06.11.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:13 pm by urbanlife
Well, I’ve accepted an offer at the big art gallery downtown and will be on McCaul Street shaking hands on the agreement soon. What has it all meant? I’ve gone to so many interviews in the last few weeks, my head’s spinning a little. There were several good jobs, but all of them were so different from one another. It was a hard decision to make. But, ultimately, I went with my first love - fine art - and all the strange and provocative things that might be happening there.
Why? Well, the job met several important criteria: it was a communications job, albeit in their growing development department. It was downtown. It was in a field I’ve always enjoyed and have formal training in. It paid great. Most importantly, the people who interviewed me seemed to speak the same language that I do. There was a really nice, collegial feel - like we could really do some great work together. Plus, it’s a new job - nobody’s done it before, so that was intriguing. I felt like I could bring some new ideas to a great institution.
The additional assets of being located right up the street from my favourite art supply store, right across the street from a great pub, and kitty-corner to my favourite sushi joint just sent it over the top. On the subway, TOO, so I won’t have to drive my old car there, or pay for parking.
One thing I’d certainly remind all my fellow student job seekers: this organization went through my references and my resume with a nit comb. Everything on your resume must be squeaky clean - no balloons, no cameras obscura.
So, did PR education make a difference? It’s true that I already had a considerable portfolio of proposal writing and business development experience, but I’m pretty sure I never would have gotten an interview for this job if I didn’t have the PR credential on my resume. I felt confident in the interview, polished and composed. And being an ‘older’ worker/student helped me, with both of these jobs offers, I think. The nature of the work was very mature at both places, and in a way, a certain ‘world weariness’ didn’t hurt. It didn’t make me look jaded, I don’t think, but I think I came across as the serious person that I am. I’m not a light colour, or a ‘hue’ of anything - I’m something pretty saturated, pretty intense. And I don’t have a fluffy feel to me. I’m not a sunny daisy, would you say? I’m more like something deeper purple, or something that must live, at least part of the time, in the shade.
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06.07.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:49 pm by urbanlife
Just returned from an unrestful holiday. Why unrestful? Because the messages keep coming. It’s a summer snowstorm of job interviews. It is hard work, and I’ve hardly had a day off since my supposed holiday began two weeks ago. Ah, but of course, I’m not complaining. After last year’s dry spell, when people blew me off left and right, I’m soaking it up. It was freezing up north, by the way, almost literally, and raining like hell. When we arrived, the power was out and it was woodstove and candles. Not that I minded that part. The lake was slate grey, and stormy.
Upon returning from that inhospitable environment, all the job interviewing was put into sharpened contrast. The work is going to be hard, they seem to be saying: an interview never runs its course without a few questions about my ability to operate under pressure. Composure is king in PR, as elsewhere. The secret to remaining calm is to distance yourself, and never take things personally. Sometimes that’s hard to do, and I’ve worked fairly high profile jobs that were magnets for personal attacks. Virtually every attack was almost laughable, but it was still an incredible drag having people accuse you of myriad nefarious things. It wasn’t fun.
Most situtions aren’t like that, and they aren’t personal. You’re called upon to deliver a message for someone else, or articulate what someone else is trying to put into words. That can make communications work really gratifying. I’ve worked for groups where English was a distant second or third language, or where lower levels of education eroded people’s confidence in speaking for themselves. To be the scribe, the spokesperson, in those cases was an honour. I’ve always loved that part of my work.
There’s also a large component of wordlessness to my work,too, and I’ve been trying to examine some of that by posting images here on Urbanlife. Communication Arts, you could call it.
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Posted in Wordless at 6:24 pm by urbanlife
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06.02.07
Posted in Wordless at 6:09 pm by urbanlife
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:41 pm by urbanlife
Full view. That’s what it’s been like over the last few weeks. Just when I have finally completely given up on some resume I sent out, I get another message on my cell phone. Marked urgent. Can I come in for an interview in two week’s time? They’ve taken six weeks to call me, but can I come tomorrow? I can’t understand why it takes organizations so long to get back to applicants. Several of them have taken five or six weeks to make even the first phone call. Of course, there have been rejection notices, too, but you expect those to roll in long after the fact.
It’s an odd roster of communications jobs out there, but the market seems very hot for recent grads. I have had seven interviews in the last two or three weeks, and two of them look very promising. They are both jobs at which I think I could excel, and with people that seem great to work with.
The interview questions, however, which I discussed in an earlier post, are not what the experts predicted.
For instance, I was recently asked: “What is your understanding of ’stewardship’?” This was in relation to donors at a non-profit. I had to really think about that one. It seemed a very interesting question. My answer was short: “Stewardship,” I said,”is about ownership and leadership.” The questioner gave me no notion whether this was an adequate answer. I believe it was.
Questions may also reveal underlying interests of the organization: “What steps do you take in your own self-care?” This was one of those questions that I kick myself about later. It took me by surprise - I could have talked about meditating or motorcycling, exercise, etc.
Most of the interviews have been pretty good, but it’s easy to see that most places are looking for someone who fits in with their work culture. I’m looking for that, too. One woman scribbled diagrams in her notebook the entire time she was interviewing me. She was trying to draw a kind of ‘flow chart’ to show me how the org worked, or how they thought it should work. No formal questions, just a bunch of drawing. She wore those clear plastic strips on her teeth, top and bottom. Somehow we both knew we didn’t want to work together.
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05.31.07
Posted in Inside the Shout at 6:33 pm by urbanlife
Franco Cignelli is a colleague from Centennial, one of the truly great and talented people I was lucky enough to go to school with there. He’s been posting some of his urban stilllifes on Facebook.
Moving through town, we’re barely aware of the surrounding song of words and wordmarks around us. Of course, we knowingly filter out or prioritize messaging we see or hear.
I’ve trotted down those steps. Hardly noticed the moving blurbs around me: Coca-cola on one side, NOW magazine’s big red and green dot on the other. In the distance one of life’s biggest questions: DO YOU.. But mindswell has many meanings, and it’s a thrill, not a hardship, to succumb to them.
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02.10.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:19 pm by urbanlife
We’ve been busy at Centennial’s Corp Comm class applying for internships, assembling portfolios and getting ready for interviews. Always so many questions. People seem nervous about making a choice in the notorious “binder”! There are 22 jobs to choose from, but 35 of us, so there’s been some soul searching for many of us about which ones we want to apply for.
Industry? Job description? It seems most people are looking first at the positions that offer some kind of remuneration. $13 per hour sounds great to most of us, but the honoraria are welcome, too. Most of the internships in the binder come with some amount of pay attached to them.
For me, I’m still “thinking outside the binder” and looking at options. I’ve contacted organizations I’d like to work for, but mostly I’ve been trying to consider the kind of work I’d like to be doing. So I was surprised and a little unnerved when the interviewer last week asked me, “Well, what do like to do?” The time had come to decide, on the spot, if I was going to try to say the things I thought she wanted to hear, or really tell her what I actually wanted to be doing.
Thinking this was not a time to hedge, or second-guess, I ploughed right in. “I like to plan. I like to think about the big picture,” I said with as much confidence as I could.
“I can write very powerful copy when I’m writing about something I believe in,” I continued, feeling better about it all the time. And I was thinking to myself that this was all true. Those were my real interests, even though they don’t sound like junior communicator intern type stuff. I really can write with power - it’s the one thing I think I do well. I can plan a great campaign, a great package or program.
So, I blew my own horn. Her expression was unchanged. She looked at me with a constant steely gaze.
I thought about the seminar at Centennial a few days before, Tips from the Pros. We’d discussed interview questions of the ilk “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” I’ve been to alot of interviews, but I’ve never actually been asked this question.
The answers from the pros sounded plausible. A St.Bernard dog, said one pro, because she was loyal, friendly, and you could count on her in a crisis. Wow! I never thought of that! Or a caterpillar, said another, describing the arc of one’s career as a steady maturation process from immature grub to attractive high-flier.
I’d had it in my mind that I thought of myself as an eagle, but after listening to those answers I saw that an eagle would be seen as a predatory, distant, solo flier, probably not good at teamwork, more interested in overseeing distant landscapes, with an eagle-eye, you might say, for the next prey. Making my desk an aerie in the office, pecking away at my keyboard, coveting the tall corner of cliff-like skyscraper. Wrong answer, I thought. That will never get me job. Nobody wants to work with a raptor, do they, I mean, unless they play for Toronto?
But, looking at it from another angle, maybe my impulsive answer wasn’t totally alarming. I do like to look at the big picture, as I said. I like get the global view of a problem, and consider the long-range. I never see myself as predatory - I actually like to feel like I’m helping people - but I am an avidly independent worker. I can work with a group, but I’m perfectly comfortable going it alone, too. I’m goal-oriented, and never-say-die (even when I play hockey). I think I can honestly brag that I can see the small, scurrying opportunity down on the ground, and convince others it’s there.
What’s the right answer? What did the interviewer say? “We’ll have lots of work for you to do,” she said, although her expression was still a little beady-eyed. Maybe I’d just met up with another eagle!
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01.20.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:14 pm by urbanlife
As I mentioned in urbanlife’s initial post,I’m searching for ideas about communicating with young residents in the urban core about their own health care. I put the age range as 15 to 25 years then, but have since been asked to shift that younger - 13 to 24. It gives me small pause, as I hope it does many people, to confront the reality that some 13-year-olds find themselves responsible for their own well-being, body and soul.
We have plenty of statistics about the health risks this group faces, especially if they are young parents (moms and dads before age 20). Many of these risks are socially determined - inadequate housing, poor nutrition, low education levels. Is Blogside is of any help in disseminating info to this group? I suspect that many of the underhoused and undereducated are also underemployed and have few disposable funds to access the internet. Is that a faulty assumption? Perhaps this post is a test run to find out. I’ve also posted a link to YouthNet. Let me know how useful you find that site.
On the flip side,�how do we get information from young families about what they need, and what they need to know? How do you ask people a ‘negative’ question like, “Okay, tell me what you don’t know.”?
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01.15.07
Posted in Inside the Shout at 6:50 pm by urbanlife
Riding on the subway you’re surrounded by sound. The train emerges from a tunnel onto an elevated stretch of track, and a garish kilometer of spraypainted graffiti flies into view. It’s loud and public, but still encrypted - only a few people will actually be able to read the tags. At the same time, the person sitting beside you isn’t looking out the window. She’s text-messaging on her phone, plugged into an interior zone, silently talking through passwords and short forms.
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Posted in Urban Communications at 5:14 pm by urbanlife
Hello World is right!
This is urbanlife, a PR blog dedicated to examining communication in the hurly-burly of the city. urbanlife’s home is Toronto, Ontario, and its forum leader is D.A.Boyer, currently a full-time communications student at Centennial College’s Centre for Creative Communications, in the city’s east end.
urbanlife is a dialogue between PR practitioners, students, and communications observers about how people reach each other in a noisy background. How do we interact, tell our stories, convey our content, eavesdrop, hand-signal or genuflect within ‘the shout of the city’?
urbanlife examines the strange layerings of public and private in the urban zone, and provides a forum for communicators to share effective ways to access the mainstream.
Research and commentary will be mostly local, but input is welcome and invited from anywhere in the global PR community.
Over the next few weeks, urbanlife’s theme will be getting the ‘healthy living’ message out to city dwellers. We know that particular health risks afflict those of us who choose city life, but we also know that some urban communities are hard to reach with health care messages. How can we communicate, for instance, with mutable and mercurial ‘youth,’ those citizens over 15 and under 25? What health issues do they care about? How do we get them the information they need?
urbanlife explores options and solicits ideas.
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