I am excited to be heading to Minneapolis to present and be part of the AEJMC annual conference. This is one of my favorite conferences to present at and attend.
There are a lot of things I am looking for including sessions, presentations, and get togethers. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to:
Pre-Conference: I had the pleasure of working with Dustin Supa (Boston University) to help plan and organize the pre-conference for this year on leadership. What we really wanted to do is bring both practice and research together on this topic for the pre-conference and we will have about 14 presenters here to share their insights, best practices, and research on leadership. Should be a great session! Dustin was really amazing to work with and we couldn’t have done it without the great help from Arunima (Boston University) and Laura Lemon (Tennessee).
Presenting during the top teaching paper session. I had a chance this past year to work on a research project focusing on the state of social media curriculum with Carolyn Kim, who is one of the best professors and people I know in the business.
We are going to be presenting our top teaching paper (third prize) on Thursday, August 4th at 8:15-9:45 am. This is exciting for me because this is the fourth top teaching paper I have gotten since I started my academic career (2009, 2013, 2015, and now 2016). I am going to try and live stream my presentation, so stay tuned with this! I will have to check and see how the wifi is in the conference rooms. Congrats to all of the award winners this year!
Off-site tour to Mall of America: One of the things I really enjoy about the conference is the fact we are able to have an off site visit and experience to a local attraction, and this is the case for us again this year. We will be going to Mall of America and I am excited to see how they practice social media and communications. Props to Nathan and Brooke for organizing this for all of us!
Presenting on a teaching social and digital media panel. I am THRILLED to be part of a great panel of professors who teach and essentially live and breathe digital and social media. Keith Quesenberry and I organized this session and I am excited to be talking about how students and professors can brand themselves successfully with Hootsuite. I have been working on this presentation for a while and looking forward to sharing this! Looking forward to hearing Keith, Amber, Harsha, and Valerie speak!
Moderator for a panel. I am also moderating a panel that will focus on public relations and visual communications. We will have speakers share their insights in about 5 minutes and then pass along handouts of their work for everyone. What I like about this is the fact you get a taste of different perspective from PR and visual communication. I am excited to hear what everyone has to share!
Edelman Luncheon. We have a great luncheon planned (thanks Richard!) for the division and it will be sponsored by Edelman. This is always a fun and enlightening experience to bring practice and education to the table together.
Last but not least, last hurrah as Communication Manager for AEJMC PRD. All things have to come to an end, and this will also mark my last conference as the PRD Communication Manager. It’s time for new voices and ideas to come forward for the PRD.
I have been a volunteer for the division and a member of the leadership team since 2012. I had just finished my first year at Louisville when I was asked to help out during the 2012 conference in Chicago. I initially thought this would be a one-time event, but I was asked to join officially at the end of the conference.
So, fast forward to the next year in 2013 and I became the social media chair. No pressure whatsoever. 🙂 This was my very first leadership role and I was up for the challenge. We had a great foundation in social media, but we wanted to be the leading force to drive conversation, resources, and stories from the PRD. We definitely accomplished this and there were many highlights from this, such as:
- Developing the #PRprofChat series (S/O to Dave for this idea): We now host a Twitter chat every semester on various topics and bring in both professors and practictioners to the conversation. It’s been super successful.
- Creative giveaways at the conference: We had an idea for the Montreal conference to have t-shirts made to giveaway for the conference, which was a lot of fun to do!
- Continue to grow our social media base: All of our platforms have been successfully growing and expanding across the discpline, which has been awesome to see here.
I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to be part of AEJMC PRD. It’s been a great learning experience for me. There were a lot of lessons I am going to be able to take away from the experience – from leading teams, managing different channels and projects, brainstorming ideas for the division, and establishing a culture to bring forth graduate students to be part of the team. It’s been a lot of fun!
I could NOT have done this without the great friends and colleagues I have had the pleasure of working with these past few years. They are some of the BEST in the business. Thank you Geah Pressgrove (West Virginia), Diana Sission (Auburn), Dave Remund (Drake), Patrick Merle (FSU), Carolyn Kim (Biola), Matt Kushin (Shephard University), Nicole Lee (NC State), Kelly Vibber (Dayton), Melissa Janoske (Memphis), and Melissa Dodd (UCF).
I am very excited to know Geah will be the new Communication Manager and Diana will be the new Social Media Chair (Yay Diana!) Diana just finished her first year at Auburn as an assistant professor, so she’s a step ahead of where I was when I started, which is awesome.
I will be sharing my updates, presentations, and all on social media during the conference. Make sure to follow the hashtag #AEJMC16 for the conference and #PRprofs if you want to see what the PR Division is doing.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
