Ebook in a Day

Yesterday I had the privilege of joining a cohort of students studying Public Relations at Southampton Solent University  to produce an ebook in a day.

It was the second year the students had attempted to write an entire book between 10am and 4pm.  Last year’s book can be read here.

I walked into the Solent Creatives reception, ‘a creative industry like no other’.  Solent Creatives is part of Solent University and says it’s ‘a unique initiative that allows students to work on real-world creative projects on a freelance basis alongside their studies’.  Catherine Sweet, the course leader, started the day by presenting how the process was going to work.

Six chapters.  One leader per chapter.  Each chapter had a plan and an outline as to how it might work, but Catherine’s key point was that crowdsourcing content, meant things could change at any time and we should be agile and flexible to respond.  In fact her mantra for the day was that agile learning is by its very nature unpredictable.

Content Public Relations, is the book’s subject and I was leading a chapter looking at authentic content.

How do brand source authentic content online?  I was in a team with three bright (and very young!) sparks, Denise, Gigi and Steph.

It was a stimulating, interesting and exhausting day.  I was blown away by the creativity and enthusiasm shown by the three students in my team and by the whole atmosphere of everyone involved.  Old students returned to help and I was proud to be representing the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in my role as President.

I cannot say too much about what we found, but I can say that Google+ might not be on any of our Christmas e-card lists this year.  Twitter meanwhile may well be our VIP guest at the dinner table.

The book will be published towards the end of March, it should make a good read.