I am in the process of setting up LauraOlley.com through FatCow and WordPress. This blog will be transferred there where I hope you will join me in my growth in PR, marketing, HTML and who knows what else. For now, I am trying to justify an iPad…

Place cards

This weekend I re-acquainted myself with an old friend: the Adobe Creative Suite. Oh, how I missed you! Check out the fun place cards I created for my wedding in October. My fiancée is from England and I am from DC, so each table will be a London or a DC landmark.  For our table where our parents will be sitting, I was thinking of the union jack and the US flag, but then each of our parents will have thier respective flags and we’ll each have both.

I’ve been dying for something fun and creative to make for the wedding and a good way to tie the London/DC aspect in.

This project made me realize while I am fine in Illustrator, I need an Indesign refresher! I can’t wait to go back to American University (my alma mater) and take classes in the spring. Can you believe they let alumni audit any class for $100/semester?! Watch out GDES (graphic design class codes), here I come!

Did you know that copy/paste is an art? It can save you in times of trouble but, it can also GET you into trouble.

If you work in a big company, especially one that puts on the same show or conference every year, you are no stranger to ctrl + c! Sometimes there are only so many ways to say something, so why re-invent the wheel? Copy/paste can be a saving grace, but you have to be careful. Try these quick tips next time you’re asked to issue a press release on something for a second time, or you’re promoting your annual show that is offering the same benefits it did last year.

1. Don’t JUST copy/paste. Make sure you revise slightly, even if it’s just changing a few words here and there.

2. Don’t copy/paste quotes. I know in PR this might be hard to avoid, especially when talking about a repeat event or issue. What if your position hasn’t changed? What if there isn’t anything new to say? You can always add “Just like last year…” or “we had such great success last year due to …”.

3. Try to copy/paste from different sources. By re-using text from your Web site, other press releases and other speeches, you’re combining information from sources not all audiences have seen. This not only keeps information rotating around, but keeps all audiences in the loop.

Remember that simply copying/pasting is NEVER a good idea or even ethical. I’m not condoning it, but there is a way to use it as a starting point. Be careful.

Last week I hosted my first Webinar titled PR Pitfalls: How to Keep Your Foot Out of Your Mouth. This was for my company’s members, small business owners who probably don’t have a PR person working for them and do everything themselves. 167 people registered to attend and 75 attended live.

I am an AVID Apple lover. As we all know, you either love or you hate Apple, there isn’t much of an in-between. OK, maybe those who are too afraid to leave their virus infected PCs. I got my first Apple computer my senior year of college and I have been in love ever since. Let’s start at the beginning.

Apple Love

My dell PC had melted its own video card. After their tech support told me I should put my laptop in my freezer while i saved any files off the hard drive to keep it from catching on fire, I decided I had enough. My mother’s reaction was “well, aren’t you a little rebel” when I chose to get an Apple. Really? Is that what a government computer programmer in her 50′s thinks? She’s afraid of the change. So, of course, I ‘rebelled’.  I have had the iPhone since it first came out and I have never regretted it. I even took it on a business trip to France in 2008 and without it, I wouldn’t have been able to continue communication with my now fiance that led to him meeting me in Paris for the most romantic weekend of my life. Thank you iPhone.

There is also nothing left to be desired at the Genius bar. To have a person and a place to take my computer or phone when I’m having problems is a god-send.  When I got my iPhone4 and got home to set it up on my MacBook Pro I was told that since I didn’t have Leopard OS, I couldn’t use my phone with my computer. I was still running Tiger. To upgrade would cost $100′s. Great. So I took my computer to my local Apple store and asked if I could just buy the upgrade for $35. The Genius told me that technically I need to buy Leopard (which they don’t sell anymore) and THEN upgrade to Snow Leopard for $35. BUT, the upgrade alone might work, but he couldn’t tell me that. I asked if he minded if I sat in the store and ran the upgrade if he would come and check on me every so often. Amazingly, he did the whole upgrade for me — and when it came time to upload the new software, he brought me one of the Genius Bar fancy orange hard drives. You know what I’m talking about, the good stuff. He winked and told me this would be faster than the upgrade CD I had just purchased. What he did was give me the Leopard OS and then upgrade me to Snow Leopard. He saved me a couple $100!!

Thank you Apple. Thank you Genius Bar and un-named Genius.

Last week I did my third YouTube video for my company. This is a great new experience and definitely a challenge, which I love. I’m excited that I’m getting this chance to improve my public speaking and represent my company.

Check out our YouTube channel to see all of my videos and more as they get added! I’m going to be doing live interviews at our upcoming trade show in Orlando and I’m pumped about that. Got to love the iphone4 with direct upload to YouTube!