Welcome to me!

Hey guys! My name is Katie Nichols. I am a junior public relations major at the University of Oklahoma (and because it wouldn’t be right without this-BOOMER). Here at this fine university I am a peer educator with Step in Speak Out, which is a rape prevention class at OU. I am also a member of Alpha Omicron Pi, where I serve as their achievements chair, which sounds really fancy but just means I keep track of everyones activities. Now that you know some of the things I have listed on my resume, I will now give you a look into who I am (be ready). All my life I have loved books, any kind of book; fiction, non-fiction, crime/thrillers, romance,  the list goes on and on. Now you might be asking yourselves, “why does this matter?” Well my answer to you is a simple one, it makes me who I am and makes me do what I want to do. I got into public relations mainly on the instruction of my freshman year advisor (shoutout to you Ms. Robinson) because of her I saw what pr really is, and that is a gateway to all forms of communication in the “real world.”  Now from reading I have learned a very important thing and that is how to communicate a story. Thats why I love public relations and that’s what motivates me to continue into whatever job i [hopefully] get after I graduate. Public relations is all about stories, it is the story your company wants to relate to the people, it is the people’s testaments, desires, hopes and dreams that tell the company the story of what they, the people, need. Stories have always had a way of connecting people, so in a profession where it is our goal to build relationships and connections, stories play the most important role of them all. When a company simply listens to the story the people are telling, they create the strongest, mutually beneficial relationship of them all.  When I think of design,  honestly the first thing that pops into my head is interior design, however if I had to think of it from a public relations standpoint I see it as more of the way we craft our messages to make them appealing and clear to our target public. Up until now design hasn’t played a major role in my life. I use it when making personal thank you cards or designing a pamphlet for my internship and simply when deciding where to put things in my room. So honestly maybe design does play a major role in my life and I just haven’t taken the time to acknowledge it yet. Much like books design is all about how the audience views it. You will have readers who judge the book by the cover art, these are the people in the public who might choose not to read a companies message if it isn’t crafted in an appealing way. There are other people who take the time to look past the surface, at how the pages are set up and designed, these are the people for whom the public relations professionals must make sure there is brevity, clarity and organization in all the companies messages. If you can appeal to both people, the cover-judgers and the organization-hounds, you will have crafted a messages that transcends the clutter and reaches the audience. So design is important in all aspects of life, especially book and in PR.