The 3rd Annual Excellence in New Communications Awards :: The Society for New Communication Research

Please allow me to do my due diligence. These awards are truly significant. Your participation will, with the receipt of an award, add luster and - even better - share your work with a large interested audience. I hope you will both consider submitting your work for an award and consider joining the Society for New Communication Research. Details of this year’s awards program follow.

The final submission deadline for the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Awards. is coming up soon! Submit your entries now - the final deadline is Monday, September 8th.

Each year the Society for New Communications Research presents the prestigious SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards. These awards honor corporations, governmental and nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, media outlets, and individuals who are innovating the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities and virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of business, media, and professional communications, including advertising, marketing, public relations and corporate communications, as well as entertainment, education, politics, and social initiatives.

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY TODAY! Read more

Neville Hobson, For Immediate Release :: Video Interview from Edelman/PRWeek Academic Summit

Neville Hobson has been following our class digital/social media activities since, well - really the beginning. It was nice to see him again at the Edelman / PRWeek New Media Academic Summit in Chicago.

Neville recently wrote about his Summit experiences in What academics think about social media. Read more

Alexandra Wheeler, Starbucks :: Video Interview from Edelman/PRWeek Academic Summit

Alexandra Wheeler, Director of Digital at Starbucks, kindly agreed to an interview at the Edelman/PRWeek New Media Academic Summit in Chicago, a few weeks back.

Starbucks recently launched (March ‘08?) their site - my Starbucks Idea. This BusinessWeek article explains more.  Read more

Views from Five Faculty Members on the Edelman PRWeek Academic Summit ‘08

Five of the faculty members attending the Edelman / PRWeek New Media Academic Summit kindly agreed to interviews recently in Chicago. My apologies for not getting more, but this is a fairly representative sample.

The five faculty members come from diverse universities, both large and medium sized. Sorry, I didn’t get any from small schools. My bad.

Enrollments range from 11,000+ (Howard & SDSU) to 22,000+ at Northeastern, while the enrollment is 31,000+ at UNT and 32,000+ at UGA. Two are private (Howard & Northeastern). Three are public (UNT, SDSU & UGA). Read more

Rick Murray :: President, Edelman Digital at the New Media Academic Summit ‘08

Rick Murray kindly agreed to an interview at the recent New Media Academic Summit in Chicago.

Rick Murray shares why Edelman Public Relations has taken a leadership role in helping academia better prepare students for the future of public relations.

This conference is an excellent model for others to follow. We need all the help we can get, folks. I appreciate Edelman’s leadership in this area. The Summit, along with their Bootcamps, shows that Edelman is clearly in the lead. I wish more of these types of opportunities were taking place now. We don’t want to have to catch up, do we?

Video from the Edelman/PRWeek New Media Academic Summit held on June 26-27, 2008.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Keith O’Brien :: Editor-In-Chief, PRWeek Magazine at the New Media Academic Summit ‘08

At the Edelman/PRWeek New Media Academic Summit, I had the pleasure of interviewing Keith O’Brien, Editor-In-Chief of PRWeek.

Keith shares, what I believe to be, a great overview of why PR agencies should seek to work with academia and why experimenting with emerging digital media is so important for both students and educators.

This video is from June 26-27, 2008, in Chicago.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Lindsey Loughman :: UGA / Edelman Digital Bootcamp

It is UGA Week at infOpinions. Our recent interview with Ashley Beebe led to a pitch from Lindsey Loughman to do a podcast about the upcoming Edelman Digital Bootcamp. I will be attending, along with some Auburn students, and very happy to oblige Lindsey’s request.

After all, students out there pitching and working on a campaign … hey, ya’ gotta pitch in and support them.

The Edelman Digital Bootcamp is taking place at UGA on Saturday, March 1, 2008. Details are available here, at their Web page. Lindsey shared that, as of this recording, several non-UGA student slots are still available. Also, several more faculty slots are open. The registration fee is very reasonable and the benefits are, in my opinion, quite worth the trip.

Our own alum, Erin Caldwell, is the lead for this conference - a joint effort between Edelman and UGA’s Grady College. Erin is a Senior Account Executive in the Edelman Washington, D. C. office. We’re quite proud of her.

To get you up to date on the event, here are a couple of good links for you:

• Edelman Digital Bootcamp (EDB) — Agenda & Other Resources
• Blog for the Edelman Digital Bootcamp
• Kaye Sweetser, UGA - so this is mass communication?
• Karen Russell, UGA - Teaching PR
• Twitter / EDB_erin
• Flickr: Photos from edelmandigitalbootcamp

Lindsey was a joy to interview. She’s active in many blogs, just check out her Blogger profile to see them all.

Photo: From a previous project (not the EDB project), Lindsey is pictured above, second from the right. That undergraduate research team included (l-r) Kristen Smith, Amy Chandler, Laura Jakstadt, Rachel Turner, Lindsey Loughman and Heather Wrye. (Source: Grady News)

The interview is below. It is 18.9 mb and runs 19:45.   We’ve upgraded to the latest Podpress software, so … click the Play button below (and a player will appear) or Play in Popup, or download it. Whatever makes ya’ happy.

Blog Orlando Kicks Off Today :: Congrats to Josh Hallett

Blog Orlando is an un-conference created by Josh Hallett and friends in Orlando, Florida. Their efforts have proven fruitful as about 88 people are making the trip to Rollins College for a weekend of learning and sharing.

For some background on the event, check out Josh’s post - Yep It’s Free - There’s No Catch - about how it all came about.

Also visit the conference main site - BlogOrlando.com - and their blog at BlogOrlando : September 22-24, 2006 : Orlando, Florida.

Congratulations and best wishes to Josh and all of the attendees. Wish I could be there.

BarCampBirmingham Announced

BarCampBirmingham has been announced for August 25-26.

Many thanks to Dimitri Glazkov for letting me know about it. Dimitri participated in the recent HigherEdBlogCon conference. Thanks, Dimitri. Looking forward to meeting you there.

Dates: August 25-26, 2006 (coincides with BarCampEarth)
Locations and times: Friday night party / dinner / drinks mixer, August 25th, 8 to 11 PM - Jim ‘N Nick’s Barbecue, 1908 11th Ave S, Birmingham, AL

According to the event’s wiki, here are some ideas about how you can get involved:

…BarCamp offers people the chance to get together and learn and share ideas…

• Join the BarCampBirmingham Google Group
• Participate in BarCampBirminghamPlanning
• Blog about BarCampBirmingham
• Join the BarCampBirmingham Flickr Group
• Tell your friends
• Propose sessions

Looking forward to this. I’d like to meet and chat with some folks from Alabama about all that we’re doing and - most importantly - learn from them. Wish I could take my two classes to this one.