FPRA - Florida Public Relations Association Blog

This morning marks one week since the 69th FPRA Annual Conference officially kicked off in Sarasota. This post will be my final look at blog Web stats related to the conference.

Total unique visitors: 2,207
Total page views: 7,108
The average visitor stayed on this blog for 4 minutes, 56 seconds.

Web stats are an interesting thing. The stats tell me that 44 percent of those who visited this blog in the past week had a computer monitor resolution of 1024x768, followed by 15 percent who had it set at 1280x1024. And the stats tell me that 72 percent of the visitors had Windows XP as their operating system, while 18 percent were using a Mac.

They also tell me from where our site visitors originated during this past week.

Of course, we had lots of visitors from cities throughout Florida, including Altamonte Springs, Cocoa, Fort Lauderdale, Gainesville, Groveland, Indiantown, Maitland, Naples, Orlando, Ormond Beach, Pensacola, Rockledge, Sanford, Sarasota, Tallahassee, Tampa and Winter Park.

We also had numerous visitors from other states, including Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

And we even had a group of individuals following our conference from the countries of Australia, Canada, Fiji, Germany, India, Romania, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

This blog has allowed our Association to reach individuals we might not have reached otherwise. It has allowed us to share information about our growing profession with others living outside the state... and the country. Despite being one of 71 million blogs worldwide, the FPRA Blog found a niche and reeled in more than 2,000 unique visitors in one week.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Thanks, again, to our dedicated blog team who made it happen: Donna Foster, Chris Gent, Josh Hallett, Valerie Norman and Paul Ramey, APR. Special thanks to Tina Haisman, APR for championing the cause with FPRA's Executive Committee and to the FPRA State Office for assisting with promotion and logistics.

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In clearing off the hundreds of annual conference photos from my camera, I came across this cute group photo of the recipients of this year's Doris Fleischman Award, John W. Dillin Award and Member of the Year Award -- all showing off FPRA's exclusive set of engraved silver.

(left to right) Amelia Woodbridge, Kathy Giery, APR, CPRC, and Erin McLeod.

Congratulations, ladies!

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This blog enjoyed a steady stream of visitors throughout FPRA's annual conference on Aug. 5-8.

That trend continued today -- one day after the conference -- when the blog drew an additional 295 unique visitors.

Here are the totaled stats since Monday:

Total unique visitors: 1,702
Total page views: 5,622
The average visitor stayed on this blog for 5 minutes, 18 seconds.

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In closing, I wanted to share with you the totaled Web stats for this blog during our three day conference. The event itself may be over, but the information, podcasts and photos we've posted these past few days will remain for you to refer back to in the future.

Total unique visitors: 1,407
Total page views: 4,528
The average visitor stayed on this blog for 5 minutes, 9 seconds.

Thanks for visiting. We hope to see you next year on Aug. 3-6, 2008 at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee. Here's a glimpse...

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The 2007 FPRA Annual Conference has drawn to a close. We'll be posting a few recap items over the next few days. I know I had a blast and hope the readers did as well.

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Dr. Jay Rayburn, APR, CPRC, and blogging are not two words you would normally associate with each other. How things change.

During this year's conference Dr. Rayburn wrote his first blog post. I talked to Jay about his history within the organization and the students he's mentored over the years. Click here to listen to the interview: JayRayburn.MP3

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What a great ending to an amazing conference. As a first timer here I am overwhelmed at the "Love Fest" this FPRA conference really is. I hope you read these traits to becoming a leader and take them to heart. Thank you for letting me show you the event through the eyes of a student. I really enjoyed the opportunity and hope to see you all again! -Valerie Norman, hopeful future leader.

10 Leadership Traits

#1 Personal Clarity
Great leaders know:
Who they really are
What they really want in their life
Why they really want it

#2 Courage
Great leaders accept personal responsibility, display courage, and are pro-active

#3 Integrity
Great leaders “walk their talk.” They live with integrity and inspire trust.

#4 Resilience
Great leaders are curious and always searching for a better way. They understand how to accept and initiate change.

#5 Vision
Great leaders see and stay focused on the big picture. Great leaders know the answer to the 4 key leadership questions; where are we going, how do we get there, what resources do we have and need, and how do we measure success. Larry adds a fifth one; are we having fun!

Continue reading "FPRA Annual Conference: My Thoughts on the Ten Traits of Really Great Leaders " »

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In the last session of the morning, Larry Face, President of Next Level Achievement, discussed “Ten Traits of Really Great Leaders” that help us take our leadership skills to the next level. Face began the session by asking the audience to think about someone we think of as a good leader and what traits make them a good leader. The audience listed about 35 traits including intelligence, drive, patience, resilience, ability to make decisions, charisma, fun and enthusiasm. Leadership is about communications. Determining what is important to others as well as yourselves—developing consensus, clarity and execution of strategy.

EQ is more important than IQ in determining a great leader. The speaker said, “the convergence of heart, head and guts (the EQ) is the sweet spot of leadership.” Society operates at it’s best when they communicate with one language, but organizations don’t think of it like that enough.

Continue reading "FPRA Annual Conference: Closing Session, Ten Traits of Really Great Leaders - Larry Face" »

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Last night was a special night for Kathleen Giery, APR, CPRC. Kathleen received the John W. Dillin Professional award. I spoke to Kathleen about the award and her longtime involvement with FPRA. Click here to listen to the interview: KathleenGiery.MP3

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At last night's Golden Image Awards gala, the FPRA 2006 Annual Conference Blog was honored with a Judges' Award.

(left to right) Josh Hallett, FPRA State President Jessica Rye, APR and Chris Gent.

In 2006, a volunteer blog team -- Chris Gent, Josh Hallett, Bob O'Malley, APR and Jennifer Wakefield -- came together to produce the first-ever blog of an FPRA Annual Conference. The blog enjoyed tremendous success, drawing 1,264 unique visitors during the 3-day conference that generated 4,775 page views. The blog also boasted 69 posted articles, 82 visitor comments, 363 photos and 11 hallway interview podcasts.

Thanks to the vision of FPRA Immediate Past President Adrienne Moore, APR, CPRC and the staff of the FPRA state office for supporting and encouraging this endeavor!

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In between the two morning sessions on Wednesday I caught up with incoming State Association President Suzanne Sparling, APR. We talked about conference (of course) and her upcoming year. Click here to listen to the interview: SuzanneSparling.MP3

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Cynthia Gordon, VP of Corporate Communications and TV Program Development at Universal Studios, gave an interesting presentation on “The New Media Roller Coaster Ride.” She described how Universal used bloggers, appropriate Web sites, YouTube and much more new technology to market their brand and events, such as the popular Halloween Horror Nights.

Universal will soon come out with a new Harry Potter theme park, authenticated by J.K. Rowling herself. Webcasters and fans of the adventure stories were allowed to get a sneak peak at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands of Adventure. By using new media technology Universal created a BIG buzz about the theme park and invited average media users to help spread the word. Over 300 Million critics with blogs & digital videos are available for hire as potential marketing executives. Maybe you can be one of them.

It’s funny to me how people over 35 seem to be so surprised by new media. As students, we are probably under 25 and we grew up in a time where new media wasn’t really new to us; it’s just the way it is and we grew up with these new advancements. To us catching up on our news online or watching the latest events unfold on YouTube isn’t shocking or amazing to us. This is just the way it is. What I mean by this is we aren’t awestruck enough to let this new technology scare us or intimidate us. We can utilize our skill and knowledge to expand our PR strategies.

Maybe this is our “in” to impressing our bosses and becoming indispensable.

Blogs, podcasts, Facebook/MySpace, links, Web sites, all those “techy” words; to us they are every day vocabulary and we probably know more about them then we think. Just ask someone over 40 if they know the basics of Web site design. Maybe you’ll get a yes, but I assure you the average wouldn’t know.

For instant, my mother once asked me to look up a Jacksonville number while I was in Tallahassee. Then she said, "Oh, you can't because you don't have a phone book." I was like, "Mom, its called Google!" She just didn't think of that because it wasn't second nature to her like it is to me. So study up on new media because it might be our golden ticket to becoming the new giants of PR.

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Well, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. Yes, Josh, I am actually posting on the FPRA blog while listening to our speaker. This is an out-of-body experience. I just wish John Dillin was here to see all of this—he wouldn’t believe it!

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As a first-time blogger for conference, this has been a very rewarding experience for me. It has been more work, yes, but my hope is that this information will be useful and beneficial for those who were unable to attend conference, and, for those of us (me included) who wished we could be in more than one session at the same time.

I look forward to getting back home and having a chance to look through the blog and review conference when I have more time.

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Listed below is the schedule for Day 3 - Wednesday, August 8, 2007 of the FPRA Annual Conference.

7:30 am - 12:00 pm: Registration Desk Open

8:00 am - 9:15 am: Power Networking Breakfast

8:15 am - 9:15 am: Counselors' Network Business Meeting

9:25 am - 9:30 am: Announcements

9:30 am - 10:35 am: The New Media Roller Coaster Ride

10:45 am - 11:50 am: Ten Traits of Really Great Leaders

11:50 am - 12:00 pm: Conference Finale

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