HAPPO: Why Ida Lupino Inspires a PR Student
For today’s HAPPO initiative, I asked Lindsay Worek, a student at Towson University whom I was very impressed by, to guest post on what inspires her and her career choice. She decided to write about film pioneer Ida Lupino. Read on to see why.
A pioneer is “someone who ventures into the unknown or unclaimed territory to settle” or “someone who opens up new areas of thought, research or development.” Ida Lupino (image: cosmorochester2′s Flickrstream, Creative Commons) is my inspirational pioneer figure.
Lupino was one of the first American female film directors. Not only was she unique in the industry because she was a female, but because her films were extremely controversial for the time period (1940s-1950s). Her films addressed issues such as rape, marital infidelity, pregnancy before marriage, murder, disability and maternal pressure on a daughter to succeed.
Filed under Career, Guest Posts, Public Relations | Tags: #HAPPO, ida lupino, job hunting, lindsay worek | Comment (1)Lupino is a role model for professionals: she took risks, she took initiative and she wasn’t afraid to be controversial.
HAPPO: The Freshman Edition
A couple of months ago, I was part of the HAPPO kickoff team. If you’re new to the concept, HAPPO (Help A PR Pro Out) is “designed to help connect PR job seekers with employers looking for top talent.”
It started as a day, but now it’s much more than that; a hashtag, blog, chat… in short, it aims to be your one-stop shop if you’re a PR pro looking for a job, and an ever-growing community that tries to help you do that.
Image: Marco Vossen, Creative Commons
The second HAPPO day (and yes, you can pun away to your heart’s content, we’ve heard it all) is coming up on April 30, focusing on new and recent graduates. So watch this space on Friday for a guest post from a young lady I met recently at a Towson University career fair – she’s quite terrific.
Coincidentally, I came across Gawker’s post on the (potential) intern from Hell today. After I got up from ROFLMAO’ing, I couldn’t help but recall Bill Sledzik’s excellent post on millennials (and the comments are mind-blowing), as well as Todd Defren’s follow-up riff in his “open letter to millenials” (and there’s a follow-up to that as well here).
Filed under Career, Networking, Shonali Burke | Tags: #HAPPO, bill sledzik, getting a job, job hunting, mary barber, pr, todd defren | Comments (10)The Sales Pitch From Hell, And What Sales Can Learn From PR
A couple of months ago I received what has to count as the worst pitch/follow-up to me, to date.
Image: Thomas Hawk, Creative Commons
Surprise surprise, this wasn’t from a “PR person” or “flack;” you know the kind. It was from a sales assistant at a provider of chapter management services, which I was unlucky enough to receive because of my involvement with IABC/DC Metro.
Here’s what happened.
A lady (I’m just going to call her K__) person called me in February to talk about S__ (the company) as a replacement for our current chapter management system. Since I had no idea who she was, and was unfamiliar with her organization, I asked her to email me the relevant information, following which I’d get back to her.
She did as I requested. When I received the information, I circulated it among my board, and was then surprised to find she hadn’t just called me, but several board members, one of whom wondered how she had his work number (my guess was that she probably pulled it off the chapter website). One of them told me he’d do the demo, so I thought, great, that’s it.
Filed under Business, Public Relations, Shonali Burke | Tags: pr, Public Relations, sales | Comments (13)
