Hey Josh,

I guess I should answer this. There are only about 5 students in these classes this semester that have been blogging before. Now, some of them may have already landed an internship and may speak to whether it has helped them.

Of the past students that have been participating in our blogging exercises, several of them have shared with me that the one thing they talked about in their interview - more than anything else - was the blogging and their digital resume. I should add here that the reason they talked about it is because the employers asked about it. The employers were actually being educated by their new hires. This relates to Stephen’s post and his comment in Marcomblog. Also, most recently, Erin Caldwell has received two internships directly related to her blogging.

Some have said that they believe it was this extra knowledge and experience that was the deciding factor in getting the gig. Although we have been doing this for about 2 years now, there is still a need to see it play out. Some of those first blogging students have only just graduated.

I think a good research project would be to find all of those past students and interview them to see if they are reaping any rewards. The problem is - finding them. They do seem to scatter quickly and not provide forwarding addresses, despite our efforts to keep track of them. I’ll look into this and see if it is viable. Perhaps we can undertake that this semester.

It's definitely something my firm would look for, and faced between two equal students, one who was a blogger and the other not, it would certainly tip the balance.

The opportunity for PR students here is that no PR pro can lay claim to lengthy experience in this area. So new entrants can soon rival old hands in their knowledge of the way tools such as blogs, podcasts, vlogs can influence the reputation of companies. If a student has experience of all those, it's possible they may know more than the person interviewing them. Instantly that means they can bring value to their potential employer.

Stephen Davies is a good example of a student who is taking the initiative to teach himself the techniques of blogging. That means he's already in a position to advise others and has experience to draw uupon.

It also opens doors for him - as with this internship. Impressive stuff.

How about blogging for a thesis? I've decided to go the thesis track in my master's program in Mass Communications at UCF. I'm definitely going to make it blogging/interactive PR related.