org adoption readings for 10/30

Thanks to Edelman, you already have the hardcopy version of the "Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in the Blogosphere" booklet they did with First&42nd. (Thanks Edelman).

Additionally, please read "Blog bias: Reports, inferences, and judgments of credentialed bloggers at the 2004 nominating conventions�," which is an academic journal article in press.

See you after fall break!

We Are Your Solution

Here we are class, we are the answer to the growing fear that the new breed of PR practitioners will not be ready for the constantly changing PR industry.

The PR Squared blog has placed our plight on its "Best of PR Squared" list. We, as PR undergraduates, are one of the most talked about concerns for the industry. In this post from the PR Squared blog in April of 2006 Todd Defren asks this question:

Wouldn't it be great if new PR graduates were on the cutting edge of technology innovations impacting the mediasphere?---Colleges are supposed to be the training ground for our future leaders in all fields; the place where the cutting-edge is honed... so why do most college comms programs focus on press releases (dying!?)and PR plans? When was the last time anyone asked a new college grad to draft a strategic PR plan, anyway? I'd rather that THEY are to equipped to teach ME about cool new ideas like, how Search Engine Optimization, wikis and RSS might impact the PR realm.

I think that this class in particular, Social Media: ADPR 5990, is the answer to this question. I have been in this class since August and I have learned more in the last three months than I have in the past couple years. Seriously, I never thought that I would be blogging, twittering and podcasting all at the same time. This is great!

There are many other great questions that Todd Defren asks on this post. He talks about how PR people interact with journalists and how undergraduate PR majors should be interacting with journalism majors. This rings a serious bell for me, since I am taking a News Writing and Reporting class with about 50 journalism majors. I can actually see how they work and what they look for!

So cheers to you class and cheers to the Grady College here at UGA for being ahead of the game in today's fast pace PR world.

PRofessional CONNECTION 2007: "Because the world is always ON"

Thank you, in advance, for covering the sessions. I'm so excited about this!

Just a warning that this is still a working schedule. Not everything has been finalized. We still need to come up with some creative session names!

Like Dr. Sweetser said, please sign-up for the sessions you plan to cover in the "comments."

Yea for PRofessional CONNECTION! :)

Sponsored by Porter Novelli and PRSSA
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007 – 1:30-6:00 p.m.
UGA Journalism Building

1:30 p.m.
Registration (Drewry Room)

2:00-2:45
Do's and Dont's of Dealing with the Media (room 403)
Faith Peppers

To Go or Not to Go: Is Grad School Right for You? (room 404)
Sarah McLean Cannon

Be an Entrepreneur (room 406)
Chuck Reece

Music PR (room 407)
Michelle Roche and Scott Siman

Meet and Greet the professionals & Resume and Portfolio Critiques (Drewry Room)
Kim Englehardt, Sherry Heyl, Nicole Hunnicutt, Jessica Laiti and Blair Logan

2:45-2:55
Break (During all breaks, refreshments will be provided in the Drewry Room.)

2:55-3:55
Professionalism 101 Round table (room 403)
Jessica Laiti, Blair Logan, Molly McFerran and Michelle Roche

Consequences of Technology on PR Round table (room 404)
Sherry Heyl, Kelly Hoag and Sarah McLean Cannon

Agency vs. Corporate vs. Nonprofit Round table (room 406)
Kim Englehardt, Nicole Hunnicutt, Chuck Reece and Scott Siman

Meet and Greet the professionals & Resume and Portfolio Critiques (Drewry Room)
Faith Peppers and Nikki Kay

3:55-4:05
Break

4:05-4:50
Bridging Media with New Media (room 403)
Sherry Heyl

Preparing for the Interview (room 404)
Blair Logan

Corporate Communications (room 406)
Alyce Sarno and Jill Krugman

True Life: Your First Six Months Out of College (room 407)
Kelly Hoag, Nikki Kay and Molly McFerran

Meet and Greet the professionals & Resume and Portfolio Critiques (Drewry Room)
Kim Englehardt, Nicole Hunnicutt, Jessica Laiti, Chuck Reece and Michelle Roche

4:50-5:00
Break

5:00-6:00
Hors d’ouevres Reception

Welcome
Dean Cully Clark

Greetings
Dr. Karen King, ADPR Head

Keynote
Porter Novelli

Special Presentation
Dr. Betty Jones, PRSSA faculty advisor

Closing
Kim Englehardt, PRSSA professional advisor

social media spotlite #2: Erin Caldwell

This week in class we are lucky enough to have Erin Caldwell in the spotlite. She's going to talk about her journey from social media student to online advocacy account exec with Edelman in D.C.

Erin Caldwell, the founder and managing editor of Forward, graduated Cum Laude from Auburn University in May 2006 with a degree in public relations and an emphasis in marketing.

While Erin was an undergrad at Auburn, she started the student-centered collaborative blog, Forward, which dishes out advice on internships, getting your first job & how lots of great podcasts.

Update 10/29: audio from skype call is now available.

The launch of MySpace's first 'original' series

Maybe MySpace is realizing it needs to being evolving with the times and add a little something extra. Forbes.com reported this morning that the social network site is creating a new show "Roomates." MySpace has hosted clips from television before, but this is the first time it has created original content and been the sole distributor.

According to Forbes, "A peek at 'Roommates' looks like a video version of much of what already goes on inside MySpace: Girls dance around in their bikinis, flash their lacey under things and shake their barely covered bums at the camera."

Because of the extremely high numbers of hits MySpace receives, advertising space is a hot item. If the series does as well as predicted, ads could generate a great deal more than television ads. Ford is taking advantage of this unique advertising opportunity and is a major sponsor; one of the characters will buy a new Ford car that boasts a great deal of new technological features.

While I question the uniqueness of this show and wonder if this content truly is "original," I do think it is great that all four of the women on the show will be social media savvy -- each woman will have a MySpace account as well as a personal blog. Interactivity with characters is encouraged, and viewers can influence the outcome of the show by commenting and voting.

So, are original Internet programs the next big thing? Maybe -- but I don't think the women of "Roommates" will be the next Meridith, Christina Izzy and Callie. To me there always will be something relaxing about sprawling in front of the T.V. to unwind, and sitting in my desk chair staring at my computer screen just is not the same.

Visit www.myspace.com/roomates to view the trailer.

Photos from myspace.com

10 Questions - a solution to the YouTube debate

While scanning through Wired Magazine today, I noticed a story titled "Web 2.0 Project Taps 'Wisdom of the Crowd' to Probe Presidential Contenders" and thought it may be of interest for our social media class.

Lately we've been talking about the use of social media tools such as Facebook, MySpace and personal blogs by presidential candidates. We also spent some time discussing the YouTube debate and how much of a failure this was because the candidates couldn't or rather wouldn't take the questions seriously.

This was not only a failure for the candidates but also for the American voters. The candidates blew an awesome opportunity to show that they really care about America's citizens and the voters still didn't get the questions they were really concerned about answered.

This is attempt number two. Since the first one was such a failure and there was so much controversy about how the videos were chosen, a new effort called 10 questions was launched Wednesday.

The way this works is very similar to the original YouTube debate. People can submit videos of themselves asking their questions but instead of someone going through the questions and choosing which ones would be best for the candidate to answer, people can go to the 10 Questions Website and vote to move the video up or down a list in a kind of Digg-like tool. The top ten videos will be presented to each candidate completely unedited. The Website also offers its feedback on whether the candidate actually answered the question asked.

Here is the top video as of Sunday evening:



If you were to submit a video what would you ask and how would you present yourself. A big problem with the first debate was that people's use of creativity, as we saw in class with the snowman question, seemed to turn the candidates off to actually answering the question. Do you think it's ok to be a little creative to get your question across or do you think a serious answer deserves a serious question?

social media 101

Sure - you're in a social media class so who needs a "social media 101"? Well, there are a lot of little things we are not experiencing in class -- so here's a little do-it-yourself learning thanks to Christie Goodman, APR.

On the PRSA conference blog, she dishes out short lessons in learning about social media tools one step at a time from your desk.