Austin American Statesman columnist visits Tamara Bell's Public Relations class

Focusing on "real world" experiences, the PR in Entertainment course invites guest speakers to expose students to the knowledge and skills they'll need to be effective publicists in the 21st century. One guest speaker who always puts the students' through their paces is Michael Barnes, social columnist for the Austin American-Statesman.

On February 9, Michael visited the classroom and immediately put the students to work. He divided them into seven teams, where they created a PR agency, came up with a client and an event to promote, and then pitched the idea to Michael, using e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, telephone, and face-to-face conversation. And they accomplished the task in little over one hour. Michael was impressed with the students' ability to meet his challenge.

He wrote about his visit to the class in his blog. You can see it here: http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/outandabout/entries/2010/02/10/i_made_a_trip_t.html