Monday, March 26, 2007

The Week's Best, 26 March 2007

Here are a few items of interest for PR students this week:

7 Ways to Improve a Blog's SEO, Stephen Davies
Subject to Change, Dan Santow
Pet Food Recall Issue Will Be Lack of Quality Control, B.L. Ochman
Search Through Lists with WhatALi.st, Kyle Pott (on Lifehack)
Less-Is-More Manifesto, Richard Bailey (on Forward blog)
Social Media Butterflies, Chris Thilk
Survey: PR Professionals Realise Importance of Blogs But Do Not Know How to Integrate Them In Their Planning, Philippe Borremans

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Business etiquette pointers for PR students

Today my students heard from a guest speaker, Shelby Wright, on professional etiquette. Shelby is a former student of mine who has worked mostly in the hospitality industry since graduation. She's told me some mighty interesting stories over the last 10 years about how unprofessional people can be, often without even realizing it.

Some key points from her discussion:

In general, she suggests observing the culture of the workplace and adapting to it--whether it’s choosing clothes, bringing food to meetings, or celebrating holidays.

Update: here's a student's take on it.

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Monday, March 19, 2007

The Week's Best for PR Students, 19 March 2007

Some great stuff out there this week-- it was hard to choose just a few. Enjoy!

101 Great Posting Ideas, Philip Liu
Arab Blogging, Kaye Sweetser
When Working, Don't Blog Unless Instructed to Do So!, J.L.C.
Is (Red) "Brand" Marketing Really Doing Any Good?, Heather Yaxley
What the PR Students are Saying about Crisis Communication, Eric Eggerston
4 Ways to Successfully Re-Post Others' Content, Mehdi Bagherian /Simin Babazadegan
"Soon Be 7" (Harry Potter), Peter Himler

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

I've been schooled

In response to comments to a recent post, I polled my Campaigns class students to find out exactly how prepared they are in terms of PR skills. My unspoken assumption was that our students are generally very well prepared with both in-class and out-of-class experience (meaning jobs, internships, campus organizations, etc.).

I was right--and wrong.

Before I share the numbers, let me point out that 6 of the 28 who responded are second semester graduate students, most of whom were not PR majors as undergrads and therefore are not as well prepared as the 22 undergrads who are graduating in May. But that doesn't explain everything that I found.

First, the good news.

The unexpectedly (to me) bad news:

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Monday, March 12, 2007

The Week's Best, 12 March 2007

My students are enjoying spring break, but for all those students still working hard this week, I present the Week's Best for PR students:

We are gaining market share, Richard Edelman
The future is video--now, Jeremy Pepper
Zany: PR portfolio, Lauren Vargas
"The Girl in the Shower," Slate
2007 PRWeek Awards highlights, Constantin Basturea
Social networking--PR style, come on in, Tom Murphy
Skeptics and cynics agree that the corporate social responsibility movement isn't, Steven Silvers

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Thursday, March 08, 2007

Men, sports and public relations

This semester my Campaigns class is chock-full of students interested in sports. Quite a few blog posts have talked about sports PR, publicity, or crises, and several of the students have worked or are working with sports team--good positions, too, with the Atlanta Falcons and the UGA Athletic Department, for example. I find this curious, because UGA does have a sports promotion program, yet the students chose to major in PR.

I’m not complaining, though. If I subtract from 30 students the five who are primarily interested in sports information, my class would consist of 25 students: 24 women... and one guy. And he, by the way, is going to law school next fall.

Think about that for a minute: none of the male students in my class are PR generalists.

A quick search of a Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2005) report showed there are over 190,000 PR specialists and over 43,000 PR managers. Secondary sources indicate that 65% of PR practitioners were female in 1997 and 67% in 2002, so by now we must be up around 70%.

Obviously I'm not the only blogger to have commented on this. Last year Marcel Goldstein speculated on some reasons men don't go into PR, and PR educator Bill Sledzik has gone so far as to advocate scholarships dedicated to men to encourage them to consider PR as a major. From what Bill says, my 1:5 male-to-female student ratio is actually not bad, compared to 1:9 at Kent and in the PRSSA.

But I haven't heard anyone else talking about male students being almost uniformly interested in sports. If my students are any indication, it won’t be long until the only men left in PR are in sports information.

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Monday, March 05, 2007

The inaugural Week's Best for PR students

For the past few weeks I've been sending a collection of links to my blogging students -- inspiration for their next posts. But I've also been encouraging them to come up with a creative post with original content to drive traffic to their blogs. One of my suggestions was a "top 10"-type list-- and it occurred to me that my links for students qualify.

So, in the spirit of never asking someone else to do something I wouldn't do myself, here's my inaugural "Week's Best" for PR students:

We're All Taught to Lie, Aren't We?, Leo Bottary
Personal Finance 101: Credit Scores, The Simple Dollar
It's All About Me, Young People Say, John Wagner
Case Study: Sea World Uses Video, Kami Huyse
Can Starbucks Tell One Story 13,000 Times?, Kevin Dugan
Blog Post Length Anomoly, Josh Hallett

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Thursday, March 01, 2007

PR student blog roll

Inspired by Derek Hodge of Stirling University, I've added a student section to my blog roll.

I couldn't help but notice how clever the names of some of them are. My personal favorite is "Not Another PR Blog...," but "My Own PR" and "Future PR Star" also caught my eye.

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"More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given" --Bertrand Russell

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