The end of the semester is quickly approaching...

We presented our second mini-projects this week and a week from next Monday the whole project will be finished. Wow, we have a lot of work to do before then! I can't wait to see everyone's project come together at the final presentations in a couple weeks. The Shakti group still has some things to sort out...like how in the heck we can describe our organization in clear, concise terms...But, we'll do it and it will be great:)

I think the past few class topics have been particularly interesting, as we've discussed PR, Web 2.0, and Entertainment in regards to Public Health. It really proves that you have to "think outside the box" sometimes to truly see all the ways we can create exciting health promotion messages. It's challenging now NOT to find health messages in media and entertainment. It seems like in every tv show, radio show, and movie, there is some form of health communication. That's a good thing for public health! I think the more challenging part is getting people to recognize these messages without having to be a public health professional...

Just the other day I was watching the movie Lorenzo's Oil...I first saw this movie as a freshman high school student in my Biology class. There is a LOT of medical information thrown around in this movie...but there's also a lot of public health messages. For example, from this movie you will be able to distinguish the difference between saturated fats and unsaturated fats and understand the health effects of each. This movie also addresses cigarette addictions and world hunger...all in one Hollywood film...wierd, huh.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!

First of all, I'd like to say happy (late) Thanksgiving! Now, onto business...this week's class was all about entertainment and health promotion communication. The whole entertainment world is full of health communication if you just stop and really listen to it.

Think about all the movies, tv shows, and music you've listened to recently. Did you know that many of them have health messages in them? Take Christina Aquilera's "Beautiful" song and music video...there is a mass of health communcation here! Anorexia, bulimia, drugs, etc...they are all presented in her video. There are other, more subtle, ways that entertainment discusses health, too. For example, I saw the movie "How to Deal" with Mandy Moore last night. This movie discusses teen pregnancy, teen sexual health, reckless driving, teen mental health, alcohol issues with teens, etc.

Health communication and the entertainment world go hand in hand...in my opinion. I think that we could make a huge aspect on public health by creatively working with the entertainment industry to hone in on positive health communication.

I'm excited to see what will become of public health in the entertainment world.

Stepping into the technological future...

The topic of this week's class was Web 2.0 and it's role in public health. Unfortunately, I wasn't there. I spent this week at a conference in Houston discussing the human factor in military operations. Specific to this course, I was reminded of our lecture on presentations, especially those using powerpoint. I was shocked to see leaders in the field losing the impact of their presentations because their powerpoints were so poorly put together. Many of them were busy and hard to follow. Others had so much text and the font was too small that they were unable to read. It was surprising because some of the topics these presenters were discussing were some of the most interesting topics to me: the NASA astronaut human factor and how that impacts all space missions.

It just goes to show how important it is to use powerpoint as a "bullet-point" tool, and avoid putting too much information on a slide. The information should come from the presenter...not the powerpoint slide.

Image is Everything

(OK, so I know this picture doesn't really have anything to do with the topic...but it says PR, and the puppy is adorable, so the picture stays! haha)

In this week's class, we talked about Public Relations (P.R.). Now, I have to be honest; I've never really invested any time in thinking about P.R. or even trying to understand what it is. However, after listening to our guest speaker, (I think her name was Laura Welchar, but I'm not sure on the spelling), I realized that P.R. is really necessary if you want the public to know about your topic (product, company, etc).

At first, I didn't really understand what a P.R. professional actually does for a living. But, I think the Princeton Review http://www.princetonreview.com/cte/profiles/dayInLife.asp?careerID=171sums it up best when they say "A public relations specialist is an image shaper. Their job is to create positive publicity for their client and enhance their reputation." Now, the part of this idea that makes people in my class-- and even myself-- wary is the fear that truth and honesty about an company, etc get overshadowed by creative writing and presentation skills, coupled with some good schmoozing with reporters. Yeah, it's part of life. You never want to publicize your weaknesses.

That reminds me of the time I got a negative comment card when I was a hostess one summer at Ruby's. One of the customers said "Amanda didn't smile enough when she was taking my money." I was pretty surprised since my job was to greet customers and be nice...and I was good at it, according to my boss and all the people I worked with. But, apparently I wasn't smiley enough that day. Anyway, one of the servers read it and ripped it up. I was confused because part of my job was to turn in all comment cards to the manager. She told me, "We never keep the bad ones...only turn in good comment cards. You were going to turn that in? Are you crazy?" Well, I guess she was just demonstrating good P.R. skills there.