Journalism Interviews

On election day, I had the opportunity to give a guest lecture to Geoffrey Graybeal's (one of PhD colleagues) classes. I discussed online political campaign communication. Since the lecture, I've had a few students interview me for their election analysis stories. I thought they had some interesting questions that I thought I would post here to see what your answers would be.

Here are a few of them:

Do you think that young voters were actually influenced by the information available on new media, or did they just use it as a way to publicly support the candidate that they had already decided to vote for?

Did young voters use new media to try and influence their friends to vote for a particular candidate? How did they do it? Did it work?

Do you think the way Obama used new media in his campaign will forever change the way campaigns are run?

Useful and Interesting Links

Here are a few links to various Web sites and blogs that I think are useful and/or interesting (some are older than others).

Politics/Election
Secrets of Election 2008 - Newsweek
Obama's Newest Web Presence - Office of the President-Elect
Fireside Chats in the Digital Age - Personal Democracy Forum
Barack Obama, The Social Web, & The Future of User-Generated Governance - Brian Solis

PR
Tactical Transparency - Paull Young
Public Engagement - Richard Edelman
Understanding Social Media - PRSA
Survey about Online Newsrooms & Social Media - PRSA

Misc
Shuttle Launch by Hyku

A New Day, A New Beginning

Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama! It is truly a historic moment. We should embrace and celebrate, but not forget the work ahead to get this country back on its feet.

I think this song and video encompasses our time:

Two blogs

Greetings!

I know it's been awhile, but I'm here promoting two other blogs I've been working on.

Connect 2008 - PR & Social Media Conference I've had the pleasure to help organize. We'll be liveblogging and tweeting during the conference (Sept 19-20). Stay tuned!

PR Communications Class - My writing students are each writing their own blog post on a particular type of technology/social media. They are also commenting on each others' posts.

I'll be back soon with new updates.

Interesting Links

Barbara Nixon's YouTube Links - The first one about Power Point is great. I really wish I had it when I was teaching Public Speaking.

We don't have a job, but what about an internship?

Social Media Jobs

Quamut - "the go to how to"

It's about time.

PRSA, McClellan Book & Ethics

The Week in Technology

Here are some fun links from my RSS feeds as well as other items I've found over the past week or so that I thought were interesting.

Highlights from the SCNR:
Courtesy of Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu:
New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the PR Profession
SNCR Closing keynote: The transformational power of blogging

For Students:
Skills for Young PR Pros (From Voce Communications)

General:
Email - The New Interface
Twitter for Journalists

In Politics:
PoliticsOnline.com Covers the 2008 Election
Search Engine Use in the 08 Election
Web on Candidates

Interesting Blogs of the Week:
Philip Young - Mediations
Fun - Athens Door Guy

Just for Fun:
Student "Tweets" His Way Out of Prison

Upcoming Events: Wish I could participate in this

In other technology news, my laptop is very close to biting the dust and I've been on a search for one over the past few months. Here's my dilemma...I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 and it's served me very well and so has Dell. I have had a couple major service issues including a soda management problem and they've taken care of it through their 'Accidental Damage' coverage. Basically, I need a system that travels well, is affordable and if a PC, has XP (I don't want to deal with Vista).

Note: KS - Yes, I know...get a Mac.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming

I've been having a little bit of an identity crisis with this blog. I started it to talk about politics and technology. Unfortunately, I let it devolve into something a little too personal. So, in the future, I will attempt to resist the personal posts, except when I think it is important.

That said, I'm looking for direction. I want to start a view specific types of posts to put up every week. For example, I would like to discuss technology tools, existing and new for my students to learn about. Next, I think I will start a political post for Sundays. Considering I keep up with the Sunday morning talk shows, it would be a nice wrap-up for the week. I guess my question is...What do YOU think? Do you want to hear my opinion on something? Do you have a specific question you want me to answer or perhaps a topic you wish for me to discuss? Basically, what thoughts from this academic are you most interested in hearing?

Let me know. I'll be taking suggestions for the next few days.

Thanks for your help.

One year...12 months...365 sunrises and sunsets...8760 hours...

I debated about whether to make a statement about the anniversary. In the end, I decided it would be best to express my thoughts here rather than answer questions today. For all of you at UGA, I'm taking a "mental health day" and will not be on campus.

April 16th...it used to be just another date on the calendar, but now, at least to me & the rest of Hokie nation, it is a reminder of the worst tragedy to ever hit the campus.

Some of these hours and days have been agony and others triumph. I want to recap my year since that tragic April day last year when I was witness to one of the greatest tragedies in history. This first anniversary is about showing how far we’ve come since we were torn down by tragedy. It’s about remembering why we are all Hokies and how we showed the world we could keep it together and triumph in the face of the greatest adversity.

I won’t recap the events of that day and in the days after. If you would like to read my posts about that, please see (The day, the days following, the week after). My focus for this post is to talk about how I found strength and determination is one of worst situations.

Since that day I have:

- Finished & defended my master’s thesis
- Attained my master’s degree
- Watched many of my students cross the stage at graduation
- Moved to Georgia
- Survived my first semester (almost a year) of my doctoral program
- Found myself once again
- Closed old and opened new chapters in every aspect of my life
- Lived every day
- Lost a love
- Cried myself to sleep many nights
- Laughed till I cried many
- Went through counseling
- Got over my fear whenever I heard a siren
- Watched Northern Illinois University go through our pain

Important lessons learned:

- There were 33 Hokies who lost their lives that day, not just 32
- It’s not about getting back to normal, it’s about moving forward
- The hardest thing about moving forward is not looking back
- Tears can heal
- No one can really understand what we went through
- Hokie Pride stretches far beyond Blacksburg, VA
- The Hokie Pokie is therapeutic

I am grateful for every day and I'm living every day.

Thank you for all of the support, thoughts and prayers, they help me through the bad times.

From an alumni message I received yesterday:

"At the dedication of our permanent April 16th Memorial last August, SGA President Adeel Khan summed it up exceptionally well…

Take time to remember the legacies, remember the dreams and remember the talent that our community has lost. I hope you are inspired to work harder to honor the 32. Share you talents with the world for the 32. Achieve your dreams for the 32. Be more compassionate, friendly and thoughtful for the 32. Be better, for the 32.

In 2008, we remember the 32; we are thankful for the survivors; and we are proud we share together that incredible Hokie spirit."

Day of Remembrance

Webcasts of Events

Edit: Great piece from my former dept head

End of Semester Craziness

So it's here...the end of the semester scramble. No matter how much work you do during the rest of the semester, the last 4-6 weeks are usually the most stressful. Everyone keeps asking whether or not we will make it through and we always do, but we can't help but asking.

Funny story related to the end of semester [might help some of the seniors nearing (or surpassing) their breaking point]. I almost walked away from my undergrad program in the last week because of my senior seminar (a campaigns course). I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and was ready to just quit. However, I had great teammates and friends who managed to convince me that I would make it through. We did and gave an awesome presentation and the on campus health center (our client) loved our ideas.

No matter how low it gets or how much work you have, think about how far you've come and the many accomplishments you have in your four (five, six, etc) years. This time of year is always the hardest, but remember it's also the best. Take time out to enjoy the few moments you have left in college.

Keep in mind: “Life's a journey, not a destination” -Steven Tyler


What's left for me to do/finish this semester:
2 conferences papers to submit...by tomorrow?!
Critical Analysis in quantitative methods & presentation
Multivariate Analysis final project & presentation
4 critical-cultural-historical (CCH) short papers
Final project in public opinion - coding of articles, analysis of polling data, finish writing, etc - & presentation
3 final exams - CCH, quantitative methods, & public opinion (only semester since I was a sophomore in undergrad that I've had 3 finals)

Countdowns:
End of 1st year of doctoral program: 30 days
ECA: 31 days
Week in the Keys on a sailboat: 33 days (my inspiration)
Peachtree Road Race (my 1st 10K): 96 days
CONNECT 08: 207 days

Fun with the Flip cam

Dr. S takes her Flip camera everywhere...even into research meetings. It definitely lightens the mood, but of course I'm looking like I haven't showered (for the record I did, just wanted to wear a hat).

Getting back to the point, the video is a brief description of what we're working on and a little about research in general. Enjoy!