Many of these students just graduated. As always, I’m sure they want me to share the mantra by which all of these sites were created … Hire Them!

Good students all, I heartily recommend them to you all.

Find more photos like this on The Loveliest Village

Examples? How about our interns at Camp ASCCA. Danika Kmetz, Kelli Hood and Zeb Ramey. These people are absolutely terrific and did such a wonderful job. Look at ASCCA Friends and the Camp ASCCA Journal to see all the great work they did this summer.

But, there is more. They did video, audio, photos, media pitching, releases, features, tours, marketing … the list goes on and on.

Here’s an example of a magazine article they had published about our annual Teen Week Prom. (See a larger version online.) Click on page 63 to see the article, by Kelli Hood.

This, by the way, has inspired me to have my classes this semester create their own magazine. Each will have responsibility for two pages. Look for that later. I hope to have it in three versions. PDF/Flash, HTML and video. But, we’ll see how that goes. Certainly we can do an example like the one above as it ties into another assignment they already do. We just have to set the focus a little tighter.

How about video? They created dozens and dozens of videos each this summer. Tal, a counselor that actually quit his job to come to camp, is a perfect example. These are the stories that parents, potential counselors for next year and everyone else need to see and hear. They add great value to ASCCA’s public relations activities.

Find more videos like this on ASCCA Friends

Photos? As the summer began, we had about 15,000 photos in our flickr account. Today? 21,649 items. Yep, they shot well over 5,000 photos this summer. Great photos, too. We had more comments from parents, campers and many others about the terrific quality. Tim, a professional photographer that has followed us from the very beginning, remarked about this potential magazine cover shot.

My Other Love?

Felicia Day. Yep. I’m a (cough)-year-old fanboy. I love what she has done online and in TV & film. Felicia is a very creative and talented lady. Again, respectful love. Her work just makes me smile and laugh.

The most recent examples are The Guild and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog. Oh, she’s done much more, to be sure.

I have this dream. No, not that kind of dream. This one is somewhat realistic and involves Felicia coming to Camp ASCCA and doing a web series about the campers and counselors. After all, Felicia’s from Alabama, ya’ know. Huntsville. Yep, wouldn’t make that up. Maybe she’s actually heard of Camp ASCCA. Who knows.

If I were a millionaire, I’d pay Felicia whatever it takes to do this. I can just see the attention it would draw to the camp; plus, the looks on the campers’ faces as they get to meet the star from The Guild, Dr. Horrible, Monk and Buffy … to name just a few of her accomplishments.

But, alas, I’m poor. So, I’ll keep that dream alive and continue to watch her many accomplishments from afar. Although, if I ever find a way to make contact with her, I’ll be asking at the very least for a live phone interview with my class(es) so they can learn about her online video exploits.

Here’s a recent interview with Felicia and Kim Evey, another really cool person, by the way. See her film, TV, theatre and improv/comedy. I’d love to chat with Kim, too, in our classes. Hey, a guy can dream.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning and Poynter have all gone throught redesigns of varying degrees.  Poynter’s will launch on August 23rd.  Bill Mitchell, Director of Poynter Online, sent an email to all members yesterday announcing the much anticipated new site.

Mitchell offered a mockup look at the new look. It promises to have enhanced social media aspects. The video below, from January 2008, highlights their desire to create a “journalism social networking experience.” The Alpha version of the site is visible here.

I must say, of all the sites I visit with any regularity, Poynter is easily one of the best Web sites anywhere. Nope, check that. Poynter is the best.

A previous Poynter redesign had its critics. Poynter.org redesign woes. The Online Journalism Review, did a story on that redesign effort. Overall I still liked the site. The new version makes me eager to see it in its full glory on August 23rd.

I’m curious to learn what, if any, impact the Poynter Eyetrack research had on their choices during the redesign process, too.

For budding PR practitioners, you have to understand journalism. You must understand journalists. There is no better place online to gain that knowledge than Poynter Online. Now, with the social networking aspects, it is even more of a must join, must read site for students. Oh, there are other things you can do, to be sure. For instance, you can join the HARO – Help A Reporter list from Peter Shankman. You don’t ever have to respond to anything on that list, if you don’t want to … just read and listen to what journalists look for and how they go about finding it.

The other redesigns have met with mixed reviews.

I like Facebook’s new look. It is cleaner and provides better navigation, as well as a less cluttered look. Downsides, along with the redesigned look, Facebook has changed some of the functionalities. They’ve not given users enough control over what appears in their news feed. Sure, you can get less of someone’s feed items, for example, but it is difficult to block their content totally. Finding pages is more difficult than before, too. Those are my experiences, so far.

LinkedIn has a rather mild redesign. It is cleaner, too. More white space, easier navigation and a bit of improvement in the admin areas highlight their changes. I like it. They’ve made the site better, in what I’ll call a slight, or minimal, redesign.

Ning’s redesign is really in the admin areas. They’ve made the “Manage” section look more like the backend of some open source CMS platforms or even an old version of Plesk, for instance. (That’s server admin software.)

I really love Ning. It is powering six of the sites we have running for class activities right now. In fact, one of the recent student campaigns was to design a site for the Dadeville/Lake Martin Chamber of Commerce. Their board recently voted unanimously to adopt the site and campaign the students designed. I want to work more Ning sites into class activities in the future.

If you’re interested in great resources regarding Web redesigns and the daunting process all of these organizations faced, look no further than Karine Joly’s CollegeWebEditor.com Web site redesign articles and her Web standards articles, too.

Don’t forget this other terrific site, too. eduStyle from Stewart Foss is a wonderful gallery of hundreds of college and other education Web sites. One cool aspect is this Social Sites Foxx describes as a “collection of sites that you may use outside of your official college pages to connect with your school’s prospects, students, alumni, friends, parents or community.”

OK, that’s my look at some recent changes in my favorite sites. Poynter’s launch on August 23rd is still much anticipated. What do you think of all these redesigns?

Luke Walker shared a video he created for submission to the Edelman Studios project.

Edelman Studios launched in April of 2008. It is an opportunity for students and others to create content for their portfolio. So, as you can imagine, it appeals to me as one more way to involve students in CGM – consumer generated media.

Their initial clients? “Burger King Corp., Butterball, Expedia®, and PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese (Kraft Foods) had signed on to participate in the search for fresh content through Edelman Studios.”

Now, how cool would it be for a student to wind up winning the attention of such a client through their project? Yeah, very cool. Still, the prize isn’t really the big opportunity here. For most students, this is one more chance to create content that may well grab the attention of a future internship provider or employer.

Check it out …

Edelman Studios

Edelman Studios connects you to clients and industry professionals in five easy steps:

1. Join the Studio

Join now and get access to creative projects from major brands. We’re looking to you for new ideas that will keep audiences engaged and entertained. Unregistered visitors cannot view available creative studio assignments, nor can they submit their ideas. So sign up and take full advantage of our connections. It could be just the opportunity you need to expand your creative horizons and advance your career.

2. Check out our open projects

Once you’re registered, hit the Studio Assignment Room and check out the open assignments from our clients for your inspiration. They’ll be updated regularly, so check back often. You can work on as many projects as you choose and submit as many ideas as you want. Just remember – your best may be the only one that will stand a chance.

3. Submit to the Studio

You’ve read the assignment, done your concepting and really massaged that big idea. Now it’s time to upload your concepts and submit your pitch to experienced Edelman Studios Executive Producers. At Edelman Studios the idea is everything, so make sure yours answers the unique challenges found in the assignment.

4. Check your progress

If your idea is selected as one of the top 3 on a particular assignment, you may get the opportunity to present it to the client in a face-to-face meeting. If your idea is chosen to move forward, you’ll receive a fee and be considered for inclusion on the production team as we bring your idea to life!

5. Keep it up!

If you have more ideas, submit again anytime! As our client roster continues to grow, so will your opportunities. Look to Edelman Studios as your chance to build your portfolio with innovative work that shows the full breadth and depth of your creative imagination.

Here’s Luke’s video. Read his associated post in PROpenMic.

The best part about the theme, to me, is the ability to highlight posts in a rather easy manner. But, it isn’t really the theme that sold me. It was the site. So, I’m sharing this as a great example for future portfolio and resume sites by my students.

As usual, I looked through many dozens of themes, narrowing the search down to Revolution and the Thesis Theme. I like both of them very much. The thing that sold me on Revolution wasn’t so much the theme itself, which truly is a step ahead of virtually all other WordPress themes, but it was the site promoting the theme.

The Revolution WordPress Theme site features a Resources page, Documentation, FAQs, video Tutorials and Support Forums.

Brian Gardner created a terrific site, using his theme, to highlight its features and explain the relative ease in setting the site up once you’ve uploaded Revolution.

Admittedly, there are lapses in the site, but I’m still a fan. Some of the videos use the older version to explain how to set up the site. One of the videos has a volume level that is so low as to be bothersome.

On the upside, I joined the support forums on a weekend, yet my membership was approved within less than an hour. That tells me Brian’s paying attention. Looking through the forums, Brian seems to be a regular presence, answering questions and guiding people to solutions for their theme problems. Overall, I feel relatively confident I’ll get the support I need from Brian and others.

I have the site basically set up now. One glitch, I can’t get the “Social Networks” link in the “tabber” section on the “home” page to work correctly, yet. I’ll work on that when I get some time. Customizing it will likely take awhile, so I’m going with essentially the out-of-the-box color scheme for now.

If there were one aspect I’d like to see added to the theme, it would be an automatic way to place the 600×200 tabber image on any featured post, rather than having to create a custom field. But, that’s a small task to perform for each post, in order to benefit from the Revolution theme’s layout.

The Revolution theme costs $79.95, versus the $87 charged for Thesis. Revolution comes in 9 styles (each purchased separately, or as a set for $399.95). Thesis essentially comes in one style, however it – like Revolution – is quite customizable. I haven’t joined the site’s affiliate group, so I won’t make a dime if you purchase the theme. These are simply my thoughts after a week long look for a new theme. I like it. In fact, as always, I went through the search so I could find a new theme for the Camp ASCCA Journal’s site. I’ll be getting one of the nine versions of Revolution for ASCCA next week.

Check out the new look and let me know what you think. Please comment with your thoughts and point out any glitches and errors you may find. That is always appreciated.

Danika Kmetz, a great PR intern from Illinois State University (and President of her PRSSA chapter), has created two very fun videos with the best kind of testimonials possible. The first is from Hope, a camper at ASCCA’s Teen Week taking place this week on Lake Martin. The second is a mashup of clips from last week’s Adult Mentally Disabled camp.

There are many ideas at work behind these sites. The most important is to provide a look inside camp that will reach out to our campers, their parents and anyone that has yet to consider a therapeutic recreation opportunity.

You might be surprised that engaging people in comments and conversations isn’t as important here. Our clientele isn’t as ‘into’ the social media scene as those that read my blog, for instance. But, with the launch of our social network, ASCCA Friends, we’ve begun to see interaction that never took place in our blogs. ASCCA Friends is built upon the Ning platform.

Now, we are seeing parents and campers engaging in conversations. Just today, for instance, this comment was left by the mother of a camper:

Even though I don’t get to stay at camp with you guys, it’s my favorite place to visit. The 3 and 1/2 hour drive is totally worth it just to be greeted by all of the smiling faces of the staff and campers. Camp ASCCA must be the happiest place on earth. – Denise Brock, Fort Payne, AL

And then there is this one from today, by parent Terri Shaw:

My child is attending Camp ASCCA for the first time this week , July 14th thru July 18th. I have encouraged the camp because he needs time away from parents to make new friendships and to see other children with disabilities.

Now, I ask you. Can you beat this for engaging with your stakeholders?

You may notice, we do not take the ‘poor pitiful crippled child’ approach that so many nonprofits choose to follow. We have fun. We try to show you the reality of working with these children and adults. Again, we have fun. This is real life, folks.

I dare to say, the overall presentation on the sites is something that has not been done before, regarding people with disabilities. If you can show me some site that has done it, please point me to it. The only other ‘real life’ approach I know of is the BBC’s Ouch! Podcast. And, we were online before them. Realistically, in our environment, we couldn’t get away with their ‘very real’ approach, either.

Hey, if these two videos don’t make you smile … I fear there’s no hope for ya’.

Hope is one excited camper

Find more videos like this on ASCCA Friends

Why We Love Camp ASCCA!

Find more videos like this on ASCCA Friends

I brought my laptop with webcam, as well as my Flip camera and cell phone for Utterz. I’m going to try and use the Summit main page for more information.

OK, I admit this attempt at using CoverItLive was sad. ( Sorry. I found out, upon arrival at the event, that the Northwestern University Law School folks were not giving us access to their wifi. So, bummer.

I do have videos galore and will begin posting them tonight (Sunday, June 28).

It was a great conference and I thank Edelman and PRWeek for putting it on. Hope this has a long running life. We need more of these for edcuators. Edelman & PRWeek are, truly, leading the way in outreach to higher education.

Sure, we’ve been creating our blogs and podcasts. We’ve been following each others writings and media. All fun. All good. But, there really hasn’t been one place for everyone to do a meet and greet … until now.

PROpenMic.org is the place.

PROpenMic? A metaphor. Step up and speak your mind. Our goal is to be the social network for PR students and faculty worldwide. We have common interests, goals and certainly can learn from one another.

The site is open to practitioners, too. So, if you’re interested, please come and join in the discussion.

We can share documents, audio, video … a music / podcast player, forums, blogs & photo albums for each member … RSS feeds, photo albums, and more. Already people are blogging and four forums have begun – PR Syllabi & Resources, PR / Marcom Pros, Faculty and Students. We can start more, too.

Connect & Collaborate

I love sharing and learning. No better way to do that than to interact with your peer groups, right? So, my hope is that we can all come together – from around the world – and connect in this community.

The site is built upon the Ning.com platform, so it has a sort of Facebook-like appeal. The difference? No ads. No apps sending you numerous emails. Just PR people. Hey, I like Facebook for connections, but to do what we wanted to do … a mashup of content in one place … we had to have our own platform, in my opinion.

Meetup, Mashup & Share

Already, in one day, we have people signing up. Blogs, forums & video sharing are already seeing a bit of activity. We want more, though. Interest has come in from Asia, Europe, North America & Australia. How about you? and your students?

I realize that starting this at the end of a semester isn’t the ideal time. But, I had an epiphany on Sunday night and just started building the site. By Monday morning it was essentially ready to go, so I shared PROpenMic.org in Twitter and through an email to about two dozen people.

Please Join

I’m seeking your support, please. Share PROpenMic.org with your students, fellow faculty, PR/Marcom colleagues and more. Sign up yourself and there is a very easy “invite” process for you to use. Thank you.

Note: PROpenMic.org will never sell or share your email address or personal information with anyone else. You choose what to share on the site. This is a nonprofit academic project, primarily for the benefit of our students. No cost. No ads.

And, just so you’ll know … This is for real, too. No April Fool’s silliness, here … unlike this one from Google. Hat tip to Brett Pohlman for that one.

Astroturfing refers to marketing / public relations campaigns which attempt to create the impression of being spontaneous and true, genuine (and representations of *real* people and their opinions) when, in fact, they are not. In all of the standards of practice listed below, this practice is considered to be unethical.

Astroturfing is an interesting topic. I see PR practitioners that defend it as a valuable tool. Others decry it as unethical and bad practice. I’ll place myself in the latter group.

FlackLife blogger, Bob LeDrew, has the story in two posts so far. They are “Now we flacks get students to astroturf for us” and an interview with Hunter College faculty member and “PR expert Stuart Ewen on (the) ‘Heidi Cee’” astroturf blogging, social networks and YouTube video fiasco.

This example from Hunter College and Coach goes beyond simple astroturfing, though. This involves the following (Sources: here and here):

• a university president involving herself in the setting of curriculum
• a department chair conceding to the wishes of the president and creating a course solely for the creation of the astroturf campaign
• an instructor arguing that the course was unethical, yet felt pressure due to lack of tenure and taught it anyway
• the instructor had no prior background in public relations or marketing
• a college forcing this deceptive practice (and involvement in it) upon students in a class
• a corporate donor to Hunter College (CUNY) asking for the course and the Hunter president forcing the course and astroturfing on the department
• “the Coach Corporation, manufacturer of shoes, handbags, and accessories, put up ten thousand dollars to fund the course“
• Update: RDWaters reminds me that “Ohio State University, Howard University, and University of Miami are among the schools that have hosted IACC campaigns similar to Hunter’s.” (Source: Ben Kessler blog and IACC College Outreach Program)
  • Campaign results reports for other schools:
  • City College Of New York Campaign Summary
  • Howard University Campaign Summary
  • Hunter College Campaign Summary
  • Ohio State University Campaign Summary
  • University of Miami Campaign Summary
• believe me, these are only the highlights lowlights … there is much, much more …

I simply cannot imagine a more definitive example of bad practice than this case. The interference by the president, the campaign tied to a donation to the college, the creation of a course solely to accomplish the deceit, the students (it seems) happily joining in, the faculty and department chair encouraging them along … it just boggles the mind. How stupid can these people be?

Read the links, watch the video. Fake vs. Fakes | Center for Media and Democracy. What do you think of all this? I’ve already seen two PR practitioners in a listserv group defend the practice. Oh, brother.

• FlackLife: UPDATED: Now we flacks get students to astroturf for us.
• Ben Kessler: Heidi Cee in Plain Sight at Graphic Design Forum Blogs
• IACC
• Fake vs. Fakes | Center for Media and Democracy
• Hunter_Report.pdf (application/pdf Object) – this is likely the most disturbing of all

Update: Ya’ gotta read this great post by Clemson’s Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu. In particular, see the class blog she came across for the course. Yikes!

If you are interested, here is what I wrote in reply to the listserv group where the practice of astroturfing was being defended by a few PR practitioners.

The space known as social media is not the same as advertising.

The space has been claimed, for lack of a better term, by those that inhabit the space. The audience sets the rules and associations representing practitioners have recognized that reality by creating standards of practice guidelines.

In the Coach example, their target audience is young people. This further illustrates the irony and foolishness of the Coach astroturfing campaign. Younger audiences have an increasing disdain for advertising. Advertising, to younger audiences, is increasingly being perceived as fake and insincere.

Forget, for a moment, the social media kookaid drinkers and their “people formerly known as the audience” mentality. At its very core, the Coach example is bad practice.

Practitioners have seen fit to create guidelines that recognize these perceived lines in the sand created by the audiences inhabiting the space of social media.

The standard of good practice within the social media space says that it is the responsibility of communicators to (a) understand the space they are communicating in and (b) to be as completely transparent as they can be. This is why associations representing practitioners have seen fit to create standards of practice that call for that transparency.

Examples of those standards:

http://www.cipr.co.uk/socialmedia/ – Chartered Institute of Public Relations
http://www.womma.org/ethics/ – Word of Mouth Marketing Association — WOMMA

PRSA, IABC and IOAC have also established standards of practice.

In each, transparency is the common theme. The rules for advertising do not apply to social media. They are not the same thing. I realize that this concept is novel to many, but it is the reality in the social media space.

There is certainly “a disconnect in using an elaborately created fake person(s) to say that fake stuff is bad.”

The occasion was Dimitri Glazkov and Jeff Keeton‘s session Post-Conference Workshop 2.0. Thanks for inviting me, guys. I joined, among others, “Web 2.0′s uncle Chris FactoryJoe Messina” for the approximately 20 minute Skype conference portion of their presentation.

During the questions, I was asked the always difficult question, “So, what’s next? What is the next thing on the horizon?” Well, if I knew (if any of us knew), we’d invest in it and reap the rewards. I did not have the answer, because I don’t know what is next. I’ll post some more thoughts on that, next.

The opportunity was fun. I’ve spoken to the Internet Professionals Society of Alabama (IPSA) in Birmingham for these guys. They are always very nice and really smart. So, I appreciate any opportunity to interact.

You may remember that I have written about their work before – My Opinion: UAB Is A Leader In Online Higher Ed Creative Marketing and PR. Their work is quite remarkable.

Now, I’m off to the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications Connect Public Relations & Social Media Conference in Athens, GA. This will be fun. Evyan Mischke, an Auburn alum, will attend along with Jackie, one of the students from my classes this semester. Also, Dr. Margaret Fitch-Hauser, the director of AU’s PR program, is also attending. They will beat me to the conference. I have a previous engagement Friday, so I’ll join the fun on Saturday morning.

Among the large list of presenters are some we have interacted with during our class blogging experiences. So, we will get to see Josh Hallett of Hyku and Voce along with Paull Young from Converseon. We’ve met both of these fine gentlemen before. But, this will be a first time face-to-face meeting for me with Constantin Basturea, Converseon; Kaye Sweetser, University of Georgia; and Walter Carl, Northeastern University (Walter’s blog). Katie Delahaye Paine, of KD Paine & Partners, I did meet – briefly – when I spoke at the PRSA Counselors Academy conference in Savannah. That meeting was so brief (at the very end of the conference), however, so I’m hoping this will be my first real chance to perhaps get to say hi and really meet KD Paine.

Congrats to Karen Russell for putting together this conference. They have already started their conference blog: UGA Connect. So, follow along as folks will be live-blogging the proceedings. Visit Karen’s blog at Teaching PR, too.