WE START ANOTHER semester of Public Relations in Tipperary Institute knowing that the 2011 running of the module is the most ambitious ever. The 25 participants in the module will support the development, recording and post-production of College Lives, a six-part series with TippFM. The module leverages the astute real-time expertise of Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, the godfathers of PR podcasting. In a perfect world, students will complete this PR module through an online journey that takes them into major themes of creativity, education technology, ethics, education, labour unions, personal brands, government, social media, metrics, start-ups, and Tipperary food. As in several of the modules taught at Tipperary Institute, the Delicious social bookmarking system will be used with the tag tipppr.

FIR 581 (abridged)

AS DISCUSSED in several educasts, common mistakes in handling crises include the following:

Hesitation. This leads to public perception of confusion, callousness, incompetence or lack of preparation.

Obfuscation. This leads to the perception of dishonesty and insensitivity.

Retaliation. This increases tension and intensifies emotion rather than reducing them.

Prevarication or equivocation. This creates the biggest problem, because nothing substitutes for truth.

Pontification. This creates vulnerability by taking a high-handed approach without really dealing with the issue at hand.

Confrontation. This provides others visibility by keeping the issue alive, giving them a platform, and giving them more to respond to.

Litigation. This guarantees even greater visibility and may eliminate more reasonable solutions.

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BUSINESSWIRE observes the 100th anniverary of the first press release today. The American offices will hold a panel discussion in New York entitled "Centennial Celebration of the Press Release: Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Public Relations." Most people accept that Ivy Lee put out his first press release in 1906. Research suggests the PR industry itself is older, perhaps emerging in the late 1890s when American railways made the first reference to the term "public relations" in its external documents. Stuart Bruce says, "The outlaw Jesse James used the media to bolster his reputation as a brave ex-Confederate guerilla, rather than a desperate outlaw - on several occasions he left 'press releases' behind at the scenes of his robberies." Bruce always considered Edward Bernays as the founder of modern public relations, rather than Ivy Lee.

Stuart Bruce -- "Businesswire commemorates 100th anniversary of Public Relations Industry"
Businesswire  original release.

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WE USE WELL-REGARDED social media tools in the PR module at Tipperary Institute, including Odeo playback engines, Flickr photostreams, Writely documents, del.icio.us shared links and Netvibes mashups.

We will paint some real wall art during our second year Public Relations class. Meanwhile, interesting discussion rages about the value of collaborative online wall art projets.

Tech Crunch -- "Wiki your wall art"

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PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS can leverage computers, microscopes, digital still cameras, DV cameras, and document cameras and then adding visual images to enhance instruction. Do it visually and students learn more. MaryAnne Campo says your can "use images from your photo collection in flickr to make slideshows, add imagery through video clips from your latest summer vacation trips, add images from Google Maps or Google Earth for Physical Geography content or add images and clips from the culture of the people in the countries you visit. Take students virtually into science experiments through visual imagery, show scientific examples; show them a real coral reef. Make your presentations come alive through 3-D imagery".

You need broadband to accomplish these things.

THE BIGGEST blast to hit the blogosphere in 2006 will probably be the news that Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft. The cross-talk about Scoble's decision fills the an entire Firefox screen at TechMeme on my Firefox browser. That news--now confirmed by King Robert himself--affects one of the questions on a repeat examination in the Public Relations course I teach in Tipperary Institute. I wonder if Scoble considered that side effect?

Tom Foremski -- "Microsoft's Top Blogger is Leaving"
Robert Scoble -- "Correcting the record about Microsoft"

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GOOD PODCASTS are like good blogs in that they have feedback loops. In Tipperary Institute, we use podcasts in several courses. Our PR course integrates podcasts directly into lecture materials, like today's on "embedding messages" in various media. While the process of embedding information (not to be confused with embedding journalists) is telling, some of the feedback from students is more striking. Here are some examples:

ROBERT SCOBLE was caught looking down on me during a lecture in Tipperary Institute. The PR class in which Scoble appeared as a ghost lecturer examined the growing impact of podcasts, hand-rolled videos and weblogs. In our classroom, students who listened to a rapid-fire delivery of Channel 9 Videos, Scobleizer musings and developer podcasts concluded that Scoble's technology evangelism leads the pack in connecting people to the human side of Microsoft corporation.

Image snapped by Sean Barry -- "Bernie checks out Scoble"
Bonus Image from Chris Pirillo of Maryam and Robert Scoble.

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DUKE UNIVERSITY'S experiment with iPods now includes a deal with Public Radio International to provide digital audio files for classroom use. Duke professors will use portions of public radio shows "This American Life" and "Studio 360" for no charge. Students will be able to download the shows into their portable MP3 players--they won't need an iPod.