How I spent my summer vacation: A letter from Kent State’s ‘Camp Tweety’

Yeah. I’m still alive, filling my vacation time with crazy projects and unreasonable deadlines. I never learn. I just never learn. Here’s how I started the summer…

Dear Mom and Dad,

I spent the first week of my summer vacation at Camp Tweety. (I think they named it for that goofy bird in the cartoon.) I learned a lot about digital storytelling at Camp Tweety, but nearly killed 4 of the camp counselors. They pushed the campers so far out of our comfort zones that I almost hurled — twice. And imagine this: The counselors were my colleagues at Kent State — digital dogs, all of them.

I think, therefore I stink — at persuasive writing

No one cares what you think.

I tell my students this all the time. If you want your bosses and clients to take you seriously, make your case logically and make it with conviction. Don’t start off with: “In my humble opinion…”  People don’t follow your counsel because you “think” you’re right. They follow you because you’ve made a persuasive case based on solid evidence.

A persuasive communicator isn’t tentative. I learned this 35 years ago in a college course called “Argumentation and Debate.” I also learned the value of research — hours and hours of research — from which my team assembled the facts and stories to support our position.

PR Hillbilly Salutes the Good Ole Boys

What the hell. It’s Friday!

What makes you smile? I mean, aside from good red wine and a foot massage? For me, it’s hillbilly singers and the stories they tell. I love those good ole boys, and I live vicariously through them.

I hide my hillbilly roots well. I gave up chewing tobacco long ago. Ditto for squirrel huntin’ and cow tippin’. But somewhere under this PR veneer lies an Appalachian soul that’s part coal miner, part deer hunter, part whiskey sipper.

I know you don’t care about any of this, but it’s Friday. So lighten up. Have a drink. There’ll be time to get serious next week.

Should PR students be forced to blog? We think so

With apologies to National Lampoon!

No, we’ve never threatened to shoot anyone’s dog. But if you want to study PR at Kent State, you can’t pass “PR Online Tactics” without writing a blog and putting it up for the world to see. If that bothers you, you’ll want to find another major.

As PR professionals, we know that blogs are part of the communication landscape. Not all organizations participate, but all are part of the social-media game — even if they don’t play. So a new PR grad must understand blogging — and what better way than learning by doing?

Some disagree with our blog-or-else policy. In her excellent article in JMC Educator, Shearlean Duke reports on a Delphi study involving top-level PR professionals. The Delphi panel lists blogging as one of the key new-media skills PR students should develop. But the panel also insists PR educators SHOULD NOT REQUIRE students to blog, as “forced content skews the transparency of the blogosphere.” Student blogging, they say, should be voluntary.