MyEugene Community Celebration

Keri S.

June 6, 2010 - 11:00 PM

This term, I have been working with MyEugene.org, a community driven local news site, to do a marketing and event planning internship. Today was the big event, where we officially launched the website and had a ton of great events! There was a communications panel, magician, two bands, arts and crafts with MECA, and free ice cream samples from Luna and Larry's, and a photo contest. It was an event that required about 6 weeks of preparation and a day full of work, but it was definitely worth it.

During the duration of the event, we had a total of over 230 people come through the doors. Everyone had a great time, and it was great to meet and interact with so many of the close followers of the website. The event was held at Cozmic Pizza, and during the bulk of the event it was hard to find an empty table. It was great to be able to work to put on an event that united the community and the close followers of MyEugene. All of the hard work was worth it, and I think we all agree the event was a success.

My job the day-of the event was to monitor the photo contest and to answer any questions as people voted for the winner on-site. We decided to integrate a new technology into the voting process and used a website that allowed users to vote via text message or via Twitter. As people came to vote, it was great to listen to some of the photographers talk about their photo and explain the story behind it. There were so many great photos (35 to be exact), and they all told an amazing story! Congrats to everyone who entered!

This has been such a great experience learning about marketing and data research. I have also learned a lot about what it takes to plan and promote a large event and how to overcome problems and obstacles that may come along with that. My boss, Jaculynn, has been absolutely amazing in helping us to learn the business and give us hands on experience in the field. She is the one-woman show behind MyEugene and put on an amazing event. When people would arrive and introduce themselves, she knew most of them through interaction either through Facebook or Twitter. She acts as much more as the director of MyEugene, and forms relationships with a majority of the followers and contributors to the site. She balances her time and energy so well to provide the city of Eugene with an excellent website about community news and happenings, and I know that the success of MyEugene will continue to grow. This term alone, we have almost doubled our average daily web traffic. Thank you to Jaculynn for giving me this great opportunity to learn about the public relations and event planning behind MyEugene. And thanks to the other PR interns, Joani and Hana, who worked super hard to help promote the website and the event. I will really miss working with this team.