Month: April 2012

What is the future of #PR?

I_Love_PRThis Thursday, April 19, I’ll be joining Seth Odell on Higher Ed Live for a discussion about public relations in higher education. I hope you’ll join us.

The future of PR is a topic that’s been on my mind for the past six or seven years. It’s been a time of tumultuous change as the digital revolution has altered communications, marketing, journalism and so many other fields. The way we build connections with our audiences has changed dramatically during that time.

I’ve talked about this subject more than a few times on this blog (some examples below). And it’s a topic I and some other fine thinkers in the higher ed PR realm (Joe Bonner, Tracy Mueller and Lori Packer) discussed last October by way of Meet Content. Judging from the comments we received from the Q&A, this subject is of interest to many of you, and you have a lot to say about it.

So, as I prep for Thursday’s show, I’d love to hear what other PR practitioners in higher ed think about this subject. Or even non-practitioners — as it seems PR is morphing into something different. “PR” is now woven into the fabric of web organizations, marketing, branding, student affairs, alumni relations, development, corporate relations, community relations, the HR functions and many other disciplines. Where do you see PR heading? What is the future of this field?

To help frame the discussion, here are a few past posts on this broad topic for your consideration:

Photo: “I Love PR,” by Lisah & Jerry Silfwer, via Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/doktorspinn/2307921375)

Friday Five: To-do list edition

If there’s ever a day of the week where I can eke out a little bit of time to catch up on all those important-but-not-urgent, quadrant 2 activities, it is usually Friday. Alas, not this week. Too many meetings and deadlines.

But just in case you’ve got free time on your hands and are looking for some things to do, here are five:

1. Complete Karine Joly’s social media and web analytics survey. If you complete the survey, you’ll receive an executive summary. But do it now. The survey closes on April 18.

2. Learn about Facebook Groups for Schools. It’s the latest curveball Facebook has thrown at us. And just when we were finally figuring out the timeline. Mashable provides a little more context. Meanwhile, I’m waiting for one of our highered social media ninjas to give us the lowdown on how this will all work. Any takers? Update: Georgy Cohen shares in the comments below that Ma’ayan Plaut of Oberlin wrote about her web team’s experience as beta testers for the groups. So, we have our higher ed ninja after all — and a beta-testing ninja at that.

3. Prep for your next face-to-face meeting with this nifty body language decoder infographic from Lifehacker. Thanks to Debra Sanborn for the tip.

4. Check out the top 100 branding experts to follow on Twitter, according to Evan Carmichael.

5. Get creative this weekend with one of these nine easy ways to generate creative ideas.

Enjoy your weekend.