Educators representing various universities discussed the methods they use to educate students on blogging. It was a controversial subject because each educator had his or her own opinion about how to go about getting students to blog. Mihaela Vorvoreanu from Clemson University shared her method of teaching blogging. Some educators believe that they should make their students blog and other educators believe that it should be optional. They also shared that it is sometimes difficult to get students interested in blogging.

I think that a lot of students don’t “get into” blogging and social media because they don’t understand the point or relevance of it. We often ask “Are people really reading this?” and “Why would people care about what I blog about?”Educational programs such as the Edelman Social Bootcamp are important because they allow students to understand how and why social media is important and how it can applied.

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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Ok, you’ve done your research and brainstorming. Now you have 100 tactics and, as Monte asks, “How do you whittle it down?”

That is the art of PR and one of the key questions of this conference. Sitting in this small group setting, listening to students discuss strategies and goals, I find they are having to expand their decision making skills and decide which 10 tactics will work best for their client’s objectives and overall goals.

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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.

Where all this started: Phil began with a brief history of PR in the blogosphere. As tech costs have gone down, there’s been an explosion of creativity, self-expression, and access in organizations.

Phil’s magnetic poetry: the usual suspects can’t handle a failure to communicate (in reference to PR people). He shows a clip from “Crazy People” in which Dudley Moore is an ad exec who tells the truth about products (”Buy Volvos. They’re Boxy but They’re Good.”) Makes the point that this is how people want to be dealt with online.

How do I get started? “Information wants to be free” — and a user-writeable Web is inherently profound. The ah-ha moment occurs when you click “submit” and realize you can publish anything to the Web.

Tendency to think of PR in silos — the media relations part, the digital part, etc. You can tell when the digital is part of the overall program or when it’s just bolted on. Digital smarts can’t be siloed anymore. In addition, digital media is no longer a “tech” thing. Now, you can set up a blog, syndicate it, and measure it to an incredible degree … for free.

Phil then discussed what Edelman’s doing to educate its staff, including a week-long immersion (graded) program and on-demand distance learning.

He also contrasted the assistant account exec job description for PR 1.0 (such as administration, coverage tracking, list-building, activity reporting, AP style) and PR 2.0 (administration, conversation tracking, community and member-list generation; team knowledge management, Web style).

“No plan leaves the company without a digital component.” Woe to he who attempts to do so!

Phil also discussed searching URLs in addition to names. For example, if someone says “This guy is a jerk,” with the link on “this guy” heading to Phil’s blog, it won’t show up in a name search, but it is part of the conversation that other people are reading.

What I look for in people who graduate from undergrad programs: Phil shows an “Ask a Ninja” video, then lists intellectual curiosity, up-managing skills, an examined, omnivorous media-consumption life, basic understanding of social media concepts and technology.

Phil’s dream courses include History of Online Communities, Writing 2.0, Online Law and Public Policy, Comminications Technology and Society, Critical Consumption, and Corporate Online Engagement.

Perceived challenges include: struggle to teach technology at the same time serving as an academic institution rather than a trade school; curricula is difficult to change; finding room.

Advice for someone getting into this: “Do things for the first time, all the time” - Don Nielson, Stanford Research Institute

Welcome to Edelman Digital Bootcamp!

After a lot of planning and hard work, we have finally come together to share knowledge, information and Ah Ha moments to create a foundation for educators and students in the social media realm. With attendees from Auburn, Texas, Kennesaw State, University of West Florida, this is a great opportunity to garner lesson plans and professional insight into the 2.0 world which can be used much like traditional media in crisis management situations, public affairs, and public relations.

After a brief introduction from Edelman’s Erin Caldwell, a social media guru and graduate of Clemson Auburn University, as well as the other presenters - Monte, Phil, Erin, Chris, Steve, Jenna, and Stephanie, we had the privilege to talk to some of the top social media educators attending today’s conference.

Check out Robert French’s podcast and Dr. V’s video interviews.

Breaking out into small group sessions, topics include audits and monitoring, client relationships, and research.

Students are asked to consider clients and what’s being said about them, as well as who is saying it. Is there negative or positive information floating around? Browsing blog search engines, including ask.com, Ice Rocket, Google Blog search and Technorati are wonderful way to conduct the research to find answers to these questions in order to create a justified recommendation for the client.

Don’t forget to watch updated pictorials of the conference at Edelman’s Flickr site.

A team of UGA students assisted Edelman in the research and logistics for EDB. Below is a list of their names and assignments during the campaign. You can also check out more information about them on their LinkedIn profile.
Karen Baxter is a senior majoring in public relations at the University of Georgia. Baxter is a member of the publicity committee for the Edelman Digital Bootcamp. Baxter has written social media releases, press releases and other articles for media coverage of the event.

Haley Binowski graduated magna cum laude from Clemson University in May 2007. Currently, Binowski is a graduate student at the UGA studying mass communication and public relations. Binowski is a member of the research team and also in charge of the campaign book for EDB.

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Today the Athenians are breaking out the toboggans and mittens, but this weekend’s weather looks fair:

Friday- High 63/Low 46 Partly Cloudy

Saturday- High 68/Low 37 Sunny

Sunday- High 68/Low 43 Sunny

Great weather for a great weekend!  Can’t wait to see everyone!

At the University of Georgia getting in the Grady College is a big deal, particularly in public relations. It could be that PR is what all the cool kids want to do, but more likely is that the Grady College is known for its quality educational program. In fact the Grady College is ranked fourth among the 16 ‘Premier Programs’ for graduate studies in public relations by Marquette University (Milwaukee), which ranks the nation’s leading schools offering advanced degrees in public relations. (more…)

Here are your questions, here are our answers. Feel free to add more!

Q: How long will Saturday’s conference last?

A: Check-in begins at 8 a.m. and the conference should be over by 5:30 p.m. The reception at East West Bistro will begin at 7 p.m. and end at about 10 p.m.

Q: What do I need to bring with me?

A: Business casual clothes, laptop, a notepad and a willingness to get your mind blown away by social media. Okay, just teasing a bit, but definitely count on the first few items if you can. For those of you looking for post-graduation opportunities don’t forget your resumes and/or business cards.

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