This document contains an individual self-reflection from a student on their public relations course. It includes assessments of their teamwork on assignments, their strengths and areas for improvement, and reflections on the class. The student rated themselves highly and found the group work beneficial, though it highlighted differences in work styles. They enjoyed applying concepts like crisis management and felt the textbook effectively covered material also taught in class. The student suggests starting team charters earlier to better understand teammates' work ethics.

1. Individual Self
Reflection
P u b l i c R e l a t i o n s o f
O r g a n i z a t i o n s
34-AIS-4018-001
Dr. Patricia Friel, Full Professor of
Communication & Theatre
J u n e 2 1 , 2 0 1 3
Stacey Jane Meyer

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A. What are three (03) ways in which public relations and corporate communication(s)
relate to management or supervision? In other words, what concepts from this class would
you apply as managers/supervisors in the future, how, and why? Be discerning and
thoughtful. Give examples. And explain why these concepts are important.
A. Objective setting, planning and budgeting are important for chief communication officers
and their colleges in the public relations field to master the management of. To be effective
public relations must efficient in these three areas to help support management in achieving their
objectives as well as working in the public relations agency to the revenue of the company.
Objective setting define the measurable goals and develop strategies that are crucial to a
public relations campaign. The main idea is to tie the public relations goals to the same goals of
the organization and manage moving forward toward reaching those goals. The objectives must
be clearly defined, specific, practical and attainable.
Strategic planning requires thinking and is important to know where a campaign is headed
and to win the support of management. The plan must be spelled out in writing and must include
answers to the management’s concerns and questions. It can be broken up many ways; an
example would be into 5 parts; situation, business objectives, public relations objectives,
strategies, and the public relations program elements. It should clearly specify tactics which the
objectives can be measured against.
Budgeting realistically is necessary for any organization to survive. In order for the
organization to work public relations programs operate like any other program, although they
have increased over the years most are still on a limited budget. To work on a budget the public
relations must estimate the total resources needed; and estimate the cost and availability of the
resources.

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The practice of public relations is accepted as part of the management process of any well
run organization. Objective setting, planning and budgeting are needed by everyone in the
organization for reputation management. All departments must work to maintain their own
independence while building long term relationships for the good of the organization. Managers
expect and need results, so the key to building relationships is for public relations programs to
achieve measurable results.
B. As a manager/supervisor, discuss your top three perceived strengths and three areas for
improvement with regard to your public relations and communication(s) skills and
experiences. How can you upgrade your areas for improvement? Why is it important to do
so?
B. Communication, employee relations, and crisis management, are my top three strengths. I
understand how these things tie together as my area of strengths. I excel with employee relations
because I am good at communication; and understanding and observing what my employees’
areas of strengths are along with developing and expanding on them. I was able to improve our
strategic paper over our media press kit because I stepped into the role of coordinating. I can
make these observations quickly to help our group produce the best work possible. This ties into
crisis management because I can understand the situation and come to a solution rapidly due to
my insight on other people’s abilities and use them to help me come to a resolution. The areas
where I am working on improvement are writing, international/cultural relations, and a few
aspects of law. As I improve on these areas it will help me as supervisor complete tasks at a faster
pace. When I need to write a professional letter I currently have to edit it and then have someone
else edit it as well. I continue to do my own writing so that I may learn to improve in this
important area. International and cultural relations are not something I have had much experience

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in so when issues arise it takes me more time to handle, in some cases it leads into aspects of law
that I may have to explain more clearly to staff who of a different culture than mine may not
understand. There are some aspects of law that have taken me time to research, however the more
I do the research personally the more familiar I become and the more I learn.
C. How would you rate your teammates and you on your team work this term, both on your
Strategic Ppt Presentation and Paper and your Press/Media Kit? Use the Team Evaluation
form below to guide your feedback, and include an evaluation of yourself as well. Also
explain what YOU would do differently in the future as a teammate, explaining how and
why.
Add your Team’s name and letter to this section, as well as each assignment’s name that is
being assessed. You may combine your two assessments of each team you worked with or
do one at a time. Your choice!
This is an individual and confidential assignment to be submitted independently to your
Professor. In other words, no one will see your assessments but your professor. First,
include yourself in this evaluation. Second, list each other team member’s name below, and
one at a time, discuss his or her contributions as well as your own in terms of the following
items from your Team Charter: team involvement, use of individual strengths and areas to
improve in this assignment, and everyone’s adherence to team goals, expectations, and
responsibilities, and efforts to communicate professionally.
After commenting on each teammate’s ability to collaborate and contribute to each team
assignment according to your Team Charter, please rate each member’s overall

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performance per assignment using the following scale: Excellent (5), Very Good (4), Good
(3), Fair (2), Poor (1), None (0). Justify your ratings per person.
C. Sophisticated Six media kit and strategic planning paper
1. I would rate myself a 5. On the first team assignment, the media press kit, I was not
disappointed in our team but felt we could have done a better job if we had spent more time as a
team on the project instead of most of the time individually. My personal part in the media press
kit was the biography. In the strategic planning paper I was assigned the biography, cover page,
team log and coordinator. This was completed by researching the IRS and including the history
and the role of the company. Team log was created after the first draft of the paper to establish
how each person carried out their responsibility and to evaluate that we included and
accomplished all objectives. I felt I did an excellent job with the research and was very happy
with the adjustments that were made in the editing process. The strategic planning paper was
more challenging as there were more people to work with and less clear ways to divide up the
work. I again took the biography because it involved a little more research than the rest of the
information. My strength is managing people and I did not use this on our media press kit
because it was not needed however, I saw issues developing working with a larger group so I also
took on the role as coordinator, trying to help improve communication as a whole in our group. I
felt this was very successful because we started using discussion board but it wasn’t working
well. Others starting using emails but they were becoming frustrated that not everyone was
checking email, so I adjusted the team to use file exchange when posting information and texting
to announce the next goals we needed to accomplish. An example would be a text I sent out to
remind all to post their information by the next day; followed by a text by Chelsea the following
day to tell up the Rough draft was available for editing. This process seemed to work fairly well

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for the majority of the group. The next issues of coordinator were one member who was not in
class and wanted to help so she took the research on the scandal. Then I ran into 2 members who
were working or on vacation during the first class and/or during the first week of our team
project, so they felt behind. It was not a problem because I was able to ask them to do the, the
PowerPoint and Chief Editor since it wasn’t able to be completed till the end of the research. This
was great for our group at taking advantage of their strengths and their time availability. This
helped me out as well since I needed to be absent from the presentation but was able to work the
entire time up till the presentation. The last goal of mine was to improve our team log from the
previous assignment. We needed to be clearer on our objectives and more specific on how we
accomplished the individual tasks, and I felt I was able to improve that with our strategic
planning paper team log. The area I need to improve on for next time is my personal access to
technology. This comes from the fact that as we were dividing tasks and two of the team
members asked me what they could work on I was repairing a hole in a roof right before sun
down and I had to respond that I would follow up in the morning once I had internet access. I do
not have internet on my phone so I could not solve the issue immediately.
2. Chelsea Adams I would assign a 5. She was assigned as editor and chief on both papers. I
was nervous that she would not want to do this on the second paper but she explained it was her
strength and she enjoyed editing. She put the paper together to sound uniform and reference page,
budget and timeline. This was carried out by combining all parts, editing, moving a few
paragraphs around to have the paper flow smoothly and posting on file exchange to be edited and
adjusted by all team members. The reference page was completed by taking all members
references out of their individual parts and placing the on one page. I was a little worried with the
lack of communication from her the first week during the assignments, the first one she was
working many hours and the second week she was on vacation. I did not know how her work

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ethic was yet, but it worked out fantastic since she likes to do the final product and she is great at
it. As an added bonus since she had her vacation at the beginning of the strategic project so it
worked like a real team to allow me to take my vacation at the end of the project.
3. Joshua LaSelle I would assign a 4. He was assigned the introduction and conclusion. This
was completed by introducing the information with an attention grabber. The conclusion was
completed after the first draft of the paper was established to wrap it all into a nice package.
Again I was concerned that he was being assigned the same task on both papers, however he also
said it was his strength and is excellent at drawing the attention of the reader in. As far as written
work he may not have accomplished as much as the rest of us, but he was at the meetings, gave
input on the project and willing to do more if needed.
4. Deborah Rumsey I would assign a 4 to only due to the fact that it was more challenging to
communicate with her and we did not see her in the 2 classes or in the meeting. She was assigned
the situation. This was completed with much research on the topic to include accurate
information, highlighting the key points on the situation. She was frustrated in the beginning of
the project because she had trouble communicating with us since she was not in the two classes
prior to the presentation and discussion board was not working. However, once she had a task to
complete she was fantastic and accomplished her goals. She was not able to make it to our team
meeting so again I think she may have felt a little lost, but seemed to be ready for the
presentation.
5. Phillip PapkeI would assign a 5.He fully participated by dividing the work needed to be
accomplished into multiple segments. He personally wrote the solution and objectives portion of
the IRS scandal. This was completed by initially dividing up the information to accomplish in the
assignment, establishing our objectives, and researching the situation and coming to a realistic
solution. He was also not able to make it to our meetings but made it clear ahead of time due to a

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work conflict, however he followed up before and after meetings to make sure we were on task
and added input to what we were accomplishing.
6. Amanda Eberhardt I would assign a 4 due to the lack of input and availability. She was
assigned the PowerPoint Presentation. This was completed by taking the paper and dividing up
the main points into individual PowerPoint slides, adding pictures and formatting to allow for a
clear display of the information needed to be presented in presentation. Amanda seemed stressed
in the beginning due to another class project she was working on, and was not in the first class we
established our objectives in so she seemed lost at first. Since she had other distractions the first
week of our project we told her to just wait till next week and she could help us with the
PowerPoint. This worked well with her schedule and PowerPoint is one of her strengths. Even
though she didn’t have to work the first week she had a lot to accomplish the second week. She
did a great job at posting it on file exchange so it could be edited and rehearsed as well prior to
the presentation.
D. What are two or three things that you most liked about this course and why? In
addition, what are your reflections about the textbook for the course? Did you like the
textbook for this course and why?
D. Working in groups is not one of my favorite activities at school since we receive an
individual grade on the project however I found I very beneficial in this class. In work situations
public relations as a company is not an individual but more of a team effort. This class was a
great learning experience on how to work as a group, and learning that people do not work at the
same pace as each other and everyone likes to accomplish goals differently. It taught us that there
is more than one correct way to put the information together. One of my favorite things to learn
in this class was how to put more of a positive spin on a negative situation with the scandal. I

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understand we were not ready for it as it was our first public relations class, but I enjoy a
challenge and felt we not only tried to accomplish it, but did well with it. As far as textbooks go I
do not have any complaints about the book, but also thought with the information being covered
in class that there is a possibility to skip using the book and rely more on the in class coverage of
the power point information for the quizzes. I do not say this lightly, but Professor Friel is very
knowledgeable in the area of Public Relations and excellent at conveying it to be understood by
the students. The textbook did a good job at explaining the material as well. The book had a
smooth lay out to be understood by the reader.
E. What constructive suggestions would you give for future sections of this class and why?
E. I understand why other classes wanted to have more time to get to know the other
students prior to dividing into groups; however 1 or 2 weeks only allows you to really see their
attendance. I do like how we were divided into groups for in class discussion to allow us to see
who would have input or not. I would suggest though that there really isn’t enough time to fully
get to know the other students so starting the first class working on the team charter would allow
students to adjust to the work ethic of others. I would have learned earlier that while I like to do
my work early some students prefer to wait till the last possible minute. If we learn that
information on smaller tasks I would know how to coordinate the group in a way to function like
a fine oiled machine.

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