The Student Experience: Quotes at Annual Conference

L-R: Quotes Faculty Advisor, Lindsay Hudock, Quotes Creative Team Member, Shannon Tomaszewski, Quotes Director of Membership, Lydia Velasquez and Quotes President, Angelina Rahaman at FPRA’s 65thGolden Image Awards.

Three members of the Quotes executive board were awarded student scholarships to attend the Florida Public Relations Association’s (FPRA) 83rd Annual Conference from August 7-10 at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes. Follow along as they reflect on their journeys at conference and share some of their key takeaways from each day.

FPRA Annual Conference Recap-August 7

By Angelina Rahaman, Quotes President

During the first day of the 83rd Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) Annual Conference, a handful of Quotes members and I had the opportunity to attend the student field trip to Universal Orlando Resort for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the park’s newest attraction, Jurassic World VelociCoaster.

This experience was truly a high-speed hunt of a lifetime! During the tour, we had the opportunity to hear from the masterminds that brought the coaster’s huge public relations campaign to life, Kristen Smith and Alyson Sologaistoa, APR, CPRC.

The idea of creating an attraction that will bring high levels of adrenaline first came about in 2018, but some challenges arose in 2020 when a worldwide pandemic occurred and took the world by storm! Luckily, Universal’s team members were still able to complete the project in a safe and timely manner; however, when the VelociCoaster was finally finished, they faced another potential issue of media and public perception. 

Their conflict with media and public perception gives you a sneak peek into what life was like in 2021. It was a year filled with uncertainty and a strong desire to “return to normal.” The media and public wanted to hear about something other than the pandemic, which made the launch of VelociCoaster a perfect story to share.

The issues Universal’s PR team encountered showed me the importance of listening to your audience. As professional communicators, it is our duty to form a special relationship with our audience. Their PR team even took it a step further and decided to give out churros at the end of the ride because there was a strange rumor on social media that they were building a huge churro stand right where they were building the VelociCoaster.

Mass chaos stirred up on social media when roller coaster fanatics posted about their excitement towards Florida’s tallest and fastest ride! With the recent rise in social media, Universal’s PR team discussed the importance of influencer marketing and their related strategy.

As exciting as the tour was, Universal’s team was just getting started. We also all had the opportunity to experience the ride for ourselves, and the best part was not waiting two hours to get onto the ride! If you are a roller coaster fanatic like I am, then you need to ride VelociCoaster as soon as you get the opportunity to do so.

I greatly appreciate the Universal team for hosting the field trip and providing such amazing insight on the launch of VelociCoaster. I also want to thank them for giving us free access to the park after our field trip. I made so many unforgettable memories and formed new friendships.

As a student, it is very easy to get discouraged over your ideas and feel insecure about your work, but Universal’s PR team showed me that the launch of this epic attraction resulted from an idea. This inspired me to keep thinking and dreaming big because one day, I, too, will launch an epic PR campaign. 

FPRA Annual Conference Recap-August 8

By Shannon Tomaszewski, Quotes Creative Team Member

During the second day of the 83rd Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) Annual Conference, I had the opportunity to attend two breakout sessions with professional speakers and participate in the Presidents’ Luncheon.

The breakout session I attended that connected with me the most, was Breakout 1B: How to Avoid the Guillotine & Other PR Tips for Boosting Your Career. Led by Leigh Woisard, senior vice president corporate public affairs at Cox Communications, this session provided tips on how to succeed in the workforce and take control of your career narrative.

Since I am still a student who is just beginning to explore the workforce, Leigh’s talking points really grabbed my attention and I felt like I could learn a lot from her. In her presentation, she reinforced the idea that professionals should focus on “one thing” that sets them apart from their peers and use that to drive them toward success. The session was very engaging and felt relevant to every professional in the room.

Later in the day, I also had the pleasure of attending Breakout 2D: Accessible Social. Led by Alexa Heinrich, social media manager at St. Petersburg College, this session focused on identifying and fixing issues in your social media content that could be creating barriers for people with disabilities.

As a Creative Team Member on the Quotes board, this session was very helpful for me since I support the development of our social media content. After hearing this presentation, I learned a lot of new “best practices” that can help our board better engage with students with disabilities that are interested in getting involved with Quotes. For example, Alexa talked a lot about text-to-speech audio, and how it is used and sounds when a phrase is typed a certain way. She also referenced the misusage of hashtags because when phrases are typed all lowercase, they do not sound how they are intended when read aloud through a text-to-speech program.

Overall, my time at FPRA’s Annual Conference was filled with amazing breakout sessions, as well as valuable learning and networking opportunities. I would like to thank our Quotes faculty advisor,  Lindsay Hudock, Quotes and the FPRA Orlando Chapter for an amazing experience. Being a board member for Quotes has granted me so many once-in-a-lifetime professional opportunities that I would not have achieved otherwise.

 FPRA Annual Conference Recap-August 9

By Lydia Velasquez, Quotes Director of Membership  

During the third day of the 83rd Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) Annual Conference, I had the opportunity to attend Fireside Chat – General Session IV: Employee Communications Takes Center Stage During Pandemic: Now What?  

Right off the bat, this chat was very intriguing to me because of the importance and relevancy of the topic. Led by Gina Pesko Laughlin, vice president- global employee communications for Delta Airlines, this session focused on the importance of internal communications, especially during a crisis.     

Gina began the conversation explaining how Delta navigated the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. From her insights, I learned that it takes patience and dedication to reach your goal, especially during high-pressure situations, like the pandemic.   

For Delta, they knew keeping their employees safe and healthy during the peak of the pandemic was top priority. As a result, they set a goal of a 75% vaccination rate for their team to help reach herd immunity. After setting this goal, with Gina’s help, the airline quickly began their internal communications efforts.  

A key part of Delta’s communications strategy was polling their employees to see what they already knew about the shot and how they felt about getting vaccinated. As the Delta team reviewed survey results, they could adjust their communications efforts and better educate their employees about the vaccine and how it works. Delta felt that if they were regularly communicating with employees about the benefits of the vaccine, the more likely they would be to receive it.     

As Gina explained Delta’s communication process, she expressed the importance of communication during a time of limited communication between thousands of employees. She shared that Delta made sure to stay connected and have employees update them every 15 minutes, even if that meant it was the same update.

Toward the end of the session, I love how Gina opened the floor and gave conference attendees the opportunity to talk and ask questions. During Q&A, another student asked her what happened when Delta employees still decided not to get vaccinated, even after all the information they gave them. Gina mentioned that although educating their employees about the vaccine helped Delta increase vaccination rates across the board and surpass their 75% goal, it did not mean that method worked for everyone. In the end, Delta was okay with this because they secured herd immunity and achieved their goal thanks to clear communications and patience.  

FPRA Annual Conference Recap-August 10

By Angelina Rahaman, Quotes President

During the fourth and final day of the 83rd Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) Annual Conference, I had the opportunity to attend the Closing Session – General Session V: Politics at Work: Safeguarding Reputation in the Age of Activism.

Should someone get fired over a Facebook post? The power of social media has allowed us to engage with many people. However, that does not mean we should share everything online. During this session, Jon Goldberg, founder and chief reputation architect at Reputations Architects Inc., discussed what rights to free speech an employee has outside of the workplace.  

It seems like our social media feed gets increasingly more political each day. One recent example Jon discussed during this session was the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol. Many participants were terminated by their employers because many companies feared the messages their employees were portraying. Some participants were even showing they were affiliates of their employers by wearing company-branded clothing. 

During the session, we learned how controversies, like the one mentioned above, should be seen as opportunities to improve internal relationships with employees. Employees need to understand what is considered acceptable behavior both on and offline. As public relations professionals, we need to research how our internal audiences feel about certain issues before we begin to craft our message to them. We must also examine if our response to certain issues ties back to our beliefs and values. 

Jon’s presentation was an excellent way to end the FPRA Annual Conference. I love the storytelling aspect of our field, but his presentation showed me the importance of listening before you speak. As I move into my professional career, I intend to have a strong internal communications policy in place to avoid any possible reputational damage.