Photo courtesy of kreativnopero via Flickr
Today’s post was written by Kristen Hartmann, Manager, Global Product Development for Cision. She also coordinates Cision’s University Program.
Among the 2,900 participants enrolled is Anne Marie Mitchell, a professor at Columbia College. Anne Marie has a rich professional background that includes 20 years experience with Fortune 500 clients, non-profits, and consulting agencies as a media spokesperson, crisis communications manager, corporate communications executive, executive coach and strategic communications trainer. I reached out to Anne Marie to discuss her Strategic Media Relations class at Columbia, and to get her perspective on where PR students and the industry are headed.
Kristen: How has our University Program impacted your classroom and your students?
Anne Marie: They are connecting what’s happening in the classroom to the outside world. We brought in the Bacon’s Information books and explained the purpose only five years ago. Now they can see how much the industry has changed, so they can understand the need to get engaged. I want them to understand, this is recent, new, evolving. I want them to want to learn, participate in the webinars, listen in, and understand how and why these resources are available to them.
Kristen: How have you incorporated CisionPoint in your classroom?
Anne Marie: Our emphasis at Columbia is portfolio building, so that students leave with a portfolio of real work. In this class, the students have to develop media campaigns using CisionPoint. We mainly work with local non-profits. This semester, we’re focusing on a Chicago youth development project. We’ll be helping high schools develop projects for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, raising funds and awareness. We’ll be developing media pitching and outreach campaigns to promote what the schools are doing in Chicago.
Kristen: What advice do you have for students and recent grads who are trying to enter the PR industry?
Anne Marie: The advice I give over and over again is: network, network, network. When you’re building your network, with very encounter you have with a professional, you should ask good questions. Do your research, visit their website. It’s more than what you know; it’s what you are interested in learning. Carry that curiosity with you. Students think they need to know everything, but they just need to ask questions. That’s what PR people do, ask good questions, the questions people are afraid to ask, like “How are we measuring this?”, “Are we really having an impact?”, “What more could we be doing?”
Kristen: Recently, we’ve been focusing on predictions for 2011. Heidi Sullivan, our VP of Media Research, predicted digital education would move to the forefront, with more and more universities incorporating social media classes and programs in their curriculum. Have you taken the new media landscape into account in your classes?
Anne Marie: Within our college, we developed a class called PR Wired four years ago. Now it’s called Social Media and PR Strategies. In it, we develop campaigns for real world clients who want to use social media more effectively and identify their target audience. We also believe students need to create change. Our Social Change Communications course focuses on “How do you use all communication tools to create change?” This semester, the students will blog and create Facebook pages for their issues of choice. The goal is to create “groundswell action days” using tools, techniques and language in order to integrate social media with a social issue.
Kristen: What are your predictions for 2011? What do you see being a dominant focus in PR education, and what trends can you see emerging in the PR industry?
Anne Marie: I think video is such a powerful tool and I don’t think PR people have really scratched the surface. New communicators and students need to study video creation and figure out how to incorporate video in a campaign, because of the short attention span of consumers. With video, the question is how do we use it effectively? How do we create content? Where do we need to spend our dollars and time? Think of the impact it’s having, it is the bang for the buck.
