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Handling corporate communications for the biggest bank failure in US history with Former Washington Mutual Vice President of Internal Communications Karen Horn of Horn Communication at the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Prior to her position at WaMu, she was the senior director of employee commitment at Cisco.

Note: Alan Elias, senior vice president of corporate communications for Washington Mutual Card Services and Cisco executives Jeanette Gibson, New Media Manager and Maureen Casper, Senior Director of Corporate Communciations have both been featured on previous episodes of this podcast.

01:37 – A summary of why and how Washington Mutual became insolvent, the FDIC seizure and the sale of the failed financial services firm to JP Morgan Chase for $1.7 billion.

03:52 – What the sale of WaMu to Chase meant for home owners who had financed their homes with a home loan from Washington Mutual.

04:36 – What happened on Sept. 25, 2008, the day WaMu employees found out the bank had been seized by the FDIC, and the declaration of the sale to JP Morgan Chase, which came by way of their government relations team.

06:23 – The government relations team’s decision to communicate the declaration via telephone rather than email, since the initial accounts were speculative.

06:55 – Scripting the message to employees about the collapse and the FDIC seizure, so that if a seizure did occur, WaMu could inform employees before the mainstream news media, and the decision to distribute that communication via email.

08:05 – Coordinating the distribution of the internal communication to employees with the company’s external communications efforts to the news media and how they sequenced the news break strategically to control its release.

09:16 – The emotional reality of learning that the company you’ve been working for has gone belly up and that your pension and 401k are gone.

10:58 – At what point do you turn your back on your employer’s corporate reputation? Do you go down defending the brand, or do you surrender to trying to save the memory of a sinking ship?

12:31 – WaMu’s use of an internal leadership blog in their intranet, which was maintained by the bank’s COO, as a way of attracting criticism and indentifying friction points within the bank.

14:50 – Lessons learned and advice to financial services companies about how to integrate social media into a communications effort.

16:10 – Using an external social media channel like a blog to make a market for stock, sustaining a conversation over the long haul and making sure the organization’s reasons for blogging are realistic.

18:32 – Is internal communications more important in the conversation age, since we are migrating from a world where the center of the organization was the mouthpiece, to one where the center of the organization informs its edges, and its edges inform the world.

19:56 -- The single biggest corporate communications lesson learned from handling corporate communications during the collapse of Washington Mutual.

22:54 – How WaMu communicated with customer services representations in the days leading up to the failure, to motivate them to do their best to protect the banks interest, despite its precarious financial predicament.

20:59 – End

RECOMMENDED PODCASTS:

Social Media Training the US Armed Forces Public Affairs Staff at DINFOS with Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons

Inside the Online Video Business with Blip.TV co-founder Dina Kaplan

Daily Candy Editor-in-Chief Dany Levy goes On the Record…Online

Jason Rosenberg, Online Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention Committee

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom and website design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.

On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.

Handling crisis communications for the biggest bank failure in US history with Former Washington Mutual Vice President of Internal Communications Karen Horn at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego. 

Prior to her position at WaMu, she was the senior director of employee commitment at Cisco.

Crisis Communications at Washington Mutual   

01:37 - A summary of why and how Washington Mutual became insolvent, the FDIC seizure and the sale of the failed financial services firm to JP Morgan Chase for $1.7 billion. 

03:52 - What the sale of WaMu to Chase meant for home owners who had financed their homes with a home loan from Washington Mutual.   

04:36 - What happened on Sept. 25, 2008, the day WaMu employees found out the bank had been seized by the FDIC, and the declaration of the sale to JP Morgan Chase, which came by way of their government relations team.   

06:23 - The government relations team's decision to communicate the declaration via telephone rather than email, since the initial accounts were speculative.   

06:55 - Scripting the message to employees about the collapse and the FDIC seizure, so that if a seizure did occur, WaMu could inform employees before the mainstream news media, and the decision to distribute that communication via email.   

08:05 - Coordinating the distribution of the internal communication to employees with the company's external communications efforts to the news media and how they sequenced the news break strategically to control its release.   

09:16 - The emotional reality of learning that the company you've been working for has gone belly up and that your pension and 401k are gone.   

10:58 - At what point do you turn your back on your employer's corporate reputation?  Do you go down defending the brand, or do you surrender to trying to save the memory of a sinking ship?

12:31 - WaMu's use of an internal leadership blog in their intranet, which was maintained by the bank's COO, as a way of attracting criticism and identifying friction points within the bank.  

14:50 - Lessons learned and advice to financial services companies about how to integrate social media into a communications effort.

16:10 - Using an external social media channel like a blog to make a market for stock, sustaining a conversation over the long haul and making sure the organization's reasons for blogging are realistic.   

18:32 - Is internal communications more important in the conversation age, since we are migrating from a world where the center of the organization was the mouthpiece, to one where the center of the organization informs its edges, and its edges inform the world.

19:56 -- The single biggest corporate communications lesson learned from handling corporate communications during the collapse of Washington Mutual.   

22:54 - How WaMu communicated with customer services representations in the days leading up to the failure, to motivate them to do their best to protect the banks interest, despite its precarious financial predicament.   

20:59 - End

Aligning digital strategy with business objectives, unique risks for public companies and engaging in controversial conversations with Gary Goldhammer (@g24khamr), vice president for Interactive Solutions at Edelman Digital at the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego.

Gary has been blogging for five years about the convergence of journalism and new media at Below the Fold.

00:55 – Aligning digital strategy with business strategy by listening to what people are saying online, and creating an engagement strategy based on existing perceptions.

01:45 – What types of objectives cannot and should not be attempted with digital technology. What cannot be achieved?

02:30 – What are the risks public companies should be aware of when they create their digital strategy and what sort of guard rails should be in place before the launch a digital communications campaign?

02:47 – Adverse event reporting and what pharmaceutical companies are required by Food and Drug Administration to do if someone leaves a comment about an adverse reaction to one of their drugs on the manufacturer’s Facebook page.

03:25 – The duty to report the adverse effects of drug therapy extend beyond those pharmaceutical companies that maintain a social media presence. If a company is listening and engaging in any other social media channel, they may still be liable.

03:50 – Recent SEC Guidance on the Use of Company Websites to Satisfy Regulation Fair Disclosure and the notion that for public companies using social media, nonselective disclosure translates into nonselective engagement.

05:41 – How the online destination of a social media web presence impacts a public company’s duty to update, and whether or not hosting a corporate on a third-party service like Blogger at a BlogSpot domain is any safer than hosting the blog at your own domain.

07:11 – The duty to update as a strategic factor, rather than a legal factor, and the idea of looking at social media engagement as an ongoing conversation, rather than a one-time campaign.

08:03 – How to decide what social media channels are right for your organization based on where an organization’s most desirable community members are interacting already online and building strategies around inputs instead of outputs.

09:58 – The risks of segmenting communications by social media channel, saying one thing on Twitter and something else on Facebook and treating social media as a broadcast channel, versus an engagement channel.

12:05 – Is dealing with controversy about a company exclusively on their Facebook page instead of at your corporate domain protect the organization from tipping off those disengaged from social media about the controversy?

13:57 -- The web has not always been social, but has all media become social? A discussion of the Motrin Moms case study as an example of media that wasn’t intended to be social, and how it wound up provoking an adverse reaction via social media.

15:01 – Why using social media as a mass media channel is ineffective, and testing pilot projects internally as way of establishing a comfort level inside the organizations before launching initiatives in these channels externally.

18:29 – The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer [PDF] rankings, which listed financial analysts and business magazines as the most trusted sources of company information, David Carr’s recent article about the state of the business magazine category, and whether or not business magazines will retain that level of trust on the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, which at the time of release of this podcast was not yet available. David Carr has appeared as a guest on this podcast before, and his keynote speech at the 2007 Digital Impact Conference was also podcast.

19:07 – The future of conventional journalism and the importance of niche and local news agencies.

20:59 – End

RECOMMENDED PODCASTS:

Social Media Training the US Armed Forces Public Affairs Staff at DINFOS with Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons

Inside the Online Video Business with Blip.TV co-founder Dina Kaplan

Daily Candy Editor-in-Chief Dany Levy goes On the Record…Online

Jason Rosenberg, Online Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention Committee

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom and website design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.

On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.

Aligning digital strategy with business objectives, unique risks for public companies and engaging in controversial conversations with Gary Goldhammer (@g24khamr), vice president for Interactive Solutions at Edelman Digital at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego.   

Gary has been blogging for five years about the convergence of journalism and new media at Below the Fold.  

00:55 – Aligning digital strategy with business strategy by listening to what people are saying online, and creating an engagement strategy based on existing perceptions.  

01:45 – What types of objectives cannot and should not be attempted with digital technology.  What cannot be achieved?  

02:30 – What are the risks public companies should be aware of when they create their digital strategy and what sort of guard rails should be in place before the launch a digital communications campaign?  

02:47 – Adverse event reporting and what pharmaceutical companies are required by Food and Drug Administration to do if someone leaves a comment about an adverse reaction to one of their drugs on the manufacturer’s Facebook page.  

03:25 – The duty to report the adverse effects of drug therapy extend beyond those pharmaceutical companies that maintain a social media presence.  If a company is listening and engaging in any other social media channel, they may still be liable.  

03:50 – Recent SEC Guidance on the Use of Company Websites to Satisfy Regulation Fair Disclosure and the notion that for public companies using social media, nonselective disclosure translates into nonselective engagement.  

05:41 – How the online destination of a social media web presence impacts a public company’s duty to update, and whether or not hosting a corporate on a third-party service like Blogger at a BlogSpot domain is any safer than hosting the blog at your own domain.  

07:11 – The duty to update as a strategic factor, rather than a legal factor, and the idea of looking at social media engagement as an ongoing conversation, rather than a one-time campaign.  

08:03 – How to decide what social media channels are right for your organization based on where an organization’s most desirable community members are interacting already online and building strategies around inputs instead of outputs.   

09:58 – The risks of segmenting communications by social media channel, saying one thing on Twitter and something else on Facebook and treating social media as a broadcast channel, versus an engagement channel.  

12:05 – Is dealing with controversy about a company exclusively on their Facebook page instead of at your corporate domain protect the organization from tipping off those disengaged from social media about the controversy?  

13:57 -- The web has not always been social, but has all media become social?  A discussion of the Motrin Moms case study as an example of media that wasn’t intended to be social, and how it wound up provoking an adverse reaction via social media.  

15:01 – Why using social media as a mass media channel is ineffective, and testing pilot projects internally as way of establishing a comfort level inside the organizations before launching initiatives in these channels externally.  

18:29 – The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer [PDF] rankings, which listed financial analysts and business magazines as the most trusted sources of company information, David Carr’s recent article about the state of the business magazine category, and whether or not business magazines will retain that level of trust on the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer,

The business case for public relations, the results of the general assembly of the 2009 PRSA Assembly for Delegates and Leadership and delivering value with Michael Cherenson (@mcherenson), Chair and CEO of PRSA and Executive Vice President of New Jersey-based Success Communications Group at the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego.

01:21 – Steve Lubetkin (@podcaststeve) asks via Twitter, “What is PRSA going to do to persuade members to seek APR accreditation? Steve Lubetkin owns the firm in New Jersey Lubetkin Communications, which produces podcasts for clients.

04:55 – With communications migrating online and the rise of social media, what makes the APR accreditation relevant?

06:20 – Fran Stephenson (@fransteps), director of corporate communications at Rackspace asks via Twitter, “How will the board regroup after yesterday’s disappointing assembly results?” Fran Stephenson also oappeared in a panel at the conference with Kami Watson Huyse, Matthew Henry and Jason Avant on Building Relationships with the Digerati.

08:05 – On her Kicking Sand Blog, Nicole Jordan (@nicolejordan ) asks, “What do PR professionals think needs to be done to fundamentally change the way PR is perceived and practiced?” Nicole Jordan covered the conference for Webmaster Radio. Her audio coverage can be found at the Voices of PRSA Podcast Center.

11:01 – Is the definition of public relations too narrow to accurately describe where the business is headed?

13:28 – End

RECOMMENDED PODCASTS:

Social Media Training the US Armed Forces Public Affairs Staff at DINFOS with Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons

Inside the Online Video Business with Blip.TV co-founder Dina Kaplan

Daily Candy Editor-in-Chief Dany Levy goes On the Record…Online

Jason Rosenberg, Online Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention Committee

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom and website design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.

On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.

Handling public affairs at the detainment facility operated by the Joint Task Force at GTMO “Gitmo,” the efforts of the Office of the US Secretary of Defense in establishing an umbrella social media policy and whether the US Dept. of Defense will publish data sets at www.data.gov, featuring Guantanamo Public Affairs Chief, US Navy Lieutenant Commander Brook DeWalt, APR and 2009 PRSA International Conference Honorary Co-Chair.

01:12 – Brook talks about his role as the liaison between US Armed Forces public affairs and the Public Relations Society of America, as the honorary 2009 PRSA International Conference Co-Chair.

03:18 – The controversy surrounding the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, preparations to close the facility by Presidential Executive Order on Jan. 22, 2010 and the mission of the joint task.

07:51 – Accommodating media at Guantanamo, who visit almost weekly to observe the conditions the facility and the treatment of the detainees.

10:27 – Managing public affairs maintaining transparency, providing access to information about the facility, the detainees and the personnel who serve there.

13:19 – Lt. Commander DeWalt responds to former Asst. Secretary of Defense Robert Hastings’s claim that Brook DeWalt was the brainchild behind the Department of Defense’s entrée into social media communications in his former role as Director of New Media for the US Department of Defense, and the Lieutenant Commander’s response that he was part of team with Jack Holt (@jack-holt) and others.

15:30 – The Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable program, which DeWalt’s team launched, and other activities including working with the Pentagon Channel and www.defense.gov.

17:13 – A discussion of the umbrella social media policy, as discussed recently in the news media, that is being developed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Offices within Joint Staff and an acknowledgement that technology is always in advance of policy.

19:29 – Whether the lack of social media policy a benefit or a detriment to implement social media communications within the U.S. Department of Defense, and importance of having policy moving forward.

21:31 – How public affairs within the US Armed Forces has changed in the age of the digital native.

22:20 – The unique demands of serving in a public affairs capacity with digital immigrants as opposed to digital natives.

23:40 – Applying the standards of responsible communications, which in the US Armed Forces means “staying in your lane,” to the business of social media communications.

26:10 – The absence of data provided by the US Dept. of Defense to www.data.gov, particularly given Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech at the 91st Annual American Legion Convention, in which he said that since the US presence in Afghanistan, 8 million children are in school, 2.4 million of which are girls, up from 800,000 prior to the US incursion. Couple this with the fact that the Citizen’s Briefing Book presented to President Obama said that in the area of Homeland Security, 38,250 people say that they do not support “wars on abstract concepts,” making it the number one issue in this area as far as the public is concerned. Whether or not the US Dept. of Defense will start providing more data about the impact of their efforts, and which government agencies should be responsible for making that data available. (NOTE: As of Dec. 10, 2009 DoD is currently offering six raw data sets at www.data.gov.)

29:54 -- End

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media communications consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.

On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009 PRSA International Conference.

Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.

Handling public affairs at the detainment facility operated by the Joint Task Force at GTMO “Gitmo,” the efforts of the Office of the US Secretary of Defense in establishing an umbrella social media policy and whether the US Dept. of Defense will publish data sets at www.data.gov, featuring Guantanamo Public Affairs Chief, US Navy Lieutenant Commander Brook DeWalt, APR and 2009 PRSA International Conference Honorary Co-Chair.   

SHOW NOTES

01:12 – Brook talks about his role as the liaison between US Armed Forces public affairs and the Public Relations Society of America, as the honorary PRSA International Conference Co-Chair.  

03:18 – The controversy surrounding the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, preparations to close the facility by Presidential Executive Order on Jan. 22, 2010 and the mission of the joint task.  

07:51 – Accommodating media at Guantanamo, who visit almost weekly to observe the conditions the facility and the treatment of the detainees.  

10:27 – Managing public affairs maintaining transparency, providing access to information about the facility, the detainees and the personnel who serve there.  

13:19 – Lt. Commander DeWalt responds to former Asst. Secretary of Defense Robert Hastings’s claim that Brook DeWalt was the brainchild behind the Department of Defense’s entrée into social media communications in his former role as Director of New Media for the US Department of Defense, and the Lieutenant Commander’s response that he was part of team with retired US Navy Captain Roxie Merritt, who is currently the director of community relations for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Jack Holt (@jack-holt) and others.  

15:30 – The Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable program, which DeWalt’s team launched, and other activities including working with the Pentagon Channel and www.defense.gov.  

17:13 – A discussion of the umbrella social media policy, as discussed recently in the news media,  that is being developed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Offices within Joint Staff and an acknowledgement that technology is always in advance of policy.  

19:29 – Whether the lack of social media policy a benefit or a detriment to implement social media communications within the U.S. Department of Defense, and importance of having policy moving forward.  

21:31 – How public affairs within the US Armed Forces has changed in the age of the digital native.  

22:20 – The unique demands of serving in a public affairs capacity with digital immigrants as opposed to digital natives.  

23:40 – Applying the standards of responsible communications, which in the US Armed Forces means “staying in your lane,” to the business of social media communications.  

26:10 – The absence of data provided by the US Dept. of Defense to www.data.gov, particularly given Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech at the 91st Annual American Legion Convention, in which he said that since the US presence in Afghanistan, 8 million children are in school, 2.4 million of which are girls, up from 800,000 prior to the US incursion. 

Couple this with the fact that the Citizen’s Briefing Book presented to President Obama said that in the area of Homeland Security, 38,250 people say that they do not support “wars on abstract concepts,” making it the number one issue in this area as far as the public is concerned. 

Whether or not the US Dept. of Defense will start providing more data about the impact of their efforts, and which government agencies should be responsible for making that data available.

How to become a PRSA board member, inside PRSA’s prestigious College of Fellows and judging the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards with PRSA Chair-Elect Gary D. McCormick, APR, Fellow PRSA and Director, Partnership Development at HGTV, Scripps Networks.

02:14 – What it takes to be inducted into the prestigious PRSA College of Fellows.

03:52 – What goes into vetting and recognizing PRSA a new Fellow.

05:04 – What does it take to rise to the top of a member-based organization like PRSA?

06:28 – What is the value of being active in PRSA? What do you get from being a member?

08:26 – What’s the benefit of judging the PRSA Bronze Anvil and PRSA Silver Anvil Awards?

10:03 – What does it takes to earn a seat on the board of directors and be elected the chair?

13:05 – How does PRSA control the quality of the professional development programs at the chapter level against those at the national level?

16:09 – What is PRSA’s biggest challenge moving forward?

17:40 – End

RECOMMENDED PODCASTS:

Social Media Training the US Armed Forces Public Affairs Staff at DINFOS with Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons

Inside the Online Video Business with Blip.TV co-founder Dina Kaplan

Daily Candy Editor-in-Chief Dany Levy goes On the Record…Online

Jason Rosenberg, Online Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention Committee

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media communications consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman is also the founder of online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.

Managing social media engagement, the impact of social media on our intellectual development and what’s next with author and social media professional Deirdre Breakenridge (@dbreakenridge), president of PSFMarketwyse, recorded at the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego.

01:17 – Deirdre discusses the controversy surrounding her most recent book “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,” which she and her co-author Brian Solis discussed with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz on For Immediate Release.

02:34 – Deirdre discusses her other books, her personal brand, listening and becoming a social media resource.

04:48 – The cost of being a social media influencer, and balancing the time one spends using social networks against parenting.

05:49 – Being a committed mother and making a conscious effort to spend time off of email, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr as a way of rejuvenating.

07:44 – The impact of social media engagement on our intellectual development, and the potential drawbacks of living in a constant state of partial attention.

08:59 – How ready is public relations to inherit the social media communications mantle, engage with bloggers and start leveraging emerging online channels Google Wave?

10:18 – Does it make sense for public relations to lead in social media engagement at most organizations, or should social media be the domain of another department?

12:08 – Should PR oversee social media governance inside the organization, and is social media a horizontal business function?

13:32 – Deirdre talks about a panel of social media specialists she assembled for the 2009 PRSA International Conference which includes Joe Jaffe, Ariel Hyatt, Kami Huyse and Brian Solis.

14:30 – Now that so many organizations have Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages, YouTube channels and Flickr feeds, what’s next? Looking ahead at conversation monitoring versus conversation mining, real-time collaboration and the shift of power from brands to communities.

16:25 – How will younger generations regard social media and online communities technology? Will they grow up with an inherent understanding of how to effectively apply these channels?

17:51 – What kind of information should public relations practitioners be looking to pull out of the mountains of online data being created that is relevant to their business category?

18:43 – End

About the Podcaster: Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) is an independent new media and social media communications consultant, the creator of the top-rated New Media and Social Media Boot Camp, which has been attended by more than a thousand public relations and marketing executives from the private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. In addition to advising clients on best practices for online newsroom design, deployment and management, Schwartzman offers a portfolio of social media training courses to accelerate the acquisition of social media communication skills, as well as social media strategy and campaign support. Schwartzman also founded online newsroom software as a service provider iPressroom.

On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2009

PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord and get them as soon as they’re released.

Social media management, the impact of social media on our intellectual development and what's next with author and social media professional Deirdre Breakenridge (@dbreakenridge) recorded at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego.

01:17 - Deirdre discusses the controversy surrounding her most recent book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, which she and her co-author Brian Solis discussed with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz on For Immediate Release.

02:34 - Deirdre discusses her other books, her personal brand, listening and becoming a social media resource.

04:48 - The cost of being a social media influencer, and balancing the time one spends using social networks against parenting.

05:49 - Being a committed mother and making a conscious effort to spend time off of email, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr as a way of rejuvenating.

07:44 - The impact of social media engagement on our intellectual development, and the potential drawbacks of living in a constant state of partial attention.

08:59 - How ready is public relations to inherit the social media communications mantle, engage with bloggers and start leveraging emerging online channels Google Wave?

10:18 - Does it make sense for public relations to lead in social media engagement at most organizations, or should social media be the domain of another department?

12:08 - Should PR oversee social media governance inside the organization, and is social media a horizontal business function?

13:32 - Deirdre talks about a panel of social media specialists she assembled for the 2009 PRSA International Conference which includes Joe Jaffe, Ariel Hyatt, Kami Huyse and Brian Solis.

14:30 - Now that so many organizations have Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages, YouTube channels and Flickr feeds, what's next?

Looking ahead at conversation monitoring versus conversation mining, real-time collaboration and the shift of power from brands to communities.

16:25 - How will younger generations regard social media and online communities technology?

Will they grow up with an inherent understanding of how to effectively apply these channels?

17:51 - What kind of information should public relations practitioners be looking to pull out of the mountains of online data being created that is relevant to their business category?

18:43 - End