This past fall I was invited to the campus of Pepperdine University to talk with students in the PR/Marketing major and those involved in the local PRSSA chapter abut what life after college looks like. After several visits I was struck with a notion.

What if I walked with a class through some real world experiences while still enrolled in school?

Not exactly an internship, something with more of a safety net. A bit of a group think with direct input from a professor as well as a real world coach. The more college students I talk with or have worked with experience a wake up call when they hit the workplace. That seemed like an issue, so I did some thinking and found that there were some resources at my fingertips.

So I pitched an idea to my contact at Pepperdine (Dr. Emily Kinsky) and it looked like this:

The Project

Engage 10,000 college students to move from awareness to volunteers to advocates. Using all forms of PR (new and traditional media tools) to aid in the current campaigns created by URM and it’s partners – The class would work to catalyze the masses to being the solution to homelessness in Los Angeles.

Portnoy Media Group and Union Rescue Mission would work with the team to navigate the waters of Los Angeles non-profit PR and would formulate a feasible, real world plan with the chapter and then put it into action.

How Pepperdine wins:
Hands on creativity and implementation on a real world scenario. It’s a great resume piece for the students and provides instant feedback on success or failure. The students gain access to a client that is involved in every form of media production (print, film, broadcast, radio, web). URM and PMG could also give feedback on the process and the presentation from each team.

How URM wins:
Additional creative minds thinking about the plight of homelessness in Los Angeles. The result would be a microcosm of how URM engages college students and would then have solutions for maximum involvement.

How Portnoy Media Group Wins:
Additional minds creating content/ideas to aid with a current client.
I’d be looking for new ideas to accessibility and with all that brain power helping PMG aid URM in their endeavors of fundraising, awareness, volunteerism and advocacy.
An easy way to work along side and interact with students to identify good intern candidates.

The Final
The final presentations were several weeks ago and URM’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Jacqui Groseth, was on site for the final. All three pitches showed some similarities on how best to reach the students on their campus. Each team had identified a low cost/no cost option that would have maximum effectiveness for talking to college students throughout the Los Angeles area. I couldn’t have been happier with the way the project turned out and look forward to similar collaborations in the future. Big thanks to Dr. Kinsky for her risk taking!

Are you a school looking for a guest lecture? Contact Dan here

Click to check out Union Rescue Mission

Click to check out Pepperdine’s School of Communication

Today marked the launch of the latest Deidox film “Deidox | Dawn” This film is an expansion on the Deidox brand with it’s previous 3 films showing jobs and people in the midst of the struggles. The latest film gives a profile of Dawn, a mother of three discovering her unexpected purpose. I’m quite sure that this is a role that we are constantly surrounded by and yet don’t take a lot of stock in. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

Also launching today was an update on the homepage of Deidox. Since it’s inception, the Deidox site has been bleeding edge with big visuals, slick java scripting and a powerhouse of Search Engine Optimization. With this launch the entire Deidox team wanted to see if there was a better way to communicate all that Deidox is about and what they’re doing.

We needed to convey the message that there were many films and what they were about. After spending some time research what was available in the java script banners we decided on a player that showed the main pictures but allowed large buttons for the other panes. Many times the additional buttons don’t show enough area or are automated to only show a certain point. We wanted more control over it, and found it with our selection.

For this project Portnoy Media Group was again allowed to collaborate early on to guide and research from the early stages of filming Dawn’s story. This allowed the sensitivity and the strategy to walk through the launch. Also in the mix for this project was the incredible work of Out:think Group (Their recent projects include: the redesign Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop Blog, Hugh MacLeod’s Gaiping Void site and Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran’s site). Tim Grahl and Joseph Hinson were instrumental in making the launch happen and were massive collaborators in the design and layout. After initial designs were agreed upon, the guys at Out:think went right to the heavy lifting transforming the site to the beauty that it is now.

We also spent time adjusting the individual film pages. There was a lot of thought put into what would provide the best user experience and bring the least amount of visual fatigue. A fair amount of comparison was made with other websites that offered digital distribution. The aim was to keep everything with in a click or two to make sure that the user experience was simple, although the technology wasn’t.

Huge thanks to the guys at Out:think for another job well done and also thanks to the guys at Deidox for allowing Portnoy Media Group to be involved.