LBCC Winter Term Means New Student Blogs

Take a look to the right and you'll find a new lineup of student blogs for Winter Term.

This term LBCC's Journalism program is offering Feature Writing (JN217) and Media & Society (JN201).  Like most other departments on campus, all the Journalism classes are already full.

As part of their coursework, students in these classes will publish their work on their own blogs.  Check out some of the student journalism from last term as well.

The Commuter also is fully staffed and looking forward to working with students new to writing, reporting, editing and photography.  Numerous students are enrolled in the Journalism Lab (JN215A) and the Design and Production Lab (JN215B), where they contribute weekly to both the printed edition of The Commuter as well as the online site.

This promises to be another great term.  The staff of the Commuter is looking into attending another journalism conference this spring, possibly the Associated Collegiate Press convention March 3-6 in Los Angeles.

Finally, The Commuter and LBCC will once again be host to the annual Collegiate Day conference organized by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.  This event, May 6, is a one-day journalism conference and awards program for the state's college journalists.

So there's a lot going on in the months ahead!

(Photo credit: "extreme sports and blogging" by Will Lion, courtesy of Flickr.com/Creative Commons)
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Welcome to Fall Term Journalism at LBCC

Thanks for checking out "Rob's Class Blog." This is where you will find work posted by my students during Fall Term 2010.

This term I'll be teaching sections on News Reporting, Photojournalism and Media & Society.

I'm looking forward to reading and enjoying the journalism produced by my LBCC students, and encourage you to check back from time to time during the term.

The class assignments produced these students also will be considered for publication by the staff of The Commuter, LBCC's award-winning student newspaper.

To find out what else is going on in journalism, new media and LBCC's Journalism program, see "Rob's Media Blog."

(Photo credit: "Third Tuesday #Olympic Journalism" by rocketcandy/Elizabeth Sarobhasa, courtesy of Flickr.com/Creative Commons.)
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PDX marketing experiment features Fiesta, clothes and concerts

Interesting story in the Oregonian about "lifestyle marketing" and creating a "cultural hub" around a product. In this case, the Ford Fiesta, which is being displayed in a downtown Portland store space that serves as a "lounge"/clothes boutique during the day and concert space at night. The story, "Ford taps local flavor to sell Fiesta," was written by Oregonian reporter Elliott Njus.

And while we're thinking of creative, innovative, interesting ideas, check out "Ten Inspiring TED Talks for Startups," a blog compiling 10 favorite TED videos focusing on innovation and creativity. (It includes two of my favorites by Seth Godin and Clay Shirky.) It's on the ReadWriteStart blog.

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Old Spice Guy: A Guide to Viral Marketing?

For those of us who can't get enough of the "Old Spice Guy," make way ...

Niraj Chockshi of The Atlantic writes how the company and its ad agency have targeted social media sites to generate buzz that just keeps on keeping on.

... and does any of this have to do with the future of news? Maybe, as this Nieman Journalism Lab post notes ...

Or if you'd like to know how Portland marketing geniuses Wieden + Kennedy are making these "ads" ...

... Or the "Man Your Grades Could Be Like" -- a terrific parody by the creative library crew at Brigham Young University.


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TED Talk Focuses on YouTube, Copyright

Here's an inside look at how YouTube is addressing copyright issues.

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Powered by Orange: A Social Marketing Case Study

If you live anywhere near Oregon, you'd have to be living in a cone of silence to not be familiar with "Powered by Orange."

Powered by Orange is the social marketing juggernaut that's boosting the image and awareness of Oregon State University far and wide. The apparent success of the campaign was summed up recently in a piece by Kaukab Jhumra Smith, "'It's OK to Be Imperfect': One School's Quest for Social-marketing Success."

As OSU's VP for University Advancement Luanne Lawrence notes in the article, not everything goes as planned when it comes to social marketing. However, most of the experiments the university is trying seem to be paying off in terms of engaging students, staff, and most important, alumni and others seeking a connection to OSU.

In addition to soaring traffic on OSU's website, the article notes an increase in first-time donations by alums and a wave of new enrollment. As Jhumra Smith points out, here's what OSU is doing:

• Recruiting bloggers from around campus to be opinion leaders.
• Training staff, students and faculty to use social media platforms to talk about the work and campus life.
• Emphasizing relationships through meetups, contests and other events.
• Soliciting videos and other submissions to build participation.
• Creating an online directory and making available marketing materials to businesses and others who want to join in the campaign.

“It’s really kind of fun to make mistakes in social media because you can learn and recover very quickly,” Lawrence said in the article. “Fifteen- to 25-year-olds are rebuilding every aspect of the industry, and I’m listening to them.”

Michael Stoner examined Powered by Orange a year ago, calling the campaign "the most comprehensive university social marketing campaign that we’ve seen to date."

Believe it.

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