Gay Marriage!

1. Do you think this is a political move to win votes before an election and could you see this happening closer to the Australian elections? and...

2. Should there be such a thing as same-sex-marriage or should their be a same-sex 'union' recognised by law and leave out the word marriage?

Write up your thoughts and opinions understanding the complexity and sensitivity of the topic. Ensure that you practice good writing, common sense and that you consider and appreciate everyone's personal thoughts on this topic. 

I believe that there is no point denying the right to gay marriage for much longer, and it's great that Barack Obama has voiced his support for people to live their lives in a way that suits them, particularly when the decision doesn't affect outsiders to the relationship.

In my mind, I don't see it as being a ploy to win votes before the election. Having been to America on numerous occasions and spending a particularly lengthy period of time in the more traditional Southern states, I have witnessed first hand the religious belief that is inherent in the majority of American culture.

That's not to say that there isn't culturally and socially forward-thinking pockets of people spread across the US, because there are many, but the majority of older American's are God-fearing, and this move is likely to lose him votes with this large group of people. However, maybe if he doesn't win the election, it will still set him up to be a hero in other ways for the more open minded citizens?

Suppose that gay marriage was made legal, and Obama was still the president, there would be a LOT of issues coming up. For example, to be married you need to have a marriage celebrant/minister and many of those people are older and religious, so they may not want to marry gay couples despite it now being legalised. Would these people, who could possibly refuse to marry a couple who are legally able to now be married, be liable to face the law if they didn't conduct the ceremony? It would be very interesting to see what happens!

And what if a bill was passed, and then another conservative president came into power. Could he then take away the bill?

In regards to whether it should be 'same-sex marriage' or 'same-sex union', I don't think it makes a difference. To me it is different words for the same thing, and to call it a union would only be appeasing those who oppose it - who shouldn't be worrying about it in the first place (in my mind!) since it doesn't affect them.

I hope that Obama legalises gay marriage!

RIP Biskit.

 ♥ 

 

I am not entirely certain where my obsession with dogs came from, but somewhere early along the line I developed a great love for those 4 legged (sometimes 3!) balls of love that want nothing more than to cuddle up with you and be stroked.

I can recall in Year 3 starting a scrapbook of dog pictures that I cut out from the newspaper or magazines and treasuring it dearly. My best friend at the time had 2 dogs, and I was insanely jealous - despite one of them being a snappy little maltese terrier. To this day I still don't really rate small white dogs!

 All (frequent) pleas for a dog fell on deaf ears for many years, as my mum wasn't a huge fan and didn't want the mess and hassle of a dog. I was, however, allowed to keep fish, and grew somewhat attached to them, moping for days when any of them carked it. But my heart still yearned for a softer pet.


At 13 my Dad chose to be made redundant after 35+ years of service at Hamersley Iron (a division of Rio Tinto), and we made the big move from Tom Price to Perth. Absolutely devastated doesn't begin to cover it, and as an already fairly shy bookworm, I didn't thrive in my new surroundings, which just so happened to be the biggest school in the state.


Finding it hard to make friends, and hating school for the first time in my life, I became more and more anxious and unhappy with my life. Of course I was a 13-14 year old at the time, the height of emotional turbulence and awkwardness, but this was probably something a little more.


My parents were fixing up our house at the time, and enjoyed heading out to all the boring places on the weekend: kitchen and bathroom supplies stores, renovator wonderlands and carpet showrooms AKA hell-on-earth for a teenager.

At the time, "Get over yourself, Dawson" was a favoured saying. Sometimes it still makes an appearance. Pacey on the other hand can do whatever he likes.

Since I had nothing better to do most weekends, sometimes I tagged along - but most of the time I spent playing computer games or completing 'Dawson's Creek' quizzes on the internet. No judgement on the last point, please.


One weekend my parents were heading out to look at some taps for our new bathroom, zzz, and asked if I would like to come with. Clearly not, but the bribe of the icecream that came next was enough to get me to submit and off we went.


After randomly driving for 15-20 minutes my parents turned around to me and said "we're not really going to look at taps, we're going to buy a dog". I couldn't believe it, and asked them "REALLY?" about 10 times before even believing them 5%. I was crying a little bit, kinda like Dawson above, because it was such a surreal moment.


My parents knew that I was having a rough time, and thought that a dog might cheer me up and help get me back on track.


We went to about three dog shelters that day looking for a suitable new friend. One lady yelled at us and told us to go away. The other shelters all had larger dogs and my Mum was only willing to concede to a small-medium dog. While we were at the Shenton Park Dog's Home, I saw a small golden English Cocker Spaniel walk out from the boarders section (so she wasn't for sale) - but then I knew that it was the type of dog for me! My dad had a black spaniel years earlier and was happy with that decision too.


We went to a breeder later that day, and I chose an orange and white pup. Best day ever!


At first I wanted to call him "Eli", although I have no idea why, but my mum said no because it was "too religious" (lol?). We decided on Biskit because he kind of looked like one, and we wanted the spelling to be a bit different.


From then on I was definitely a lot happier, his floppy ears, general adorableness and the way he lay next to my bedroom door in the morning was a source of joy for me.


Sadly he passed away at the age of six due to a liver problem, but he will always be in my heart and my dad keeps a photograph of him next to his computer :)


Biskit, Thank you. I will love you always. xox

Digital Footprints!

Then provide me (in your own blog)with how you would go about an awareness campaign in schools on the use of recording, uploading and the sharing of inappropriate material that has, now, a digital footprint and cannot easily be erased.



Every action, comment and picture that we upload to the internet has the possibility of being available to view. FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!

This is troublesome, as we are not always in control of what gets posted about us on the internet. Even someone snapping an unfavourable photo of you having a few drinks at a party and uploading it to Facebook without your consent can be damaging to your reputation.

Thankfully Facebook now has an option that allows you to approve all 'tags' before they show up on your profile.

Despite knowing this, there have been occasions I can recall where 'unfavourable' content has been posted about myself or other friends online, nothing drastic but just some things that would be better not publicly available.

Having been online since I was 15, it would have been great for schools to implement an awareness campaign about these issues when I was younger.

This issue will continue to grow though, consider how many babies are online before they are even BORN (ultrasound pics) and whose parents post hundreds of photos of them on Facebook as they grow up. I'm sure we all have people on our Facebook who do this!

This is how I would approach my Digital Footprint Awarness Campaign:

1. Background Research - conduct in-depth research into the number of school aged children using the internet and social media sites, in particular Youtube, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

Research school aged childrens opinion on online behaviour, what awareness they have of the dangers, and questions such as: if they are aware but are still undertaking risky behaviour - why is that?

2. Define the goals and objectives - eg. to ensure that 80% of school aged children are taught how to communicate appropriately online and the repercussions of not doing so. Another goal could be to educate parents as well.

This would be a MASSIVE campaign, so it's something that the government would need to implement.

3. Target Market - any children of the age where they are using and surfing the internet, as well as parents of these children.

4. Key Messages - "Your online activity never disappears", "Take care with what you do and post online, it will be available to be seen for years to come", "Teach your child about the appropriate online behaviour so it doesn't affect their future".

5. Strategy - while Keith mentioned that these types of skills could possibly be the domain of parents, I believe that it may be up to the schools and government to help implement a wide-spread campaign.

The reason for this is two-fold, firstly, this is an incredibly new issue. 99% of parents would not have had any experience in the subject and as such are probably ill prepared to teach their children.

Secondly, as mentioned in class, learning institutions often teach the 'soft skills' required by students in the workforce/general life.

As such, I recommend that units of 'internet in everyday life' are embedded into the school curriculum from a very young age, and built upon every year. The internet is such a large part of life now that it's necessary, and I feel this is the only way that it would reach a large enough number of children for it to be beneficial running a campaign.

6. Channels - face-to-face teacher interaction, examples of all forms of internet communication in the classroom, newsletters to parents, tv advertising.

7. Legal and Ethical Issues - there would be some issues with this campaign. One of them being that possibly not all children would have access to the internet at the time of teaching. However, they would still have access via other sources such as the library, friends houses and more than likely will have extended access in the future so it is still worthwhile for these students.

8. Timeline - a realistic timeline rollout for this campaign would be 5 years, with quite a bit of evaluation along the way, including feedback from children, parents and teachers.

This is my idea and I'm looking forward to reading everyone elses! :)

A x

Hundreds Owe Thanks to Lifesavers.

A few days ago a tragic event occurred on the Gold Coast, a 14 year old surf lifesaver drowned during the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships at Kurrawa Beach.

While this is an incredibly rare incident, it has gained a lot of media coverage and will no doubt cast a certain amount of fear and sadness into the minds of parents and children who may be considering, or already undertaking, surf lifesaving activities.

When I originally found the following article in the Weekend West, I recognised it as PR but didn't initially link it to the incident on the Gold Coast. Upon further inspection however, I believe that this article has been pitched to the newspaper from the Surf Lifesaving PR team to help control the possible fallout of the incident and reinforce the positive work that the association undertakes.

The article is titled "Hundreds Owe Thanks to Lifesavers" and features a varied group of surf lifesavers smiling at the beach.

The article then goes on to reveal that 2,500 people were rescued in WA this summer, twice as many as the previous year.

The one fatality that occurred over the summer was mentioned, but quickly put down to the fact that the swimmer "flouted" the rules and didn't swim between the flags.

"Surf Life Saving WA manager Chris Peck said the death was tragic, but preventable".

The lifesavers also performed about 10 life-saving resuscitation over the summer with many other close calls.

Then a story about a 5 year old who was saved with some quotes from his mother speaking highly of the surf lifesavers.

The article ends with the statistic that the lifesavers performed 24,174 preventive actions (inc closing beaches and warning swimmers) this season, up from 16,900 last year.

The PR team was really on the ball, as the drowning only occurred on the Wednesday and by Saturday this article was in the paper. It's likely that other major newspapers around the country had similar articles in them also.

These guys really do an amazing job at taking care of swimmers, the tragedy was incredibly unfortunate and the young life lost wont soon be forgotten.

Annette

LETS TALK ABOUT GROUP WORK!

I would like to start this blog on group work with a gratuitous song that vaguely relates to the topic if you ignore the romantic undertones. Also Jefferson Starship are amazing! Please listen whilst reading my blog. Thank you.



"AND WE CAN DO THIS THING TOGETHER
STAND THIS STRONG FOREVER
NOTHING'S GONNA STOP US NOW"

-

Group work can be tricky. Each group member is coming from a different background and may have different expectations of the task. Here are a few important tips which can help any group work more effectively together:

♥ Communicate - make sure everyone is 100% clear on what the aim is, what the roles are and how the goals are to be achieved. Some people may have difficultly communicating in a group situation, so it is sometimes up to the people who are more experienced in group situations to prompt or allow the quieter ones to have their, often valuable, input.

♥ Make use of all available resources. Check in with the lecturers if needed to make sure the group is on the right track. This particularly was useful for my group in the presentation project (though we haven't had to present yet!) as there were a few points we were considering working on in-depth that ended up being less important for the specific presentation and we were guided to focus more on other areas. Without this feedback we would have wasted quite a bit of time on the wrong path so I am very grateful for our lecturers availability to help.

♥ Share the workload - an unfairly distributed workload can make for disgruntled group members which causes a negative experience for all involved. Assess how much work each part will be, and allocate accordingly. There may be small inconsistencies in the amount of work but so long as it's generally about right, then everyone should be happy.

♥ Consider each group members strengths and experience and use this information in allocating work. People like to be able to showcase their knowledge and it can make for an easier group environment if everyone is working on the section that aligns with their particular interests, plus it can be completed in a quicker time which can be a positive in some situations!

♥ Positive and constructive - make all group dealings positive and any criticisms constructive. No one likes to be told their ideas are bad or wrong, or deal with a group member who is constantly complaining about the work. While it may not be the dream project for the group, if it needs to be done a positive approach is best no matter the project.

I feel these are the 5 main points of importance and will help any team navigate the world of group work!

That and the Starship song.

Annette

Homeless Hotspots @ SXSW.

The emergence of homeless people touting internet access during the South by South West (SXSW) music and technology festival in Austin, Texas this year has been much talked about.

The original article on Yahoo.com states that many people have described it as'shameful, hideous, patronising' and 'dehumanising'.

I prefer to look at it more optimistically. Considering the average Big Issue seller is offering a product that is possibly outdated, and most of the people who purchase the magazine are doing so just in order to help the homeless person, the offering of WI-FI services seems to make sense. As it's something that most people want - internet access - even those who may not usually go out of their way to help a homeless person by purchasing something they don't want (magazine).

It is unlikely that the homeless people would have been forced into selling the Wi Fi, and I believe that there are many unemployed (though not homeless) who would have been keen to undertake the job if it had been offered to them.

The initiative also helps to highlight the plight of homeless people as it gives them a chance to talk to the general public that they might not otherwise have.

From a PR point of view, I think that BBH New York, the company behind the Homeless Hotspots initiative, should offer to help the participants to find ongoing employment after the festival is over, or help them out in some other way. This will help cast off any of the negative media about them being dehumanising and opportunistic.

What are your thoughts?

Cool PR Campaign.

I think this is awesome - although I feel like there are a lot of risks involved... eg. people may be willing to kill in order to win!

What are your thoughts?!