Introducing the New Faces of BOCA: Adeline Moran

After a successful BOCA recruiting mixer back in October we’re pleased to introduce one of our newest associate account executives, Adeline Moran. Adeline is from Newport Beach in southern California and went to the same high school as our founder, Kathleen Shanahan, before making her way to UC Santa Cruz to study business management and economics. She currently lives in Mountain View and has made the Bay Area her home.

1. How would your family and friends describe you?

People would say I’m always happy, positive, upbeat, and optimistic. I also really enjoy running and started back in middle school when I participated in a program called Students Run L.A. and ran in the LA Marathon.  I’ve done the Nike Women’s half marathon too, and I still enjoy participating in races whenever I can.

2. How did you hear about BOCA and what are your job duties?

I heard about BOCA from Ivy, whom I previously worked with at Nadel Phelan, Inc. As for my role, I make sure to keep up on the latest industry trends and find ways to insert our clients into the greater conversation. I also help manage reporting, as well as run our clients speaking and awards programs.

3. If you could be a fictional character for a day who would you be?

Olivia Pope from the TV show Scandal. She is an overall strong female lead character, poised, and has an amazing wardrobe, not to mention beauty and wit.

4. What’s a random skill you wish you could do or learn to do better?

I’d like to be less clumsy, but I guess that’s not really a skill. Being aesthetically more creative is something that appeals to me. I can think of great creative ideas, but putting them in practice is challenging. Graphic design or freestyle drawing would be a cool skill to have. Also, keeping plants alive. I can’t keep plants alive for the life of me.

5. Where would you like to travel and why?

New Zealand and Australia are at the top of my list. The beautiful scenery and nature is very appealing. Getting a chance to visit the Great Barrier Reef would be an incredible experience. I’d also love to spend more time in Thailand, visit Morocco and go to Ireland since I have a lot of family over there.

6. What famous person would you like to have a 30-minute conversation with?

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box. He is a young, sharp-minded, witty and successful. He is not afraid to make commentary on the latest news topics, voicing his true opinions (if you don’t follow him on Twitter, you should start). It would be interesting to learn how he got to where he is now, if this was always what he envisioned his life to be, and what he wants to do in the future.

Super Handy Websites for PR professionals

Our last few blog posts highlighted our favorite productivity and networking tips. Today, the BOCA team wanted to share some of the websites we find most helpful in our day-to-day activities. You can constantly refer to these free resources when you hit a workday slump. It was tough to narrow down a list, but here they are, grouped by category.

Useful web portals

PR Daily: Here you’ll find relevant PR content such as informative articles about what makes an effective PR campaign, how to pitch reporters, top trends, controversial news stories and more. PR Daily also features useful how-to articles that extend beyond PR to offer help with writing, social media tips and other advice.

Techmeme: Similar to other web portals, Techmeme curates a variety of tech-related content all in one handy location. The top stories and trending news are featured right on the front page, all from prominent news websites like the Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, and others. The site also features sponsored content from major tech companies, a leaderboard section, and a river tab, which conveniently lists new articles by date and time.

Lifehacker: This website/blog hybrid provides many helpful productivity and lifestyle tips that are not only great for improving your work performance, but also your mental health. You’ll discover articles about finding your best work hours, how to communicate complex tech terms to people, why being lazy can help you and more.

Automatic tools

Google Alerts: Speaking of being lazy, how would you like to become an expert on PR news and other tech topics in a matter of weeks? Sign up for Google Alerts and add relevant keywords that apply to your business, like SaaS, the cloud, or APIs, and get daily updates about them sent directly to your e-mail. With a fresh reading list every day, you'll be more knowledgeable in no time.

Newsle: This website shows all your LinkedIn and Facebook connections’ published articles, in addition to those from public figures and journalists. Newsle is a valuable resource for understanding reporters’ writing styles, what topics are important to them and other relevant media information.

Helpful search websites

Crunchbase: This a great resource that’s useful for analyzing data, looking at popular news figures’ profiles and for a more detailed description of tech companies in your network. Crunchbase also includes helpful graphs, investment funding numbers, tech event schedules and company performance comparison charts.

Lanyrd: Overwhelmed by the amount of tech conferences spread all over the world and unsure of which ones to attend? This website not only helps you find event details, but also tracks which ones your friends and networking professionals attend too.

Websites for brainstorming new topics

Stumbleupon: Looking for some inspiration for your next PR campaign or want to find relevant stories to pitch to a reporter? Try out Stumbleupon for trending ideas, links to websites, photos and other things you might never have discovered, generated based on your likes and dislikes.

Ubersuggest: If you have an idea for a client try this website to find things to enhance your understanding of it. Just type in a term like analytics and hundreds of keyword suggestions related to your search materialize alphabetically such as analytics e-commerce or analytics metrics.

Quora: Sometimes instead of searching for something on your own it’s better to ask some experts about a particular topic. Quora provides you with answers from many people so you'll always get multiple unique responses to your question.

Quick references to improve writing

TechTerms: Working in tech you’ll come across a lot of words that sound like rocket science if you're not a developer. Techterms is a great resource for understanding complex tech words and acronyms like DMZ, algorithm, or ZIF, and shows how to easily explain them to others too.

Grammar Girl: Even the best writers make mistakes, so getting some assistance with your grammar is nothing to be frowned upon. Grammar Girl not only helps check your writing for typos and punctuation errors, but also includes useful tips spread across different categories like tech and more.

Thesaurus: Use this website when you find yourself repeating the same words over and again. Just a few minutes of changing your vocabulary can liven up your writing and make it more interesting to readers.

We hope you found our guide to web resources for PR professionals useful. Add this page to your bookmarks to keep a handy list of resources at your fingertips.

Introducing the New Faces of BOCA: Tom Kosiec

It is our pleasure to introduce you to another BOCA newbie, Mr. Tom Kosiec, writing intern extraordinaire! Hailing from nearby Wisconsin Dells, the waterpark capital of Wisconsin, Tom found his way to San Francisco when he decided to follow his passion for video game journalism. Though he later changed career paths, as he realized he didn’t want to mix pleasure with work, Tom is still an avid gamer and occasionally writes about video games on his personal blog for fun.

When he’s not working at BOCA, Tom likes to spend his weekends traversing the great City by the Bay. Constantly on the lookout for the next street fair or event, you can always find Tom exploring something or somewhere new and adventurous.

1. How would your family and friends describe you?

I think my family and friends would start off by probably saying I’m quiet and keep to myself. Also, they’d say I’m humble and down to earth—I usually don’t go for fame and things like that.

2. How did you hear about BOCA and what are your job duties?

At the time, I had just finished working a sales job at Sony and was looking for my next venture when I saw an advertisement on Craigslist for BOCA. After reading the job description and visiting BOCA’s social media channels, I thought BOCA seemed pretty cool and decided to reach out. Now that I’m an intern, my job duties include managing the official BOCA blog, drafting tweets and Facebook posts for the social team, as well as assisting fellow writers with bylines and press releases.

3. If you could be a fictional character for a day who would you be?

I’ve thought about this before, and if I had to choose, I would be Hobbes from Bill Watterson’s classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It was my favorite comic growing up, and I think it would be fun to experience their little adventures together from the perspective of Hobbes.

If I were a fictional character from a video game, I would have to go with Link from the Legend of Zelda series. I think it would be exciting to explore the diverse landscape of Hyrule and play around with all the tools he finds in dungeons like the hookshot, invincibility cloak and hover boots.

4. What’s a random skill you wish you could do or learn to do better?

An easy one is writing. My handwriting is not where I’d like it to be, so I’d want to perfect the art and write cleaner copy. Besides writing, I would want to learn to be better at art. I think it would be interesting to have the ability to paint Impressionist art like Claude Monet or do hand drawn animation for Studio Ghibli films such as Howl’s Moving Castle.

5. Where would you like to travel and why?

One place I really want to see is Japan. It’s probably more towards my interests because I grew up gaming, and I always had an affinity for Japanese culture. I’d also like to go to France because I studied French in school, and I loved to visit all the exotic locations James Bond has been to, such as Crab Key, Shanghai, London, etc.

6. What famous person would you like to have a 30-minute conversation with?

Well, there are two people I would actually like to converse with: (1) Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of classic video game series like Mario, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and more; and (2) Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes. Both had a strong influence on my childhood, and it would be fascinating to have a conversation with them regarding how they came up with their ideas and a little more on who they are.