It’s that time again…

I’ll unplug the MacBook tomorrow at about 3 p.m. and won’t be active online until August 17th. Call it a cyber-vacation.

I may check email from time to time, and I’ll respond to student “emergencies.” But no tweets, no blogging, and no Facebook. And I won’t be reading any academic or business books — just this Andy Jackson biography and a trash novel or two.

Fall semester brings challenges as the PR faculty at Kent State continue to reshape the curriculum to reflect a changing communication landscape. I’ll talk about those changes in a future post. But for the next few weeks, I don’t plan to think about any of it.

Social Media “101″ video available at KSU-Tube

If you teach an introductory course in mass or social media, or if you’re trying educate laggard clients, this video may help. You can watch the video on the Kent State server, or download your own copy here at the Kent State video server. Run time is about 24 minutes.

What you’ll see

Regular readers here know that the Sledzik-Curran Social Media project included video interviews with some leaders in PR/Marketing social media space. Those segments ran on this site between January and March of 2009. The most popular clips featured social media critic and Strumpette creator Brian Connolly. (He’s in this one, too.)

My partner on this project, Andy Curran, has packaged a number of the clips and added slides, B-roll and narration. The video is a quick lesson on the impact of social media on business and education, and one we think some educators will find it a useful classroom supplement. If you’re immersed in SM, you might find the content a tad elementary. But it’s a teaching tool designed to frame discussion at the “101″ level.

Featured in “Comm-You-nication 101,” are:

• Kevin Dugan, of Strategic Public Relations and co-author of The Bad Pitch Blog
• Jason Falls, of Social Media Explorer
• Phil Gomes, of Phil’s Blogservations and PR’s first blogger
• Brian Connolly, co-creator of the controversial Strumpette blog and one of the “handlers” for @AmandaChapel.
• Matt Shiv, music director of  WOXY.com
• Chris Collins, information technology analyst, University of Cincinnati
• Steven Jacobs, associate professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

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Is public engagement ever a bad idea?

If you hang out in the social-media space for more than 10 minutes, you’ll heard evangelists preaching the importance of public engagement — over, and over, and over.

First you listen to the online conversation, then you analyze, then you participate. In theory, your truly passionate consumers will also participate, resulting in goodwill and understanding — providing you’re not a complete a#@hole — and providing you have passionate customers. Not everyone does.

Is it ever appropriate to hang back? Is it ever OK to reject the idea of public engagement in social media?

Is PRSA building walls?

Jack O’Dwyer has few bones to pick with PRSA this week — as he always does. But because Jack is so at odds with the Society, his ideas seldom get serious consideration. Maybe I can help.

Bone No. 1: It started last year with a simple request from the editor O’Dwyers Public Relations News. Jack wants PRSA to provide a PDF version of the society’s membership directory so members (and journalists) can share the resource.