What VCU’s Mass Comm students taught me today…

Based on the number of college students we meet with for internships and jobs I have been concerned about the quality of education being offered by some college public relations programs.  Many times the folks we meet with just don’t seem to “get it.”  They don’t seem to have the public relations acumen and general go-getter attitude we need at THP and I assume others need as well.

One of my other criticisms is that they are often taught by folks who are not now, nor have they for a while, been active PR practitioners.  They seem to be walking out of many programs with an education that is out of date on day one.

This is very important as today those of us who hire are looking for these folks to teach us about how and from where they get their news.  They are important to those of us who are learning about social marketing because they have “lived” it for a lot longer than we have.  They knew Facebook before Facebook was “cool” to us in the over-40 set.

Today, my biz partner and I had the honor of presenting a campaign case study to Anna West’s @annawest) senior campaigns class at Virginia Commonwealth University’s school of mass communications.  I’m happy to report that they absolutely destroyed most of my preconceived notions. 

(Shout outs also to Anna’s colleague, Soo Yeon Hong and fellow serial Twitterer Adam Gainer ( @againer )

First of all, at VCU (Anna told us later), faculty is encouraged to freelance and consult thus making sure their own skills are up to date.  Most of the students in the program hold down jobs at the same time and therefore have respect for and knowledge of the working world, something that is critical since in many cases we are asked to solve business problems not just communications problems.

Second and more important, the class project they are working on is a REAL case study of a REAL business.  Not only that, they are partnering with their colleagues in a parallel advertising class to bring an additional level of real world experience to their project.  In many cases, PR firms collaborate with ad agencies to bring “integrated” solutions to the table for clients.  By teaming up, these students are learning both and good and bad things that can happen in this marriage.  For example, battling over messaging, planning, budgets, who will take the lead, the misunderstanding of what each specialty does well and doesn’t do so well, all of these things come to a head when these disciplines come together.

Having worked as a PR practitioner at one of Ad Age’s top ten ad agencies and working with a number of ad agency partners on a daily basis, I can tell you first hand that these challenges can be met but it does take experience, a willingness to listen, and the strength to stand up for the client and for your discipline.

On the social marketing side some interesting sidelights:

• When I asked how many of them were personally using “social marketing platforms, only a few raised their hand.  But when I asked how many were on Facebook all of them did.  A reminder to keep the formal vernacular out of the conversation and to keep it simple.

• Facebook beat MySpace and Twitter is on the come but not there yet in this class of 30 or so.

• When I proudly was about to launch into the “David Gregory ( @ davidgregory) responded to my Tweet last night” story, I asked first “how many of you know who David Gregory is.”  Not one person raised their hand.  Obviously, the new host of NBC’s Meet the Press needs to do more to court the 20-something demo.

• While we spent most of our time doing our favorite campaign presentation (our stellar long-time work for Snagajob.com, work mainly done by folks that we’ve hired to make us look good), we did do a little on social marketing.  My sense there is that while this group has been on SM platforms in the personal life, they are only now beginning to tap into how it can become a part of their burgeoning professional lives.

Is it in this area, that I challenge them and the PR educators to bring them up to speed and quickly.  We in the working world are not only looking to these folks to bring their ambition to the table so they can help us, we are also looking to learn FROM them as well.  The more they know about social marketing and how it reaches people like them and their age, the more value it can bring them (and us) as they enter a pretty tough job market in the days and months to come.