I used to have a recurring nightmare that every human being was actually a robot covered in human skin.

Thoughts about my mental state at the time aside, it was a terrifying dream; one of those dreams that stick with you long after you’ve shaken away the cobwebs of slumber.

I bring this up because that nightmare seems to be closer to becoming a reality.

Two words: Android. Reporters.

Whaaaaaaaaaat?

You heard me. I’m talking about machines that write the news.

Oh, sure, right now they just provide Little League parents with memories for their kid’s scrapbook. And in a recent article in Wired, Kristian Hammond, the CEO of Narrative Science (the company behind the robot apocalypse) asks: Have you ever seen a reporter at a little league game?

Well, no.

BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT.

Even though the purpose of this endeavor is not to replace human reporters, they say out of the other side of their mouth that they expect a computer program to win a Pulitzer Prize within five years.

And you know what? I believe them.

So if we’re to assume robots will soon churn out content at a pace that even the most prolific human reporter could ever dream of, and eventually get good enough to compete for the top prize in all of journalism, what does that mean for the PR industry?

Will PR firms build proprietary software that gets client mentions in robot-written coverage?

Will news outlets plug into a database of information leased by PR firms, allowing the sentient reporters to pull the information they need?

Will PR professionals even have a place in this futuristic world?

According to an article on Forbes.com, textile artisans in the 19th century protested the Industrial Revolution because they rightly believed mechanized looms would replace them.

Will this shift in media signal similar doom for the PR professional?

Probably not.

At the very least, it will make good coffee machine fodder in the morning while your monitoring software pulls yesterday’s coverage.

Oh, shit…

The quickest way to my heart is through a good Q&A.

That means I kind of “heart” Erica Moss.

She is a Michigander-turned-New Yorker who is the community manager for Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Nursing program.

But when she’s not leading that community, she’s interviewing people on her blog. I suppose it’s the journalist in her that continues to seek out interesting people to talk to. The requirements to be featured are strict: you have to be cool and have the ability to answer ten questions. She’s highlighted some people who are, indeed, cool, and can answer a question.

Oh, and when she’s not doing that, she runs a feature on the Western Michigan University alumni page called “MyWMU Minute” where she interviews alumni who have gone on to do great things in life.

Needless to say, she’s pretty busy.

I decided to flip the tables and interview her. We’ll discuss what it was like going to the dark side, why PR people made her feel small, and why there’s no way to compare Michigan to NYC.

Brad: You are a former journalist. When PR people pitched you stories, did it matter if they had a compelling story to tell? Or were you only concerned with how it fit into your beat?

Erica: Perhaps it was because I was never considered a “seasoned” or “veteran” reporter, but I, honestly, can’t point to one pitch that ever truly wowed me. I think PR has evolved a lot, even since then, and is much more personable than it ever was, but I rarely received anything that didn’t make it blatantly obvious I was on a big list of contacts.

As a reporter, it’s always important to keep your beat in mind when reading pitches and press releases, but even if it wasn’t directly related to me, if it was well-written and I thought there was a true story to tell, I’d take the time to forward it to a more appropriate colleague. Non-tailored, generic outreach usually means you’re dead in the water.

When you moved from journalism to PR, how did your impression of us change?

The switch from journalism to PR was an interesting one for me because, to be quite honest, when you’re in J-school, public relations is often viewed as the “dark side.” I still had a lot of misconceptions about what it was: Was I going to have to bend the truth to help position my client in the best light? Was I going to have to badger reporters until they finally gave in to writing a story, just to make me go away? Would I even get to do much writing anymore?

Of course, the more I entrenched myself in the role, the more I realized how important public relations really is. Just as when I was wearing my journalist cap, I was meeting fascinating people and helping them share their stories with the world.

I never viewed PR pros as malicious or ill intentioned, but it was hard to ignore the ones who don’t always give the field a good name, either by being less-than-honest or overly aggressive in their approaches. Once I switched sides, I gained a whole new appreciation for what they do, however, and finally understood how integral they are in helping to shine a spotlight on the stories we read and see on the TV every single day.

You’re now the community manager for Georgetown University’s online masters in nursing program. I’ve heard of entire schools having community managers, but never specific programs. I assume it’s done, in part, to boost enrollment. Does it seem to be working? Do you think this is a trend?

Bottom line: We’re an online master’s degree program that boasts a state-of-the-art learning management system aimed at fundamentally disrupting higher education. If we didn’t place a large emphasis on building relationships online, people would probably start to question our credibility. Each of our partner programs are so unique that there’s no way one person could manage it successfully.

Our current and potential students are no different than a customer at Zappos: They expect us to be where they are and have their questions answered by a human being and in a timely manner, whether that’s on Twitter or a forum on AllNurses.com. Because a lot of our students find us through search, we also appreciate the value of a solid SEO strategy, which is completely integrated into our social media efforts.

We seem to be leading the charge in terms of this strategy, so I haven’t seen a lot of other schools executing it successfully, but I think you’ll absolutely start to see others having that a-ha moment. It’s so imperative to have someone on your team that has his or her finger on the pulse of your target audience, who knows how to speak to them in a real, authentic way, and who can also point to analytics that back up their efforts.

What are some of the digital tools you use to increase the school’s community?

Health care is a challenging vertical, but I’ve taken the approach of going where our community is, as opposed to trying to build something and asking them to come to it. There is a fairly healthy group of registered nurses who are active on Reddit, believe it or not, which was totally unexpected, but a great case study for how important it is to listen and learn before you jump in.

Facebook is our most vibrant community, by far, with almost 2,900 fans. We use it as a way to talk about new program offerings, trends in nursing and health care, and also to ask questions. It’s fun to discover passion points from our fans, even if it’s something as simple as pens (Nurses really have a point of view about them!) We’ve also hosted several chats in conjunction with NurseTogether.com that allow us to talk in real time with people who are interested in our program and share some of our personality with them.

It doesn’t matter where we are, though — it’s all about positioning ourselves as a helpful resource as opposed to a megaphone that wants to sell you on an advanced degree.

When you’re not handling that community, you’re the question-asker behind the “MyWMU Minute.” Getting alumni to talk about how they got to where they are is, in my opinion, a great way to instill confidence in others who are following the same path. How did you get involved in this project?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more hard-core Bronco (except maybe Beth Kostecki), and I think a lot of schools struggle with how to tell the individual stories within their alumni base. You hear about the high-profile stuff (Oprah’s all-time favorite guest was a WMU alumna), but I knew of so many people in my own personal alum network that were doing cool things, too, and I wanted to give them a platform to shine.

I still have great relationships with many faculty members, so I reached out to the owner of the school’s MyWMU blog to gauge her interest in an ongoing series like the “MyWMU Minute.” She was more than excited, and soon I began sending her the Q&As from my network. I’ve been told the feedback from other faculty members has been overwhelmingly positive, and I appreciate the opportunity to give back to my alma mater, even in a small way.

Finally, the random question: What’s the best part about living in New York City that you didn’t expect when you moved there from Michigan?

It’s important — and obvious — to note that Michigan and New York City are polar opposites of one another. But I was in a sink-or-swim situation, and I opted to make the best of it, and there are, of course, a lot of perks to living here. The best: at any given time being 20 minutes away from some of the coolest landmarks in the world. In one day, I could visit the State of Liberty, stand in the middle of Times Square and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art — and still have time to visit the Empire State Building.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the food — there are more five-star restaurants than you can shake a stick at, and I’ve had some of the best meals of my life here. The bottom line, however, is that I’ve got mad Mitten love, and Michigan will always be my No. 1.

***

There you have it, folks. Six questions with Erica Moss that capture the very essence of her existence. I very much appreciate her taking the time to do this.

If you liked this interview, you’ll love the rest of the interviews in this series.

I’m sick and tired of reading how stupid we are, while those with the power don’t hold themselves at least partly responsible.

With its bluntly titled “PR Dummies” section, Gawker has taken the outing of poor PR pitches to new heights. But other blogs, like the Bad Pitch Blog, have been in the business of providing constructive criticism for years.

Ripping PR professionals for not knowing how to do their job has become its own industry.

Then, yesterday, Peter Shankman added to the cacophony of outrage with a PRWeek blog post that urged us (for lack of a better term) to get smarter about pitching journalists.

Since bloggers don’t usually wake up in the morning and decide today is the day they are going to write a scathing post about how poorly PR professionals do their jobs, I’m going to guess that something happened that caused Mr. Shankman to put pen to paper.

But the irony of his post is that the same people he wants to reach with a blog post are the same people he says are too lazy to do their own research.

So does he honestly expect them to seek out help proactively?

The only ones who are going to read a post like this are the people who want to improve; they are the ones who subscribe to publications like PRWeek. So we can’t expect the bad ones to learn how to get smarter if they aren’t looking in the first place.

This call to action to stop being stupid has been around for years. And another blog post is really just more white noise in the ongoing fight against bad PR.

Instead of a strongly written blog post, or the tweets that will inevitably hail this post as something monumental in the fight against bad spin, maybe what these poor souls need is some personal guidance.

It can’t be that hard to identify who has it and who doesn’t. And as managers and senior-level executives, we can’t count on those below us to identify their own shortcomings.

A regularly occurring one-on-one, or a meeting over a cup of coffee, can make all the difference in the world to somebody who might not have the confidence to do their job. And if we are invested in raising the next generation of PR people the right way, it’s up to us to reach out.

There’s something to be said about writing to vent. But if you’re not going to get in front of your intended audience, what’s the point?

In an era where technology is making our jobs easier and our workers lazier, only action will incite change.

Image courtesy of ardenswayoflife’s Flickr page.

The National Football League has one of the baddest PR machines on the planet, yo.

I mean, name me another organization that can make something as mundane as the release of the schedule a must-see event.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

That’s what I thought.

For a long time, the league has ridden this wave of super-positive public perception to a level that is not sustainable. At some point, the walls will come crumbling down. Or, at the very least, they will start to erode. Viewership will go down. Major advertisers might re-think their ad buys.

In the world of professional sports, this is a crisis.

But good PR can delay (or, in some cases, avoid) this from happening.

The question is: Will the league act quickly enough?

Here are five reasons why the league should be in crisis mode now.

1. The New Orleans Bounty

This is the most obvious, so I’ll get it out of the way. Even though football is a sport where grown men are paid to hit other grown men, there is a lot of outrage that coaches put bounties on opposing players. I guess the “shock” that we’ve exhibited, that this could ever happen, is our way of showing how morally in-tune we are. I guess. (Grantland’s Bill Simmons hit the nail on the head in a recent column. He thinks the NFL is banking on apathy to get over this issue. I think he’s right.)

Regardless, this has stirred up a lot of negative buzz for the league, including the commissioner, Roger Goodell, who seems to think that massive suspensions will make it go away.

We’ll see.

2. Ex-players Are Getting Angry

Former Washington Redskins quarterback, Mark Rypien, and 14 other ex-players have been added to a lawsuit that is seeking damages against the league for not disclosing the long-term effects of head trauma, which the plaintiffs claim the league knew about. Rypien is one of the first higher profile players to come out again the league. This issue will only escalate when we get past the NFL Draft.

3. Troy Aikman Won’t Let His Imaginary Son Play Football

Troy Aikman, one of the most successful quarterbacks in league history, recently made the claim that, if he had a son, he wouldn’t encourage him to play football because it’s too dangerous. This would be similar to Bill Gates telling his son he didn’t want him to pursue a career in computer software because he didn’t see the value you in it. You can see why this is a big deal for the sport of football.

4. Hall of Famer Lem Barney Wishes He Never Would Have Played Football

I think it speaks volumes about the state of the game when a player who made the Hall of Fame says that, in retrospect, he should’ve chosen a low-impact sport like golf or tennis, saying he feels “blessed” just to have minor nerve conditions that, at worse, prevent him from sleeping more than three or four hours a night. This, he claims, makes him more healthy than many of his former teammates.

5. The Media Has A Scent

For a long time (and, in the case of ESPN,which still chooses to air stories about Tim Tebow getting a manicure instead of actual news, still the case) the media stayed away from saying anything negative about the league because it is such a cash cow for so many entities. But, at a certain point, they can’t ignore the rumblings. If they claim to be a respectable news outlet, they have to start reporting it. I think we’re at this point. As more and more players come out against the league’s handling of concussions, this story will pick up steam.

(And it’s not a crisis unless the media gets a hold of it, amirite?)

You know, to beat a dead saying, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither was the NFL. But, eventually, Rome fell. And we can’t expect the NFL to be bulletproof forever. The time will come when the league’s PR machine will have to act accordingly. And the league executives won’t come out on top until they come clean with what they know.

At this point, it would be better to bite the bullet and explain what they know about concussions before things spiral out of control. Nothing good has ever come from keeping your mouth closed in the face of strong accusations, because the truth always comes out.

If the NFL wants to save face, they’d start acting now. But I fear this attitude of invincibility will be the downfall.

Good things don’t last forever.

But the organizations that succeed are the organizations that learn to react and identify potential landmines before it’s too late.

In the case of the NFL, the booby traps have been marked. Can the league step around them?

That remains to be seen.

But from a PR perspective, it will be fun to watch.

Her father, who is an engineer, is, understandably, a bit concerned by this decision.

Can you blame him?

As far as job security goes, a future in journalism is about as secure as a Best Buy manager.

In my humble opinion, however, there is real opportunity in this field if you are enterprising, are prepared to work hard, and realize you’ll have to do everything.

The infographic below claims that iPhone users have replaced the traditional photojournalist, but I look at it a little different.

If journalists are armed with the right tools — and I agree that the iPhone has to be one of them — and have the proper training, they can do great things for society.

Between social media, blogs and traditional news outlets, the vehicles for getting out the news are vast. The successful journalist will fill the shoes of the now-defunct photojournalist (and then some.)

I don’t want to live in a world where regular citizens are the ones who “break” the important stories; I want to get it from individuals who are properly trained.

With the right technology, the future of journalism looks a bit brighter.

What do you think? Does it matter to you who breaks the story?

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