Cotton just got higher in the Marcom Blog

A few months ago, I noted I was standing in tall cotton just to be invited to contribute to the Marcom Blog, where older communicators go to trade notes with the new communicators issuing from Auburn University.

Now three other contributors have joined the ranks, making the cotton a hell of a lot taller:

Susan Getgood, of Marketing Roadmaps.
Andrea Weckerle, of New Millenium PR.
Kami Huyse (APR), of Communication Overtones.

Welcome to the fray, Susan, Andrea and Kami!

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:31am in Communication Skills, Education, MarComBlog | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4)

Social media & PR education

I've signed on again to be a contributor to the Marcom blog, the blog of Robert French, his PR students at Auburn University and a handful of lucky contributors. It's a terrific initiative that must be getting Robert some serious credit at the Bank of Karma.

Earlier this week, Robert threw out a few questions to the contributor team, asking us to consider them. Like many pretty good questions, they are simple to ask, harder to answer. Like trying to hold down a drop of mercury.

Here's my take. I hope readers -- professional communicators or no -- will comment with their angle.

(a) Do you believe college PR students reading and blogging about PR practices is a viable and valuable endeavor?

Two parts to this question: 1) reading about PR practices and 2) blogging about them.

On the first part: I'd call it required. Not only for students, but for every communicator. And not only blogs -- podcasts, books, seminars, conferences. Can anyone ever know enough about his or her profession or craft?

Blogs are a valuable new source of new thinking. I used to have to go to conferences, at great expense, to hear what my international colleagues were thinking. Now, many of them blog. My advice to every communicator: take advantage of that.

The second part of the question: do students need to blog about PR practices? It's not essential, but how can it hurt?

New PR practitioners need to master, and I mean master, many skills to succeed. Skillful writing. Succinct, moving storytelling. Intelligent pitching.  Having a "nose for news".

Those skills are not widely doled out,  I am sorry to say, judging from the pitches I get. Running a blog demands them all.  Running a blog can only make you better.

(b) What are the key concepts/lessons that should be included in such an exercise?

By following the leading PR/communication blogs, all communicators are exposed to fairly interesting debate about the future of the communication profession or, more correctly, how technology, media consumption habits, politics, shop-floor attitudes, and street attitudes will affect the future of our profession.

Now, some of the ideas flying around -- "the press release is dead" -- seem silly to me. But it's an idea floated by some serious people, and blogs are where it's being discussed.

And, best practices in corporate blogging are, surprise, talked about most on blogs.

(c) How might a future employer react to a student's PR blogging efforts?

In 2006? Positively for the lucky few. Indifferently for the rest. In 2008?  "You don't have a blog? You got nothing to say, or what? We'll get back to you, don't call us."

(d) What tactics by the students will best exhibit PR knowledge through their blogging efforts?

It loops back to (a).  No one will fault students for not yet being masters of PR. But now's a good time to demonstrate mastery of the underlying skills. Tell me a good story, a relevant story. And tell it well.

That's the take from Copenhagen.

Technorati Tags: PRedu, Auburn University, marcomblog, marcom blog

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:46am in Blogging, Business, Career management, Communication, Communication Skills, MarComBlog | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

Sanctimony, not Kate Moss, Source of Fashion PR Headaches

For my first post on the MarComBlog (which I talked about yesterday), I've chosen to look at why any PR damage suffered by fashion houses in the Kate Moss affair is largely self-inflicted. Here's an excerpt. The headline takes you to the full post at the MarComBlog.

Sanctimony, not Kate Moss, the Source of Fashion PR Headaches

September 23rd, 2005 by Allan Jenkins

Kate Moss, supermodel, mom, poster-child for the waif look is presumably giving PR folks across the fashion industry sleepless nights.

If you're following the story, Moss was recently photographed dividing lines of cocaine in a dressing room, then enjoying a few of them herself. I don't know for whose coin she was working, or even if she was on the job, but her clients — department store chain Hennes & Mauritz, and fashion houses Burberry's, Chanel, Dior and Vanderbilt — have dropped her. She will no longer represent them, and that's a big chunk of Moss' £7 million salary gone. At 31, Moss is no "new face", as they say, and, anyway, the heroin chic look is out.

Friend and fellow MarComBlog Contributor Neville Hobson suggests on his Nevon blog that this presents a PR dilemma for high profile companies: what do you do when your A-list celebrity star self-destructs in public?

I agree: the Moss affair presents H&M, Vanderbilt et al. with a PR dilemma. But I'd go so far as to say it's largely, even mostly, one of their own making....

Excerpt crossposted from my full post  Sanctimony, Not Kate Moss, Source of Fashion PR Headaches  at MarComBlog.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 03:03pm in Advertising, Current Affairs, Management, MarComBlog, Marketing, People of Note, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)