PRblogs.org

Many thanks to Keith O’Brien of PR Week magazine.

Keith found us online and wrote this article which will appear online and in the print addition.

AUBURN, AL: … PRBlogs.org, a service offering free blog hosting to PR instructors, students, and practitioners. … the service is being made available to anyone in the PR industry.

“PRBlogs.org can be a long-term home for PR students’ blogs or a place where they test the waters,” French said.

There is more at PR Week. (Subscription required.)

We appreciate Keith’s recognition of our efforts and look forward to reaching out to PR pros and educators in the coming weeks. The students are already on the job and laying the groundwork for our campaign. A fun hands-on experiential project for them.

Thanks to Dee Rambeau of Adventures in Business Communications and MarcomBlog.

Dee writes about Ashley’s blog and her hopes of one day being “employed in the Communications business upon her graduation. She offers up her blog commentary and her resume online.” Ashley, like my other students, will use their blogs to create an online portfolio they may keep after graduation. So, when applying for internships and jobs, they can provide a quick / simple link to their resume and work samples.

The neat thing about WordPress and WordPress Multiuser is that - aside from being a blog - this is a full blown CMS package. With pages as well as posts, and numerous plugins/modules, these sites will become complete Web sites. Most importantly, they are dynamic publishing tools and SEO optimized, too.

As Dee writes, we are “pioneers” in a way. The site - like James Farmer’s edublogs.org sites, are giving students and educators free, easy access to dynamic publishing in a community centric environment. Thank you, Dee.

Other news/mentions…

I found a note about PRblogs.org in Erin’s Livejournal blog. Erin is a “senior attending Troy State University.”

We had a visit from Michel Valdrighi’s weblog about web development in France.

A mention from Dave Gray’s del.icio.us bookmarks, too.

London based blogger Martin Stabe, a freelance journalist and web designer, has picked up on Tyler’s post about soldier blogs. Tyler will return to the Air Force upon graduation.

We are also seeing traffic from education domains - as in email traffic. People are sending links to each other at K-12 domains and several university email systems, too. We’re getting traffic from all the traditional search engines as well as the blog/RSS specific ones like Technorati, Bloglines and Pubsub, too. That is a testament to the positive aspects of WordPress and how it will automatically ping servers about new content on each blog.

Those are the highlights. Thank you to all.

Shel Holtz, in a shel of my former self, writes how “PRBlogs gets some non-students” in his Sunday entry. Thanks, Shel. He writes:

PRBlogs.org has real potential to become a full-fledged community. Ultimately, however, it will take more PR people signing on to make it happen. I have no doubt there are many who work in the profession who read this and other PR blogs but have not yet taken the plunge themselves. Since French is making it free and easy to get started, I’d urge you to grab up your own blog today. The more of us out there, the better.

In the vein of non-students (or, in some cases, just not my students) here is the latest on our newest members.

Chris Thilk writes a bit more about his move of to the PRBblogs.org site. Chris mentions the move in his blog. I’m very happy that Chris has joined us. He will add a great new view to the discussions. I’ve sent the students to read his posts and encourage you to do the same.

Eulaly (Paris, France) writes about her school, ISCOM so students here can compare and share experiences. She also writes of her internship at PR Planet with Guillaume du Gardier - PR Thoughts and Marcomblog.

DoctorPress (Madrid, Spain), is blogging now, too. The Doctor’s blog theme has been upgraded with a Babelfish Spanish-to-English translation tool on the main page and one on each individual post. This will enable us all to read the good Doctor’s blog entries. As we gather more members at PRblogs.org, I will endeavor to create any language translation tool I can provide. Right now, the languages available to us are: Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Remember, if you change your theme (Login -> Admin Section -> Click Presentation -> Click Theme Image), please let me know if you want anything added to the sidebar or a plugin. I will get on it ASAP.

My students are busy blogging away, too. Here are the links to all of their posts. Check ‘em out. I am very happy with their work. Good people - All!

We also had a great salute from Lee Hopkins (Lee’s ‘Better Communication Results’ blog) via the For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast - Shel Holtz & Neville Hobson’s well-known audio program. Lee relates his feelings about New PR and Allan Jenkins‘ open note to IABC, PRSA and AAF. You should listen. Starts at about 49:00 minutes in the podcast. Lee’s Australian accent - alone - is worth the experience. He’s quite fun in his audio contributions to FIR. Thank you, Lee.

Finally, another mention of Trevor Cook’s “Worth Reading” nod to our blogs at Sydney, Australia, based Jackson Wells Morris - Pinnacle Worldwide - Trevor’s home base. And, another mention from Richard French at Tekrati. This time via the Tekrati Analyst Cafe. Thanks again to Trevor and Richard.

That’s our recap of events so far. Thank you all for your help in spreading the word about free PRblogs.org.

Bloglines, Feedster, My MSN, My Yahoo! and NewsGator subscribe buttons are available for your blogs.

The first plugin we will enable for PRblogs.org is the Subscribe Me plugin from Denis de Bernardy.

This plugin enables the Bloglines, Feedster, My MSN, My Yahoo! and NewsGator subscribe buttons (or links) for your blog.

If you want it, which I imagine you do (it allows people to read and track your blog in a variety of ways) just write to me and I’ll enable it for you and forward the instructions. It is a one-click install for you. I must edit your theme.

Once enabled, it must be enabled on all blogs using the same theme as you. Since we are starting early, this is doable.

We will have to work out a functionality to allow all users to edit their sidebars. Not available now. A work in progress for the WordPress Multiuser developers, I am sure.

If you are interested in activating some of the other plugins available for WordPress, let me know.

Blake Barbera, of San Francisco, California, writes in WetFeetPR blog. Blake began blogging in August, 2005 with this as one of his goals, “I want to educate others that are in the beginning stages of their PR career. I want to share my first experiences in PR and learn from you as you learn from me. This is my most important goal.”

So, Blake is of special interest to my students and all other PR pros launching careers. His blog’s title, alone, is quite telling of Blake’s keen insights and sense of humor.

Many thanks, Blake, for your kind words of support for PRblogs.org.

Another supportive post comes to us from Richard French (no relation) of Tekrati (formerly of Oracle) in his Tekrati Weblog. Many thanks, Richard.

Other news: We now have two blogs from overseas. Eulaly is from a PR intern in Paris. DoctorPress is from a PR firm in Madrid, Spain. Let’s encourage them to keep using the blogs. Comment on their posts (if they start making them). Welcome them to PRblogs.org. In fact, if you post a comment on their initial blog post, even though it was generated by creating the blog, they should receive an email notifying them of a comment. You can welcome them that way.

I have added the Babelfish translation tool to all of the sidebars of all available themes here. I will slowly add in all of the possible themes. It will reach 300. Baby steps, though. Currently, 19 are available.

If you wish to see all the themes available to you, please visit Alex King’s WordPress theme browser.  Find one you like and let me know.  I’ll install it for you.  No problem. 

Finally, to see some good WordPress tutorials / tips check out Lorelle’s WordPress.com blog.

I have written to the fellow PR practitioners and educators we have met in our first year of PR blogging. They have been very kind and I appreciate their willingness to write about PRblogs.org. And, others are finding the site and helping to spread the word, too.

Here are some excerpts from the latest responses and blog posts. Thank you all for supporting education. That is what we’re participating in here.

Dale Wolf of Context Rules Marketing!, Cincom Systems and MarcomBlog writes that I/we are acting as “evangelist(s) for the power of blogging as a medium that PR people (including his Auburn students) must come to grips with. He knows the only way to do it is to get people blogging themselves … and along the way, they will be promoting public relations as a great business strategy.” Yes, that’s it. And, for example, you and the other MarcomBlog contributors, help them (the students) do that every day. Put it into practice. Thank you, Dale.

Scott Kidder is an “Entrepreneur and Student (at NYU). He is also currently working at Gawker Media.”

Scott created a blog here and writes this post about the interface and experience. He already has an active blog, so I doubt he’ll continue to blog here. But, that is ok. Like Scott, please feel free to try out the site and report back in your blog about the experience. This may well help us spread the word and find those that wish to take their initial blog plunge. Thank you, Scott.

Guillaume du Gardier, of PR Thoughts (Paris, France), writes about our experiment, too. He writes, “When I see this kind of great initiative, I wonder how traditional PR can’t be dead… The next generation of PR folks is going to be terrific …” Thank you, Guillaume. He is one of our MarcomBlog contributors, too.

Shawn Lea of The Big Picture blog, which offers “A big-picture view of issues and trends affecting associations - in Mississippi and nationally,” has also helped spread the word. I’d love to see PR practitioners from hospitals and associations join in at PRblogs.org. Many thanks to Shawn.

And, our friend Octavio Rojas (Madrid, Spain) has a great question I have yet to address here. Octavio asks, “Would you accept PR students/practitioners that write in Spanish?” Absolutely! So, I’m going to go through all of the templates we offer and place the Babelfish translation tool for 8 languages on each blog. One more great way to extend the viability of PRblogs for all.

Octavio, by the way, just completed a Spanish PR text for college PR courses. I look forward to reading it soon. Octavio is with Weber-Shandwick / Madrid. His experience and status in European PR has been a terrific asset for us. Octavio also blogs at MarcomBlog.

One more … Trevor Cook, of Corporate Engagement, has given PRblogs.org a “Worth Reading” nod. Thank you, Trevor.

And, one more. This one is from Allan Jenkins at Desirable Roasted Coffee. Allan writes, “PRblogs.org, a free .. I love that word .. free” and “I love the idea, and I hope it blossoms and booms (note to IABC/ PRSA/ AAF members: take notes; your new hires are going to know all about social media, and they are going to eat old media, cold media.. and old agencies for lunch. It’ll take awhile — You haven’t hit the iceberg, yet.)”

That’s the tally, so far. Again, our thanks to James Farmer for his joint participation in our project.

I realize that this exercise is in the area of shameless self-promotion. These posts may seem gratuitous/unjustified. Normally, I would feel very uncomfortable, strange and guilty about providing you links where people are also saying nice things about me. So, please forgive me. Their kindness is greatly appreciated. But, as for my sole purpose here, I just have a deep desire to engage my students with as many PR peers as possible. This is all about spreading the meme.