Post election evaluation: I learned a lot

I would pin my learning to a combination of things, but I'm thankful that it happened.

As you view the results posted on City of Winnipeg Election page and on other media outlets, you would see the breakdown of the voting results down to the number of people who voted for each candidate. I thought this was very interesting because it showed exactly how many supporters each candidate had. Seeing the exact numbers was like seeing how many friends you had in Winnipeg. Scary.

I was talking with my dad one morning before school and essentially interviewing him on his thoughts about the election's outcome. He volunteered at a candidate's campaign office so he was able to tell me more information about the results that individual candidates got about there results. The candidate gave their volunteers more detailed information about polling results including how many people voted at each individual voting location in their ward. The information included the exact number of votes per candidate in the specific voting location so it gave a picture of how many supporters each candidate had in the area of the voting location. This was important for the candidate to know because it showed what areas of their ward they were most popular. My dad also told me that they were given information regarding the demographic of the voters. My dad said, though unconfirmed, that voter turn out for the ward he volunteered in was up from 33 per cent to 60 per cent of voters coming out to support.

This information was particularly useful for candidates so they can reassess their campaign strategy, if they were to run again. I just found it so interesting that candidates were given that much detailed information. Now if it were only that easy to use that information, it would make for a better campaign.

Bellamy's writing on campaign flyers: personal touch or tacky tactic?

And and he misspelled Daniel McIntyre on his Facebook web address as "danielmac" - not a big deal but I think spelling out the entire ward's name would have been more proper.

 What do you think about Keith Bellamy writing on his campaign flyers as he or someone from his campaign team (most likely) stuffs it into the constituents' mailboxes?

This is not the first piece of writing that I've seen Keith Bellamy write on with the words "Sorry I missed you! -Keith" on the front panel. Earlier in the campaign, candidates introduced themselves through a printed bio and that, too, had this same tactic.

So does it work? For me... not sure how I feel about it. I wish I had the other piece of paper so I could compare the handwriting and determine if there are any inconsistencies, maybe send a copy to CSI and get the letter strokes analyzed to see if it was Keith Bellamy's handwriting. While they're at it, maybe CSI could also check my front porch for fingerprints to see if Keith Bellamy was in fact the one that hand delivered it into my mailbox.

Looking at it from a PR perspective, I think it would be neat if I saw Keith Bellamy walk up to my door and drop off the flyer. In reality, did he actually mean to knock at my door to speak to me or was he just sorry I wasn't there in that three seconds it takes to put the flyer into the mailbox? I don't know, somehow I can't picture Keith Bellamy wanting to talk to every single household everytime he needed to drop off these flyers. And it's not like this was the only flyer he had to put out. This was, I believe, the third flyer to occupy my mailbox space. So if you do the math, three flyers times the number of houses in the Daniel McIntyre ward = I, too, am sorry I missed you Keith Bellamy.

Report on KFC's Double Down sandwich in Winnipeg

*WARNING: some images might be offensively
delicious*

And no, there's no mistake with the size of this image; it really is this big on purpose. That's because KFC's Double Down sandwich is that big!

First of all, I really shouldn't call it a sandwich. Sandwiches use bread, Double Downs use none.

Here is a description:
"2 Original Recipe chicken breasts, crisp bacon, processed pepper jack cheese, our very special Colonel's Sauce, and all the bragging rights that come with taking one down."

 

Well I guess they were out of bragging rights sauce when I ordered one because I did not feel like bragging about that experience at all. I think I know now why it's called the "Double Down".

The first Down takes down the brain's ability to communicate with your body. As I sat in the bus home from school, I couldn't bring myself to pull the signal to stop. I was afraid I'd miss my stop but managed to pull the chord. Then I couldn't feel my legs...

The second Down takes down your consciousness. I just woke up from a two-hour nap, no further explanation required.

The fun thing about this whole experience is that both of the times I went for a Double Down, I was always with friends.

Neil Babaluk, Jeremy Giacomin, and I were in Chicago in May with some other guys from Red River College for a and we went to a KFC just to test this thing. It took a bus ride and some walking but we found it. The first experience was definitely better, only because we still didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. The three of us vowed not to ever return to KFC for a Double Down experience again.

The second time we went (today) was with a handful of enthusiastic CreComm students, of whom four of six students were Double Down first-timers. You'll see the enthusiasm deteriorate at the end of the experience.

My final advice about the Double Down: have it if your health can afford it. It is very tasty. The texture is notable because there is no bread to hold it together.

Chicago:

Winnipeg:

Don't make the same mistake

I got my communication strategy assignment back from Red River College instructor Melanie Lee Lockhart. Everyone in the room tensed up, dreading the infamous CreComm autofail - where a 50 per cent deduction was incurred for proper names spelled wrong.

I opened it to the marking summary and, alas, an autofailed section. I quickly scanned through the pages and what I saw shocked me, more so, made me laugh at my own stupidity.

The funny thing about this fatal error was that the word '10HUNGER' was completely made up by me. I just wasn't consistent in spelling it the same way as the other 30 times I spelled it in my communication strategy.

So how did this happen? I suspected I hit 'ignore all' on my spell check twice: once for the first time I made up this word and second when I actually ignored this one with two h's. I just didn't pay enough attention and didn't even bother checking that I was adding to the exception a spelling with two h's.

Autofail: 50 per cent off. Mark deduction: 7.5 marks gone. Learning opportunity: priceless. For everything else there's pay attention to your words carefully!

When you're countrymen fail you

I was doing some research on my PR assignment called PR in the News. I decided to do it on the topic of the Philippine tour bus hostage taking in Manila that happened on August 23 of this year where eight Chinese tourists were killed after being held hostage for 12 hours by a disgruntled ex-police officer Rolando Mendoza.

As I was doing research, I ran into this video.



I heard of people in the Philippines, specifically the police, taking pictures in front of the empty tour bus but I didn't imagine that it would have been made a tourist attraction by the people in the area. What were these people doing posing (and smiling!) in these pictures? I would understand taking a picture of the bus itself to show the kind of damages it incurred from the previous night's event, but to be taking pictures WITH the bus was totally inappropriate. I thought that was very insensitive for these people to act this way and disrespectful to those who have been affected by this tragedy.

I will be discussing what happened, how it happened, and how it could have been avoided to my PR class on Tuesday, Oct. 19. I thought it would generate a good class discussion because the way the event was handled by Philippine police was pretty controversial. How would the Philippine government mend its ties with Hong Kong China? All I knew was that the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs would be busy for the next little while...

"Both officials expressed sadness and regret that the August 23 hostage incident took place. Assistant Foreign Minister Hu said both Governments should continue to work closely together to appropriately deal the matter." - according to a news release from the Department of Foreign Affairs posted on Oct. 13, 2010.

"Edit your words properly, young man."

Imagine that you could edit words as they came out of your mouth; that somehow the words fell onto an imaginary caption line just below your chin and as you spoke out words, you could delete the 'ums', the 'likes', and the 'you knows'. But the reality was, you couldn't! What you say in front of an audience - whether it was a friend at a coffee shop or a room-full of your co-workers - was exactly what they were going to hear.

How important was it to properly edit your words first in your mind, then breathing life into those thoughts by positioning the lips, the tongue, your jaw, then with a final exhale, bringing the word into existence. Once you say it, you can't take it back.

Sure you can clarify by saying "Oh, what I meant was..." or by saying "Sorry, I take that back" for the words that you actually didn't mean to say. Once you've said it, the damage was done.

So before opening your mouth and saying something you would regret later, why not think, pause, then say what you really wanted to say? Easier said than done. Unfortunately, this was a skill that any communicator needed to master, me included.

We recently did our first speech in oral presentation class, and this blog post reminded me of it. Our presentation was recorded on video so we would be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your own presentations. I would have posted my own video here but, unfortunately, the video has not been captured digitally.

I remembered writing 'Barack Obama' on my paper when instructor Cathy Hanson asked the class to write down the names of people who we thought were good at public speaking. After watching these videos, I never would have noted him down.

This was an example of knowing what you were going to talk about in the event the teleprompter failed.



Here were some tips from the pros:



Always be prepared with notes. It is good practice to have two or even three copies of your speech with you in case something happened to one of them (like spilling coffee on the notes or losing the copy). Just make sure you don't keep all the copies in the same spot. Leave a copy with an assistant or secretary or leave a copy in an envelope.

Know what to say by first editing your words in your mind then speaking them. Don't rely on technology and always be prepared with a back up plan. Once you say it, you can never take the words back.

IABC Meet & Greet more fun the second time around!

On Thursday, Oct. 7, 30 enthusiastic CreComm first and second year students packed the basement at King's Head Pub for the annual IABC networking event.

The event was organized by PR student Christa Campbell and IABC. Eight professionals from the communications field were invited to share their experiences and the path they took to get where they are today. The set up was the same as speed-dating even with the exchange of numbers. The idea was for CreComm students to network and meet real professionals in the industry. Both student and communicator had two minutes to interact and get to know each other before Christa, holding a timer, had to break them up by yelling "switch!".

It was a fun to see that the first year students were getting something out of the event. I was once in their position when I attended last year's networking event. I didn't know why I was there and what questions to ask. I managed to think about a handful of questions that I really wanted answered:

1) How did you know you wanted to be a communicator? Why PR?

2) At what point in your career did you realize you made the right decision? Did you have a defining moment?

3) Where did you see your career going? What is the future of a PR practitioner or communicator?

Although I don't remember the specific answers I got from the people I talked to, I know (and I'm confident) enough to be able to say that I have a future in PR because it is my passion and I love everything about it. I don't normally use the 'L' word but PR makes me that kinda guy...

I love PR!

Oh-no-Matt! Pee-Ya?! Matt goes Pssssss... How about onomatopoeia?

"The first pair of cups contains a Guatemalan. Sluuuurp. “Do you feel that buttery mouth-feel?” says the older man, Don Schroeder, after spitting expertly into the small sink beside his stool. Next is a Kenyan. Sluuuurp, spit. Notes of fruit and wine. Sluuuuurp. The Sumatran is earthy, even musty. No. 4 has the mild, almost neutral flavour characteristic of the world’s coffee mecca, Brazil"

- Dawn Calleja, The Globe and Mail, How Tim Hortons will take over the world


 I once shared a dorm room with a guy from Japan. After school, we would work on homework at our desks in our room facing the opposite sides of the room. While doing homework, we would talk about random things about our day. Tomohito would ask me questions about English: the meaning of idioms and when to use slang. This lead to me asking him about words in Japanese they would use to describe sound. In English, I think we call it onomatopoeia.

To my amazement, Tomo said Japanese loved their onomatopoeia and that they have a sound to describe pretty much everything. So I did a Google search and found JapanSugoi: Everything Cool about Japan.

This site was unreal! You really have to check it out. There was a long list of the sounds they used to describe the sound from the roaring of flames (goooo) to what you would hear if someone were to slip off their clothes (sulu). Again, these weren't Japanese-to-English translations of the actions. These were Japanese onomatopoeia!

But please, don't get these sounds mixed up:

• kaaa = (energy blast charging up)
• kaaaa = (glow)

or

• pasa = (light falling object)
• dosa dosa = (falling objects)

At least Japanese have a guide. How about English? What do we use as a guide for proper use (and spelling!) of onomatopoeia? What does The CP Stylebook (The Canadian Press Stylebook) say? My answer: I forgot my CP Stylebook in my locker :(

So for the clip above from The Globe and Mail, how do we edit the word "sluuuurp"? What is the slurp sound spelling standard? If you asked me, they used one letter 'u' too many.

Here, Japanese would use "pan!" to describe a slap sound