I was always taught its never a good thing to complain because no matter how bad you think you have someone has it worse. For the next few paragraphs I am going to pretend that I never learned this and complain about things concerning the Westin Hotel in San Francisco.

    We did not have a choice but to stay at the Westin Hotel in one room with three guys. I did not mind this because I figured we would be able to get a fold out bed in the room and by sharing we would save money. With the ridiculous prices of the rooms I figured we would without a problem get an extra bed. So I went to the front desk and very politely asked for a fold out bed. The woman then told me I could not because it was againsted fire code. 

    This is when I get pissed. I look her dead in the eye with a look that even Chuck Norris would fear. I wanted to start breaking shit but I knew that would not get me a bed.

    "Your telling me I payed 256 dollars a night to sleep on the damn floor?" I say this trying not to let my head explode while doing so. To make a long story short the lady saw how pissed I was and fear fully granted me a bed which was against hotel code. I am momentarily happy.

    Now lets talk about the elevators. They suck. They are slow, hot and stuffy, and not smooth. They need more of them and I actually heard that a group of people got stuck in one for forty five minutes. Thank God for the hotel this did not happen to me. Not to mention they make me absolutely noscious.

    The rooms and bathrooms were cramped and stuffy and the tv cable was cheap. Snacks and drinks were way over priced and placed on sensors so the greedy hotel could bill you immediatly. You would think when you pay up the ass for a shitty hotel they would commadate with free snacks. We didn't even have free internet!!!! We had to pay 17 extra bucks a day to access the internet. That is so damn ridiculous I can't even express my feelings. I am sitting in the lobby writing this now surrounded by loud noises and I lack an sense of comfort. For all I know they are secretly charging me for sitting in this seat. I would not be surprised at all. 

    So to sum up my bitching escade, this hotel should not be considered a five star hotel. It has sneaky charges, shitty service, shitty elavators, and weak shower heads.

    I want to make it clear that I do not blame the hard working front desk people, cleaning ladies, servers, bartenders, or doormen. I blame managment and ownership. Thank you.

This morning I wandered over to the Mariotte Hotel to view a general PRSSA session. There were a few big names in the PR world that atteneded including June Cotte and Mary Turnbull, but nobody grabbed my attention better than the founder and Cheif Strategy Officer of Pandora, Tim Westergren. While I am not a Pandora user myself, I have heard nothing but good things about it, and surely after today I will begin to use it.

    The story behind Pandora is nothing short of inspirational and really anyone could use its story for motivation. This is a company that Tim started with aboslutely nothing and grew it into a multi million dollar project. In the Beginning stages Pandora had 50 employees who worked without pay for 2 years. Tim explained to the audience that he maxed out 11 credit cards in order to get the company moving. Pandora almost went out of business several times but the pandora team and pandora listeners never gave up on keeping it alive. Tim and his team worked from dusk until dawn to get Pandora launched. It takes an incrediable amount of work and dedication to get something like this started.

    Tim expressed that one of the most effective things he did to grow the company was personally answer every email that anyone ever sent to him about pandora. He knew the importance of customer relations and while the company did not have a PR department in the beginning, Tims personal communication with customers is what helped the company grow, and because social media did not exsist when Pandora started, word of mouth was essentially the ticket to their success as a company. 

    In the end of the interview Tim answered a few questions including one from a lady who asked about the feeling of being a millionarie. This was a fairly stupid question but Tim answered it with great wisdom. He expressed this idea using a statistical analysis that once someone makes about 75,000 dollars a year they are as content as they can be with money In otherwords, moneys ability to make someone happy definately has limitations. Obviously the amount differs between people but his point was that he is more happy with the fact that he enjoys doing what he does everyday than he is content with being a millionaire. What motivates him to get up everyday is to keep pandora running. He made a point that really stood out to me. If your main concern with a project or idea is money than forget about it. If you don't have substanital passion about what your doing your chances of succeeding are very slim. This goes hand in hand with one of my own goals, which is to find a job that I love so much that I would do it even if I was'nt getting paid.

Creativity to me is sending a guy 20 miles in he air in a capsule so he can parachute down breaking three world records while doing so. Watching this is why I was a bit late getting to Jeffrey Ory's presentation. On the subject of creativty Jeff expressed the importance of risk, relevance, impact, and creativity.When you have a truly creative idea than its never been done before. This presents the element of risk because they is know way of knowing or projecting how successful the idea will be. Having relevance within in a idea is important because people need to be able to relate to the cause. People need to understand and appreciate the cause of your creativty, otherwise the attempt will be in vain. In order for a good idea to be successful it must have an impact on society on one way or another. Obviously some ideas have bigger impacts than others, but if you have no impact at all what is the point? A good idea is one that has never been done before. Originality maybe be the most important factor when thinking up new ideas. People love new things. Orginality is what will make an idea standout and is what will grab peoples attention. Origanlity comes from thinking outside the box and can even mean shifting the direction of a company in order to gain more success. New ideas do not always have to be complex, infact sometimes simplicity is the best way to go about things. People like simple things because most people don't like to think. Jeff did a fine job speaking and had the attention of the audience for his entire presentation. I did not like the fact that he made everyone get up and dance to lady gaga. This was his example of the idea of letting things go and becoming loose and relaxed. Ideas can flow better when in a relxaed and comfortable state. I stayed seated during the lady gaga dance. I am way to cool to dance to lady gaga, however I understant the point Jeff was trying to make.

PRSSA saturday sessions

 I think the party on friday night could have been better. To be quite honest I felt like I was at a highschool dance. I had to basically scream to talk to people and it was hard for me to hear people while talking to him because of the loud rap music playing. I would have done things a little different. First of all I would have had a bar available for the students that are over 21. Alcohol can allow the shyer folks to come out of their shell and just makes networking much more enjoyable. Second, instead of a dance I would have just had lite music in the backround and I would have kept the lights on. While I did meet a few people, I think it could have been a better mixer.

Google+

    I actually have never heard of google+ until I heard Timothy Jordan speak this morning. I had no idea who Timothy Jordan was either, infact I passed him in the restroom before he went on stage. Google+ to me seemed to be just another format of the facebook/twitter idea but I definately loved the 'hangout' aspect. There is no doubt that social media has dimmed down face to face contact for an abundance of people. The hangout is a great way of getting face to face communication back to normal and it is great because it is integrated perfectly with social media. I think everyone loved the idea that the 'hangout' of google+ is allowing people with disabilities to view the world through other peoples windows and eyes. Timothy sold this idea to the audience very effectively and gave great examples of how the 'hangout' can open your eyes to many great things around the world.

Breaking into Sports

    The first speaker did a great job at this session. He was very straight forward with his thoughts and words and made a quik and percise speech. I was very interesting to hear how his path in college led to his current career of a social media manager. The second speaker did an ok job. He was not as clear with his words and I had a hard time giving him my attention because he was so boring and mono tone. However, he did have some useful advice to offer the audience so his part of the session was not a total waste.

Social Media/elections

    Both presidential campaigns rely on social media for the success of their campaigns. This is a great example of how social media has had a profound effect on society in America as well as around the world. Starting with youtube, social media has allowed the current presidenial candidates, and former canidates to reach out to audiences all over america. I would be willing to bet that social media has brought more people in America to the voting booths. Social media can make or break a candidate and has proven to be a major reason why Obama ran a successful campaign in 2008. Most importantly, Social media has made it much easier for candidates to raise money for their campaigns, making it possible for them to campaign in the first place. 

If I'm lucky I have about 50 years left on the huge spinning sphere in space called earth and I'm trying to see as much of it as I can! I think I've covered about 1/10000000 of the earth so I have a long way to go. My traveling experiences have been both enlightening and frustrating. I've been to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, The Bahamas, The Caymen islands, and about half of the United States. I have yet to see Alaska or Hawaii but that time will come. I have to be honest I am not a huge fan of flying. I would rather take the time to drive across the country than fly as in practical as that may sound. Something about being 20,000 feet in the air in a tin can with wings bothers me a little bit, but I have to say that my flying experiences have been pretty smooth up to yesterday where my flight got delayed 6 hours. I am not fond of American Airlines at all. It seems to me they are running a shit show. Thanks to United Airlines Tim Deller and myself made it to San Francisco to check out the PRSSA conference! We came a day early to check out the city and so far its awesome. We've only covered a few blocks but thursday night was a blast. Great bars, great food, and great people. So me and my people from RMU are gonna soak up everything we can from the conference, but we will definately find time to explore San Fran a little more. There is so much to see but very little time!

    I am looking forward to meeting a great deal of people at this conference. I want to learn as much about the PR industry as I can and I want to learn about it through the eyes of the people in the business. I am very interested in learning more about marketing through social media and I believe this conference will have rich information concerning that topic. I plan on talking to people very casually and just being myself. I want to pick the minds of PR professionals and form a solid vision of the industry in order to figure out whether or not I wish to go down the PR path. I plan on taking some business cards as well as handing some out. I feel so professional when I hand people my business card! Of course feeling professional and being professional are two very different things but I think after this conference when I return to Pittsburgh I will be just a little more professional!