Law and Other Things

This week our classes have had two seminars about how law can affect us in our future careers in the media. I used to want to be a lawyer when I was little (mostly because I thought it was all about arguing) so I was interested to see what I could have been doing if I had taken another path.

I was surprised to find out that the law is not cut and dry. From what I can understand decisions and cases are decided on previous cases and the line is always moving on what defamation and slander is.

The lawyers who explained how the law can affect us used real life examples, which made unclear laws much easier to understand.

Throughout both presentations I couldn't stop thinking about the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt. It's such a great movie with so many emotions and superb acting.

I hope this video is in the public domain ;)

Brochure as promised

So here is my brochure I designed as promised. Thank you to my lovely model Rachelle for enhancing the beauty in my brochure :) Also please not I did not write the copy for the brochure, we used content provided by our instructor. 

The More You Know...

In our Desktop Publishing class we were assigned to design a brochure...and I never thought it would take so long. Granted, I tried to do a good job on it, so it's fair that it would take a good amount of time to reach that goal.

When our instructor told us that it takes a lot of time to design, I was skeptical. The designs he showed us were so simple. Why would it take so much time to make something that looked so steamlined and clean?

I definitely believe him now. The look of the brochure I designed is not complicated, but it took me hours. I'm glad I'm learning so much and maybe I'll have more faith in my instructors.

I am definitely realizing the more you know...the less you know you know. Does that make sense?

Hopefully a copy of my brochure for you all to follow soon, but I'm just not sure how to upload it yet. 

Back it Up

I just came back from the Apple store at Polo Park. Before I handed my computer over though, I had to sign a waiver saying the store wouldn't be liable for any lost work. I of course have not backed up my work (it's on my list of things to do along with dusting), so I had to sit their and back all my work up on my gmail account, which is a great tool by the way. The wireless internet connection cut out a couple of times, and I had to restart. So don't go through the embarrassment like me and back up your work! Get a hard drive, store work in at least 3 places, and you'll hopefully never have the Apple Genius staring back at you like you're from the far past and has never heard of an external hard drive.

Zombies Will Get Your Attention

Today we learned about pseudo-events in our PR class. We started our discussion with the flash mob that happened yesterday right here in Winnipeg at Polo Park Shopping Centre.

A pseudo-event that caught my attention in Winnipeg was the Zombie Walk.

In October 2010 hundreds of people dressed up as zombies gathered in the parking lot of the Royal Albert Arms Hotel for the 4th annual Winnipeg Zombie Walk.

The zombies walked through downtown Winnipeg in support of Winnipeg Harvest.

This event had a lot of elements that attracted both the media to cover the event and for people to participate in it.

First of all, the Zombie Walk event was on Facebook, a great place to promote an event and estimate how many people may attend for organizers. The week of the event, the Zombie Walk had 2,800 people confirmed. Even though I never saw any official Zombie Walk promotion from Winnipeg Harvest, I do remember the Facebook group and event and pictures people had posted on their personal profiles.

The event was also held around Halloween when people are more likely to dress up and feeling the zombie vibe.

The event used the identification principle or the “what’s in it for me” principle to entice participants by having local hip-hop band Filthy Animals shoot their music video at the walk providing participants a chance to be caught on film and included in the video.

The event also encouraged people to dress up and lurk around downtown and promoted the Winnipeg Harvest by offering a photo taken and printed on the spot in one’s zombie getup in exchange for a non-perishable food item donation to Winnipeg Harvest.

The event ended with an after party at the Royal Albert with musical entertainment.

This event looked to be successful because it was reported on by the Winnipeg Free Press and and raised awareness and donations for the Winnipeg Harvest through a fun and interactive event.

However, there were some negative comments on the event in the comments section of the Winnipeg Free Press about the mess leftover from the event and rude zombies holding up traffic by walking through streets and blocking cars.