PR Writing Class was Beneficial

4/27 – For all the work, all the projects, all the assignments with questions that had seperate questions to it, this PR writing class was extremely beneficial to what we plan to expect in the outside world.  I say that because I’m one who has a lot of experience in the business world and I feel that a lot of work and a lot of assignments with deadlines, is something that you come to expect in the business world.  Even if it’s not PR that you get into down the road, this class has definitely forced me to mold my way of preparing and organize myself.  The group projects were great and extremely beneficial overal in the long run.  Everything we’ve learned and the experiences we’ve gained from the group projects will only benefit us in the long run and for that I feel that this class was, extremely tough, but I’m grateful for the learning experiences it has given me.

ABC vs. Cablevision

There have been so many examples of contract disputes between companies.  The most recent one that has made headlines is the one brewing between ABC and Cablevision.  I’m not sure of the specifics, but from what I do know, ABC apparently wants to extend its contract for more money and Cablevision refuses to do so.  Because of this, ABC is not being shown on all Cablevision outlets.  Isn’t it always about the money? Well, it took one of the biggest television events to finally put a plug on this fight.  The night of the Academy Awards, which is shown on ABC exclusively, allowed some leverage for the television company to come up with an agreement with Cablevision because they couldn’t afford not to air the Oscars.  However, I feel the PR aspect of it would ultimately be the final say in the matter.  I feel the pressure that was put on Cablevision viewers to air ABC networks would’ve got way too big for them to handle.  Because ABC is one of the largest and most viewed networks, it would be virtually impossible for Cablevision to maintain any leverage and then lose all PR relevance.  Again, it’s always about the money!

Why Working with the Media Scares Me

3/5 – Honestly, there’s not much that scares me.  The only two things I really fear are; heights & snakes.  However, after learning the subject material in our PR writing class, working with the media has some elements that frighten me a little bit.  The one aspect of working with the media that frightens me a little bit is the negative criticism that can generate from work I’ve done and become public.  If it’s a case where I write some work and it’s something I post where media outlets have access to, the public criticism is something I would have to get used to quickly.  Generally, I’m not one to get embarrassed, but I’m also a slight perfectionist so if work I’ve done is criticized in the media to the world, it’s something that won’t necessarily embarrass me, but make me angry and that scares me.  It’s a craft and a process where I would have to learn real quick so that for future events, I don’t get worried about working with the media.

Life is all about relationships

3/2 – In my almost 28 years on this earth, I’ve realized many things that have helped me along the way.  I’m no philospher or anything, but if I can say the one aspect of life that is key to a healthy and successful life is simply this; establishing and maintaing as many relationships as possible.  Relationships are the key to life.  That’s my motto!! For everything you do in your lifetime, ultimately, is determined by the types of relationships you develop.  Either good or bad, relationships make the world go round and without them, you will live a miserable life.  Whether business or personal, the relationships you develop will ultimately determine how far you want to go, how successful you want to be, and so forth.  Whoever reads this blog, take this into consideration; wherever you want to go in life, make sure you manage and maintain your relationships because they can either make you or break you.

Punk Rock Pioneer Never Forgotten

2/23 – http://badpitch.blogspot.com/

Malcolm Mclaren, “the father of punk,” recently past away and for those who followed punk rock from it’s original results has a day of somberance.  Punk rock is a rebellious form of music that generated from those who felt that they weren’t part of the “mainstream” system and wanted to feel apart of something they called their own.  The mid to late 1970s was a time where punk rock generated in the streets of London, England.  With groups such as the sex pistols and the cure, punk rock’s popularity grew worldwide and to the United States where more acts grew into popularity.  Just like most genres, punk rock rose to popularity, but then evenutally faded into obscurity.  There are still uprises here and there throughout the last 25 years but the genre remains afloat in the minds of those who were there in the beginning.  Mclaren’s legacy will continue as long as the genre remains relevant.  RIP Malcolm Mclaren.

Bottom of the 9th in Intro to Social Media

College students take a plethora of courses to prepare them for the outside world, but they’re aren’t too many classes that both provide the tools to help lead a successful career and directly relate to    the current youth culture like Intro to Social Media does.  Honestly, at first I thought this class was going to be a complete joke, where I would spend the majority of my time chatting with people on different social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  However, after learning the many tools used in many different social networks, I quickly realized that the class can be a major tool in advancing     my career.  I’ll be honest, before the class started, I used Facebook mostly to chat with friends and post pictures and I knew about Twitter, but never was interested in signing up because I thought the  concept was ridiculous.  After learning more about each social network site, especially Twitter, I realized that it can be extremely beneficial for me and where I want to go in my future endeavors. I also learned new social networking outlets such as WordPress to create my blogs, which to be honest, I completely enjoy a great deal because I love to write.  LinkedIn was another site that I knew absolutely nothing about and was absolutely astonished about the possibilities I can create with this site.

Writing blogs each week about a particular subject matter was extremely fun and beneficial for me personally, because as I stated before, I love to write.  I chose to write about sports because I love all sports and it’s a subject matter I’m extremely knowledgable and interested in at all times.  What I was surprised about was all the positive feedback I would receive from both people I knew and people I didn’t.  It was great to hear other people’s opinions about what I wrote that particular week and it just reiterated what I already knew; that I love to write.  This class introduced me to all these various skills that I will continue to use well after this class is done.  Ideally, I would love to get paid to write about sports or anything in particular for that matter, and I feel that this class gave me the opportunity and knowledge to share my feelings and spread it all over the worldwide web.  So with that, as the title of my blog indicates, it’s the bottom of the 9th inning for this class and honestly, it’s been a great game.

For anyone wanting to follow me and what I’m doing next check out my twitter page  – www.jonb0705@twitter.com – let me know what you’re up to, any comments you have on my blogs or what I’m doing, don’t hesitate to tweet me.

A sports decade in review

It’s now December 2009, which means that the first decade of the 21st century is coming to a close.  Wow it’s been ten years already since Y2K, Gladiator and boy band mania.  Where has the time gone? The world of sports has been no different.  So many events, so many people, so many games have influenced the last ten years both on and off the field.  Everything from the athletes that took our breaths away like the dominance of Tiger Woods and Usain Bolt to the introduction of such superstars as Lebron James and Michael Phelps.  It wasn’t just the individual athletes that influenced the sports world, the actual games and events sparked the imagination of the sports world and would be remembered for decades to follow.  The 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing  come to mind, due to the sheer dominance of individuals and countries in so many different sporting events.  Also, the 2001 World Series is a sporting event that touched people around the world, even though in directly impacted only two teams; the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks.  It was the first sporting event that followed the tragic events of 9/11 and brought every American around the world a sense of normalcy once again.  Along with the great individual performances and events that we saw throughout the decade, controversy didn’t follow far behind.  Everything from the steroid era in baseball, to the Tim Donaghy betting scandal in basketball to the most recent sports scandal; Tiger Woods and his alleged affairs.  The decade has brought so many memorable and unforgettable moments along with some that we would rather forget. With that said here is a list of my top ten moments of the last ten years in the world of sports:

10) The introduction and rapid growth of the UFC

9)  “Tuck rule” begins the Patriots rise to dominance

8)  18-1

7)  The King James era begins in the NBA

6)  86-year-old curse comes to an end for the Red Sox

5)  Former Arizona Cardinal safety Pat Tillman dies in Afghanistan

4)  Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s home run record

3)  The steroid era in baseball

2)  2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing

1)  2001 World Series

These are my personal top ten sports moments in the last decade.  Obviously, there are going to be many people who will disagree with the list and I encourage anyone who wants to debate about the subject matter to feel free and respond.  With that said, I hope the next ten years bring many more sports moments for us to enjoy and discuss.

Ugly Ending in Tallahassee

The word respect comes to mind when hearing about the Bobby Bowden “departure” at Florida State today; oh sorry, let me correct myself, the lack of respect comes to mind actually.  Being a Miami Hurricane fan myself, I shouldn’t really care that Bobby Bowden has “resigned” from his position as head football coach of Florida State University, in fact I should be happy.  However, the lack of respect that Bobby Bowden has received from the school that he literally put on the sporting map is quite disgusting.

Now looking from the outside in, it appears that Bobby Bowden has stepped down because it was time to having his moment in the sunset given that he’s 80 years old.  However, if you’ve been following the college football landscape and specifically the FSU situation for the last couple of years, the athletic director and the boosters of the program pretty much just showed him the door in a very undisclosed way.  Now granted, FSU has been on a slippery slope downward for almost the last decade and maybe it’s time to start a new era in Tallahassee, but for a man who’s been the face of the university since 1976 and who has brought  the program from obscurity to two national championships and a decade of dominance, it’s a shallow and coward thing to show Bowden the door this way.

It all started two years ago when they publicly announced that offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher the “coach in waiting,” which is a term and a trend that I absolutely hate.  From that moment on, it was a very small but major move in the final stages of the Bobby Bowden era at Florida State University.  For a man who has brought so much to the institution, among that millions and millions of dollars to the university, it’s a shame that he has to be let go in any other way than on his own terms.  The athletic department gave Bobby Bowden two options when the season ended; either he stay head coach for the final year of his contract, but his authority would be diminished severely or leave with a final year on his contract.  If he chose to stay one more year, which he said he wanted to do all along, he would pretty much just be there as a face of the university, but all the head coaching roles would be turned over to Jimbo Fisher.  Being the proud man that he is, Bowden decided to take the high road and “resign” today.

It’s a sad day for Florida State Seminole fans and a sad day for college football fans.  We’re losing an icon in a way that just isn’t right.  For that, I want FSU to lose that much more from here on out.

Is it weird that I feel sorry for Tiger?

Last week, news broke out that Tiger Woods, arguably the most recognizable athlete in the world, got into a car accident outside his home in Florida.  The first thought that came to mind was, is he ok?  The second thought that came into my head was, who get’s into a car accident right outside his home? But I digress.  Even though the specifics of the event still haven’t been brought to the public eye, what we do know is that, allegedly he hit a fire extinguisher and then crashed into a tree at 2 in the morning.  Then Tiger’s wife had to break the window of their SUV with a golf club to get Tiger out the car who, at that point, was supposedly unconscious.  He then was taken to the local medical center and was checked out the next morning, leaving on his own two feet.  That is what we knew last week.

As days have passed and speculation continues to grow, more and more alleged stories surface about that, now infamous night.  Now we’re hearing that Tiger and his wife got into an alleged physical altercation before he left the house that morning and that cuts and bruises he sustained, weren’t from the accident, but instead from his wife during the alleged fight.  Making it even better, is the news that Tiger has been seeing this young lady for a while now while traveling back and forth to California, where she resides.  All I’ve heard is that she’s in the nigh club profession and deals a lot with many high-profile people, including movie stars and athletes.  Basically what she does, from what I understand, is she’s an attractive female who gets paid to sit with people at the clubs and flirt with them, get them to buy drinks and basically make more money for the nightclub.

With all this coming out in the press and Tiger not coming out himself to address all the speculations (with the exception of one blog on his website), all these crazy stories are surfacing throughout the web and all different media outlets.  It’s hard to feel sorry for a man whose worth a billion dollars and has everything and anything a person desires, in a way, I feel that despite his celebrity status and athletic prowess, he deserves his privacy.  Him and his family deserve to handle this personal situation privately, but unfortunately for him, we live in a world today where celebrities and athletes and well-profiled people are sought after on every aspect of their lives.  It’s the paparazzi, media driven society we live in today where we almost idolize these celebrities to the point where we want to know what they eat for breakfast in the morning.  So, in regards to this story, it’s easy not to feel sorry for Tiger Woods, because honestly, he doesn’t feel sorry for our problems, but everybody is entitled to some small piece of privacy.

For more insight on the whole Tiger Woods “controversy,” please read a very perspective article on the situation on Jamie Samuelsen’s blog on freep.com;

http://www.freep.com/article/20091130/sports15/91130030/1354/

A month overdue

It’s been four excruciating weeks of football if you’re a Giants fan.  Two weeks, the Giants have looked like a high school J.V. team getting blown out by both division rival Philadelphia and the 10-0 New Orleans Saints.  The other two weeks, it’s been tough to watch as the Giants have blown leads late in the game both to the Arizona Cardinals and the San Diego Chargers. So either way you look at it, the last four weeks, the Giants have lost in every which way possible.

However, this Sunday was a different story…kind of.  After a well needed bye week, the Giants faced the 5-4 Atlanta Falcons who were in need for a much-needed win themselves.  To summarize the main points of the game, basically Eli Manning was on point all game throwing the ball for a career high 384 yards and 3 touchdowns.  The one mistake happened in the 2nd quarter when, Eli threw up an interception in which he looked like the Eli Manning of years back.  However, this time, Eli recovered as a veteran should and threw the ball accurately and efficiently after that.  TE Kevin Boss had a monster game in which he scored two big touchdowns.  It’s time to get the big man more involved in the offense from this point forward!!

As the fourth quarter started, the Giants had a comfortable (or so I thought) 14 point lead, 31-17.  At this point, I figured nice victory for the Giants beating a good opponent very impressively.  Then Matt Ryan and the Falcons offense began to drive down the field completing pass after pass after pass against this Giants secondary.  Mind you, the Falcons were without arguably their most valuable offensive player in running back Michael Turner, who was out with an ankle injury.  With that said, the Falcons were able to drive up the field scoring a touchdown to get them within a touchdown with 6 minutes to go in the game.  At this point, I was still comfortable in the fact that we can pull out a drive and end this game. However, the Falcons defense did their job and forced into a three and out.  At this point, I’m starting to get just a tad nervous.  Then the Falcons started driving again down the field with relative ease as Matt Ryan completed pass after pass after pass until he threw a pretty pass into the end zone to his future hall of fame tight end, Tony Gonzalez, who caught a gorgeous pass over two defenders.  At this time, my head is down in shame as I’m feeling like I’m about to witness yet another 4th quarter collapse.  So we go into overtime and fortunately for us, we received the coin toss and got the ball first.  That’s all we needed, as we drove down the field headlined by a beautiful pass from Manning to young wide out Mario Manningham.  After that, Lawrence Tymes, who I’m always a little nervous about kicking, put the ball through the uprights to seal the win.  A win that was well needed, but at the same time a little discouraging.

With all that said, a win is a win and, like I mentioned prior, it’s a much-needed win for the Giants.  The game definitely showed that the Giants have much to work on, especially on the defensive side, but we’re still in the thick of things as far as winning the division or at worst, getting one of the two wild card spots.  Hopefully, Coach Coughlin will make the necessary adjustments needed to get the team running on all cylinders.  Stay tuned.