Week Six - PR and Personal Days

Main Commons Area

On Tuesday, I was in Las Vegas for a newspaper awards ceremony, so I worked remotely for the WVU Business Incubator. My large assignment this week was to finish work on the press release.

I was able to get ahold of Chris Yura, founder of SustainU, and I got some insight as to what his opinions were on his lecture and what he hopes his audience received from it.

It's very enlightening to talk to a person so full of passion, they could just go on and on about this company they are so proud of. That is Chris. He is very excited about this cause he has devoted himself to, and it really shows.

This is the part I love about my job. Journalism has been and always will be my first love. Nothing makes for a better interview than when a person is so full of life and energy, they make me want to be a part of their cause, too. That takes talent, and their excitement rubs off on me in the form of the press release I write.

While I got a basic draft completed Tuesday, I devoted today to chatting with Chris to get a better perspective. He is a great public speaker, and I got some great quotes to use instead of the canned ones that have already been run through the PR machine.

I really like writing press releases. Not only are they easy because they are completely biased, but they are much more fluffy and feature-y. I'm able to get more creative and think of the people who are reading this. I can get into their mindset and think about what they want to hear - not what they should here. Besides that, they are fun topics. SustainU is basically saving the world, and I'm able to help spread that message.

Week Five - Researching and Releases

WVU Business Incubator Conference Room

As Week Five comes to an end, I really think I've learned a lot so far. I've learned the basic essentials for many typical documents in a variety of businesses.

These documents have made me take into account the audience that will read them (some for professionals, some for the average Internet browser) as well as the tone we are trying to portray (very professional, but like a helpful parent).

For this week, it was much more relaxed, and I appreciate that. Dusy knows I will be heading to Las Vegas this weekend, and he has given me more time to work on projects, and the deadlines have been more lax. This week, I worked on writing a press release for SustainU, a graduate tenant of the Business Incbuator.

The tenant spoke at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. This is good exposure for the company, as it will be posted on the front page of the WVU Business Incubator website. The first thing I need to think about is the audience - the people who will be reading this are probably Morgantown residents or attend WVU. But, it needs to be universal, as this will probably be sent out to multiple news sources (probably the DA, too. Eek). Most of my work up until this point has been listening to the lecture, researching the company and contacting people. Now, I need to put this whole document together! I really like writing press releases because you can be creative with them, so this is definitely a nice break from straight document work.

Hopefully he likes what I can produce - this will definitely look great on the front page, and it'll keep me on my toes.