My First MassComm Week

Since I transferred from the Communication Studies department this year and I went to UT Austin for my undergrad, I had never experienced Texas State's MassComm Week. Boy was I missing out! While I wasn't able to physically attend all of the presentations that I was interested in, I did make it to a couple, and thankfully there were some others posted to UStream that I was able to watch in my down time last week.

Rich Oppel's presentation on 'Dealing with the Media' was interesting because it addressed some of the themes we have been discussing since the summer concerning the shift towards new media.

Having worked as a journalist and then crossing over to the 'dark side' of business PR, it was interesting to hear the perspective of someone who has worked in both areas. He discussed how traditional newspapers are declining in favor of more mobile, instant-access news sites or applications, and provided some statistics about newspapers that I wasn't aware of. For example, he mentioned that the number of newspaper professionals have gone from 55,000 to 40,000 since 2009, and that newspaper consumption has also decreased 50% in the past year. He claimed that it is too strong to say that newspapers are 'dying', but that there is clearly a transition in place that is making them less relevant. The most interesting point he made, in my opinion, was that the lessening relevance of newspapers is leaving less room for advertising sales in these papers. He pointed out that when he worked at Austin American Statesman, they reserved anywhere from 20-45 pages for advertisements, where now they only use about 3.

My favorite presentation that I attended was definitely Greg Neal's 'Starting & Branding a TV

Network'. Neal runs a brand consulting company called Supertex Studios in San Marcos, and has worked for HGTV, Soap Net, Food Network, and OWN (Oprah's network). He talked about the main elements that go into creating a brand (Logo, Identity, and Product), examined a few brands that he considers particularly successful (such as Apple, Urban Outfitters/Anthropologie, and HBO), and explained why he eventually quit his job consulting for Oprah.

I thought it was refreshing how candidly he spoke about being fired or quitting something...usually people glaze over that information, or feed audiences a vague response such as "We mutually decided to part ways." Mr. Neal, however, walked us through his work with Oprah in detail, and talked about how her old production consultants were trying to push her old image onto the new one Neal was trying to create, which is what ultimately caused him to quit. I admired that he was willing to truly explain a job that didn't end up working out, especially because he could have left it out completely. I think it gave a more real-world picture to all of the students that will be working in the industry soon. I also appreciated how he directly addressed us at the end of his discussion, giving us advice and telling us what employers look for in job applicants (and encouraging us that past experience is NOT the most important thing!)

Overall, I was excited to hear from professionals working in our industry, and most of them had encouraging advice and outlooks for the students and our futures. I'm glad Texas State is willing to set aside resources to put on an event like this!