Now that the dust has settled from the whirlwind that was Edelman Digital Bootcamp, I’m finally getting a chance to pause and write up my own thoughts from the event.

First of all, I’m blown away by the work done by the UGA campaigns class that headed up the planning of this event! Lead by UGA grad student, Connie Braesch, this team of 13 students put in many long hours over the course of 46 days to plan and execute an event that typically would have taken months to pull together. But who needs months when you’ve got Kaye Sweetser leading the charge?? Not us! So thanks to the students for doing a phenomenal job with the event (learn more about them and what roles they play here), and thanks to Kaye for making the arrangements to have this event be the “client” for her campaigns class for the semester. Would this have all come together otherwise? Nope. (more…)

Coupons on your cell phone, paying for products with your cell phone, you can even take a picture of food with your phone and get an approximate calorie count.

Yes, this is really happening. The U.S.  is slower in the mobile race than Asia, but we’re trying to catch up.

Swift Mob: This is a free service that can take your company or personal Web site and make it available for mobile phones. It is free because they put a small ad on your site. The ability for people to reach your content on the go can be a powerful tool. There are also pay services in this department.

Dr. Sweetser discusses how the idea of the Edelman Digital Bootcamp originated.

Kaye Sweetser, Karen Russell, Mihaela Vorvoreanu and Robert French offer class assignments for PR educators to consider:

Class blogs

• Using Blogger or WordPress, add each student as an author.
• Russell instructed students to make a post or comment at least five times during the semester. In the beginning, Russell frequently posted helpful links and class-related examples. As the semester progressed, students felt more comfortable posting.
• Sweetser encouraged students to use the blog as a way to react to relevant issues. It’s a nice way for students to build their online portfolios.
• French commented that blogging should be part of every class, as PR students can never have too much practice writing. He asks students to comment on PR practitioners blogs.
• Vorvoreanu looks at a class blog as a body of knowledge. A group of people can learn more together than one person can alone. At the end of the semester, she burned each student a disk with this “body of knowledge.” She asked each student to read a book and post a “thought paper” on the blog.

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At the Edelman Digital Bootcamp, students are currently hard at work. With the help of the Edelman pro’s, students attending the bootcamp begin to realize that word of mouth marketing is no longer limited to friends talking to friends over a latte at the local coffee shop.

WOM marketing now involves blogging, tweeting, flickring and engaging audiences in a personal way, even if you are not engaged in face-to-face communication. How can you reach your audience in an increasingly technological world? Students at the bootcamp are working on just that question.

Students started their brainstorming conversations talking about press conferences, speaking to company manufacturers, holding community events and engaging different audiences. One particular group has audiences ranging from professional baseball players to tree huggers. How is it possible to reach all of those people?

The key is “micro-targeting,” and the easiest way to do that is by using social media. Students are beginning to understand the importance of taking issues that had traditionally been handled off-line and bringing them to an online audience.

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Students at Edelman Digital Bootcamp got a unique and valuable opportunity this morning to have a Q & A session with Edelman’s Steve Field, Erin Caldwell and Chris Broomall among others. The students took advantage of this opportunity and picked the brains of the accomplished Edelman representatives on various aspects of new media in PR.

After the Q & A session, students returned to their small groups.  Check out this podcast for a listen into the session.

It’s official.  EDB is full.  If you did not get signed up, you can follow us here for live-blogging from the conference tomorrow.

 There are still a few spots for educators, but not much time left.  Register now!

We wanted to update everyone on a new tool!  It is called twemes.  If you are going to follow us on twitter, you can go to www.twemes.com/edb and any tweet that has EDB in it will appear!  It is an easy way to follow all conversations about edb without being “friends” with all the twitters.

If you are tweeting about the conference you must use #EDB (insert the pound sign) for it to appear in the search.  Let me know if you have any questions about it!

The educators that attend EDB will have a different agenda from the students.

There will be a small, interactive panel that will cover how to use specific tools and  make lesson plan/assignment recommendations for social media in your existing classes. Phil Gomes will spend the day with you giving out his wisdom and knowledge of social media. You will also get the chance to observe student groups brainstorming campaign ideas.

You’re registered and psyched to come to EDB, but you pull out your
bag and stop…
What should you bring?

Here are the EDB teams suggestions…

laptop
resume/ business cards
business casual clothes
a great attitude ready to learn about social media