Ready to earn your stripes?
Sign up for the inaugural Edelman Digital Bootcamp!
Where: University of Georgia
When: Saturday, March 1
Why: To gain practical, hands-on experience with researching, planning and executing a social media communications campaign.
The cost is minimal ($25 for students, $40 for educators) and that goes to cover the costs of materials and food — both of which will be provided at the event. Attendance is limited, so I encourage you to register online today! (Ahem, I don’t see any Auburn students signed up yet. I’m just sayin’.)
Okay, now that all those essentials are out of the way, I can talk about what this event means to me and why I’m so excited to be a part of it …
Right at the end of 2007, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Kaye Sweetser of UGA. We had a great conversation — chatting about social media best practices, the challenges of practicing and teaching online tactics, and some interesting case studies. We also talked about how GREAT it would be to do some sort of “social media bootcamp” to expose students and educators to social media and teach them the basics. Well …
A few short months later … here we are!
I think it’s clear that it’s a passion of mine to further the adoption of new media in the public relations curriculum. That’s why I started Forward. And even though I’ve been too busy to contribute as I should (sigh), I still think the great work that Paull and Luke do with the podcast contributes to the site’s mission. The PR blogosphere as a whole does an excellent job of evangelizing social media best practices. There are numerous events every year that serve to educate communicators on this new and growing medium. I hope that the Edelman Digital Bootcamp serves to advance this larger movement, as well.
I encourage you to visit the event’s site to learn the whole story about the event, grab a badge or widget to show your support, read the blog (written by students - so drop in and say hello!), and see who’s going to be there — both as leaders and participants. Oh, and don’t forget to join the Facebook group.
But I’d like to close this post giving kudos to the top-notch group of students working on this event. Dr. Sweetser set me up as a “client” for her campaigns class, so we’ve had a group of students working to plan and execute the logistics, publicity, Web strategy — everything! They’ve done press releases (both traditional and social), a media plan, communication strategy, arranged for lodging, the venue for event and reception, created the Facebook group, set up Flickr and Twitter, drafted Web copy and blog posts … you name it … they did it or are doing it!
So kudos all around. Just a few more days till the big event. If you know any students or educators who might be interested, pass it along.
Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, pr students, edelman digital bootcamp, uga, edb, ugaedb08
I’m so glad to be a part of this event … the biggest shout out goes to Constantin Basturea, Josh Hallett & Paull Young who were in the room suggesting that all we really need is a quick hands-on weekend & not a whole class on social media! And look at us now!
Can’t wait for bootcamp!
Comment by kaye sweetser — February 25, 2008 @ 12:06 am
Sounds like this will be great - though the UGA crowd certainly set an extremely high bar with the UGA Connect conference.
One thought though - surely Edelman could pony up the minimal costs for this exclusive get-together?
Hope all y’all down there have a hell of a time, I’ll keep an eye on the blog and tweets.
Comment by Paull Young — February 25, 2008 @ 1:09 am
Oh, thanks for pointing that out, Kaye! I didn’t realize that the idea traces all the way back to those guys! Even more kudos go to Constantin, too, who has been helping to test out the event site. He’s been sending me heads-up re: broken links, ect., which is a huge help!
Well, Paull, we all know that there are more costs to an event beyond printing materials and food. (Venue for event and reception, travel and accomodation for speakers, etc.) We decided to keep this event very targeted — both with attendees and leaders — because we’re testing the waters a bit. AND because this event was pulled together in a littler over a month to fit in UGA’s academic schedule. (Corralling a large group of people spread all over the country would have been a huge challenge for this first event!)
Comment by Erin Caldwell — February 25, 2008 @ 7:40 am