find this website to have a superb underlying public relations power. Kickstarter allows the user to share their stories, their hopes and dreams. Since most people love compelling stories that exhibit genuineness and passion, and feel good supporting a captivating cause, if it’s a good idea, communicated in an attractive fashion, it’ll spread exponentially. Therefore, the buzz-generating power of this platform is surreal.

Even if the project doesn’t get funded, the storytelling aspect of Kickstarter provides space for people to discover creative ideas, identify with the storyteller, and for the user to get free exposure. Ultimately, this is what publicists want.

Joining the Club

While researching topics to write about in this blog, I found myself constantly going back to the website or social media sites of the Association for Public Relations Professionals of Puerto Rico for ideas. That’s when I realized the important role this professional association has in the daily life of public relations specialists or aspiring publicists in Puerto Rico.

This Association was created initially to establish ethic guidelines for the Public Relations industry in the Island and to establish a professional community for industry professionals. Yet, they have recently taken a much important role by serving as the official regulation committee for the industry in the Island. Since 2008, the Association and the Department of Labor of Puerto Rico joined together to establish the requirements to practice Public Relations in the Island and the Association for Public Relations Professionals of Puerto Rico was put in charge of deciding on those candidates that met the requirements to get certified as Public Relations professionals. In this sense, this Association is responsible for the future of aspiring Public Relations professionals like myself.

Touch that snake!

We live in a world that tries to divide the creative people from the non-creative, where innovative ideas are looked upon with fear and in which humans have become creatures of habit. This explains why, in a recent study conducted by Adobe, the vast majority of people stated that they are not living up to their creative potential. Although they understand the importance of creativity in their workplace, they feel like time constraints and pressure from upper management makes them be productive instead of creative. When I came across this study titled “The Creativity Gap” a couple of weeks ago, I was so sad to see how this portrayed a gloomy panorama for all industries, especially the entertainment one, that feeds and evolves based on creative ideas.

Publicists are Celebrities’ Best Accessory

Mayweather vs. Cotto Official HBO Poster
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For Puerto Ricans and worldwide boxing fanatics, this Cinco de Mayo was much more than eating tacos and drinking margaritas. At 11pm that day, the most anticipated HBO PPV boxing fight of 2012, Miguel Cotto vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr., took place. The Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto gave Mayweather a fight beyond expectation. It was a close fight and a tough match. Cotto trapped Floyd against the ropes throughout the fight and landed hard shots to the head that for the first time ever, drew blood from Mayweather’s nose. But, Cotto’s effort was not enough. It was Mayweather's ability to get his uppercuts and jabs in with enough regularity to take most of the fight. Mayweather triumphed in a unanimous decision and blew kisses to a booing and disproving crowd, while Cotto suffered the third loss of his career.

Although a controversial fight, it was a classic boxing match where at the end, one of the opponents wins. The curious thing about this fight, looking at it in a Public Relations standpoint, was what happened after it. In a regular sports competition of this caliber, the main event takes place, a space is allowed for a few informal interviews, and immediately after, a press conference is held with the former opponents. Nonetheless, after hearing the judge’s decision, Miguel Cotto left the boxing ring and headed down to his room without facing the media, refusing to attend the post-fight press conference. As stated by El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s most important newspaper, Miguel Cotto returned to Puerto Rico yesterday and even then, he didn’t talk to the media. The only public statement he gave was through his Twitter account.

One of the best!

I’m proud to say that the School of Communications of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus is officially the first and only communications school outside of the United States that receives an accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC). The Council visited the school this February and granted the accreditation today.

This is a great honor because it raises the prestige of the school and recognizes it as one of the top communications programs of the world.  As alumni I’m extremely thrilled about this announcement. Congratulations to the faculty, current students and graduates of the school! 

Out with the Old, In with the New

We live in a world where communication is shifting towards the Internet and social media. We’ve seen how publicists and artists around the world have been benefiting from new tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. to create a more direct and long lasting relationship between their clients and their fan base. 

Additionally, some renowned publicists have already made the new-age leap by offering digital press kits to media outlets in order to facilitate the information and the use of multimedia in journalistic articles. Yet, the vast majority of publicists still feel the need to incorporate traditional PR tools such as EPK’s, official press releases, press conferences and press kits. Although necessary, press kits handed out in hard copy, are becoming wasteful, expensive and basically outdated. With this in mind and a clear objective of providing new life to an old market, IndiAmbassador launched a powerful tool called Presskit.to.