Southwest Airlines continues to be the definition of good customer service and one of the most admired companies in America today. Everything that seems to come across the wire these days about Southwest is good news, and the most recent account is no different.
According to a news release on PRnewswire.com, the airline exercised excellent crisis avoidance skills when it decided to pull out 38 planes from action after allegedly not meeting FAA regulations. The airline immediately took the planes out of service to avoid any kind of safety trouble, and still managed to get 90% of their flights out on time.
Any other airline might have considered keeping the planes in service and investigating them one by one, like American Airlines did a few years ago when confronted with the same problem, but Southwest continues to be a great role model for those not-so-smart companies. I mean, just look at their dominance in the airline market the last five years.
Kudos, Southwest, yet again.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
MySpace Raising Safety Awareness
Safety is the new thing on your space, or is it my space? Our space? Maybe we should call it something like CreepSpace or ChildMolesterSpace based on recent news concerning the internet site that has already attracted over 60 million active members.
Recently, MySpace has been under some heavy criticism regarding the ways that they try and filter out pornography and cyber creeps. Recently they were sued for $30 million after a 14-year-old girl was raped by a 19-year-old after setting up a date through MySpace.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot had some words to say about how MySpace isn’t really doing enough to stop this problem. In a statement Abbot said that "MySpace.com continues to resist implementing real reform measures, including age verification measures and filtering software, and instead offers window-dressing that offers no real protection to the millions of children and teenagers who use their networking sites and chat rooms." Check out the full story.
According to a statement by MySpace.com, the website is trying to raise awareness on the safety of its users, especially younger children. They are making efforts to increase the effectiveness of its filters and other digital mumbo jumbo, all ultimately in an effort to keep online predators at bay. Lets see how well it works.
Recently, MySpace has been under some heavy criticism regarding the ways that they try and filter out pornography and cyber creeps. Recently they were sued for $30 million after a 14-year-old girl was raped by a 19-year-old after setting up a date through MySpace.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot had some words to say about how MySpace isn’t really doing enough to stop this problem. In a statement Abbot said that "MySpace.com continues to resist implementing real reform measures, including age verification measures and filtering software, and instead offers window-dressing that offers no real protection to the millions of children and teenagers who use their networking sites and chat rooms." Check out the full story.
According to a statement by MySpace.com, the website is trying to raise awareness on the safety of its users, especially younger children. They are making efforts to increase the effectiveness of its filters and other digital mumbo jumbo, all ultimately in an effort to keep online predators at bay. Lets see how well it works.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
For What Its Worth
For my first ever blog about public relations, I would like to focus not on current news, changing tactics in the PR world or the latest way to write an effective press release. Rather, I would like to give all of my readers out there my own thoughts on what I think that public relations should be.
As anyone in the field knows, and as any PR teacher at CSU will tell you, building relationships is crucial to successful public relations. Professors have emphasized this point to me over and over during my time as a PR major, but no one has ever mentioned that these should be quality relationships. Sure, anyone can give the courteous “hello” and a “how’s that weather out there?”, but I believe that to be an elite professional out there you have to go beyond these superficial conversations.
Building the relationship should be much more than remembering a reporters name or being able to start talking about climate conditions. In being a successful public relations practitioner, you should actually know the person that you have this so called relationship with. Examine the person’s character, identify and relate about critical issues, and get to know what the world looks like through the other guy’s window.
With that said, let me mention that I am a mere student with hardly any experience in the field, but in my time in college I have definitely learned how to build and manage a quality relationship with someone else. So, to all those professors in my academic past, simply add one more word into your lecture slides before teaching the course again. Public relations is all about building quality relationships.
As anyone in the field knows, and as any PR teacher at CSU will tell you, building relationships is crucial to successful public relations. Professors have emphasized this point to me over and over during my time as a PR major, but no one has ever mentioned that these should be quality relationships. Sure, anyone can give the courteous “hello” and a “how’s that weather out there?”, but I believe that to be an elite professional out there you have to go beyond these superficial conversations.
Building the relationship should be much more than remembering a reporters name or being able to start talking about climate conditions. In being a successful public relations practitioner, you should actually know the person that you have this so called relationship with. Examine the person’s character, identify and relate about critical issues, and get to know what the world looks like through the other guy’s window.
With that said, let me mention that I am a mere student with hardly any experience in the field, but in my time in college I have definitely learned how to build and manage a quality relationship with someone else. So, to all those professors in my academic past, simply add one more word into your lecture slides before teaching the course again. Public relations is all about building quality relationships.
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