How to Rebirth Yearbooks

How to Rebirth Yearbooks
Kenna Griffin, Oklahoma City University

This was by far my favorite session. Kenna is amazing! I have so many ideas on how to make sure every copy of the Potpourri is distributed this year. I really want to have a distribution party when the yearbook comes in. I plan to have such an event it will put any SAB event to shame. It is definitely going to be a big deal! Again I was reminded how lucky we are to have the yearbook fee included in the price of tuition.

Lela Coker

Niche Marketing

Niche Marketing
Linda Puntney, Kansas State University

First, let me say how thankful I am that our students pay for the yearbook in their tuition and we do not have to rely on selling it ourselves. I thought this session would give us pointers for distributing the yearbook in the spring, but instead we discussed selling the yearbook. Puntney talked about promoting the yearbook before it comes out. A lot of schools have trouble getting students to buy a yearbook, which affects their budget. I am glad we do not have to stress about yearbook sells. I am, however, going to spend more time planning our distribution in the spring. It is important that as many students as possible pick up the yearbook.

Lela Coker

How to Cover Your Campus Effectively

How to Cover Your Campus Effectively
Sally Turner, Eastern Illinois University

I learned from this session that sources are everywhere on campus. As journalist we should always have our ears open for story ideas. The best leads can come from overhearing someone else’s conversation.

Here are a few other tidbits:
• Cover the entire campus, not just the department that houses student publications
• The yearbook is a record of the year so include all the major events and how they affected students
• Cover events while they are happening. (I wish we would have covered Spring Fling, Greek Week, and last year’s spring sports stories while they were happening.)
• Localize national news. Find out how state and national news affects your campus.

Lela Coker

How to get an internship...eerrr yearbook stuff

The first session I wanted to check out this morning was postponed unfortunately. We were told, however, that it will take place tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I was already up and didn't want that to be wasted, so I jumped in another room that had an interesting-sounding description. The session "Covering your Campus Effectively" turned out to be dedicated to yearbook staffs, something I am largely unfamiliar with despite my last-minute contribution to the work recently submitted for the Potpourri.

I was, however, impressed with the speaker, Sally Turner -- a professor at Eastern Illinois University -- and how organized she was. She pointed out some good things to keep in mind and gave some pointers on establishing good contacts to people on campus, i.e. people who will undoubtedly be chronicled in the yearbook. Apropos chronicle, that's what she called the yearbook as a whole. She also emphasized the need to capture lifestyles of the era so when people pick up the yearbook in 20 years, they will have a clear perception as to what was going on now. She also suggested doing feature stories on people she said who made up the "underbelly" of the university, such as cafeteria workers who have been here for decades.

Jim Mustian

Niche Marketing

This session was informative but didn't exactly apply to our situation with the yearbook. The session focused on marketing your yearbook and boosting your sales. At NSU, yearbook fees are included in student fees so we don't have a problem selling the books but we do have a problem with distribution. The session was basically a brainstorming/sharing of ideas session.

I left the session with some ideas to improve our distribution. It was suggested that we use the resources that are available to us. We need to utilize NSU22, The Current Sauce, and KNWD to help inform students about distribution dates. We could also use an event to increase distribution. We should have a yearbook signing party, for example, or set up a tent in front of Keyser with drinks and a light snack to attract students to pick up their yearbook.

An interesting thought: yearbook was the first Facebook.

Brittany Byrd

Feature Does Not Mean Fluff

The name of this session was misleading, and it was not what I expected at all. Originally I thought that this session was about feature writing, but it was actually about design. I was disappointed because I am really interested in feature writing and not really in design.

The session provided examples from The Washington Post, showing how important the layout and design of a page is to a story. I hope to attend a feature writing session later today or tomorrow.

Brittany Byrd