PR students well prepared for a social media world without realising it

Leeds Met university lecturer Richard Bailey's blogging sweatshop tactics seem to be paying dividends for his PR students.

Alumnus Alex Pullin posted the other day about a couple of new PR bloggers from her alma mater (I'll stop the latin refs now).

I've already plugged Kate Kilday but Alex also welcomes Paddy Doyle to the blogosphere.

A quick read of the comments section throws up some other student bloggers: Lydia Cambata and Sam Harris.

Add to this list Leeds Met CIPR student rep and blogger Chloe Chaplin and that's quite a community of five promising student bloggers.

More importantly is the fact that they seem to congrege around Alex's blog which make it look like Alex is a bit of a student blogger maven.

This raises another interesting issue about networking. I doubt (and apologies if I'm wrong) many of the student bloggers already know about connectors and mavens.

Back to the Richard's blogging workshop mentioned at the top of this post. At the event Richard and I had a discussion about networking and students.

Understanding networking (both off and online) and how to use your networking skills effectively is probably not something taught on higher education curricula.

I for one definately think it should be. But with the popularity of social networking tools like MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, networking is probably already second nature to most students even if they don;t know about it.

UPDATE: Richard Bailey has posted about netwokring here and here.

Comments

[Richard Bailey]

To me, the network IS the purpose - not the blog. We don't - as LEWIS PR revealed - have blogging as a taught component of the degree course (I admire the efforts in this direction of Philip Young at Sunderland and Robert French at Auburn, US).

Instead, I'm keen to encourage blogging by example. Like so much in PR, it's sometimes slower and more frustrating than I'd like, but 'I get by with a little help from my friends.'

[Alexandra Pullin]

Wow - now I feel reallllly bad for not writing for a while - I've never been a maven before.

[Simon Collister]

Yes, Alex. You have a big responsibility on your hands now!!

[Serge Cornelus]

While I admire any effort to get students into social media, I am not yet convinced that the average (PR) student is that into networking (consciously or not) as you may seem to think, Simon. Of course, I can only look at the matter from a Belgian point of view (and yes: we are usually lagging behind a bit), but most students who are so-called internet natives mainly use it for some chatting or IM. The number of MySpacers (to name but one of those networking platforms) is still relatively small in comparison with the total population. And when it comes to blogging or reading blogs... well, there is still a very long way to go. Especially considering the fact that still quite a substantial number of the people lecturing these students have not yet jumped onto the social media train...

[Simon]

Hi Serge

I know what you're saying but I think the potential for networking is stronger than ever.

My sister is four years younger and graduated this summer. She is not a techie or geek but is addicted to Facebook. All her friends are on there and she has made contact with others who share our (relatively) rare surname. She messages a lot too.

All this is networking although she definately doesn't see it as such. Compare that to when I went to university. In the first few weeks I thought I might get away without having to set-up my email address! From basic email to social networking in four years is quite a leap.

[Serge Cornelus]

OK: your sister is definitely networking. And yes: Facebook is a fine example of how social media can do that. Also true: I know the feeling about how it was when we set out on the internet. So there most certainly has been quite a leap. My question, however, remains: will those who have taken the leap from e-mail to messaging and Facebook or MySpace, also discover the rest of the social media universe or not? Also: IMessaging is just a replacement for text messaging on a mobile phone for most, and the way a lot of young people (IF they already do that - but then again: the situation here and in the UK is undoubtedly still different) use social networking platforms such as MySpace is often to communicate in yet another way with the people they already communicate with anyway (friends, schoolmates... lik you say). So there is defintely a shift, but how big the leap is forwards and not sideways still remains to be seen. Or perhaps I'm just being my over-critical / cynical self ;-D...