Classes began at TCU this past week and I officially started my research sabbatical – what a thrill :). These last few days have been all about organizing my projects for the coming semester, deciding what to tackle first, and finishing up two projects related to social media fatigue.

As part of this process, I did my annual email clean out and unsubscribed from newsletters that I don’t get much out of anymore and found some new things to check out. I also took some time to catch up on my favorite podcasts and have the best tidbits from those shows listed below.

Interesting finds this week:

Time Well Spent Movement
*This is a new movement focused on raising self awareness of smart phone usage.

Taking control of your phone!
*This page offers specific tips for controlling your usage.

The “Note to Self” Podcast – Advice Episode
*Lots of great tips on managing information overload, securing your data online, and beating the FOMO blues.

The “Note to Self” Podcast: Black Mirror Episode
*Fascinating themes about AI, death, social media, and politics in this episode featuring the creators of the show Black Mirror.

Some cool newsletters to subscribe to:

Axios Media Trends
The Ann Friedman Weekly
Barking up the Wrong Tree
We Are Next
Dave Pell

This week I will be continuing my work on an Oxford Press Bibliography on “User-Generated Content in Communication” that will come out later this year. If you have any fun suggestions for that, send them my way :).

See you next week!

This semester I will have my first academic sabbatical to work on research projects related to big data, social media fatigue, and citizen engagement in digital spaces. Excited to see what this time brings … for now, I am working on the weirdness of not creating syllabi and prepping for classes for the first time in a decade :).

Luckily, I have this joker to keep me in line and motivated!

Excited to be in London for the month of June with 18 students from the TCU Strategic Communication program. We will be exploring the city and surrounding area and doing a variety of cultural activities including visits to the Globe Theatre, British Museum, Windsor War Rooms, Oxford, Windsor Castle, the Brand Museum, and the London offices of Ogilvy & Mather ad agency. It is going to be an active, fun-filled trip!

Very proud of this group of students for placing second in District 10 at the National Student Advertising Competition this year. Their campaign for Tai Pei Asian Food focused on “The Tai Pei Path” to comfort, convenience, and customization.

We graduated another talented group of public communicators from the Certified Public Communicator program at TCU in July. This group consisted of public sector communicators from agencies across the nation, including cities, counties, school districts, and regional education offices. A total of 23 students graduated this year in Cohort III, with another 25 communicators beginning the program as Cohort IV. For more information, visit www.certifiedpubliccommunicator.org.