Well, maybe.

Visual bookmarking website Pinterest is the newest social media superstar–Mashable reports that the site saw its estimated unique visitors jump 429 percent from September 2011 to December 2011, for a total of more than 7 million unique visitors. Users create collections of images–called boards–by “pinning” an image from anywhere online, uploading an image from their computer, or “repinning” another user’s pin. Some of the most popular topics so far are fashion, DIY, health, home decor and party and wedding planning. (Here’s a quick how-to that explains more about what Pinterest is.)

I’m an avid personal user of Pinterest but wasn’t sure if there was much use for brands outside of lifestyle or retail companies like Martha Stewart and West Elm.

Then I saw Drake University’s account.

The Iowa university’s Pinterest boards include Rad Room Decor, Study Abroad, Wear Blue, Explore Des Moines, and Adorbs Bulldogs (their mascot). Brilliant! And they already have 550+ followers.

But I work for a business school. We don’t really do room decor or cute animals. Could it work for us?

At first I wasn’t sure, but then got hit with a little inspiration and decided to give it a shot and create a UT McCombs School of Business Pinterest account (not super catchy, I know). The thing is, once you get the hang of Pinterest, it’s very easy to use and doesn’t require much of your time or energy (although it’s easy to get sucked in). I created boards for office fashion (Workin’ It), workplace decor (Office Space), alumni and faculty books (Alumni and Faculty Books), motivational messages (Inspiration), UT and Austin stuff, and a few others. It’s a mix of things I think our communities might be interested in, plus a selection of our own best content that fits in the Pinterest ecosystem. Once I decided on these buckets, it was easy to find stuff to fill them with.

Now, I don’t know if this will catch on with our particular students and alumni or not. I’m just testing the waters and have only tweeted about the account once. We only have nine followers, with some of the individual boards attracting more. Maybe our audience will never be there. And if that turns out to be the case, we’ll move on. But I know for me and quite a few friends, Pinterest has quickly become that rare tool that is easy, addictive AND incredibly useful. And if I can bring our school into that mix, I feel like I should at least experiment a bit and see what happens.

Besides, we’re always hearing about the need for more visual and less text-heavy communication. Maybe this curation process will help me become a better visual storyteller in other outlets like our blog and print magazine.

I haven’t found many universities actively using Pinterest, but here are a handful that are worth following for ideas and to see how this trend develops:

University of South Carolina Arts Education

• Sample boards: Visual Culture, Social Justice, Art/Artists

Texas A&M University

• Sample boards: Our Campus, Aggie Traditions, Aggie I Do

Skidmore College

• Sample boards: Campus Eats!, Books Worth Reading, Science at Skidmore

Oberlin College

• Sample boards: Bikes & Bike Style, Obie Creations, Learning from the Greats

So should universities use Pinterest? I’m answering a definitive “maybe.” If you’re overwhelmed with all the other social media outlets you have to currently maintain, maybe just learn about the site and keep an eye on things. If you’re a personal Pinterest addict-user and/or general early adopter, I think you’ll have some fun exploring how to use it as an organization.

Related links:

• Oberlin’s social media coordinator Ma’ayan Plaut blogs for CASE on how they’re using Pinterest
• Pittsburg State web marketing director Michael Fienen says universities should ignore Pinterest … for now (complete with Twitter discussion on the topic)

Don't be this guy. Of course if you're young enough to be an intern, it's entirely possible you don't who this guy is. Sigh.

I’ve now been through the internship hiring process four times and have noticed the same trends keep popping up. Despite all the career training and resources offered, some students still seem totally unprepared for the interview or even the application process. And others completely shine.

So in the interest of saving everyone a little time and heartache, my list of the cardinal rules of internship applications and interviews that, unfortunately, are broken quite often:

Proofread everything. Cover letter, resume, writing samples, e-mails. I had one applicant misspell “business” in the first paragraph of her cover letter. For a writing job. At a business school. It even had the MS Word spell-check red squiggly underline.

Talk about ME. Well not me, but my company, my position I’m hiring for. You need to show off your own skills and personality too, but if your cover letter and interview answers say nothing specific about my internship, it comes off as if you’re just going through the motions.

Provide context. Don’t just drop in random work experience without explaining why it’s relevant to this job. If you’re submitting writing samples, please oh please I beg you, tell me what they’re from! It’s ok if it’s a class assignment–I just need to know what I’m reading.

Do research on yourself. If, during the interview, I realize I know your resume better than you, that’s a bad sign. Bring a hard copy with you for reference if necessary. Spend time beforehand reviewing your work history, class assignments, past challenges and successes, etc. especially as they might relate to this job.

Do research on us! Our internship is a writing position that contributes to our news blog and alumni magazine. Both are easily found on our website, and I expect you to have looked at them.

Check your e-mail. I know that’s so old-fashioned, but you’re not going to get an interview request via text or Facebook, so check your e-mail regularly. If you haven’t responded to me within 2-3 days, I start to doubt your interest.

Read instructions carefully. If you don’t submit the proper application materials or complete the writing test as instructed, that’s pretty much a guaranteed ticket to the “no” pile.

Be interested and show a little effort. The intern we just hired had less experience than other applicants, but she displayed the most passion and enthusiasm for both the job and the organization. Her cover letter demonstrated she did her homework on the organization and paid attention to the job description. She was prompt, engaged and professional in all her communications with us. And of course she had the talent and skills to back everything up.

Finally, hang in there. Keep applying. Keep networking. Keep being amazingly talented and connected to your field. I know it’s tough looking for a job. I did it for a year and a half after graduating! I apologize for companies that never respond to you, even if it’s just to tell you thanks, but no thanks. But hang in there.

Oh, and don’t ask if the internship is going to be a waste of your time and then lecture the hiring manager about being unprofessional.

Also check out Todd Defren’s Open Letter to Millenials for more great tips.

Images from Facebook pages protesting Arizona's SB1070 immigration law.

Arizona’s controversial immigration bill, SB1070 was just signed into law last Friday, but its social media footprint has already been firmly established. 

Search “SB1070″ on Facebook, and you’ll find 37 Pages, 89 Groups and 55 events (each with their own branding, of course) dedicated to the new law, both for and against it. The term has its own Twitter hashtag. There are dozens of YouTube videos showing protests and news clips of politicians and pundits debating the bill. You can even buy a “Do I Look Illegal?” t-shirt on Cafe Press.

I expect to start seeing bumper stickers and front-yard picket signs pop up around Tucson soon, but it has been fascinating to see the speed at which social media protests and rallies are created and spread. I’m curious to see how it translates to offline behavior.

Will the online calls for boycott really hurt the Arizona economy? Will social media advocacy campaigns look for civil rights abuses or have an impact on efforts to overturn the law? Will state politicians or law enforcement agencies respond to social media comments or even start their own outreach online?

Social media protests didn’t save Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show job, but it did help sell out his comedy tour in a matter of hours and certainly played a big part in the court of public opinion. And as much as I love Conan, illegal immigration is a much more important issue, so theoretically the power of a social media movement is far greater here.

UPDATE: It looks like this is spilling over to higher ed, too. Lane Joplin tweeted this morning about the immigration debate landing on Arizona State University’s Facebook Page:

People started posting immigration-related messages on ASU’s wall on Sunday, many of them filled with profanity and name calling. No response yet from the university.

People need understanding and connection, not just information.
If all you’re doing is blasting your community with content, you–and your audience–are missing out. Both the Future of Context and How to Spark a Movement panels beautifully explained this point. Help someone truly undersand something, connect your community members with each other and unite people around a common mission. That’s when the magic starts to happen.

Think Visually
Three of the best sessions were about this. Dan Roam’s Why Words Won’t Work explained that we’re all visual thinkers, and pictures are key to solving problems. Interactive Infographics showed off how data can come to life if the visualization is done well. And they pointed out that infographics have gone mainsream: How I Met Your Mother uses them regularly (Marshall even needed a charts and graphs intervention because he was using them so frequently) and comedians like Demetri Martin use visualiztions in stand-up. In other words, infographics are cool.

And Visual Note-Taking 101 was the perfect primer and call to action for all of us budding artists.

Stories are powerful
Storytelling, experiences, journey, quest – whatever label you use, a narrative arc is going to resonate with people. A panel about enhancing the museum experience asked “What’s the epic win for your user?” In Narrating the Crowd, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his brother showed off their project, The Kahani Movement, which is capturing the history of Indian-American immigrants by asking people to record their own family’s stories. “Ordinary people have extraordinary stories to share,” they said.

Stories help us remember information. In his Perfectly Irrational presentation, Stanford prof Dan Ariely explained how we are motivated by short-term rewards by telling the story of how he treated himself to a movie day every time he gave himself a painful injection he needed to treat his liver disease. That kept him on track and made sure he got his medicine. I”ll never forget that story, and as a result, that lesson will stay with me.

Open Up
NASA has embraced President Obama’s call to government agencies to become more transparent, and as a result this massive, aging organizations is connecting with new fans in a way that hasn’t been seen in a long time. All of their content is in the public domain, which means anyone can participate in space research and exploration.

Embrace Contradiction
You can be a cool science museum, an open bureaucracy, a warm-hearted business person, a funny girl, a designer who fights malnutrition. In fact those apparent contradictions are often where we find the most interesting people and projects.

Bonus – 5 Cool Web sites
Each of these was mentioned in a SXSW talk. Click and explore!

Apture.com – add contextual multimedia content to any site
www.Walking-papers.org - print maps, add notes and scan them back to share with others
www.Futureofcontext.com and www.explainthis.org -making online journalism more relevant
http://www.data.gov/ – more data than you could ever ask for

And yet, as a communicator now working in higher education—at the very university I graduated from—I struggle to infuse the stories I write with the lighter side of life. I find it especially difficult working at a business school, where the culture is more buttoned-down. But the culture isn’t boring and stuffy either, so what’s the problem?

One very astute alumnus commented on our magazine reader survey that we are “too afraid of [our] readers.” BINGO! I’m afraid of having a sense of humor in our stories, because I don’t want to offend people or make the school look silly. I included a Dilbert cartoon in our Spring/Summer 2009 cover story, and part of me sort of expected to get hate mail for it.

I don’t think that fear should drive my writing, but it’s not altogether unwarranted. Watch 2 minutes of the fun, non-traditional, somewhat silly student-produced Yale admissions video below and then read some of the 148 comments people left on a New York Times article about the video (Yale disabled comments on the video on its YouTube page.)

“I actually felt myself getting dumber watching that”

“For heaven’s sake, it’s YALE, not Taco Bell. With their miniscule acceptance rate, it seems hardly necessary to stoop to this. This is appalling. Selling one of the premier universities with trite songs and salad bars. So much for the dignity of the institution.”

“Embarrasing. [sic]”

“Really, Yale? Are you seriously trying to appeal to the “High School Music” demographic?”

“I absolutely would never have set foot on the campus if I had ever seen this. It’s disgusting, and they should seriously consider whether they want to risk losing alumni contributions (such as mine) by leaving it up. It is in remarkably poor taste for an institution as selective as Yale to have such breathless rhapsodies, tongue-in-cheek, or no (and I dare say any irony is worn pretty thin by minute 15) marketed to the 90% of applicants who will receive the `thin envelope’ in April. It’s not really cute, funny or ironic if you don’t get in.”

Ouch! No wonder we’re afraid of showing a sense of humor in our communications.

The good news? A large number of the commenters seem to support the video and admire Yale’s attempt at humor and innovation. It’s also surpassed 250,000 YouTube views in less than 2 weeks, so it’s certainly getting attention.

I’m going to keep trying to find my funny bone in higher education storytelling, but I think I better build up my backbone too.

For too many companies, the customer service experience doesn't match the PR agenda.

I’m a PR professional and a customer service snob, so when I had an amazing, above-and-beyond, month-long experience with online photography shop AdormaPix, I had to blog about it.

First, what happened:

Dec. 6
Placed my order at www.adorama.com

Dec. 11
Received email saying my order would be delayed due to higher than expected holiday volume.
  
- At 10:04 a.m. I replied to the email, expressing my disappointment and explaining I needed my prints for Christmas gifts. I asked if there was any way I could receive them by Dec. 15, when I was originally supposed to have them (I was leaving town a few days after that so would have been in a pickle if I didn’t have those prints.)
  
-At 12:30 p.m. I received an email:

Hi Tracy,
Again, apologies for the delay in getting your order to you. I have upgraded your order to UPS 2nd day air, so it should go out either Monday or Tuesday and get to you by the end of next week.

If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks,
Elizabeth

   -I tweeted how pleased I was with their customer service, and they thanked me on Twitter!

Dec. something
Received my (very high quality) prints  in time. Gave them as Christmas gifts. Everyone loved them. Christmas saved.

Jan. 15
Received a mass email from Adorama’s director apologizing for the mixup and informing me that my account has been credited with one free 11×14 print, to be redeemed at any time within the month. Christmas miracle!

Now let’s look at what made this a successful experience:

1.) They owned up to the mistake and communicated with customers. Rather than keeping people in the dark or just waiting for customers to call and ask about late orders, they sent notification that they were experiencing delays and explained why.

2.) They read email. Sounds simple, but how many companies actually sift through the responses they get to their info@ or customerservice@ email addresses used to send mass emails?

3.) They replied promptly. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get a response to my e-mail, much less a response in just 2.5 hours on what I’m sure was an insanely busy day.

4.) They solved my problem. They took responsibility and did whatever it took to complete my order in the way I originally placed it. I’m sure it cost them money to upgrade my shipping, but that step earned my loyalty and took me from a disgruntled first-time shopper to a repeat customer who shared the story with my networks.

5.) They listened and engaged. They have a Twitter account and clearly are monitoring for mentions of their company and interacting with customers. This is key for catching customer complaints but also learning about what you’ve done right and what your audience cares about.

6.) They owned up to the mistake, again, and explained further. The “We apologize” email was sincere and explained what happened without making excuses.

7.) They went above and beyond. I was already satisfied with how they handled everything, but offering a free print (and not a measly 4×6 – big honkin’ 11×14!) confirmed they are sorry for what happened and they value customers. Complete opposite of the company who says “We’re sorry you’re upset” but then does nothing to solve the problem or make it up to you.

Looking at that list, it all seems so simple, and yet so often I see both customer service and public relations ignore or violate these basic principles.

What’s the best customer service experience you’ve had recently? Did it change your opinion of the company?

Image by Here’s Kate