Journal reviewers have pet peeves, and JPRR reviewers (God love 'em) have over the years been happy to share some of them with me. Here are some things I've noticed or reviewers told me on Twitter and Facebook that they just hate -- not bad methods or incorrect analyses, just annoyances that drive a reviewer nuts.
Any others you'd like to add? It's your chance to vent! Thanks to Tiffany Gallicano, Katie Place, and Richard Waters for their comments and suggestions, and to Tom Watson, who pointed to, "Meaningless results from quantitative research, which show the obvious." Runs a bit deeper than a pet peeve, but it's certainly a vent. :-)
Tiffany also suggested another post with authors' pet peeves about reviewers, which sounds fair to me. Tweet your suggestions to @karenrussell or send by email, russell dot uga at gmail.
One thing I did not expect when I became editor of the Journal of Public Relations Research was a sudden need to learn about the marketing of academic research. Over the years the good people at Taylor & Francis have been fantastic at letting me what they're doing to promote the scholarship we produce, from attending conferences to mailing postcards to offering free downloads of particular articles.
Their most recent report included a section on "enhancing discoverability," or making it easier for people to find research. I won't recap the whole report, but here are a few key items.
Obviously the publisher works with vendors to libraries to make sure library catalogues are kept updated, but in addition to that, Taylor & Francis reports that search engines like Google are by far the most popular route to academic research. Therefore, Taylor & Francis Online is fully search engine optimized -- which also has the benefit of providing usage statistics by article. In addition, T&F provides article abstracts from JPRR to Google Scholar.
Finally, T&F Online includes a number of "content discovery features" such as "Most Read" and "Most Cited" (you can find these features on right navigation bar on the JPRR page), and "Users Also Read" buttons for each article.
I can honestly say that despite being online myself for 7+ years, I'd never considered keyword optimizing my academic research, or, prior to becoming editor, marketing my research. But, if authors want people to read their work, it's time to give that some thought.
Grady College has launched an online certificate program for students, educators and professionals who want to learn more about using social media for business.
The program is self-paced, meaning students can start anytime and finish within three months; it's 100% online, so students can be located anywhere; and it includes a coach-mentor (yes, an actual human being) available to students who have questions or need extra help.
It consists of four modules: Strategy, Assessment, Social Networking and Digital Video, and Blogging and Microblogging, each written and edited by Grady College professors (disclosure: I wrote the last module). The program's learning objectives provide a pretty clear outline.
The program is designed primarly for
Several people, including a student and professionals with different backgrounds and experiences, tested the program and provided great feedback, so I'm confident that the program will beneficial.
For more information visit the certificate program FAQ's or the registration page.
Another post from the Center for Global Public Relations' research conference in Charlotte last week. This time it's on finding ways to get PR outside the United States into the curriculum even when resources are limited -- I did a similar post from CGPR 2010 and it's still getting hits, so I made it a point to take notes to share this year as well.
The paper was written by David L. Remund and Kelly B. Bruhn of Drake University and presented by Dr. Remund. Here are my admittedly sketchy notes:
I hope this is an accurate reflection of the session, and if not I hope David will correct the record.
Last week I attended the 3rd annual conference of the Center for Global Public Relations at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, an event I planned to attend even before I found out that Microsoft's Tom Murphy was delivering the keynote address. I've been reading Tom's PR blog since 2007, or at least that's the first time I linked to him, and I've been finding share-worthy posts all along, particularly regarding social responsibility.
Although he just moved to Microsoft Windows, he spoke on YouthSpark, Microsoft's CSR program aimed at world youth.
Murphy began with an explanation of the importance of corporate social responsibility in general at Microsoft, which has been engaged in various programs since 1983. Employee giving since that time is now past the $1 billion mark, and it's part of the culture of the organization. Murphy turned the question around: “'How could we not invest this money?' It’s part of our license to operate." He said that employees demand it, consumers and media expect it now. In fact, citizenship is one of 5 key drivers that lead people to choose Microsoft products.
Core tenants about how Microsoft decides which activities to participate in: 1. Must align with the business 2. Needs to be measured (must be impactful) 3. Must be transparent and accountable (Murphy said it's important to tell when something is not going well before other people point it out).
Social responsibility areas: integrity, responsible sourcing, human rights, privacy and safety, environmental sustainability, our people (gender, pay, benefits etc.). Example: Microsoft is now the fifth largest bus company in Washington state because employees get door-to-door service -- with wifi (are you listening, UGA?).
Ways of serving communities: empowering nonprofits (the company provides free tech to nonprofits), humanitarian disaster response, employee giving (matching up to $12,000), philanthropy (since 1983, cash, products and service donations total $6.5 billion).
Murphy then went into an explantion of the YouthSpark program specifically. Two years ago the company reframed its philanthropy around youth after it realized that the economic downturn was disproportionately affecting youth. He said it took 18 months to retool, and that Bill Gates revealed the new program at the World Economic Forum, making a public commitment to help 300 million young people in next few years..
Murphy said that 25% of working poor in the world are young, with an unemployment rate double that of rest of population. There is an opportunity divide (varies by country situation), but one solution doesn’t fit all. Therefore in the U.S. the company is focusing on STEM education with a National Talent Strategy. Get kids here started early, get young people from other countries here, or else the company will have to outsource.
From a PR perspective Murphy said they began with a listening tour and met with journalists to start a dialogue about the program, had a New York Times story placement, hosted an online webinar to launch initiative -- 10,000 people watched live online, but they also launched at a Mashable conference, etc., providing multiple moments to reach multiple audiences.
Murphy said the program has 3 pillars: education (ex: Skype in the classroom), employment and entrepreneurship. He explained that 15 divisions of Microsoft are involved, and the program is run by citizenship group.
Next, Murphy shared key learnings: "avoid being needlessly global and hopelessly local"; YouthSpark provides a framework but allows people to develop the program locally. He also said that CSR is not a large driver of public relations; instead, you have to tell each little story -- hyperlocal and hyperspecific. Finally, he said that social media are becoming more important. Traditional media still drives the agenda without question, but social media are increasingly important for companies and people to connect and share.
During the Q&A , Murphy said that consumer research indicated the top drivers for purchase are price, quality, innovation and service; citizenship has now moved into the top 5, but the gap beween it and the top 4 is large. When asked about metrics he said they look at reach, for example, the number of young people reached, surveys of consumers, etc., and they track PR performance – impressions, reach, tone etc. He was also asked about the investment community and said that a small but growing group has an interest in this; "CSR mitigates a lot of risks because we are doing the right thing." He suggested that most publics are expecting it now.
Tom's keynote was the highlight of the conference. Thanks to CGPR for bringing him in!
Step 1: Publish whatever you want on social media. No one but your friends will ever see it.
Step 2: Get mad, write an email, and hit send. I'm sure it won't get forwarded to anyone, and no one would ever post it on a website.
Step 3: Oops. When that email is posted on a popular website, and everyone starts searching social media to see what else you've been up to, just delete your account. No one will notice. And once your account is closed, no one can see what you'd posted anymore. Oh, except for those tweets memorialized forever in Step 1.
Bonus: Don't worry about your friends' accounts. No one will ever find you there. And also don't worry, none of your friends will be smeared by association with your irresponsible online behavior. [If the friend figures out that she should delete the picture or the tweet that links to the picture -- it was an Instgram photo of the woman and her friends acting "silly" in front of a Christmas tree, their Instagram accounts conveniently tagged so we can identify them, too.]
I actually feel sorry for what Gawker calls this "deranged sorority girl," and I debated with friends on Twitter about whether I should even blog about her situation. Ultimately I decided to publish these links (although not her name, university or sorority names) because I think it makes a more compelling case to students to see that this not only COULD but actually DOES happen, and because after this video came out there was no stemming the tide. Her life isn't really ruined, though it may seem like it today. But her story is now a cautionary tale.
There is no line between public and private.
Finally, check out this three-part series on the PR Conversations blog: