Jan

1

Making New Year’s Resolutions for 2010

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First off, I’d like to wish all the SPRB readers out there a very happy new year! With the new year comes resolutions and I am going with the obligatory resolutions post to start this year. I have come across a fair number of articles and blog posts about keeping your resolutions and how to set achievable goals so I’d recommend checking these out if you’re the resolution type.

  • Six steps on making your resolutions a reality per Unclutterer.
  • CBS on how to stick to some of the most common resolutions.
  • Dumb Little Man provides six ways to start 2010 doing instead of dreaming.
  • The Simple Dollar lists 10 ways to define and stick to your resolutions.

I have included my 2010 resolutions (personal and professional) below:

  • Find a job (I graduated two weeks ago).
  • Create an e-book about sports PR and blogging and have it available for download at SPRB.
  • Go to the gym three times a week. I don’t need to lose weight, but I definitely want to get into better shape.
  • Become more organized at home. I just finished reading Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and I already have action steps in place to make that happen.
  • Become proficient with Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro (all of which I got at Christmas).
  • Try a new recipe at least once a month.
  • Get my e-mail inbox to zero e-mails and set up a folder system to ensure it stays that empty (this will probably be one of the tougher ones).

I’d love to hear what you guys would like to accomplish this year so please share your resolutions in the comments section!

Dec

26

What did you get for Christmas?

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I know I did pretty well for myself this Christmas. My parents bought me the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Standard Student Edition, which includes Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Bridge and Acrobat. I use both Photoshop and InDesign at work, but it’s only editing content or images. I wanted to learn how to create more complicated graphics and design layouts to become truly proficient in both programs so I’m pretty excited about that gift. I am working on a Sports PR e-book so InDesign will work perfectly for that.

Thanks to graduation money from some relatives, I purchased a Flip camera which will be pretty handy when I need to record interviews with the players (a fellow intern says video helps you better understand an interviewee if you can’t hear what he or she is saying). I also hope to use it to create some video segments for this blog, but I’ll have to test it out first.

In addition, I got a few PR and career books that I’m looking forward to diving into and later reviewing here at SPRB. So what did you get for Christmas? Share any fun gifts, practical ones that could help you out at work, etc. in the comment section!

Dec

25

Merry Christmas!

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SPRB would like to wish all of its readers a very merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season! I hope everyone is able to take a breather from their hectic lives to enjoy some time with friends and family, but I realize that isn’t always possible when working in sports. I know I’m certainly thankful that the NHL takes a two-day holiday break (Dec. 24-25) so I could celebrate Christmas at home with the family.

Posting will likely remain light over the next few days at SPRB because of the holidays, but we’ll be back in full swing to kick it into gear for 2010!

Oct

21

Help with a history of SIDs paper

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I am working on a research paper about the history of sports information directors for my “History of College Athletics” course. The paper isn’t due for quite some time and I have already done some research, but I wanted to see if any SPRB readers have suggestions for websites, books, or people to talk to that would be helpful for this paper. Feel free to e-mail me at christy[dot]hammond19[@]gmail[dot]com or leave a comment.

I plan on posting my paper here at SPRB once it is finished in early December. Thanks in advance!

Aug

31

Taking a Quick Break

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SPRB will be on a very brief hiatus this week as I move back to Ann Arbor and may be without internet for a couple of days. I hope to kick off my “Sports PR 101″ series next week so you have that to look forward to upon my return on Monday.

If you come across any interesting PR or sports business news, feel free to leave it in the comment section to pass it along to other SPRB readers. Thanks to all of my readers for making this summer such a successful one! SPRB’s unique visitor numbers has increased 200% since May and I can’t thank you guys enough!

Update (September 7): I apologize for the lack of posting. I moved to Ann Arbor last Wednesday and was without Internet until Saturday. Unpacking and decorating a new house with five other people took longer than expected. I don’t have any new content just yet, but I will hopefully be able to start working on it tomorrow (Tuesday). Thanks for your patience!

Jun

15

What do you want to see?

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As many of you know, I intern with the Detroit Red Wings and my team lost in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Friday. Today the team will clean out their lockers and participate in the post-season signing before heading their different ways for the summer. Why do you care? I will now have more time to dedicate to this blog since I don’t intern at the rink during the offseason. Work kept my life pretty hectic, particularly over the last month when I started traveling for the road games so I hope to now pick up the slack.

This leads me into a question for the SPRB readers out there: What do you want to see on SPRB this summer? Please feel free to answer my question by leaving a comment on this post.

I plan on picking up the number of interviews posted to this blog (hopefully). Outside of the informational interviews with professionals in the industry, I’m open to your guys’ comments. Do you want more tips about trying to get an internship or job? Tips on how to write a release? More coverage of sports PR incidents? Or more posts on sports news from a PR slant? I’m obviously going to try to hit a variety of areas throughout the summer, but I wanted to see if there was a specific area or two of particular interest to the great readers of SPRB.

Thanks!

Apr

20

Back Soon

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I just wanted to quickly apologize for the lack of posts over the last two weeks. Between finals and work as the U-M hockey season ended and the Red Wings geared up for the postseason, I have been swamped. Sadly, I just haven’t had time to blog on top of working 50+ hour weeks, 18 hours of class, and countless hours of video editing and studying at the library for classes.

Things should lighten up by Wednesday or Thursday and I know I’ll have plenty to blog about as my PR Week and Sports Business Journal issues are just piling up. As soon as I can get a post up, I will. I just wanted to say something so that you guys didn’t think I had abandoned Sports PR Blog.

I also hope to have a couple interesting interviews for SPRB in the coming weeks so please stay tuned for that. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Jan

13

My Guest Post on Culpwrit

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Last week, I had the pleasure to see my guest post posted on Culpwrit. As I’ve previously mentioned on SPRB, Culpwrit is a great public relations career blog as it gives advice on a variety of PR specialties from education to internships to a day in the life of posts. Ron Culp, the guy in charge of the blog, asked for me to write a guest post about what college students are doing to prepare for a career in sports PR. You can check out my post here.

The most important thing you can do in college if you want to work in sports PR is get experience. The people making the hiring decisions don’t really care about your GPA; they look to see what experience you have. It’s also not good enough to just get an internship in the summer. You need to intern year-round.

My entry led into two guest posts by Chris McKinney. Chris is the brains behind Sports Career News. His posts dealt with how to land a job in sports PR. You can read parts one and two.

Aug

14

Welcome to Sports PR Blog

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Welcome to my new blog entitled the Sports PR Blog, which is dedicated to looking at the sports business industry from a PR perspective.

I am currently a senior at the University of Michigan where I am double majoring in Communication Studies and Sport Management. While I’m certainly not the most qualified individual to blog about Sports PR, this blog will essentially become a way for me vocalize what I’m learning about both the sports business and PR industry. Some of my posts may strictly be PR in nature, but I will do my best to apply it to the sports world as much as possible.