Public Relations...Helpful or harmful? My Opinion

Every corporation and large business has a Public Relations Department. They are necessary because if something is found to be suspicious or there is a positive new aspect to the company, the PR representatives fix it or put out the news.

Public Relations Departments are GREAT for getting a new company out to the public and promoting them and/or their products. Let's say, for example, that Kay has a new product that she is going to start producing. The first thing she does is order a few of each size of the product and try them out to see how they go over. If they are popular and the customers really seem to like them, she'll continue the product. Although, if it is not such a success, she has not really lost too much because the intel she gained into what the customers want and love is priceless to her industry. However, they can also destroy a company if the company is caught doing something they are not supposed to be doing. Take Enron for example. They committed accounting fraud and their public relations department could not save them. All they could do was try their hardest to control the damage that might be caused.

(Public Relations is not always a wonderful department. Sometimes it causes more damage than aid but that's the way of life sometimes is it not?)

My opinion of pr is mixed. I believe it does good and harm. It can aid a company and keep it from flailing and it can also sink it like anchor. I've seen pr sail like a cloud and I've seen it drop like a rock.

Working Tournaments

I work for Kay Stanford for K&S Embroidery 3 to 4 weekends a month at sporting tournaments around the states of North Dakota and Minnesota. We set up our tables and products at volleyball, basketball, hockey, and figure skating tournaments. The tournaments we travel to are some of the most fun because we meet new people, make contacts, and usually get to stay in a different town in a hotel room and after a long day of work it's just fun to sit back with them and relax.
Most, if not all, of the tournaments are girls tournaments because they buy more than guys do and they enjoy what we sell more than the guys. There are also more options for girls to buy.
At a typical tournament, we sell an average of $1,700 worth of merchandise. There are quite a few different things we sell. We sell tournament shirts, which Kay or her son design, we sell sweatpants, flare pants, and pajama pants. We also sell sweatshirts, long sleeve shirts, and t-shirts. We customize them all with names or whatever the customers want to put on them with vinyl that we cut and heat on right then and there. At the figure skating tournaments, we also sell skate guards, dresses, and tights.
I absolutely love working for Kay and her husband Scott. We have a lot of fun and get a lot done. Stephen, their nephew and my boyfriend, works for them as well. We all get along and have these little jokes it's a lot of fun!

ABC News: Israeli Forces Advance Deep Into Gaza Urban Areas

I just want to start out by staying that I really look forward to this class and to betting to know all of you as we progress through this coming semester. Now with the preliminaries out of the way, it's down to serious business.

The article I read this week is about the intense unrelenting fighting between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Israeli forces penetrated the deepest on Sunday into a residential area. Their infantry is fighting urban warfare in streets and buildings with Hamas militant members who are continuing to launch rockets into the southern part of Israel.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that the neighborhoods in Gaza are a mine field and incredibly tricky for the soldiers to fight in. There are homemade bombs and booby traps, along with mannequins that are set up in apartment doors that simulate Gaza soldiers and are set to go off when soldiers approach them.

Israeli navy gunboats on Monday shot over 25 shells into Gaza City, causing multiple fires and violently shaking office buildings and the local bureau of The Associated Press. Before the sun rose on Monday, at least one militant was killed by the airstrike on Gaza. The medical officials in Gaza hospitals say at the very least 870 Palestinians, approximately half of them civilian, have been killed in the raging conflict that started December 27th with Israeli airstrikes on Hamas buildings. Only 13 Israelis, 10 soldiers, have died.

Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, said that the objective Israel set for itself has made decent progress but has not hit the finish line yet. Israel's objective is to end years of devastating rocket attacks by Hamas on it's southern region. This is an intricate plan that might possibly require Egyptian or even international aid to shut down the weapon smuggling routes between Egypt and Gaza. They have been bombing known tunnels that run under the border of the two countries.