PR

Media Training for New Mexico’s First Responders.

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It’s summer time, the weather is hot and dry, school is months away and I’m constantly trying to find ways to keep myself busy. Often I look for any kind of freelance gigs to cross my path and this last week Merritt Allen of Vox Optima LLC hired me on to help out with a training seminar for media relations during an emergency response situation.

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At this seminar we had numerous representatives from local and state agencies that can be found at the scene of any number of high stress emergency situations. The goal of the class was to teach organizations the importance of having a media communication plan in order to get important information out to the public while as maintaining control of information that could be constantly changing and possibly highly sensitive to the situation.

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On top of being run by Merritt, who has years of experience as a Public Relations expert, we also involvement by Floyd Vasquez who is my former New Mexico in Focus producer at New Mexico PBS. Having a familiar face who I’ve worked with in the past made things a lot easier to assimilate to the situation and make it look like I know what I’m doing and talking about.  AJA_0013

Even though both Merritt and Floyd have been in this line of work for longer than I’ve been alive they were incredibly helpful at making me feel like I had just as much to contribute to the conversation and the material even though I had specifically signed on as a camera operator and I’m still just a college student.

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Despite being there as camera operator and pseudo instructor I left with learning a lot about what goes into covering a developing situations and how the relationship between the Public Information Officers and reporters is vital to getting the story out accurately and in a timely matter.

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The biggest take away from the seminar was that in and emergency situation every one is there to do their job. The media is trying to get information to report, emergency responders are trying to gather information while getting control of the situation and PIO’s are there to make sure that the information that is getting out is accurate and isn’t going to cause interference with the on going situation.

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I really appreciate Merritt Allen and Vox Optima LLC having me out to work the seminar and I hope I get to work with them more in the future.

Microsoft’s PR is hurting the Xbox One’s chances

If you follow the gaming industry or tech media you may have noticed that the next generations of consoles are coming out.

Sony announced the PS4 in February with a press conference that had a focus squarely on what it offers in a gaming context. It showed off the PC architecture that was appealing to developers who had numbers of problems developing for the PS3, as well as some gaming titles that showed off what the console is capable of visually. All of the features that were discussed with the console were in some way connected to gaming which should come as no surprise when you consider that they are trying to sell a gaming console.

Microsoft on the other hand is taking a much different approach with the Xbox One by selling the console as an “All in one home entertainment system.” In their press conference they kept referring to how the new console would be integrated with all your entertainment devices and how the console will respond to you. The games appealed to a casual audience and the technical specs we glossed over.
The issue with this messaging is that the people watching the Xbox One announcement were not the casual gamer and household owner shopping for an all in one entertainment device, they were the hardcore gamers and the tech geeks looking at the new Xbox as a gaming console and not a complexed DVR.
When the press conference  ended Journalist flooded to get ahold of representatives from Microsoft to straighten out details in regards to used games, backwards compatibility, DRM, always on (the fact that the console is always on at some level) and always online (on the internet.) When this happened the public was given different reports on each topic coming from a different Microsoft employee that all seemed to conflict and contradict each other. Now Sony wasn’t much more clear on the subject but they decided not to comment on the subject which seems to be paying off for them in the PR department.

Now E3 is around the corner and Microsoft is expected to have a stronger conference in regards to games and what they will be offering to the market that they need to hit in order to look good out the gate if they want the xbox one to work.
Bickering about the details aside all of microsofts issues come straight from bad PR. People weren’t on the same page in regards to information, they were unorganized in dealing with the press after the announcement and they misread who their audience was going to be and the results show in the reactions of outrage and confusion.

A lot can happen at E3 and the in the months leading up to the consoles launch dates but from what it’s starting to look like is that the PS4 is going to be the popular console coming right out the gate and consumers are going to look at the Xbox One wearily. I personally think if Microsoft had their PR together they could have avoided a lot of these problems.