Come meet the best and brightest students at the 27th annual Intern Pursuit, hosted by FPRA’s Quotes Student Chapter at UCF.
 
The semi-annual event will be held from 6-8pm on Monday, March 22 at the Orlando Sentinel, 633 N. Orange Ave., Orlando, Fla. 32801
 
To RSVP for this semester’s Intern Pursuit, send your contact name, title, organization, phone number, e-mail, and a brief description of the internship opportunity to ucfinternpursuit@gmail.com by Monday, March 15. Please keep in mind that placement priority inside the Orlando Sentinel will be given to those who RSVP early.
 
Employers should plan to arrive for set-up between 5:00-5:30 p.m. Also, please consider the venue space and number of employers, and limit booth displays to simple table toppers. Handouts are strongly recommended.
 
For more information, please address all questions to ucfinternpursuit@gmail.com or to Quotes President, Michelle Khouri, at mkhourim@yahoo.com or (786) 282-2161.

How would you know if you’re turning people off? The way people perceive you can mean the difference between success and failure in business and your personal life. The risk of being misunderstood puts your reputation, business, job and relationships on the line. You CAN develop the ability to appear confident, comfortable and in control in front of an audience and behind a microphone. Develop the ability to stay “on message.” Learn the inside secrets to managing the energy in the room so you’re not boring people to death. Presentation skills coaching helps you read the room, and know if you’re connecting.

Annetta Wilson, a certified mastery coach and certified trainer, is a business strategist specializing in presentation skills coaching, communication skills coaching and media training for public figures, entrepreneurs and executives.

Thursday, February 25
University Club, 150 E. Central Blvd., Orlando
$15 members, $20 non-members, $10 students

Registration/Buffet Breakfast: 8 a.m.
Presentation: 8:30 a.m.

Register at www.fpra-orlando.org

Public relations professionals illustrate their value by seeing The Big Picture.  How do you measure up?

Attend the 72nd FPRA Annual Conference to see The Big Picture: Bringing Public Relations Strategy and Leadership into Focus. We will have speakers and topics to hone your strategic thinking, develop your business acumen and enhance your leadership skills, such as:

• Jim Lukaszewski, The Lukaszewski Group – Developing a Strategic Mindset: How To Become a Trusted, Strategic Advisor
• Lisa Malone, NASA – PR strategy around sunsetting of the Space Shuttle program
• Deirdre Breckenridge, PFS Marketwyse  – Putting The Public Back In Public Relations
• Peter Hollister, Hollister, Trubow and Associates – Building a Strategic Plan
• Thomas Smith, Disney – Case Study: Launch of the Disney parks blog
• Douglas Cherry – How PR Pros Avoid Legal Woes
• Debbie Mason, Strategists Inc.  – What Your Boss REALLY Wants But Hasn’t Told You
• Molly Kellogg – Polishing Your Professional Reputation

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: August 8 – 11, 2010 at the beautiful Naples Grande in Naples, Fla.

RESERVE YOUR HOTEL ROOM NOW: Reservation link is up at www.fpra.org

REGISTER NOW: Registration forms are ready! Not sure if you’ll have the budget for AC next year? Have some $$ left over in your 2009 budget? Take care of it now and relax!

Unless you’re ESPN, you’re not going to get invited into One Buc Place anytime soon! So join FPRA’s Tampa Bay Chapter for an exclusive tour and talk with Jeffrey Kamis, PR Director for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Managing Media and PR for an internationally-recognized franchise.

And someone will win an autographed football signed by Coach Raheem Morris!!

Note — space is limited and you must RSVP for security clearance. 48-hour cancellation policy is in effect. See http://www.fpratampabay.org/events.html for more details.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
6:00 – 7:30pm
One Buccaneer Place – 3302 W. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Tampa

Email: RSVP@FPRATAMPABAY.ORG

This month the Orlando chapters of FPRA and PRSA present a joint luncheon to celebrate Ethics Awareness Month. The luncheon will feature a presentation by Mary Beth West, APR and the presentation of the Frank R. Stansberry Ethics Award.

Advocating for the Public Relations Profession
With the advent of social media, the escalation of highly sophisticated (and oftentimes controversial) issues campaigns and the partisan nature of so much of our daily national dialogue, the public relations profession faces rising challenges, given a constant barrage of ethics and professionalism issues. Mary Beth West, APR, has worked in the trenches of advocating for the profession, having served as PRSA’s national chair of advocacy (2007) and as a senior counsel to the PRSA national board for advocacy issues (2008). She will share strategies that both chapter and local-level public relations organizations and individual professionals can implement to “take back” our profession from those prominent voices who cast public relations inaccurately and counterproductively, relative to the profession’s true potential as a force for good in a democratic society. Mary Beth will also discuss PRSA’s role in the advocacy case study from late 2007 involving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 

Mary Beth is principal of Mary Beth West Consulting, a public relations and reputation management firm based in the Greater Knoxville, Tennessee, area. Her team’s background includes previous public relations and marketing communications posts working in-house with such companies as General Motors, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association, Eastman Kodak, Champion Products, Corrections Corporation of America and the former Union Planters Bank.  Mary Beth is a member of PRSA’s Counselors Academy and has held a variety of national leadership roles in the Society for the past 10 years.

Thursday, September 17, 2009
Networking/Registration begins at 11:30 a.m., Luncheon starts at Noon
Citrus Club, Downtown Orlando
Cost: $25 PRSA/FPRA members, $40 non-members, $15 students

Click here to register online.

Sponsored by Orlando Health and Grand Bohemian Hotel.

It took the help of FPRA’s state office staff and an army of volunteers to pull off this year’s 71st annual conference, but one person led the entire effort. That individual was Karen Smittle, APR, CPRC of the Gainesville Chapter. Karen spent more than a year planning and promoting, securing speakers and sponsors and working hard to ensure a environmentally-friendly event.

This year’s conference theme was PR on F.I.R.E. and we thought you’d like to meet the ’spark’ behind it all. Congratulations, Karen, on a terrific conference!

The 71st annual conference of the Florida Public Relations Association has now concluded. Please pass along the link to this blog to your PR friends and colleagues. It’s a great information resource!

Next year’s conference is scheduled for Aug. 8-11, 2010, at Naples Grande Beach Resort in Naples, Fla. We hope you will join us!

Emily Desmery is FPRA’s summer 2009 intern. She is a rising sophomore at William Smith College in upstate New York and in her capacity at FPRA’s state office in Sarasota has been instrumental in planning the conference. From calling speakers to arranging meals to designing conference materials, Emily has helped ensure everything runs smoothly here in Boca Raton. Her experience with FPRA and life under the Florida sun has inspired her to make a strategic move: next spring, Emily will enroll at the University of Tampa to complete her studies in public relations. Thanks for all your hard work Emily, and good luck at UT!

Traditional thinking tells us “You can be anything you want to be if you just try hard enough” whereas the strength-based approach says “You can’t be anything you want to be, but you can be more of who you are!” Are you ready to be more of who you are?

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Tom Hoof passionately talked about how the Tampa Bay Rays took a broken brand – Tampa Bay Devil Rays – and turned it into a winning brand to hit it out of the park! Using tried and true public relations strategies the team was transformed from “bad boy” to “community player” with an integrated marketing communications approach. read more »