I woke up with an uneasy feeling in my stomach this morning, thanks to my sudden realization that I forgot to send handwritten thank you notes to the reporters and bloggers I met at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last month.

I was fortunate enough to sit and talk to some of the reporters and bloggers for some time, exchange business cards, and even exchange Facebook messages with a few of them after the fact. Although I was on top of my online follow-ups, I completely forgot to send any handwritten thank you notes. And now, I’m feeling like an ass. Even in this age of technical advancements and the ability to send comments with just the touch of a button, a handwritten note still goes a long way with most people (espically professionals).

So, this is my advice on sending handwritten notes: Buy some thank you notes (mine are a set I bought from Target, but I’m hoping to get some custom notes after graduation) and…

• Send them after you interview for a job (informational or otherwise) 
• Send them after you meet people at any sort of networking event 
• Send them after someone offers to put you in touch with someone else who can help you
• Send them after you get a present (duh!)
• Send them after someone takes the time to discuss your carreer objectives with you

As a general rule, send a thank you e-mail right after you meet the person (the same day or the next day). Then, followup with a handwritten card right after. Because it takes a few days for a card to reach someone, it’s nice to send the e-mail and the card right away, so that the person gets them in a timely fashion.

These are the rules I follow for thank you cards. What is your “thank you card protocol”?

As I’m working on getting documents together for the Intel event in NYC that I talked about in my last blog post, I’m understanding more about planning media events.

If you’re planning an event, you have to go into it with a goal of accomplishing something more than just throwing a “sweet party.” Otherwise, you’re spending what is likely to be a lot of money, and you come out of it thinking, “now what?”

When I first started at Intel, I was told about all sorts of events that were being thrown by either the marketing, PR team, or both.  At first, I didn’t look at this from a PR perspective. I just thought about the cool events I was going to attend and the networking I was going to do. A few weeks into my job though, I started to realize that each and every event had a distinct purpose – a cohesive message that was being cultivated. The goal of the events, as far as media goes, was to get the carefully developed messages into the press. (If you’re in PR and you’re reading this, this is probably where you’re going… “duhhh!”) And the people I work with are great at doing this because they’re informed about the company and its products, strategic in their planning, and very well organized.

I guess my key takeaway from helping with planning and attending these events is that successful PR events have a purpose. It’s easy to jump right into tactics (throwing an event is a tactic) because tactics are the fun parts of PR where you get to be creative. But every tactic, especially a major one like throwing events, needs to have strategies and objectives behind it. So, this is my advice to other PR practioners.

Before planning an event for your client or company or whoever, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is the ultimate goal of your client?
2. Is throwing an event going to help you accomplish that goal?
3. What do you have to incorporate into your event planning to help you accomplish the goal?
4. What are the key messages you want people to take away from your event?
5. How are you going to make sure they take those messages away (without beating them over the head with them)?

Holding a laptop with Intel Core i3 inside.

As part of a program I’m involved with through the University of Oregon called the Portland Experience, I’m going to be blogging regularly about my job at Intel. This will take over the majority of my blog posts for the next three months, while I complete this program. After the program is over, my post will go back to being about work, PR, and social media.

As some of you may know, I’ve been working at Intel since June. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a plethora of projects coming my way (here’s one of them). I’ve worked with the product teams and the consumer team, so I’ve been all over the map. One of the things I’m doing now is helping the consumer team get ready for an event that is happening in New York City later this month. (This is actually my second Intel event in New York. The first was Tech Spa and you can read about my experience here. I must say, they’re spoiling me!!) 

I’m in charge of putting together three briefing documents for this New York event. Two documents for the event attendees and the other is for Intel employees so that they know what’s going on. Seems like a simple enough task. But I’m finding that any project that involves more than three people is complicated to write about. I need to summarize one thing, but to do it I need to track down 500 other documents and employees to get the facts straight. And I’m not just tracking down PR people, some people are in marketing, some are technical, some are labs… I’m all over the place.

I guess my biggest takeaway from work today is that good communication is crucial to results in public relations. It’s not just about communication with media – it’s about communication with one another. Working with others, asking questions, responding quickly and following up are all crucial habits of a good practitioner (or really, any worker).

The business world isn’t like school, where you really only have to ask questions of your teacher. The business world is about going forth and finding answers yourself. It’s about finding the right people to talk to on your own. No one expects you to know everything already. They just expect you to be able to figure it out.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this blog are my own. I am not speaking on behalf of Intel or any of the company’s other employees.

Recently, I read an Advertising Age article analyzing the Old Spice “Man’s Man” campaign. The article questions whether the campaign was a success because it’s unclear whether it resulted in a large amount of direct revenue from body wash sales, or if the sales can be attributed to two-for-one coupons for body wash that were unrelated to the campaign.

If you’ve been living in a cave for the past month or for some other reason you managed to miss the viral Old Spice campaign, check out the campaign for yourself.

First of all, in response to the Advertising Age article, I want to point out that the viral campaign is still very new, and it’s a little soon to evaluate the ROI from a financial standpoint. Also, the article only talked about body wash sales, but I think it’s only fair to look at overall Old Spice product sales because although the campaign was talking about body wash specifically, it was building an overall perception of the brand itself.

Quite honestly though, I was a quite put off by how the article attempts to simplify the success of a campaign down to direct revenue. I understand that sales are the bottom line – I get it. But stop thinking about money for one second and take a step back to look at this from a PR perspective. Notice how the Old Spice campaign accomplished something huge for the company.

The campaign (I think it’s pretty fair to say single-handedly) transformed the image of the Old Spice brand from an “old man brand” to a “young, hot brand.” It got young men and women following the campaign (and participating) on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to hear the latest updates and watch the latest videos. It got customers and potential customers to engage in conversation with Old Spice and with one another. Isn’t that every company’s social media dream? It created a young fan base for the company, which was the goal. If transforming the image of your brand, generating high-level buzz and bringing in revenue doesn’t make a campaign a success, then I don’t know what does.

Ps. Also, I gotta throw out a quick plug for my hometown. The Old Spice videos were the creation of Portland-based Wieden + Kennedy! Props to Wieden & Kennedy for a creative and strategically implemented campaign. In my opinion, a huge success story!

I origionally wrote this post for Intel’s internal employee blog, but I thought I’d post it to my PR blog too so that you could get an idea of what my internship has been like, doing in-house PR for Intel.

I’m not a morning person. At all. In fact, I only took one class before 10 a.m. in my four years of college. But once I turned 21, I figured it was time to grow up and learn how to function before noon – so got a job. I’m a public relations intern at Intel in the Global Communications Department (GCG).

Work starts at 8 a.m. every morning. I’m usually ready to cry when my alarm goes off at 6 a.m. but after the 30 minute commute to work, I’m generally at least somewhat alert by the time 8 rolls around.

It’s definitely been a schedule adjustment for me, but working here keeps me on my toes. I’m learning something new every day.

• Days 1-3: I learned the importance of name-retention skills. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m absolutely horrible with names. It’s just my luck that Intel has about a zillion employees and twice that many names to remember (first AND last names). But the Org Chart is my “BFF” (best friend forever) and so is my trusty note pad, which I use to write down notes from every one-on-one meeting I have with someone.
• Days 4-5: I learned that I know absolutely nothing about technology. (Don’t tell anyone.) I thought I understood technology pretty well, but leave it to this high-tech company to prove me wrong. Processors and microprocessors and semiconductor and chips… Oh my! Apparently being addicted to my smart phone, Twitter feed and blog doesn’t count as knowing a lot about technology. Oops.
• Days 6-8: I learned that not knowing a lot about technology is okay, as long as I’m a quick learner (and willing to learn). Apparently, a processer can be translated to “the brains behind the computer – without one, the computer would be in a vegetable state.” Same with microprocessor, semiconductor and chip. That’s what I call getting four birds with one stone! Now I just have to memorize all those darn acronyms…
• Days 9-10: I learned that even someone as young and inexperienced as me can be of value to a huge corporation like Intel. I know that sounds like a joke, but it’s really proved true. I don’t spend my days getting coffee for senior employees; I spend them completing valuable tasks that I’ve been asked to do. Right now, I’m in the process of working with a few people in the GCG to create a thesaurus of words and phrases that could be simplified to increase consumers’ understanding of news releases. Looking at the bigger picture, the work I’m doing will help create a standard for how releases are written from now on. How cool is that?
• Days 11-13: I learned that Intel is doing a lot of really, really cool stuff right now. Even though much of the work is behind the scenes, the company is making more amazing things possible than I can keep track of. Intel’s MeeGo is soon to be going into cars to bring interactive Internet to vehicles. Intel’s Atom is going into smart phones to make what you can do on your computer possible on your phone. Atom is also going into TVs, creating a seamless connection between the Internet and your TV screen. The Intel Labs are creating robots. And Intel’s Core is making laptops ultra-thin and sleek. Intel is doing more than just creating cool products – it’s learning what there is a demand for and making it all possible. I’m proud to be a part of it.
• Days 14-15: I learned that confusion can turn into a challenge, and a challenge can turn into an accomplishment. Take yesterday, for instance. I was given the task of writing a Chip Shot. When my manager told me this, I gave her what must have looked like a completely vacant stare. “Do you know what a chip shot is?” She asked me. “No,” I responded. She didn’t look concerned. Apparently, a chip shot is a short news brief (almost like a teeny tiny news release) that can be found in Intel’s press room and many reporters subscribe to it. And I had the “challenge” of writing one. And I did it! I know it sounds like an extremely minor feat, but for me it’s a huge accomplishment! Something I wrote is going to be up on Intel’s website and sent out through reporters’ RSS feeds. Never mind that it’s only 100 words, it’s still something I wrote. I consider that an accomplishment. Check out the Chip Shot I wrote: “Key Automobile Alliance Chooses MeeGo for Cars.”

So far, my time at Intel has been extremely rewarding. At this point, though, I still feel like the company has given me so much more than I have given it. I hope that as I start to get the hang of things more and more, that will change. I only have 3 months here to make an impression so I’m going to put everything into it and do the best that I possibly can.

That’s all for now.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this blog are my own. I am not speaking on behalf of Intel or any of the company’s other employees.