day 3: end of fail

So…what was suppose to be actual day 3 ended up being a wellness fail. My body failed me, I got really sick. It upset me, seriously. Terrible cold. now, 7 days later, i am back, and finished day 3, shoulders and arms/ab ripper X.

Kicked my butt today. I thought I had decent arms…false…they need work. Anywho, it was a great workout. Arms are feeling it already, no lie. Gonna be short winded today. Not in the mood for typing.

So I have realized so much more how easy it is to relate workouts to a quiet time. I did keep up with my quiet time while I was sick though. It was not my best moments either though. You can just seen how easy it is to get off track, just knocked right off just as you get started. I made it to day 2 and a cold overwhelmed me. Nothing I had any control over but it stopped me dead in my tracks. It was ridiculously crazy…but those are the moments in my quiet time I need to turn directly to Christ and push my self harder to spend more time with Him. When is a better time to spend 30 minutes with my Lord than when something is trying to hold me back?? That’s the best time!

Well, anywho, like I said, not really in the mood for typing tonight. Just a bit worn out, mainly from P90X but also with what went on today. Long day. Tomorrow, even longer. G’night.

day 2

Plyometrics is day 2 and boy are my legs burning. I never thought my legs could burn this bad. Basically its this extreme cardio workout. It is pretty insane. My legs are tight but they feel really good. My favorite part, the end. haha not because its almost over  but because the end is very athletic focused. Did a little heisman, bball shooting, baseball pitches, and others. I think its great that he incorporates some fun activities. I think this is the closest that I have come since high school in having a great workout. I never thought I would defeat the plateau that I have reached in my exercising. This DVD really kicked it up a notched. LOVE IT! I can not wait to see what Tony has next. Pray I can walk tomorrow…

So, today just sat, and talked with God. I just needed that time of communication. There are a lot of things that I am concerned about. The biggest thing, What am I going to do when I graduate?? I just have no clue. I try not to worry about it but its so hard not too. That’s when I remembered Luke 12:27

“Consider the lilies as they grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all is splendor was dressed like one of these.”

Why worry? God makes things like lilies beautiful with such ease why would he not do the same for anything you do? it continues in verse 28

“If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!”

Back to faith! I love it. I am so glad I went to God today in this prayer. I needed this reassurance that because of Faith (once again) I have no reason to worry, about anything, anything at all. I will apply to those places that I feel are where God’s leading me, and in the end I will be right where He wants me to be.

day 1: wow, ow, ouch

We started P90X today and boy am I feeling it! It’s like being in HS basketball workouts all over again! Loved it. So here is how today went. I took a before picture, and here it is, a little blurry, but you can see no abs…yet:

Yes I am cheesing! lol but I was laughing because I was a little nervous about starting the program. As you can see no abs and my arms are getting soft. I really want to build it back up. I did not do the sports bra thing because well frankly I just am not that confident yet. Maybe after the first thirty days. Who knows. I really like the chest&back workout. I really feel it now. It is getting more and more difficult to type as I go. After the chest&back we did Ab Ripper X!!!! Frankly something that basically says its gonna rip my abs makes me a little nervous, wow what a workout that was. I was so proud of us (me and the roomie fyi) for completing it. I am already feeling the sore but tomorrow, oh no!, and thats day 2! Please pray for us and our aging bods. Lol, I love it. Praise the Lord for something that is so gratifying/painful at the same time, haha. No Pain, No Gain!

As for my time with God today. I have been reading a really awesome book my great friend Lauren gave to me. Its called “Anticpatience” by Sharon Virkler. I honestly love how she writes this book. Understanding completely because she too is single and waiting on God to bring the right man into her life. The chapter today was on Faith: The Substance of Things Hoped For. The very first page talks about how if we don’t have faith then basically we have nothing

“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6

We can’t even begin to look for any type of reward from our Father until we first believe He is and He exists. That is such a strong statement! If we don’t believe, then we don’t receive! straight and simple. We can receive what God has planned for our life if we do not first have FAITH that He exists and He is who He is.

She then goes on to talk about how our “faith in God gives us life.” “I come that they may have life and have it more abundantly!” John 10:10. Just knowing and having faith in who God is and that He lives gives us life, and abundantly! You can even just pass over that word, abundantly, which means to be in excess! So He came that we may have excessive life. Having way more than what you knew what to do with. I don’t know if I have ever felt like I have more than what I know what to do with. Just like the book “what’s a girl to do?” she discusses that satan is going to try and prevent us from having that excessive life, by trying to tear us down with all the lies that being single creates. BUT, we have a God that has made so many promises of TRUTH that help us build a wall against such arrows of lies. “Believing those promises is what constitutes faith!” God doesn’t lie! He has always told the truth. Just knowing that allows us to plunge head first into deep faith without ever fearing of breaking neck on something as shallow as satan’s lies.

“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Romans 11:29

What He says is not only truth/fact it is also irrevocable, it can’t be taken back or called back. It is how it is said and there is not take-backs or re-dos.

Once we have faith, God is pleased with us and He responds. Just think about the people in the Bible He made promises to and it happened. The first one I think of is David. He told David that he could take a giant down with just stones. I am not gonna lie, I would want a Socom II to take down Goliath. BUT, David had faith that God would give him the strength to take down the “giant” in his life and that is just how he did it. Another story I think of is the one of the walls of Jericho. “By FAITH the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for SEVEN DAYS!” Hebrews 11:30. I have a feeling that it would take some patience and major faith to march seven days just to bring a wall down. I just don’t know, do I have that kind of FAITH? Can I bring down my giants with just stones? Can I bring down a wall just by marching?Matthew 17:20 says, “He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’” Do I have that kind of faith?? I want to make a mountain “move”. I don’t know about you, but that would be flippin awesome!

Anyone, time to get some real sleep, haha, and try to get out of bed in the morning for class.

Night!

A new year, a new start…

So, I decided,  I have this blog why not use it? So I am starting anew.

I am not one to do resolutions. I exercise all the time, not something I really have a problem with. I do spend time with the Lord each day, as much as I can, something I can always forever improve upon. This being my final semester in college, academics (as always) will be something I will put a lot of focus in.

So…I really don’t have resolutions that i am going to make but I am going to be be trying some new things. I plan on spending some more time than I normally do in the Word. I really want to build a tower of truth, because I know satan already and will constantly being shooting his flaming arrows of lies at me, so I want to be able to defend them off. The next thing I am starting new is P90X. I have been exercising regularly but I have kinda hit the exercising plateau that many previous athletes hit as they no longer get to participate in as much as sports as they use to. I think that P90X will be the right thing to get me going again, plus I want my ripped abs back, dangit! The final thing is, I want to be organized in my academics and really get on the ball, that and I want a 4.0 again. That was fun last semester.

My Plan: to start these things and let this blog keep me accountable. It will let me keep track in everything that I am doing. Something to help me learn how to organize mayb e alittle bit better. Plus, I am absolutely sick of writing about PR. To be honest I don’t like it that much. Each day I am going to start posting on each of these things and how well I am doing in them.

I’m excited! Let’s Go!

Is this PR? Newspring (5)

Recently, Newspring Church has had some trying to put their name in a bad light and a few things went a little unruly in the church. In order to reset the order and make sure not to damage their reputation of being straight forward about what is going on at all times in their church they sent links to their website for this announcement.

I think this is a great example of PR and semi-crisis communication.

To tell a long story short, a man, who had been writing negative blogs about Newspring already, was working to adopt a child with his wife. During the adoption process the mother of the child had a choice between them and another couple who happen to go to newspring. The mother chose the newspring couple. He accusing Newspring of influencing the mother of the child to give the child to their couple. He is now asking for 1.5 million and a chance to come on stage whenever he wants and denounce Christ or 3 million to keep all of this from the media. Of course Newspring does not believe they have done anything wrong so they are not responding to this man with money. I think this announce is a great example of PR because they are informing their public, which is the church body. They actually keep constant communication with the church body through the blog where they posted this announcement.

THIS IS PR! lol

Social Media: How to Engage Employees

According to this weeks presentation given at the IABC Social Media states that communication is one of the most important factors to having happy, hard working employees and this same presentation points out that social media could help in getting employees engaged in the conversation.

So where do companies start. Well I think it was best said on the The Employee Factor blog. At the same time they also made a great point about how this will help. On their blog they encourage companies to take small steps, which is brilliant. Don’t jump in blindly to something that you don’t know much about if anything at all. They recommend starting with “intranet 2.0″ which consists of wikis, blogs, social network tools. By starting with this it can get the employees educated and accustomed to what social networking is. If used properly it can help with collaboration and allow for knowledge that would be looked over or not mentioned because of the lack of communication to be brought to light. It allows for organization as well. Everything is all in the same place. There is no confusion of where the research (or whatever) is placed because it would be attached there. If there was a discusion with a chat program it can be brought back up here.

There is one thing though. I do think social networking, such as twitter can be taken too far in the workplace. I think that if overused it can be distractiong and a  little annoying. To finish up this thought and to emphasize what I mean by that I would like to end with this video. I think this video portrays the wrong way to use a social network and it shows this example in the workplace. Love this video.

Public Relations: Diverse Employees

While studying the PR Practitioner’s role in the work place I discovered that one of the major roles they must take is the job of meeting all the diverse needs of the employers in a company. One company has already taken that role seriously. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has developed a workplace diversity plan. This instantly fascinated me as I saw this. It is the first time that I saw implementation of a workplace diversity plan. I know many times we try to made advertisements look certain way and the appearance of the company seem diverse.

Straight from the website:

The principles of workplace diversity, consistent with the Tribunal’s Charter, are to:

• treat each other with respect and dignity;
• provide a safe, secure and healthy workplace;
• make decisions genuinely based on equity and fairness;
• value the diversity of people; and
• take appropriate action to eliminate discrimination.

I think this defines what the PR practitioner should work out in the company. This should be their goal in the area of diversity. There should be an encouragement to treat each other, despite their differences, with respect and dignity. After that, the practitioner should make the workplace a safe for a multitude of people. The practitioner should also make sure that the decisions he/she makes is equal and fair. In the same sense don’t just make decisions because you know that you have to make diverse ones but choose people for things because of the value of their diversity and what their differences could do for the company.

To complete all of that, there is one that all PR practitioners need to be aware and eliminate if necessary and that is discrimination. On the AllBusiness:A D&B Company website there is an article that discusses what discrimination is and what actions an employee can take if they feel like they are being discriminated against including the statute of limitations. This is a great website to inform anyone who thinks they are being discriminated in anyway in the workplace. I really learned a lot from this website despite that I do not believe I have ever been discriminated against. He was really intriguing to find out that there was a lot that a person could to act against something like that.

PR Practitioners and Corporate Social Responsibility

There is one question I have recently been asked:

What role does public relations practitioners take in corporate social responsibilty?

(To be honest I did not know at first so I had to do a little bit of reading.)

According to this research paper a PR practitioner’s role is to provide qualitative evaluation of social trends which help the practioner develop policies leading to a corporate social response. Bernays himself said, “Public relations is the practice of social responsibility. It holds the key to America’s future.” I agree that this is the kind of role, if chosen by the practitioner, that can be taken in corporate social responsibility.

There is no reason that a PR practitioner shouldn’t take this role because their primary focus is reputation and for a company to take corporate social responsibility as discussed in this article. So, IF the PR takes this role they take on the responsibility of figuring out what their corporation must consider in the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment in all aspects of their operations. The practitioner does the work that determines what factors that connect the corporation to each of these and the impacts of each of these and how the corporation can change the impact if negative to good. The practitioner can then incorporate a plan to encourage this social responsibility. After this, if successful, the PR practitioner actual improves their companies public relations.

If that makes sense at all, thats all I have to say.

Starbucks and Corporate Social Responsibility

When trying to find a company that practices good corporate social responsibility I quickly came upon Julio Viskovich’s article about Starbucks.

Starbucks creates a unique opportunity for both its employees and its customers. Starbucks also has been recognized as one of the 100 ethically run companies in America.

Starbucks is so intent on keeping this apart of their corporation that they release a corporate social responsibility report each year. An example from a few years back can be found here. They strive to make sure their customers, employees, and the society around them are not negatively affected by any of their actions.

Despite these actions, Starbucks still seems to deal with poor rumors and bad PR. In their defense Starbucks has in their yearly reports a place where they debunk all rumors. They want to make sure that people know they are just rumors and nothing more.

Starbucks as a company wants to make sure that their employees are well taken care of. They pay more for their health plans than they do for their supplies for the coffee. They also make a point to create a great experience for their costumers. They make sure customer service is supreme and the product it at its best at all times. They are working on also the communities from which they receive their coffee beans. They hope to be able to invest in the farmers and help them to be able to improve their profits and their quality of living. Starbucks is also a part of the big “Go Green” movement. They have made sure that their cups are recyclable and that none of their practices harm the earth.

I think this is the best example of corporate social responsibility. Their company works hard to make sure that they have social responsibility while running their corporation.

Is this PR? Carolina First Saturday Market (4)

I think the Carolina First Saturday Market is an interesting example of PR for the upstate farm communities.

Here on this website is the details but basically, Carolina First Bank has held a farmer’s market every Saturday for most of the summer and partly in the fall. The reason why they do this is to encourage the purchase of area goods instead of importing them from elsewhere.

I think this is PR for the bank because they are doing a good thing by encouraging South Carolina products and I think it is great for those farmers who attend because they get a chance to promote the goods they have.

It is such a great way of putting money back into the community especially in times like these. We have so many farms and family businesses going under why not find a way to support the communities we live in.