Interview with Dave Taylor

 

Image Credit: John Schneider via Compfight

Dave Taylor

Media Relations Director

Communications and Marketing

Indiana State University 104 Gillum Hall

Terre Haute, Indiana 47809

Office: 812- 237-3743

Dave.Taylor@indstate.edu

Dave Taylor is a Media Relations Director at Indiana State University. I found him through the school’s website and conducted this interview face-to-face.

Dave Taylor began to describe what a typical week is like but quickly mentioned no week is typical. It’s hard to say any week is typical. The PR department is juggling a lot of things and looking for stories to promote the University and looking for things or sometimes things just come up. A typical day would consist of receiving news coverage for the university, or keep track of what they find.  Some originate from the office but not always. We set the record straight if something isn’t accurate, but that doesn’t usually happen. There are a lot of meetings with the marketing and Comm department, faculty and students, and emails and phone calls.

Taylor spoke about projects he worked on that he was especially proud of. One he was especially proud of was both a feature story and video about the university and company for the developmentally disabled. The best stories about community engagement were done because it involved our students reaching out and helping people directly.

Taylor keeps current in the PR industry by subscribing to e-mail service that provides information to what’s going on in the PR industry. He’s been to conferences in Chicago, Washington, albacurky, and Baltimore and mentioned, meetings can be anywhere.

Taylor wishes he would have known before starting his career in PR that it’s not easy as one might thing to get clients to provide information for the best stories and that maybe because they’re so close to subject area, they don’t realize what would be news, but he knows from talking to other faculties from universities, that’s a common problem.

Dave Taylor was quick to note how important writing is in his career. You can’t do this job without good writing skills. It’s all about communication. You have to be able to communicate. Writing helps especially if you’re doing interviews because you can prepare your thoughts in advance.

Three tips Dave Taylor would offer someone just starting out in PR.

1. Read a lot and try to find out what others are doing.
2. Practice interview skills and you can do that by yourself, in front of the mirror, or even set up a video recorder and ask yourself pretend questions and answer them.
3. Learn as many skills as you can. Graphic design, and video and production will help.

After my interview with Dave Taylor, I will be more likely to have a career in PR because I have excellent writing and public speaking skills. These are all qualities I have been taught at a young age and taking speech writing classes and public speaking classes gave me the advancement I needed to continue working in the PR field.

Dave’s education prepared him in PR by helping him re-find his writing and speaking skills.

Dave was most surprised by how frequently what he wrote in news releases appeared word for word in the newspapers and television because it’s independent writing. News releases copy their words, verbatim and some give credit and some don’t. “It’s ok they don’t give credit because they give credit for the university. They copy and don’t need rewriting because we have excellent writing skills,” Taylor said.

One newspaper said, “We couldn’t think of anything else to add. The writing was so complete.”  Several examples of newspapers that do this are the Tribune Star, Dailey Clinton and Clinton, and Indianapolis Star.  The PR department sends out a lot of news releases to student’s towns, throughout the mid-west, Greensburg, and Hendricks County.

PR has changed since Dave entered the field. Social media has exploded since he entered the field 12 years ago and the internet, in general, has become so much more important.

Dave spoke about the effect of technology in his daily work. In today’s environment, he couldn’t operate without technology and certainly not without internet. “We find ourselves asking, how we got along without iPads and iPods. When the media wants information, they want it now,” Taylor said.

What makes a candidate stand out is good writing skills and good speaking skills and to know how to use the internet and social media.

Dave is involved in the case council for the advisement and support of education.

Effective Blogging

Image Credit: Luz Adriana Villa A. Via CompFight

According to Laura Lake, in her article, “Five Tips to Creating an Effective Blog,” mentions several great tips on how to create an effective blog post.

1. Create a blog Personality: Give your blog personality! Creative blogs get noticed! If someone creates a blog that’s plain with lack of color, style, and creativity, I guarantee people will hardly look at their blog and comment. It’s important to show others how creative you are which tells a lot about your character.

2. Be consistent in your post: It’s super important when blogging to be consistent with your post updates. Everyday, there is something new and interesting happening in the world whether its PR related or not and as a blogger, it’s important to write and capture those details. This makes your audience more susceptible to follow your blog and curious to see what new information you will be talking about.

3. Keep it simple: I know that it’s very easy to drift from one topic to another so it’s important when blogging to make your topic short, sweet, and simple. I would also recommend if your blog is a little, “wordy” to break up your paragraphs into smaller sections because it will be easier to read instead of posting a “huge chunk” of information relating to your topic. People will generally skim the information or just not read them at all. Keeping your information short, sweet, and simple will grab your reader’s attention, have more comments, and make them interested because they will want to know the point you’re trying to make. Speaking of point trying to make, when you’re writing about a blog, it’s very important to capture the main idea or message the author is trying to make and again, it’s very easy to drift from one topic to another but I’d recommend staying relevant with your information and look for “catchy” titles to grab your reader’s attention.

According to the Article, “How to be an Awesome Blog Commenter”, Author Kipp Bodnar uses several tactics on how to do effective blogging.

1. Build Relationships Through Blog Commenting: Social media is taking over the world! Literally! Nowadays, people are getting jobs and internships even their news information via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networking sites. Building relationships through comments is a great way to start relationships with other bloggers and keep you updated with new events.

2. How to Always Leave an Interesting Blog Comment: Make people remember you! Interesting blog comments get noticed. I guarantee if you leave an interesting blog comment, people will respond to your post with relevant information and can even help you if you’re looking for a professionals feedback to a topic. This is also a great way to gain networking connections.

3. Keep Your Signs Off Other People’s Yards: Include links to a comment. Include links  to your blog comments  along with a signature such as name, company, website, and username. This help provides readers with insight with your blogging information. If your blogs are interesting, people will be more likely to follow your pages, including Twitter.

ISU Homecoming

Image Credit: Joe Penniston via CompFight.

The Homecoming Parade at ISU is so much fun! I love passing out candy to kids!

For two years during my freshman and sophomore year at ISU, I was an active member for an organization called, Leadership Learning Community also known as LLC. Some of our job duties included volunteering with non-profit organizations by raising awareness in Vigo County and we were asked to be a part of the Homecoming parade. Along with the members in LLC, I had the privilege of marching in the Homecoming Parade, waving to spectators, and passing out candy to kids. I remember getting up really early in the morning around 6AM to get ready to march in the parade. My fellow members and I wore our navy blue hoodies that had “LLC” on the logo so everyone looked synchronized. I also remember having delicious square donuts for breakfast. There were so many organizations surrounding us as we waited to line up for the parade. The parade was organized by numbers and each organization had one. We waited for our number to be called and when it finally it, we took off in our float in the fire truck. Some people walked but I liked looking at the view up top, and waved to people as we slowly descended down the street. There was an overwhelming excitement that filled the air. I saw The Terre Haute Children’s Museum, and The Boys and Girls Club also marching in the parade. What I thought was so cool about being a part of the parade was watching everyone come out to see us. There were children, adults, youths, older generation adults, students, and different organizations all out to support the Homecoming Parade. We marched from block to block. There was music playing and people cheering along the way. I decided to get down from the fire truck and hand deliver candy to kids. It was so great to see everyone in the community support ISU and the Homecoming Parade.