The Crowdsourcing Experiment You'd Love To Try

    I am really intrigued about the crowdsourcing concept.  Taking a task normally performed by one person and outsourcing it to the masses opens up a sea of possibilities. Crowdsourcing is really an industrial strength dose of brainstorming, because you tap the power of numerous minds.

  The approach can be applied to a wide variety of activities and initiatives. So I can’t resist asking the question? What if  PRF&P became an object for crowdsourcing? I’m talking about everything about the class itself: name, content, course calendar, class session length, exercises, blogging, guest speakers, and so forth.

  Wouldn’t if be interesting to see what changes different people would make to PRF&P? What would you do if you were in the driver’s seat? What suggestions would you make if you were asked?  I know this class is brimming at the seams with unspoken advice. I’m sure every student wants to modify something about this course, and probably more.        
   First, what about the name? Would you leave PRF&P alone, or do you have something better? I would be partial to a cute mnemonic title that reflects what we are doing. Maybe Public Relations Exercises & Solutions Seminar (PRESS)?  How about Public Relations Experiences, Strategies, and Tactics Involving Group Experiment (PRESTIGE)?  

  Second, what about the PRF&P timeline? Originally, I thought 12 150-minute long classes would be plenty of time for this class. Now, I think it’s really not enough. We all saw proof of that on Monday. Professor Chandler’s discussion about social media went past the 9 p.m. deadline.

   And you know what? That’s perfectly understandable. There is so much to be said about social media.   That vast subject could easily fill a whole PRF&P class. And this is just one aspect of this far-flung course.  

     PRF&P encompasses so much territory that you could build a bachelor’s degree program around it. What if you had that opportunity? Think of how much you can expand on matter that Professor Chandler can’t fully cover, or barely touch on, within a one-semester setting.

     For example, you could have crisis management classes. Students can serve play corporate spokespeople and do complete damage control PR plans on mock fiascos.  You could give public speaking courses. Undergraduates can perform simulated press conferences, corporate presentations, and podium speeches.  You could even offer multicultural PR strategy. You’d learn how to target strategic communications towards  culture specific audiences. 

    In reality, making PRF&P a four-year program wouldn’t be practical, especially without proof of actual demand. My idea would be offering PRF&P as a two semester course.

     The first would focus on the nuts and bolts; the concepts, the blogging, the guest speakers, the weekly assignments, etc. The second semester, I would devote entirely to the group PR plan project. This would permit more time for in-depth research and realistic scenarios.

   I would also have real life PR pros act as clients. They could draw on their experience to throw you curveballs, critique your strategies and tactics, throw objections in your face, and hear your final PR plan presentations.

    I would mandate specific dollar budget requirements. Each PR project group would have to spell out how much money will go for each tactic. I would also have the groups design and administer social media pages. I don’t know exactly how this would work in a project setting. Yet, I think the training would be great for the real world. 

    But that’s just my take on PRF&P. I’m really itching to hear from each and every class member.  How would you change the PRF&P course if you were the designer? How long would the course run? How long would each class time be? What PR aspects would you cover? What would be the format of the PR plan project? How would you incorporate social media instruction into the class? Who would be on your guest speaker roster?

   There are a multitude of other questions I could raise about PRF&P. I’m damn sure there is a multitude of proposals about improving this course just among this class. The blogs alone show this bunch of students can dish out more food for thought than the largest professor's lounge at the Sorbonne. That’s why I believe PRF&P would make a great crowdsourcing test.  

    Would your version PRF&P stand out from the crowd?  Would it win over the crowd? Well, there’s only one way to find out.