Carolyn’s Perception

I took a Carnival cruise aboard the Sensation to the Bahamas for Spring Break. There were so many problems with so many people and I doubt I’ll ever cruise Carnival again.

The pr department for one, did a horrible job of getting word out about the first disaster. While Standing in line for departure, everyone was handed an itinerary change sheet saying that the original port of Grand Turk had been changed to Freeport, Bahamas. That is a huge change that a lot of passengers were ticked about, including me. To top it off, when getting off the boat in Freeport, there was a $10 cab ride to even get to the shops or beach! They should have given money back, or emailed everyone at least a week in advance about the change. Grand Turk is leagues away in beach status from Freeport. We would have taken a different and cheaper cruise if we wanted to only travel to the Bahamas. Good job Carnival.

The Sensation is one of Carnival’s older boats, and oh man did it show. There was construction all over the boat, including the slide, which was out of order. Why would they send a ship out with construction??? The slide is one of the main things advertised in the pool pictures online and then it’s out of order? It can’t possible take more than a day to fix a slide. Our drain in the shower didn’t drain. Every time we showered the bathroom flooded. We couldn’t even take a shower from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. because they cut the water supply off. Those were the hours we came in at night and we had to buy the $4 bottle of water in our room to brush our teeth! Good job Carnival.

We had a loud banging outside our room every single night that we called about twice and it never stopped, it just became muffled like a sock had been placed over the weapon. Our room must have been next to storage or something, but it sounded as if someone was beating the wall with a hammer. Room service was a joke, I mean what room service? It never came. Good job Carnival.

Others cruising with us said they have cruised Carnival before and it was nothing of the sort. They had a perfect time the last time. I wish it would have been shown last week. I just hope they are ready to explain themselves when I finish writing this letter on why I am never cruising Carnival again. It’s simple, if there are problems with the ship, fix them before you sail! DUH! Or maybe I should become their pr person and deal with things the way they should be dealt with.

I was pleasantly surprised this morning upon entering Barbecue House for my usual M/W/F breakfast. A person in an Alltel shirt told me in line that everyone’s breakfast was on his company, Alltel. At first I immediately thought, “What’s the catch?” He said nothing at all, we are entering the community and want to show the people we care. He handed me a pamphlet and continued on his way, catching everyone else in line. So, I ordered a bigger breakfast this morning than usual.

I know, I know, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but this pretty much was. It cost me the time I spent eating breakfast to read over the material, which I didn’t even have to do, except for the fact that this man was so nice I was curious to what they had to offer. Now this was some great marketing! Enter a town and right off the bat, get the community to like you. I’m not going to switch plans over to them or anything, but I am sure some of the breakfast eaters who are currently unsatisfied will switch to Alltel, just because the took some time to buy a cheap breakfast.

The man wasn’t stopping at breakfast either, he came to my table, a group of girls, and asked where a good hair salon was, and that he was going there next. Think about the crowd he will reach buying haircuts! I was very impressed and shocked that a phone company would buy me breakfast for virtually nothing, so I had to blog about it.

I read in, yes, my April issue of Cosmopolitan, about a beauty-editor dishing her entertainment secrets in blog-form under an alias name. Word got out and she was fired from one job, and an offer rescinded from another, but from a pr standpoint, now she is busier and more popular than ever. In the business world, I guess good springs from bad all the time, you just never know.

The girl is Nadine Haobsh. The blog is jolieinnyc.com, and yes, it’s still up and running, actually powered by Wordpress. Interesting. Once outed, Nadine quickly got a pr representative, which was a great move on her part. Since her so-called “outing” Haobsh has had many magazines print articles about her, and been on many daily talk-shows. Her blog has had over a million hits. She now freelances and has a two-book deal with William Morris.

I want to work in the entertainment world, so it’s fun to see that they blog too!! I enjoy reading Anderson Cooper’s 360 blog as well!

I am going to NYC this weekend!!

The trip is mostly for good times and seeing old friends, but I plan to slip a little bit of networking in there. . .

I’m staying with a girl I know who graduated this past December and moved into a studio apartment in East Village. She is yet to have a permanent job. She temps at a record label and waits at Outback. A little discouraging for one who also hopes to find work in NYC, or LA for that matter. But hey, the good thing is she has no trouble paying the bills!

Nevertheless, I’m going to drop off my resume in person to a few choice firms, and chat with my internship supervisor from last summer. They have an office in LA which I hope to work for upon graduation. For those of you in the business already, is personal resume drop-off a good technique? Let me know.

The crazy thing is, here in Auburn its 77 degrees outside, and it’s supposed to snow this weekend up there! So I’ll fly to snow this weekend, then next weekend be in the Caribbean for spring break! Exciting!

BizWorld is a nonprofit foundation that teaches business fundamentals to kids ages 8-13. Started in 1997 by Tim Draper, a partner in capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, whose recent investments include Skype (which we are learning about in class,) BizWorld is meant to help kids learn the ropes early on. It’s a 10-hour enrichment program, and was used by 1,279 classrooms in December 2005, a 67 percent increase from the previous year according to the article in CNNMoney.com.

I wish i had something like this to learn about as a child. It seems like such a rewarding program. The oldest kids having gone through the program are now college-age and so far, none have started their own business yet. There is, however, so much potential for great things to come from this. We could quite possibly bring up the next Donald Trump or Bill Gates from this program. So long lemonade stands, these kids are ready for real business!

Last night marked an annual time where all of Hollywood’s best directors, actors, producers, songwriters, cartoonists, and many others get together for what some say, the “father” of all award shows.

That’s right, the 78th annual Academy Awards. “Crash” beat out the presumed “Brokeback Mountain” for best picture, Reese Witherspoon stole Best Actress for “Walk the Line,” Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for “Capote,” and Ang Lee took the Oscar for best-director in “Brokeback Mountain.”

All of these famous people and high-rated movies, yet still the awards this year were down 10 percent from last year, according to the Neilson Media Research ratings, making it the second least-watched ceremony behind 2003.

What happened? Maybe the pr and publicity efforts weren’t as great this year. Maybe everyone just watches E! the next day to see who stole the red carpet in fashion. Who knows why ratings are down, but it makes me sad that less of America is appreciating the art of film-making.

A good brochure has elements of informing, persuading or educating the reader. It will be designed creatively and catch the reader’s attention. Here is an example: http://www.donnellylandscape.com/files/DBL.02.15.05.v2.pdf

Donnelly Bros is an example of a webpage layout. It is very colorful, catching the reader’s attention directly. It informs within the pictures of the different landscape jobs what kind of job they do. There is a bulleted list in the lower left-hand side listing the services they do. This web page brochure is intended for the target public, residents of the area, to look online and get information about Donnelly Bros.

The design is creative but is not completely symmetrical, causing the reader to try and focus on everything at once. Another pitfall is that because of all the color, it would be pricey to print. Perhaps they have only this online version for that reason. There are no panels, just one page. There is not much writing, but in this case I think it’s ok, because the pictures inform of the type and quality of the work. The font and logographic are well done.
This brochure is nicely done, but I wouldn’t say it reaches its target publics with full potential. I haven’t researched this company or the website, but I think to print these out would be too expensive for a landscaping company, and there probably isn’t enough traffic to the website to successfully market their business.

Annual reports are vital to every business. What used to be only corporate financial documentation for the SEC and investors, now includes most all business, including non-profit, and is a stylish publication for many different target publics.

I found Disney World’s 2005 online Annual Report, available in a site as well as a PDF file. Here is the website: http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/annual_reports/2005/index.html. It is a great example of a well-organized and well-written report. The front cover of Disney’s report is a full-size “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” graphic. A great choice as the well-anticipated sequel comes out later this year. There are graphics from Disney movies throughout the report. It is colorful, yet not too much, and draws a reader’s attention very well. Headings and sub-headings separate information making it easy to find what one is looking for.
As well as beautiful graphics, the Disney Annual Report also covers virtually everything. There are narrative sections and descriptions on every single park, every single studio, products, media and etc. There is a “Letter to Shareholders” that is six parts, as well as a thank-you letter. There is a financial summary section as well as another financial section. The website version is great because there is a site map allowing one to access all the parts easier.

A pitfall this may have is that is it so long. Disney is a huge company so they can’t really get around not making it long in order to include everything. It may bore a reader to sit and read for so long, but I am determined they will come back to finish up because of the flow of the text and the many pictures along the sides of the pages. It is very informative and creatively written. Overall, Disney World has put out an annual report that addresses both the needs of target publics as well as financial investors and the SEC.

In the March issue of Vanity Fair, the cover shows Keira Knightly and Scarlett Johanssen both naked, and fully clothed Tom Ford, a gay fashion designer retired from Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

According to Vanity Fair and the February 17 issue of Los Angeles Times, Ford told Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” that Rachel McAdams was supposed to be featured with the other girls, but got cold feet.

Ford, the guest editor of the issue, was sick of Hollywood being “stale.” Ford wanted a glamourous issue, promising it will be “beautiful, provocative and stunning.”

Other females going nude include Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie and Sienna Miller. Other fully-clothed males include Garth Fisher, Jason Schwartzman and George Clooney. The fact that the males in the issue are fully clothed indicates a form of male dominance with female vulnerability.

Is female nudity good for Vanity Fair? It must be, because according to magazine spokeswoman Beth Kseniak, the website received 3.1 million views, which is “a whole lot more than normal.” Also, 1647 people newly subscribed.

Sounds pretty glamourous to me. Way to go Vanity Fair. The issue is currently out on newsstands.

I may be a little biased, I’ve been a satisfied customer for a couple years now, but I think Apple has one of the best marketing and pr campaigns out there.

Apple seems to do everything right. They stay up-to-date, their website is updated every day. I have apple.com as my default home page still just because there is always something new to look at. Not to mention the top 10 itunes stay updated on the right sidebar. They have a 24-hour support-line with trained employees for any electronic problems, as well as online tutorial walk-throughs and FAQs.

They are always coming up with new things, such as the newest laptop, the MacBook Pro, which includes an Intel Core Duo processor, making it four times faster than the previous, the PowerBook G4, which I currently own. Also, new software and software updates are always coming out, including iLife 06, which has, guess what, blogging!

What Apple has done the best in my opinion, is their incredibly eye-drawing image. Apple computers are the slimmest in design, and are so sleek in color and style. The style just draws you in and makes you want one. You can’t judge a book by its cover, but the cover will for sure make you pick up the book in the first place.

Apple has an incredible number of customers ranging from industry specialists, with a need for a graphic-smart computer, to teenagers who own iPods for listening pleasure. They have so many different products at different prices there is something for everyone. I guess I am part of the cult.