In the morning he gave a few interviews about his $100,000 grant project.

At around 9am an e-mail was sent from PRSSA to “influential” tweeters at Syracuse University about a “W2O Group Social Media Contest” in which two people who follow @W2OGroup and tweet about the event will be chosen at random for two $50 gift cards. It seemed to be a pretty effective contest because most of the tweet were promotional and using language identical to their sample language.

He began by discussing the importance of big data.

He then moved onto describing the changing media landscape.

..and finally came the unveiling of the new center.

He spoke about what PR professionals need to focus on and he specifically mentioned how people are more interested in photo and video than text-only press releases.

He then discussed the change from having a ‘media list’ of 200 contact to targeting 5 whose content really reaches your target audience.

There was a lot of support for the center

But nobody had yet explained what the center will actually do.

In the press release though, it says,

This partnership will provide opportunities for Newhouse students and professors to rotate through the various W2O Group offices in San Francisco, Austin, Los Angeles, New York and London, interact with the firm’s clients, and learn from experts in analytics, digital, social, corporate, technology and research areas. In return, senior W2O Group leaders will guest lecture at Newhouse and work with the University’s faculty to create new courses and update existing ones.

Weiss said the center opens now and that students would benefit but there doesn’t yet seem to be any concrete plans in place for lectures or other events that will benefit current students.

Question period was short but there were some helpful answers.

I asked given that Newhouse prides itself on being innovative and using a curriculum that meets the needs of the real world, if photography and videography should be required part of the curriculum for all PR students.
Weiss answered with an unambiguous yes. He said despite some recent arguments about whether that should be left to advertising or creatives he said brands, including larger ones like Hersey need PR people to create visual content on a small budget, meaning it falls to public relations professionals.