Women and Spirituality Conference

MANKATO, Minn.- Beginning Oct. 31, is the Women and Spirituality Conference in Mankato, Mn in the Centennial Student Union Ballroom.

The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Vandana Shiva who will discuss "Women and the Gendered Politics of Food," which will begin at 11 a.m. with a book signing to follow.

Shiva founded Navdanya, a national Indian-based movement to protect resources and encourage organic farming. She has numerous books including "The Violence of Green Revolution: Third World Agricutlure, Ecology, and Politics," "Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply," and "Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnoloty."

There are over 100 workshops for the attendees to experience while at the conference. The sessions will discuss the Golden Rules from Diverse Traditions which include topics ranging from animals to atheists to ethical souls and will also include dances, food and parenting workshops.

For more information on the conference you can visit the Gender & Women's Studies site.

Dave Fleet

I agree with Dave Fleet when he says in his "Key Attributes" blog that the PR world is changing and is continuing to change. Online relationships and online communication is quickly becoming a key area in a public relations practitioners world and if anyone wants to be a practitioner they had better jump on the wagon or they'll get left in the dust in a hurry.
All of the traditional skills that he lists I find to be true for many careers. Things such as having communication skills, being proactive, and have work ethic are attributes that I think people should have just to be apart of society let alone to have in work place or to succeed in a job. I love that he put "writing" as his number one tradition skill because this is something that is preached quite a bit in class and through out our department. Fleet specifically points out news releases which is something that MNSU communication students are practicing non-stop until graduation.
Among his new skills are thing that we are working on in our 440 research class. Things such as blogging, social networking, and RSS feeds are on his list and, well, I clearly have a blog with an RSS feed! Being strong in these areas will put me ahead of others when the job search begins.
After Fleet posted this blog, he updated it with comments from other people which include business ethics and time management which, in addition to above, I think is necessary for many careers.
All in all, I agree that social media skills are very important and only becoming increasingly important.

Solis and Breakenridge: Chapter 2 and 4

In the Solis and Breakenridge book I found chapter four on journalists and bloggers to be quite interesting and re-informing.
Is a blogger a journalist? Is a journalist a blogger? This kind of question makes me relate back to the old saying that a square is rectangle but a rectangle isn't a square. My response to these questions is "YES! a blogger is a journalist but a journalist is not necessarily a blogger."
Bloggers continue with a title of "citizen journalists" that we all learned about in our early communication classes. That is, anyone can share their idea's, thoughts, inquiries, observations etc., with the world. All they have to do is begin a blog. Even gossipers like Perez Hilton got famous off of being a "citizen journalist."
New PR and PR 2.0 makes this all that much easier. PR used to be what everyone considered as spinning a story and now it is thought to be only good for developing press releasing and getting in with the reporters. But with Web 2.0 everybody and everyday people can put their stories out there, and not only that but "publish content and build authority," according to Solis and Breakenridge.
All in all, the people/the customers/the citizens are now the journalists and are now apart of the PR world.