It’s always fun to have the opportunity to collaborate with fellow colleagues and friends. That is one of the things I love about working in academia is the fact you are able to work on projects in all shapes and sizes.
I have worked with Emily and Amber on various projects over the years, and we have always had fun. One day, when we were all in Las Vegas for the Adobe Max event and had some down time to get some coffee (some of the best ideas truly happen over coffee) – and this moment helped spark a very timely and unique conversation. We were talking about books, and which ones we were going to use for the upcoming semester. Emily and Amber were talking about how there wasn’t really a book that covered short form or long form content creation, addressed the issue of actually the best practices of writing an email and other key topics surrounding digital media.
We sat and drank out coffee. Then – each of us literally had the lightbulb emoji come up above our heads and we realized – we are professors and we could create a digital first focus book on the subject.
So, that’s what we did. We came. We typed. We wrote a book.
That’s right. We came together, virtually brainstormed ideas and outlines for chapters, and hit the ground running. We came together and realized when it came to textbooks surrounding the topic of digital media content creation and writing – none of us were happy. We wanted to something that would cover ALL aspects of writing for the “digital first” world for advertising, public relations, and strategic communications world.
Why did we write this book? Simple. Here are some reasons.
- There really wasn’t a writing book out there that really had a digital first focus, which drove all of us pretty crazy. I know when I taught writing – I didn’t use the chapters that covered digital at all. I had to create and integrate my own content.
- Once books are published, they are out of date. We wanted something that could be a resource that was a living, breathing entity that could be adaptive.
- We wanted to create an affordable resource for students that allowed them to get insights that could help their understanding of writing content for digital media.
- We wanted to put our stamp out there for the StratComm and PR world for writing textbooks and say – hey, there’s a new book in town!
You may be asking yourself this question: TopHat? They are the company that is known for their classroom response tools and applications, correct? Yes, they are, and they are branching out to the publishing world here as well. They have their own Marketplace where you can create your own content for class, share it with the community, and implement this into your classes. What is also cool about what TopHat has done is really make the books affordable for the students.
Plus, the books (including this one) is:
- Interactive with questions for the students to answer and you can grade;
- Concise and straight to the point about digital writing practices for strategic communications.
- Proposed exercises for the students to work on;
- Links and videos that are embedded within the texts;
- Opportunity to adapt and edit in real-time from the author’s perspective (meaning, you do not have a long period of time to wait to edit and update between editions)
I have to credit the original Dr. Freberg for the idea of pursuing TopHat for this book. Mom (aka Dr Freberg as well!) wrote a book for them on research methods, and what I realized in talking with TopHat was the fact that they really didn’t have any writing books – especially those that tapped into advertising, public relations, and strategic communications. When Amber, Emily, and I realized this – we were like – WOW! This is a great opportunity for us!
Now, I have to give our some major praise and shoutouts here for my two amazing co-authors. I have to give props to both Emily and Amber. Not only are the two of the best in the business when it comes to PR classes, but they are experts in the field of digital media. I am in awe of the dedication, work ethic, and commitment they have to help change and shape the field. We were each responsible for writing equal numbers of chapters for the book, and the insights, ideas, and perspectives Amber and Emily shared in how to to write and create content for digital media was very impressive to me. They truly made this the #DreamTeam experience for writing a digital media writing textbook!
I think the #AdobeSquad came together and created a textbook for digital media writing that will be useful for professors, students, and even those who want to learn more about the field. Thanks to TopHat and Katie (our textbook account executive) and Casey (TopHat Marketplace) for their time and help in launching this great project. We are excited to share this with everyone!
Let us know if you have any questions. We are more than happy to answer them!
Have a great day!
Best Wishes,
