Bronwyn is a year 12 student at Tintern Girls Grammar School in Ringwood, Victoria, and is writing an essay on “the potential benefits and problems of Podcasts in tertiary education”. She approached theMediaPod as part of her research into the topic and decided to podcast the interview as part of the experience (with permission from her parents and teachers).

It’s a great example of how to use technology creatively in education. Rather than just sharing information with just a one, or a small number of people, podcasting research and school work (with permission of course) allows a greater number from around the world to access the information. It also adds a new dimension to study. Rather than just writing about podcasting, using the technology, Bronwyn has actually produced a podcast, and had some fun along the way. Ross and Bronwyn hope you enjoy this special episode.

If you’re an educator or student who has had a similar experience, why not leave us a comment? We’d love to hear from you.

Technorati Tags: public relations, education, podcasting, Tintern

Although this mediapodcast focuses on employee communication, Allan consults to organisations on both internal and external communication.

Allan argues that employee communication is a critical part on the overall communication mix or an organisation. “If employees don’t understand what you’re about as a company, they’re going to have a very hard time interacting properly with customers, suppliers and the rest of the world,” Allan says.
Face-to-face communication is usually the right way to communicate according to Allan, but choosing the right vehicle for other forms of communication is vital. “Say for example if you have a distributed workforce in several different countries, you might use a blog to communicate with them, or you could use a podcast. It all depends on who you are communicating with, what they need to know and the message that you are trying to get across.”

Lee and Allan also talk about the International Association of Business Communicators in this “must hear” discussion about employee communication.

Interview with Allan Jenkins

I have been involved in a number of interesting conversations in the past week over the nature of ‘employee comms’ and how it sits within the rubric of ‘PR’.

Granted, a more fully-accurate definition of PR involves the relationship between an organisation and its various ‘publics’ — shareholders, suppliers, employees and their families, local businesses, the media, etc., — but ask the man or woman in the street and they would probably consider PR to involve media relations, function management and glamourous launches (and lunches) in expensive locations.

The longer-term readers of my blog are aware that I am far more of an online and ‘internal communications’ specialist than an event organiser (Mrs BetterComms argues convincingly that I couldn’t organise a drink in a brewery without a secretary’s support). I’ve never set foot inside a traditional ‘PR’ agency (although I’ve had my fair share of ad agency lattes in my time).

A quick flick through the various job boards both here and overseas — say, Seek and Monster — highlights the pay discrepancy between ‘PR’-named jobs and ‘communication’-named jobs. Even more so if those ‘comms’ roles are for a client organisation rather than an agency that serves them (I’m guessing that the gap is because of the need for the agency communicator to always be billing for their time, adding to their personal stress levels).

Such is the discrepancy at the moment, and so ’strong’ in numbers are ‘PR’ blogs as against ‘business communication’ blogs, that I’ve been considering re-casting myself as an ‘Online and Internal PR Specialist’. Maybe such a personal re-branding will positively affect the perceptions of prospective clients.After all, it is PR practioners who get seats at the Board Room table, very rarely Communications specialists.In a number of companies I know, the Communications Director (who does sit at the table) is an ex-agency, long-term PR practitioner, not a comms generalist who has worked their way up through the ranks via Work & Safety posters, employee newsletters and customer pamphlets.

Indeed, it is my experience that the internal communicator is far less likely to get formal media training than the PR practitioner. All in all, it is the ‘PR’-named communicator who seems to get the better end of the stick.

So, as you consider your impending career, are you already shaping your thoughts towards the type of role or employer you are first going to approach? On what do you base those decisions?

I’d love to know your thoughts.