A New Perspective

I was listening to my top rated songs on my iPod today and had one of those epiphany moments – you know, where the words in a song that you’ve heard a hundred times before suddenly have more meaning than you ever knew.

The smallest dreams get pushed aside while the largest ones changed my life.
Rite of Spring by Angles & Airwaves.

It’s funny – now I’m living in a city that I never thought I’d even visit and find myself unemployed, looking for freelance writing opportunities and potential full time work. It’s amazing to look back at your life and think of all the plans you had made for yourself and then see how quickly life can put you on another path. Chasing your dreams can really lead you somewhere you never expected.

In this case, I was going after my dream of falling in love, getting married, and finding that one person in the world who never fails to make me smile.

And so here I am – sitting in our little 300 sq. ft. studio that looks more like a dorm room than an apartment. I’ve always heard people say things like “We didn’t have much, but we were happy,” and now that phrase means so much more to me. It’s so wonderful to take a step back and look at everything you do and don’t need and just be able to rely on each other so fully and completely that you feel like you can make it through anything together.

Does that mean it’s easy? No. Does that mean I’m not stressed about struggling to find work? Absolutely not.

I’m just saying that sometimes you have to take risks and leaps of faith in order to follow your dreams.  I took a gigantic leap of faith in myself and in my relationship to leave my last job and move out to San Francisco to be with my fiancé – but you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.

Over the last few months I’ve seen more than a few posts pop up from Gen Y-ers regarding the institution of marriage.

I have to say, it’s been really sad for me to see how many people in Gen-Y are jaded about marriage and it makes me wonder how future generations will view it.

I can understand why people are so worried about becoming one of the statistics – that was something my fiancé was concerned with before we got engaged. To be fair – neither of us have divorced parents and our parents get along very well together, so that may have some impact on how our views of marriage evolved.

That being said, we did not rush into the decision to get engaged – in fact, we had been discussing it for over 6 months. We had purchased a book with 1000 questions to ask before we got married which made us discuss chores, money, kids, careers, insecurities, conflict management, etc.

One of the most important things we learned is that in a serious relationship you really need your partner to be flexible and willing to compromise. I think that is the foundation to a strong a relationship that will last.

My fiancé and I have been together for over 2 and a half years and have been engaged for 7 months. We’ve spent much of that time in a long distance relationship as she lives in San Francisco and I live in Austin – and it still works. We are both whole-heartedly committed to each other.

Ultimately, the reason I asked her to marry is because I cannot stand the idea of not having her in my life. So much so that if something ever happened to her, I don’t know what I would do with my life – because she is my life.

The turning point for me was one day when my mom made a simple comment, “You know Dominic, you always talk about getting engaged, but you don’t do anything about it – so I’m beginning to doubt it’ll happen.” And it hit me – there is no other person in the world I want to be with and nothing makes me happier than holding her in my arms and waking up next to her in the morning.

Falling in love was the easy part – discussing the questions and seeing the challenges we’ll be facing was difficult, but I know without a doubt in my mind there is no one else in the world I would rather have standing by my side as we face those challenges together. I think that level of commitment may be a commitment Gen-Yers are afraid to make.

All I know is that she’s strong, fiercely independent, and a little stubborn – but I love her all the more for it and I am excited out of my mind to be marrying her.

So what are your thoughts about marriage?

I started blogging a few months ago with the intention to discuss social media and public relations. It made a lot of sense at the time since social media is a big interest of mine; however over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself wanting to blog about a number of things unrelated to both. The fact that I was trying to make my blog focus specifically on those topics was prohibiting me for writing about some of the things I feel really passionate about.

This led me to some soul searching to find out why I was maintaining a blog and I had to ask myself “What’s the point of blogging again?”

Ultimately, I realized I had pigeonholed myself into trying to maintain a professional blog that focused solely on my career. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there is a problem when you’re censoring the things you write out of concern of what your employer or potential employers will think about your posts.

To me, the whole point of social media and blogging is to encourage conversation and to challenge the status quo through these conversations. Once you’ve started to do that it’s not long before true innovation and new ideas start showing up everywhere.

I don’t think I was really contributing to any conversation in my old blog. While I definitely wrote some helpful posts to people looking at working at a small company or who may have an interview coming up – I don’t think it was really stimulating any type of conversation.

That has led to the close of prsnackbar.com and to the grand opening of dominicrgarcia.com.

So tell me – what do you think the point of blogging is?

Last week, the company I work for had a small booth at UT’s annual Communications Job Fair. It was basically a job fair for students and recent grads to come and speak to employers, ask questions, drop of resumes, have unofficial interviews, etc.

I have to say, I learned quite a bit about the interview process from the HR side from the experience. I joked with one of my coworkers after the show that I learned three main things:

1.    Everyone is hard working
2.    Everyone is dedicated
3.    Everyone is punctual

I always thought that if I was ever a job interviewer, I would ask insightful questions regarding what a particular person could bring to company. Now maybe I’m just a bad interviewer, but it seemed like after the 20th person, everyone just started to look the same.

This begs the question – how do you differentiate yourself when interviewing? This is a particularly poignant question when unemployment is at the highest it’s been in years and it’s getting harder for new grads to find jobs.

I gave it some thought and came up with three things you can do to stand out:

1.    Explain how your job experience directly relates to the job your applying for.
The number one thing that made some of the applicants stand out was when he/she would directly relate past job experiences to our company. Here are some examples:

So you worked at a call center?
“Yes, and what I learned from that experience is how to communicate with people effectively over the phone – something I know is very important to public relations with the amount of media relations we have to do.”

So you were a waiter?
“Yes I was. And that experience will help me working in PR because of the amount of multi-tasking that PR professionals do. As a waiter, I often had to juggle five or six tables at a time while providing excellent service – it really taught me how to work under pressure with as few errors as possible. In PR, I know professionals often have to switch gears quickly while still maintaining a high level of productivity – and that’s something being a waiter taught me.”

2.    Be Yourself
Don’t be afraid to mess up or laugh at yourself – you’re not perfect and no one is. If you fumble a little bit or don’t have the perfect answer to a question, that’s okay, just focus on being yourself and doing your best. It wasn’t terribly difficult to pick out people who were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear vs. those that were truly being sincere.

3.    Smile
Remember that interviews are as much for you to find out if the company is a good fit for you as it is to see if you’re a good fit for the company. So relax! Smile, relax your shoulders, and take a deep breath before speaking to the interviewer – it’ll really help you come off as calm, confident and someone I can trust to get things done.

It’s amazing how much you learn just from seeing the interview from the other side. Have any of you had similar experiences or have good tips for people that are going into interviews? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

I’ve been with my current company for almost a year and I must say, I’ve had the opportunity to do more here than I probably would have at virtually any other company. There are only five full-time employees and an intern – so there’s definitely enough work to go around.

I put together a list of my favorite things about my company and small businesses that I’ve found make it a terrific experience right out of college. These are definitely some things new grads should consider when looking for jobs – so let’s jump in!

1.    More Responsibility

Small companies give you the opportunity to be responsible for bigger projects sooner. Why? A lot of times they don’t have the man power to do otherwise – so you’re constantly put in a position where you’re being asked to step up to the plate and get results.

2.    More work, less sleep

In small companies, if you don’t do something, most of the time it won’t get done. This means that you have to be very dependable, willing to work long hours, and be ready to be held accountable for your projects – for better or worse. This will really teach you to take ownership of every project you have and make sure it’s a success.

3.    You get to wear a lot of hats

I’m the webmaster, blogger, IT guy, stock boy, newsletter writer…you get the point. In my opinion, this just makes you a very well rounded employee and definitely gives you some job security, as you’ll be indispensable to your company.

4.    Merit based, usually not age

One of the advantages of small companies is that you often have the opportunity for promotion much more quickly than in larger firms. In large firms, you’re often going up against 4 or 5 other employees for a particular position. In boutique firms, as long as you prove yourself to be competent and capable, it’s very likely they’ll promote you right away.

Not to toot my own horn, but to give you an idea – I was an intern in January 2008 and I’ve been promoted four times since. However, you should also keep in mind that not all small companies may follow this model.

5.    Develop great relationships with your management team

With five employees, we have a very tight-knit group. It’s a terrific experience to be able to walk down the hall to the President and have a candid conversation about the client you represent, various projects, life – whatever you need to. We are definitely a team and we all understand how important each individual is to the company.

All in all, working for a small company can be a really rewarding experience, but you have to be willing to put in the extra time and effort it will take to help the company succeed.

So do you work at a small company? If not, how do you think big companies compare?

A few weeks ago I made a post regarding the proper etiquette when writing a blog and on social networks.

This week, while perusing my usual blogs, I ran across a terrific post by Beth Harte of The Harte Marketing Blog. She has some terrific links that provide great advice on how to properly user social networks  for networking and growing your career professionally.

Here’s the link: The Harte of Marketing

Beth’s post is a terrific starting point for anyone looking to get into social networking and social media in general. I highly suggest that anyone who’s not quite sure where to start will take a look at her post and go through the links – it’ll really help!

I got an email a few weeks ago from PRSA (The Public Relations Society of America) regarding a memo the president of PRSA sent to the Obama and McCain camps challenging both camps to adhere to the PRSA Code of Ethics in this year’s presidential election.

I find it rather alarming that neither candidate has responded to the memo when transparency and honesty are exactly what both campaigns could use during this process.

The public relations profession has gotten a bad rap in the past. I’m only 23, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told someone I work in PR and they suddenly say, “So you basically spin the news and stuff?” and I usually respond with something along the lines of, “That’s a pretty common misconception about PR – what I really do is manage the communications between organizations and their publics.” Which is pretty much a textbook definition of PR.

We’ve all read about it before, but it’s ironic that a profession where people specialize in brand management and the communication process has such a bad reputation. That being said, I don’t think it would be too far fetched for the campaigns to have received the requests and thought it was a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. I don’t mean to imply that political PR is the reason for PR’s current reputation problems, but it’s certainly not helping.

There is still no excuse for the campaigns not to take a higher road with their communications. To say that some of the claims made by both campaigns are misleading is an understatement. I think the main reason that those claims are made is because they work – many Americans do not look into the issues and end up believing whatever the campaigns say.

So what can PR professionals do to help the process? I think we all need to demand more of ourselves and both campaigns. We should try to lead by example and be accountable for our actions. If we do, pretty soon our profession will have a solid reputation to stand on. Finally, I think we need to encourage our family and friends to look into the issues and make decisions for themselves – the easiest way to stop the bad practices employed by the campaigns is to show them they are no longer effective. The best way to do that is to start by making decisions for ourselves and to gently push our friends and loved ones to become educated about the issues.

I hope that at least one of the campaigns will take the challenge set by PRSA. It would definitely be interesting to see how the other campaign would react and be a terrific show of good faith in the judgment of the American people.

In fall 2006, I had just started my first PR internship and began to learn the ropes of the field. Now here I am, two years later, faced with having to manage interns and participate in the intern hiring process.

Those internships were a great experience and in many cases, I learned more from them than I had in school. Not to toot my own horn, but during my internships and college jobs, I was pretty consistently told that I was a wonderful intern and one of the best they had ever hired. In fact, when I was waiter, I was named employee of the month during my third month on the job.

I’ve put together a list of things I did to make sure that I got the most out of my internships. I think this is also a good set of guidelines when starting a new job to make sure you’re making the best impression possible.

1.    Be Punctual – Punctuality is probably one of the easiest and hardest things to do. It doesn’t only mean show up to work on time, it also means making sure you meet all of your deadlines while maintaining high quality work. It will mean staying late or eating lunch at your desk at times, but that’s why your there right? To gain experience. In PR, most of the time you can’t afford to be late, so it’s better to try to get things done ahead of time. One of old high school teachers put it best when he said, “To be early is to be on time, to on time is to be late, and to be late is very, very stupid.”

2.    Ask Questions – This is one of those rules you’ll hear throughout your internships and career and it’s directly related to being punctual. It doesn’t only show that you’re being proactive, it will also help you develop a better understanding of the profession, company, and become a better employee. Plus, most managers would agree that they would rather you ask a quick question now than spend a few hours doing something incorrectly or with errors.

3.    Be Proactive – Like questions, this is one you’ll hear all the time. Finished with an assignment? Ask for more. Want to sit in on a conference call or meeting? Ask if you can. This will show that you are genuinely interested in the company and by going that extra mile you’ll make yourself stand out among the other interns.

4.    Mentor – Find someone at your company that you look up to and ask them to coffee, to lunch, and see if you can pick their brain. You’ll find that most people will be happy to sit with you and discuss their careers. It will give you a lot of insight into the pros and cons of your chosen career path and the more information you have, the better career decisions you can make.

5.    Be Indispensable – Make yourself indispensable to the company. By going above and beyond in any way you can, you’ll put yourself in the position that if the company is hiring for an entry level position, they have no reason not to hire you. Become the go-to person for a particular client, topic, skill, anything. Volunteer for additional opportunities – good or bad. Does the store room need to be organized and you have no projects and already asked for more? Organize it. Secretary sick and they need someone at the front desk? Volunteer. It may not be the most glamorous thing to do sometimes, but all of those little things will add up and everyone in the company will really appreciate you for it and you’ll show that you are someone that is dependable. Even if a job doesn’t open up – you’ll sure get yourself one heck of a recommendation.

I hope that helps! What do you think interns and new recruits can do to get the most out of their new position?

So I started this blog a while back and I know I need to be doing things in order to start picking up the number of people that see my site.

My first priority was to find blogs to link too…well, I’ve been following a number of tech and social media blogs for about six months, and it begs the question, what type of protocol is there for linking pages?

Do you email the person that writes the blog and ask permission? This would seem like the most logical thing. Is it considered rude to link and not ask? These are some pretty good questions that any new blogger probably asks.

As for me? Well, I’ll be emailing one of the people that who’s blog I follow and ask politely if I can link them and if there is a proper protocol. It certainly seems like the easiest way to figure it out!

Look for a post in the near future with my findings.  =)

This week I was presented with the question: What’s the point of Facebook?

My initial reaction was to say, “To re-establish or build relationships.”

But to people outside of the PR field, what does that really mean? After doing some research, it seems like many people have a very narrow view of social media and the benefits it offers – something that I guess isn’t really a surprise considering how many businesses take social networking for granted.

This person said her view was that it was merely a place where college students met to hook-up. I explained to her to benefits of social networking sites from a business perspective: being able to identify target segments easily, being able to have open, two-way dialog with your publics, and establishing a better brand through constant communication. Of course, those just skim the surface of the benefits, but she still seemed skeptical.

When the business side failed to catch her interest, I explained how it lets people build professional and personal relationships with old friends and new colleagues. She was very much under the impression that if an old friend wanted to contact her, they would contact her regardless of social media.

I agreed, however I explained that Facebook and other social networking sites offer an easy way to find your old friends.

Most of all, as a new professional, this really opened my eyes as to how social media might be viewed by many in the general population and made me take a step back and look at it from a very broad perspective. I think I fell into the trap of believing that since I am very evangelistic about social media – most people must agree.

I was also a little alarmed at the hard time I had explaining what the point of Facebook was. I felt like I had a solid grasp of the pros/cons of social networking and was surprised to be so unsure of my response. It looks like I have a little more reading and research to do.

So tell me, what do you think the point of Facebook is?