Lance’s Blog

They finally did it….they released the information on what will turn out to be the best-selling video game of the year in the southeastern U.S.  EA Sports’ NCAA Football series has been, to say the least, a HUGE success for college football fans around the world.  But this year it is going to be different…This will be the first year that ESPN has teamed up with EA Sports, creating one of the most terrific tandems imaginable…and they will be producing the first college football game with next-gen graphics and gameplay for the Xbox 360.  Call me a nerd.  Call me whatever you want; but it blows my mind to imagine the amount of work that they are going through to generate the detail that will be showcased when the game releases the first week of July.  EA Sports has actually used satellites (from which they will not reveal the source) to generate actual lighting from every stadium in the country.  In other words, 3:00 p.m. at Jordan Hare Stadium with partly cloudy skies will look EXACTLY like 3:00 p.m. at Jordan Hare Stadium with partly cloudy skies.  Stadiums and campuses have been replicated for a two mile radius around the stadium, and player models, jerseys, student sections, bands, etc. have been rendered in the fullest detail.  I know many may not care, but this is my niche, and I have been reading numerous blogs about this game, and experts say this is going to be unbelievable.  I have the utmost amount of respect after having worked on numerous applications dealing with graphics, motion, etc….and believe me, I understand how basic the tasks are that I have worked on.  That just goes to show the level of expertise producers must have to overcome such a task.

I have to blog about this, because it is killing me.  It’s that sickness you get whenever you reach the last stage of a huge phase in life – senior year.  My mind is running 118 miles per hour, going over what html tags I need to apply to the website for my style and design project, whether or not I will do well in a presentation tomorrow in my communicating in organizations class, how I am possibly going to fill in with a band 3 times this week when I have dozens of other things that need to be done, what I need to do in preparation for the internship I will be involved in this summer…you get the point.  No I am not throwing a pity party for myself…no in fact I just need to vent, so I am using this as my diary.  I realize more every day that yes, it IS important to be a sponge in college, soaking up as much information as possible, in essence learning as much as possible.  BUT, a diploma indicates more than just what you know; rather a diploma and a good grade point average show that you can handle all the different things that life throws at you.  I have learned in college, as I am sure most others have learned, that in order to succeed, you have to undergo a bevy of tedious routines and tasks in order to succeed.  As I am finishing up with this semester and look back at all the things I have accomplished…just to have made it through, much less have been successful, gives me more confidence and pride in my future than I could possibly imagine.

As stupid of a subject as this is, this is a huge deal to me around this time of year, so why not write about it in my blog?  Why is it that this time of year brings with it a drought in TV?  Here it is.  Start out in May and June.  The NBA playoffs are gearing up, which for me is not the most fun to watch, BUT it’s a lot better than baseball.  After all, it’s fun seeing which of the undisciplined NBA athletes can be the MOST undisciplined, and who can win the most one-on-one challenges.  That usually decides the world champs.  Immediately after the NBA playoffs are over, you get the buzz of college football in the air (about early to mid July), which always extends to the beginning of August, which brings preseason NFL.  At this point you are DYING for football, so even the preseason NFL will wet your appetitite.  As soon as that gets old, the Golden Age of every year begins….COLLEGE FOOTBALL.  No explanation is needed for this.  Best time of the year hands down.  College football ends after the new year, just in time to root for your former college stars in the NFL playoffs, which last right up until College Basketball gets exciting (early February).  Then of course we get all the post season tournaments in college basketball starting early March, which is followed by the single most exciting sports event of the year, EVERY year – MARCH MADNESS BABY!  Even if you don’t care about basketball, you watch to see if there is a Cinderella (a la George Mason) that gives everyone a thrill.  Even after this, we have one major sports event to look at…The Masters.  What a surreal tournament.  But then, darkness.  Only baseball…182 straight games, none of them having any significance until 4 months later.  And it is that darkness that gives this time period the name “dark age” of television and sports annually.  I am craving the college football preseason hype, because I am bored out of my mind as I flip thorough 500 + stations and can’t find one stinkin thing on the tube.  So I guess it’s SPORTS that make TV, and when there is a lack of excitement in sports, there is also a lack of excitement in TV….Im gonna go flip through all the stations 8 times now, then write some more blogs.

I think I speak for the majority of people when I say that this case has been a total screw up from the beginning, and because of this, I have pretty much lost hope that they will ever find out what REALLY happened to her.  Within the past few days, a new suspect has be detained, but does this REALLY mean anything?  Probably not.  For the past year Aruban officials and investigators have been looking for evidence that had been cleaned up during the week that they let the primary suspects go.  And if you think about it, if it wasn’t the brothers and van der Sloot who were responsible for this murder, other possible suspects have had MONTHS to cover up whatever they have done.  Another sad situation in this case is that professional interrogaters have gotten NOTHING out of this case even though there have been multiple stories from multiple people, not to mention that three of the four interrogated are teenagers.  Of course they (the interrogaters) gave themselves quite a challenge in letting the boys go after their initial arrests.  In essence, they let the boys get their stories uniform in format and content, making it that much more difficult to decifer the truth.  Hopefully the new suspect sheds new light on this case, but my intuition says we have slightly less intelligent people working this case in Aruba than we do in the US…and that’s a huge understatement…so this case seems hopeless.

So you have heard me (or seen me, considering it’s online) talking about the mtvU reality show for over two and a half months now, and IT’S OVER, AND WE WON! We beat Bama in yet ANOTHER thing.  Now we have 4 in a row in football, AND we have won the academic challenge on national television.  So I guess you could say that when it comes to Alabama and Auburn, Auburn is Alabama’s daddy.  I really did learn a lot from this experience.  After having run a promotional campaign and coordinated a high-magnitude event with only three other people, while STILL keeping up with school work, I feel I can do just about anything.  Over 120 hours of work in 8 weeks, late nights, dozens of meetings…the list goes on, but IT ALL PAID OFF.  To hear that Auburn University students were the winners was one of the greatest reliefs I have ever felt.  Also, having had a real-life experience such as this provides me with abilities that others in my field do not yet have.  After presenting our campaign/presentation to 30 of the top business graduates from Auburn University (Business Advisory Council – CEO’s, presidents, etc.) we were told that the professionalism of our campaign and our hard work is something to take immense pride in, and also that this experience is EXACTLY how the real world is.  I was told that it doesn’t get any more real-life than this, and that gives me a confidence that I can do whatever needs to be done in order to succeed.

Well after hearing all about the “smurfette” blog, it is obvious that some people don’t have a life. After all, to hear about a middle-aged man posing as a seductive female blogger speaks volumes not only about a man’s mental state, but also you could pobably guess that he is too big of a coward to even put his own thoughts in a blog. This is also an opportunity to mention how blogging pertains to PR in a big way, or should I say that the ethics of PR that we stress so much about honesty and truthfulness should carry over to blogging. To have developed such a stereotype about PR is frustrating in itself and deserves a clarification, but to give a loser attention that he doesn’t deserve almost isn’t worth it. And to give women in PR a stereotype of having to sleep with clients in order to advance their career is inappropriate and inaccurate. It is a frustrating situation, but one that will continue to happen as “anonymous” identities are enabled through virtual communities. I think we can take something Susan said (and pardon me if the quote isn’t exact) as she stated “I don’t think the PR industry realizes how detrimental blogging can be for its industry.” It makes sense to think that blogging can create more trouble than good for PR, as rumors can overtake the truth with the pervasive use of inaccurate information and fake identities. Oh well, maybe it will provide another PR opportunity, perhaps even more jobs, to clarify the rumors online in blogging communities.

It’s that time of year…the time of year when students from the age of 13 to 25 lose their minds for a week because of the great campaign the media has run for several years.  Just watch tv for a few minutes this time of year…MTV, VH1, E!  They all emphasize having fun, being wild, and did I mention having fun?  Every depiction of Spring Break has a certain type of pop music, skimpy attire, excessive booze, beautiful people and fun in the sun.  Perhaps this is why all of the premiere spring break spots for teenagers and college students are filled with all of these things.  Media is what fuels pop culture, and you could say that the campaign for spring break is one that results in a lot of money spent and a lot of fun being had.  Imagine life without media….without celebrities…without bombardment of messages.  I think we would all be (including myself) completely different people if it weren’t for the most powerful force driving today’s society.  It’s good to be in PR.  At least we can interpret and be on guard for sly tactics used to make us act in certain ways!

I have thought some about blogging as of late, and I feel like blogging can pose just as much of a problem as it can a facilitator of PR advancement.  Having discussed this with someone well established in the PR field, they revealed to me their view of blogging as more of a burden than benefit.  He said that more rumors can be started and spread like wildfire through this channel of media.  With its pervasive nature, it is extremely difficult to defend yourself, preserving your image in a company.  I guess this is just part of dealing with a new channel…it’s always easy to go on and on about the benefits, but no one has really mentioned the drawbacks in dealing with blogging.  Perhaps it is the future, but there is no doubt that there is a dark side to its future.  Hassles in preserving images and keeping a good reputation will prove to be the case in PR if blogging takes the road it looks like it’s taking.

The MTVu reality show has come to a conclusion.  We filmed the last episode yesterday in Birmingham, and as my two favorite girls in the world told us from the start (Rachel, Stacy), it was a lot of hurrying up and waiting.  Upon arrival we setup our presentation, visuals, etc. etc. and prepared our minds for the task at hand.  We met the Bama team, and shared our anxiety-filled minds with one another, and in a sense confided in one another about the various frustrations and stresses we had taken on the past 2 months.  Then it was time…the time we had been anticipating since day 1. 

We presented to two of the top Snickers executives, and our presentation was to say the least, impressive.  As we left the room our hopes were high as we encouraged the Bama team that they were gonna do fine.  A 200 pound weight had been lifted as I felt more relief than probably any other time in my life.  Win or lose, the presentation had gone great, and we had done our best.  It was in the judges hands. 

After Bama’s presentation, they displayed a confidence that had us second guessing a little bit.  For about 2 hours we sat in anticipation to find out the winner of the competition.  Then they brought us in the room to go over the pros, cons, and of course the winner.  You will have to watch MTVu next week to see who won.  Both presentations went fantastic, and both teams spent 100’s of hours of work on these events and presentations.  You will have to wait to see the winners.

As for MTVu, I was wrong about their desire to create drama in the TV show.  An anonymous source revealed that one of the other team members actually sent the “suspicious” email to the Auburn team in an attempt to get their information!  Maybe all of the stereotypes we put on reality television ARENT correct.  I wanted to apologize to MTVu for falsely accusing them.  Rachel and Stacy thank you again.

“Practice makes perfect,” every coach and parent has always said. And it does.

My life has been completely filled with school and Snickers the past couple months, and now the time is here….Sunday we present to the Snickers executives, and this is all I have been able to think about recently. In order to do the best job possible, we have spent hours preparing this presentation; BUT it is impossible to replicate the situation without actually standing in front of people and doing the presentation. So we decided to do this.

Yesterday our Quad Squad presented our research, development, marketing, execution, and post event research to two classes of students in Dr. Butler’s Personal Selling class. Their feedback provided us with several aspects that we had not thought about, and allowed us to provide more quantitative data to our presentation, which Dr. Butler insists will floor the Marketing executives. He also said that he could not believe how much work we had put into this process, and that our confidence and enthusiasm were to be commended. He said we needed to have as much balance as possible, so as to not be cheesy, yet not be dull. It reminded me of the advice Dave gave to us on Marcomblog about the best pitches being comfortable, and disguising them to NOT be pitches. We discussed all the advice, and we are ready to sell our event on Sunday. Wish us luck.