Here they are. All good people. Hire them!

This is the first time I’ve required the students do a mobile version. Only a few chose to go the full route. Everyone had to at least use the simple Google tool to create a version. Some have chosen (or will chose) to take down that Google version, as it is a wee bit quirky. I have chosen to list those that I found that will (I pray) display properly on a mobile device. The WordPress versions are fine. It is the Google versions that seem to go a bit goofy at times.

Most should have some version located at the “m.<domain-name>.com” URL for their site. We got stuck for time at the conclusion of the semester, so I did not hold their feet to the fire on this part of the project. I will do that next semester. ;o) Still some quirks to work out, but I’m happy with what we did this semester.

I’ve offered to continue to help those that want to do the entire mobile thang over the coming weeks. We’ll see how many buy in. To me, this is important for students to have. How many PR pros will receive an email and perhaps click on a link to your resume? Wouldn’t it be cool if they had a mobile version to view?

Mobile is the 900 lb. gorilla, people. Let’s show potential employers that you are thinking about mobile. This is certainly one way to accomplish that objective.

Note: The students are listed in the order they shared their URLs with me on a Google form I use at the end of the semester. So, they really are not in any particular order, except for those at the top with their mobile sites. I pulled them out and moved them to the top.

• Chelsea Quinlan | Mobile (WordPress)
• Courtney Terry | Mobile (WordPress)
• Laura Hancock | Mobile (WordPress)
• Courtney Terry | Mobile (WordPress)
• Caitlyn Shatlock | Mobile (WordPress, in progress)
• Maegan Mogul | Mobile (Google)
• Cari Ellison | Mobile (Google)
• Meg Beasley | Mobile (Google)
• Mary Krueger | Mobile (Google)
• Hallie Van Dyke | Mobile (Google)
• Nicole LaMantagne | Mobile (Google)
• Caitlin DeForest | Mobile (Google)
• Grace Halbert | Mobile (Google)
• Johnny Dougherty | Mobile (Google)
• Stephen Kelly | Mobile (Google)
• Amanda Pinto
• Caroline Powell
• Shannon Donelson
• Lacey Beno
• Danielle Sherman
• Erin Edwards
• Rebecca Ritenour
• Samantha Mays
• Kelly Young
• Megen Heslip
• Ashley Jennings
• Lindsey Holland
• Melissa Hand
• Nelly Gonzalez
• Shaye Smith
• Jason Hermansdorfer
• Brooke Glassford
• Lauren Mullican
• Sarah Giffard
• Whitney Adams
• Alyssa Ramos-Herrera

Jack O'Dwyer

Meet the Don Quixote of PR.  Jack O’Dwyer.

O’Dwyer has been tilting at the PRSA windmill since 1994.  He mounts Rozinate for regular jousts with the PR association.

Recently, Jack O’Dwyer was visited by what O’Dwyer might call demons. He’s called them a lot of other things.

Gary McCormick & Bill Murray

His visitors were from the PRSA.  Meet “chair Gary McCormick and president Bill Murray.”

They went round and round, as usual, and likely all fell down.  Does it bring to mind images of the Black Death?

Well, the visit actually seemed to bring great joy to Jack, as he was able to embark upon another joust to Close the PRSA Kangaroo Court!

OK, I’ll cut to the chase and bottle the egg. (Had to work those in, ya’ know.)

Perhaps it is time for Jack O’Dwyer to let this quest go.   His quest for Dulcinea’s embrace and defending the best practices of PR, in this instance an apology and reparation from PRSA, was once a truly noble quest.  Today, if it hasn’t turned into a foolish and ignoble one … it is most surely a fantasy.   It may well be akin to the madness of Don Quixote’s quests.  Jack, come on.  It ain’t gonna happen!

We are all (eh, maybe just most of us) Sancho Panza in this version of the story.  Yes, I’ve surely been inclined to watch and cheer for Jack.   At times, I may have even wandered into his world of PR transparency (fantasy) when it comes to the whole ordeal he’s faced.

Perhaps it is time we called upon the Knight of the White Moon to help Jack out.   Who would that be?  Is there a White Knight in PR that can step forward and help a friend?

The knight stepped in to aide his friend step away from his futile journey and return to the settled life he once enjoyed.

“My name is Samson Carrasco,” said the knight, “and I am a friend and near neighbor of Don Quixote. All that I wished in this combat was not to harm my friend, but to make him promise to return home. I think that if he can be induced to rest there quietly for a year, this madness about knight-errantry will be cured.” (Source)

To be true, it may not be madness, lest we forget that…

…Don Quixote suddenly declares himself sane at the end of the novel, we wonder at his ability to shake off his madness so quickly and ask whether he has at least partly feigned this madness. On the other hand, we can read Don Quixote’s character as a warning that even the most intelligent and otherwise practically minded person can fall victim to his own foolishness. Furthermore, we may see Don Quixote’s adventures as a warning that chivalry—or any other outmoded set of values—can both produce positive and negative outcomes. (Source)

Please, someone step forward and blow the clarion horn to bring the White Knight to the rescue.  I just can’t bear to watch this anymore.  So,  who are we going to call?

OK, go ahead … beat me up for using cliff notes.  Hey, it made it easy to share the context. ;o)

By the way, check out the Don Quixote Virtual Museum for more fun.

Taylor Swift Challenges Two Auburn Students
Taylor Swift Tells Auburn Students :: Good Deeds Are Rewarded with Hugs

In a continuing story, Taylor Swift finds the site AHugfromTaylorSwift.com launched by two Auburn students. She challenges the students for a chance at that hug they so deeply desire. Click image for video.

This is turning into a pretty funny story. Nicole LaMontagne first wrote about it in A Hug from Taylor Swift. “Two 22-year-old college students, Michael Wekall and Ryan Leander, are campaigning on Auburn’s campus and making a documentary in hopes to receive a hug from country pop star idol Taylor Swift.”

Help an Auburn Student Win $50K
Student Entrepreneurs Get Paid for Their Passions
IAFE Video Competition

Help an Auburn student win $50,000. Most views wins. Carrie Williams’ “story has been selected to move forward in the final round to win $50,000, however, in order to win” Carrie needs you to click this link and watch her video. Read more…

“Carrie Williams reports on Auburn’s future up-and-coming entrepreneurs. With unemployment rates at 10.2 percent, these student business owners have ditched the suit and tie, nine-to-five, everyday corporate life-style and are creating their own employment euphoria. From owning a skate and surf company to creating unique jewelry pieces, all it takes is a little bit of determination and passion to prosper.” Visit the Free Enterprise YouTube Channel.

Over at PROpenMic we’ve been continuing our growth. I like the way we’ve been reaching more and more students from around the world. Today, PROpenMic has students from about 70 countries and over 400 colleges and universities.

Auburn Family is another project. It recently brought the students a silver medal from SIAA. Auburn University also rewarded the students with a front page (top right hand corner) link to their project. That’s pretty cool recognition of a project well done. I’m proud of the students.

We still post at The Loveliest Village and our joint project with The Corner News has seen about 300 features and videos posted on those sites.

Last summer, I helped Auburn Works (ATAC), the Auburn Technical Assistance Center, launch their own social network. Building the Auburn Works Network is proving to help them better present just what it is that ATAC does. They teach Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and other other management programs.

I haven’t done a complete tally of The Corner News posts & videos, but here is the total from Auburn Family, ATAC and The Loveliest Village: 1,847 Videos & 1,592 features in only 3 years! With the number from The Corner News, I believe we’re actually up to over 2,000 videos and about 1,900 feature stories. I’d call that experiential education … wouldn’t you?  Students post 10 stories and videos a semester, at minimum.

I have other news I’ll be sharing in the days to come. Among that news, you’ll see how we discovered the reach our my students and their social network connections.

But now, on to the video … with a reminder to check out PROpenMic. From the front page of PROpenMic, here’s the video and more.

I like this video.  It’s from the “Indiana University Master’s in Public Relations (program) in Indianapolis.  Professors Bob Dittmer and Julie Vincent, both APRs, address the definition of PR, the types of jobs PR professionals can do, stereotypes of PR, and other PR-related subjects.”

If You’re Spinning, You’re Lying
Bob Dittmer and Julie Vincent, Indiana University’s Master’s in PR Program

Latest News

NEW! Read PR Faculty Magazine. It is a mashup from the RSS feeds of 20+ PR educators around the world. If you have a suggested blog you’d like to see added, please write to me at PROpenMic. Happy to add new blogs.

Fred Allison at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University).

Who was Fred Allison? A man way ahead of his time and peers.

“Dr. Fred C. Allison (1882-1974) was a pioneering physicist whose controversial methods of scientific observation identified two chemicals of the periodic table: alabamine (now astatine) and virginium (now francium). Allison founded the physics department at what is now Auburn University where he taught and conducted research for 30 years.” Auburn Physics Department

So, what’s his story?

Dr. Allison developed a new way to discover elements in the periodic table. Yep, this was back when we didn’t know what they all were.

Time magazine has the story … well, they actually covered this way back in 1930 and 1932.

Time Magazine, 1930

Science: Alabamium

Of the 92 elements which the late great Russian Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendelèeff (1834-1907) predicates with his Periodic Law, 16 have been discovered since 1894.* Two remain to be isolated—eka-iodine and eka-cesium.† Last week Dr. Fred Allison and Edgar Jackson Murphy of Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn, Ala., reported that they had “evidence of considerable weight for the presence” of eka-cesium in certain salts they had reduced from lepidolite, a form of mica, and pollucite, a mineral consisting chiefly of cesium, aluminum and silicon. When they break down their salts they will get a soft silvery-white metal which will look and react much as do the alkali metals lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and cesium. When eka-cesium is isolated, then Messrs. Allison & Murphy will have the pleasant problem of naming it. The recent tendency for such names has been after places—hafnium (1922) for Hafnia (Copenhagen), masurium (1924) for the Masurian Lakes, rhenium (1924) for the Rhine, illinium (1926) for Illinois. Hence, for eka-cesium, alabamium is appropriate for the state in which the discoverers work.

Read more…

Initially, Allison wanted to name the element Alabamium. He later changed that to Alabamine.

What of the other element?

Time Magazine, 1932

Education: Alabamine & Virginium

With an air of “There, that will convince them,” Professor Fred Allison of Alabama Polytechnic Institute last week slapped on his desk a fresh copy of the American Chemical Society’s Journal. “Them,” referred to everyone who doubted that Professor Allison had discovered Element No. 87, or eka-cesium (now known as Francium). in 1930 and Element No. 85 (now known as Astatine), or eka-iodine last April (1932) by means of his new magneto-optical machine.

“Them” referred particularly to Professor Jacob Papish of Cornell, who last autumn recognized eka-cesium with the x-ray spectrograph. With an x-ray spectrograph Professor B. Smith Hopkins of the University of Illinois discovered the third last unknown element, No. 61, of the Periodic Table, which he named illinium (TIME, March 22, 1926).

Professor Allison, 50, asked scientists to call the element virginium. after the State of his birth. He asked them to call Element No. 85 —a halogen with fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine—alabamine, after the State whose Polytechnic Institute at Auburn (physics department) he has headed for ten years.

Read more…

Alas, Allison was denied the reward of having his work cited as the discovery of these two elements. Eventually his worked gained respect, but the recognition had already been passed to another scientist. Allison was just way ahead of his peers. They chose to go with what was then the accepted method of discovery.

Allison easily fits the mold of this video. Don’t be afraid to try. Allison did and he actually didn’t fail. Those around him  failed to see what was obvious to Allison.  Do you have a vision?  Live it.

According to the Auburn University Athletics website, Toomer’s Corner was first known to be rolled with toilet paper around 1962 or 1963. This was told to us by a gentleman named Mac Lipscomb, who was the pharmacist in charge of the drug store back then. Over the course of many years, Toomer’s Corner would only be rolled when there were away-game victories. However, that changed in the early 1990’s, as many home victories called for such a celebration. Source)

“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” We like this slogan from the City News Bureau of Chicago. It illustrates strong commitment to the traditional tenets of journalistic excellence. Great journalism begins with a tireless search for the truth.

While our program holds fast to the most enduring principles of journalism, we remain on the cutting edge of technology and maintain state- of- the- art labs for writing, editing, design, photography, and online research. Our skills- based approach has the explicit mission of producing the state’s most talented and well- rounded journalists. (Source)

Public relations is a unique major in that it encompasses many important aspects of the business world. Public relations practitioners are instrumental in counseling all types of organizations on how to make strategic decisions, communicate with their many publics, and build strategic relationships. Whether it be an organization providing employees, consumers, investors, and/or the media with crucial information, or a company facing immediate crisis, public relations serves as an active part of organizations’ strategic management. Students majoring in pubic relations at Auburn University enter the career field proficient in the skills necessary to be successful in the profession because of the breadth of their studies and the many opportunities for hands-on experience. (Source)

Isaac Taylor Tichenor (1825-1902) :: From chaplain in the Confederate Army to pastor of the First Baptist Church of Memphis to the presidency of Auburn, Isaac Taylor Tichenor guided the institution from a denominational, liberal arts school to a state-supported, land-grant college.

Tichenor, a Kentucky native, was Auburn’s third president, 1872-82.

Catching the vision of the new education, he sought to establish curricula which would influence the development of agriculture and teach students how to construct and control machinery toward harnessing and utilizing Alabama’s immense resources and improving the condition of her people. (Source)

Auburn University was established in 1856 as the East Alabama Male College, 20 years after the city of Auburn’s founding. In 1872, under the Morrill Act, the school became the first land-grant college in the South and was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. In 1899 the name again was changed, to the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Finally, in 1960 the name of the school was changed to Auburn University, a title more in keeping with its location, and expressing the varied academic programs and larger curriculum of a major university. (Source)