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Martin Waxman, Joseph Thornley and Gini Dietrich start off by remembering the great figure and true visionary, Steve Jobs.

Joe encourages everyone to watch the infamous and powerful Steve Jobs commence speech done at Stanford University in 2005. Jobs end his speech with the words “stay hungry, stay foolish.” Words that inspire us all.

Martin reminds listeners that the Inside PR team will be at the PRSA Conference in Orlando, Florida from October 15 to 18^th. He also invites listeners to check out his conversation with with conference co-chair, Bonnie Upright, APR, and PRSA chair and CEO, Rosanna Fiske, APR, about what to expect. Check out the special Inside PR episode here. Gini also remind anyone who is planning on attending the conference to RSVP for the Inside PR Tweet Up on Monday night where your first drink is on the Inside PR team.

Then the team jumps in to a discussion sparked by a comment by David:

Hey guys,

I’m currently a first year public relations student at Algonquin College. I’ve been listening in on your podcasts for a while now and the amount of information that flies around can sometimes be staggering.

The program has been great. It’s exhilarating to be involved in something with people who are as passionate as I am about PR.

But onto my question: Does a college diploma suffice as post-secondary background for jobs in this field? Most successful PR people I’ve spoken to have backgrounds in communications and university degrees. It worries me that my graduation from this program will not be enough.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could speak about this on your next show.

So Joe asks: what kind of education do we see coming through the door of the successful candidates we hire or we see others hire these days.

Martin believes any education is fine, but one should supplement that education with communications work. It is important to have a general background and understanding of communications and PR.

Gini says she doesn’t necessarily look at what the degree is in, just as long as there is a degree. She really pays attention to the internships a student has had before they graduated. She also mentions Arment Dietrich will not hire someone without that person completing and internship with them.

Joe echoes Gini’s point and talks about the importance of internships and encourages students to find a program with a co-op option. Joe mentions that an internship can be a ticket to a job offer.

However, all agree that networking and building a network using social media tools are very important

They finish off the episode with a discussion on a blog posts Gini posted social media tools for listening.

Gini talks about:

1. Twendz: reputation management tool
2. Technorati and Google Blog Search: blog tracking tools to find out who is talking about your services, your brand, your competition, etc.
3. Delicious and Diigo: social bookmarking tools
4. Twitter Search: search Twitter exclusively for your company key words and see what people are saying
5. Website grader and Blog grader: get a basic understanding of where your web property stands
6. Compete: compare your traffic to your competitions traffic.
7. Web analytics: Gini says everyone should be looking at their web analytics.

Joe compares paid tools versus free tools. Sometimes the paid tools don’t always catch everything, and it is sometimes a good thing to step back and see what other free tools can pick up. It may surprise you.

Martin adds to the list, blogrolls, see who the influential people are following. It can be a great way to expand your network.

Gini ends the show with a shout out to the guys over at Quiet News Day, Scott Douglas and Shaun Milne for mentioning Inside PR. Thanks guys!

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Do you have an idea for a topic you would like us to discuss? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pron Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.