I’m happy to announce that I made it to midterms unscathed, for the most part. I’m even more happy to announce that the day I’ve been looking forward to this semester has finally arrived. This week, I will be giving my COMM 107  students a crash course in social media. I’m certain that 99.9 percent of them are on Facebook but, if they are going to enter a world that will have changed dramatically in the four years that they will be in college, they must see that the light is a lot brighter than that.

It is here.

My first big project of my first semester as a public relations graduate student is here and I’m excited to dive right into it. The only problem is I need your help.

I will be conducting a single case study research on the topic of digital media and organization management. Specifically, I would like to study an organization that has seen its internal organizational structure change due to the addition of social and digital media-related functions to the organization’s communication department.

• Have organizational hierarchies shifted?

To mean to or not to mean to, that is the question

During my first class as a graduate student at University of Maryland, Introduction to Graduate Study in Communication, we discussed articles defining the field in general written by George Gerbner, Gerald Miller and Thomas Nilsen. Miller’s work in particular stirred the class into intense conversation about intentional and unintentional communication and whether the latter should be considered communication at all.

I’ll save you the suspense and say that for the purposes of communication research, the answer is mainly no.

*It's a blog!*

That’s the WordPress default title for the sample post that comes published with every new WordPress account. On the surface it’s a rather generic, upbeat greeting. Underneath the surface it’s an open invitation to allow yourself to run wild and to unleash your inner blogging beast all over your brand new, endless white canvas.

If you scroll down you’ll come to realize that this is not my first post. And yet it is.

What used to be “Andi Narvaez: Down and Across” is now “Andi Narvaez: Re-learning PR.” Welcome to my refreshed blog.

Don’t act like you’ve never sat at home on a lazy Saturday night and given into watching whatever movie was on TV.

Tonight I’m watching Men in Black for (I’ll admit it) at least the fifth time and, once again, I came to the conclusion that one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Will Smith shows up for MIB traning. During the simulation of a neighborhood under an alien attack the other trainees unleash a shooting frenzy, meanwhile Will Smith holds his fire – until a cardboard cutout of an eight year-old girl rolls out that is. Here is the quote from IMBD:

I was watching an episode of The Office where Michael quits Dunder Mifflin and recruits Pam and Ryan to start a new paper company. In this episode, Michael tries to get his former Dunder Mifflin clients to switch over and buy paper from his new company. In an effort to thwart Michael, Dwight tells him, Pam and Ryan to meet him for lunch and then sneaks into their empty office to steal Michael’s rolodex with all his clients’ information.

Pam mentions that she had spent months entering all the contact information into Michael’s Blackberry so that he wouldn’t have to use the rolodex anymore but I’ll save that for another post. Moving on.

I am at Podcamp San Antonio 3.0. So far I have seen people in jeans and t-shirts, army uniforms and sequin coats and hats. And, as one would expect based on the eclectic mix of people, the sessions have covered a diverse set of topics all under the social media sun.

A recap:

Coworking

@firecatsue talked about coworking, which to me is a perfect example of how we can take social media offline and into the 3-dimensional world that all of us are familiar with. Coworking is heaven-sent for people like me who need distractions to focus and feed off other people’s energy and unique passions.

Check this out to get a sense for how coworking is taking off all over the coutry and, if you are in San Antonio… check out C4 Workspace, follow @coworkingsa and hey, why not take a day to actually try it out?

Journey through social media

@TXconflictcoach talked about her journey into social media. She talked about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BlogTalkRadio, blogging and MySpace (no, wait… take that back. MySpace is apparently where all the porn is). The thing to highlight about this session is the importance of experimenting and – one of my favorite words – TINKERING with different social media networks, channels, approches, strategies… in order to find the one (or ones) that fit you and what you do best. I highly recommend you do it. Hit the ground running and don’t be afraid to trip and fall – you’ll get back up. I promise.

The most difficult thing of living in the United States is how far away I am from most of my family. Social media has bridged the gap a little bit but on day’s like today, Facebook wall messages, e-cards, Twitters, email and Skype phone calls don’t always cut it. But then I thought, “Hey! Don’t I have one of those blogs?”

Here is a little somethin’ somethin’ about the greatest woman in my life. I figured a blog post in her honor would get me closer to letting the whole world (or the 10 people that read this blog) know how much I love her.

Last night Stephen Colbert (who else?) devoted a big chunk of his show to narcissism in America.

A friend once told me that writing is one of the most narcissistic professions, hobbies… things to do in the world and I agreed wholeheartedly. I still do. And today at work I mentioned to my co-worker that everyone and their moms have a blog now, maybe even two or three.

So, seeing as how I’m a part of the legions that blog, tweet and do everything in between…

A post on Mashable today, reposting the news about  Birmingham City University’s new social media graduate program got me thinking about the implications of more universities offering courses in new media, social media and all of the above.

I have a great passion for education and, especially when it comes to communications, I believe there is nothing better than when scholars’ work goes hand-in-hand with that of those who pratice the profession in order to improve best practices.