A farewell to #J560

Nice final blog from a graduate student in my Spring #J560 Managing Online Public Relations course in the IU School of Journalism and PR at IUPUI.

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As I look back on the past 15 weeks, it is hard to believe that my time at IUPUI is coming to an end. About a week from now, I will be putting on the cap and gown to complete my obligations as a graduate student and finally receive my MA in Public Relations.

In December of 2014, I was freaking out about the course load I had placed upon myself along with a full-time job. I had a marketing course out of the Kelley School of Business that overlapped the fall and spring semester, contributing to 12 credit hours worth of classes during the first five weeks of spring. Fortunately, my wife, classmates, instructors, friends, family and co-workers were all very supportive of my efforts and encouraged me along the way – especially my wife.

One of the courses that I most looked forward to every week was J560…

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The NEW maryfreebed.com – coming March 2015!

I have to share this and will give you a link once the new website is live. The new healthcare website is 18 months in the making, completely redesigned and mobile optimized.

Quad Amputee Pam Buschle never gave up…her story of hope and freedom.

Amazing story from a woman who had a 1% survival rate to live. After losing all four limbs, she walks again a few months later.

I really loved my first year of collegiate teaching and learned a lot along the way.

Class_2014If I could be anything else besides a PR and social media guy, I would be a professor. My grandfather and dad both taught at the collegiate level and I always loved to share information with people. Or talk.

I was very excited to be able to teach this year with the Indiana University School of Journalism at IUPUI; my first full year of teaching went amazing. I held classes online which was very smooth via Google + for both my undergraduate and graduate course.We chatted, laughed, learned from each other and had special guests on LIVE which was fun too. I had student taught over the last two years with Julie Vincent, one of my instructors at IUPUI and absolutely fell in love with teaching. Some of my favorite times have been presenting as a professional and I knew I would love to help teach people REAL knowledge.

Thank you to the IU School of Journalism for the opportunity, I LOVE IT. Thank you to the great students for listening and challenging me. I am already looking forward to next year. No matter where life may lead me now, I do know that I want to teach. What an amazing feeling to be able to help others learn. For those of you who might follow – you will see #J360 and #J560 hashtags popping up in my feeds starting again in August. If you are in the public relations, communications or new media realm take a look, you might just learn something!

One of my students told me at the end of class in May, “I understood why we used the hashtag and why you had us post, but I didn’t really get it. THEN, I had a friend ask why I was making all of the posts with #J560 and I told him. He then went and searched and learned some stuff, not even being a PR or Communications major he loved it. That’s when it just clicked in my mind.” Needless to say the comment made me very happy and for myself, it truly helped bring it all around. People listen, they want to learn more and that social media has tremendous power if used in the correct fashion. I can’t wait for more.

Knowledge is power…I am blessed to be able to help share what I can.

#J560 MANAGING ONLINE PUBLIC RELATIONS – LinkedIn and YouTube

U School of Journalism at IUPUI – Managing Online Public Relations

Google + Hangout 5 – LinkedIn is extremely important today as a professional not only in PR but any industry. You will always be “googled” by employers for the rest of time. YouTube is the largest search engine database now. Honestly, everything has a video now. Need to learn something, YouTube search it. You will be surprised.

The Story of my Wedding Ring

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I lost my wedding ring. I did. Only four months into marriage I was scraping off the windshield of my car one night and it disappeared. That night I was actually going to pick up my awesome wife Kelly (or Slick Laroo as some know her) from her job at David’s Bridal. A snow storm had started and Grand Rapids and I wanted to pick her up because it was BAD out – next morning we had eight inches of snow.

I knew the ring was gone right away, noticed it driving and then thought, “I wasn’t wearing gloves! Whuy?!” Scraping the window was rough and my fingers were completely numb, it just slipped off.When we finally got back home, we couldn’t find it. A co-worker even let me borrow a metal detector which I used for several days.

I was devastated. Bad. I felt sick that I lost my ring so soon after we got married…and we are still paying them off which didn’t help. 🙂 Kelly was a great wife and gave me an $8 replacement for Valentine’s Day which I proudly wore. We knew to just keep looking. I looked almost every day for a few minutes in the ice and snow of Eastown. Never saw it. Wooosaaa.

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I missed my ring, I had a few dreams that I found it. My new ring just wasn’t the same, but it was OK. THEN…Kelly told me she had a surprise for me. I had a busy day at work and when I got home she told me to shut my eyes. WHOAAAAA I couldn’t believe it, she found my ring.

I did a happy dance. I went WOOOOOO HOOOOOO! My mouth dropped. I got emotional. Kelly found the ring on the parking pad and it was just looking at her in the snow. I know that love is there no matter what – but I love Slick Laroo so much I want to shout it from the rooftops. I guess the symbolism of the ring and being a newlywed made it so special and that is why I took it so hard. Now – a lifetime to not loose the ring again because we may not be so lucky next time. 🙂

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