Academic Impressions – Page 5

The Academic Impressions conference on tech-savvy communications wrapped up this afternoon. As higher ed conferences go, this was a small and intensive meeting in which we tried to compress a lot of information about the social web into a short amount of time and also give participants a practical plan to take away from the event. I think we met our objectives.

The two-day program was actually an “institute,” and more interactive than many larger conferences I’ve attended. And even though the group was small, it was also one of the most diverse I’ve seen in terms of the types of institutions the people represented. There was a head of school from a private high school and his assistant, a couple of folks from the IT department of a public research university, marketing and PR folks from community colleges, public and private schools, and a pre-college school district in Canada. We even had someone who works in the real estate development business in attendance. This made for a broad array of perspectives on how best to incorporate online methods into various institutions’ overall communications strategies. Some left the conference with plans to better monitor their online reputation. Others plan to incorporate RSS, podcasting, online video and blogging. A few participants plan examine whether a social networking site might help them reach younger alumni or prospective students. I’m pretty sure all of them will start surfing Technorati regularly to see who’s saying what about their organizations.

All in all, I believe each of us (including me) left the meeting with ideas that will help us become more tech savvy in how we use social networking/web 2.0 tools. That’s what we hoped to accomplish, so good for us.

But can you believe I forgot to share these book recommendations? D’oh! But that’s OK. Now I have an excuse to follow up with participants. I’ll send them a link to that post.

Thanks again to all who responded to my call for books that might benefit PR folks interested in learning more about how public relations might function in the emerging social web. I’m going to share your recommendations with participants in Academic Impressions’ Advanced PR Institute, which begins tomorrow, in addition to the four books suggested by my co-presenters and me.

Here are your contributions to the list:

Kevin Guidry suggests we consider portions of Yochai Benkler‘s book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (wiki | PDF version of the book). “It’s a hefty tome,” Kevin writes, “but it’s a tour de force of the impact of the Internet on…everything.” Kevin also mentions James Suriowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds as a possibility.

Colin Fast offers two recommendations:

1. The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott. “Picked it up recently based on positive reviews from many of the 2.0 folks I follow. Still reading, but I’ve already picked up a few useful bits of advice. It’s very tactical, which might provide some balance to the more theoretical books on the list.”

2. Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message, by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (better known, perhaps, for their Church of the Customer blog). “This is a great introduction to the world of social media. Would probably be better as part of a remedial reading list for those who haven’t already been playing in this space.”

Judy Gombita seconds our recommendation of Wikinomics, mentions Chris Anderson‘s The Long Tail and We Are Smarter Than Me, another book on crowdsourcing/peering.

Boyd Neil suggests a couple of older books: Connected Intelligence, by Derrick De Kerckhove, and Steven Johnson’s Interface Culture. He also recommends any of Lawrence Lessig‘s books, and I would have to agree.

Heather Yaxley suggests that, rather than talk about books, we “have a ‘speed-dating’ style list of blog posts to visit and ideally, engage with.” Interesting.

Lois Kelly also endorses the David Meerman Scott book as “especially pragmatic” and suggests Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers.

Karen Miller Russell, who teaches PR at the University of Georgia, notes that she’s using The Long Tail and The New Rules of Marketing and PR in her class next semester. But I’m also including a couple of chapters from Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur, to provoke some discussion.

Gary Schlee adds his support for The New Rules…

Abigail Hunter gets the last word: “But does anyone think it strange that in this day of incredible technology, we are still reading BOOKS written on PAPER? Are we not ignoring the technology we are trying to exploit? The greatest info I have received, BY FAR, on promoting my online ventures has come to me online. It’s the most up-to-date, and the ability to contact the author (and get a reply!) is far greater. I came across James Brausch (www.jamesbrausch.com) which gave me more info than any of the above books – simply because it’s always up-to-the-minute and focused on what I’m trying to do.”

* * *

OK. I’m off to Austin for the conference. I’ll blog or tweet from Austin when I can. Until then, be safe.

—————-
Now playing: Various Artists – Shoulda Oughta – Tim Barry
via FoxyTunes