How do today’s public relations and marketing students differ from those of the past? Let me rip off a format pioneered by a mid-western professor (can’t find a link, sorry) and compare the media environment public relations and marketing students face today, compared with when I was an undergradute:

PR and Marketing students born in 1988 don’t know … :

• what [ALT] F4 + [CTRL] F4 does in WordPerfect (link)
• cable TV used to be 23 channels, and ten were soft porn or regional sports
• you could print in either Courier New or Arial
• authority was conferred by business titles
• USA Today was the vanguard of new media. Graphs! Colours!
• “send this over to the client for approval” meant an envelope and a cab ride
• American Media and Playboy were the media companies of the future
• business gurus usually had extensive work in their field before writing a book
• The “Pepsi Challenge” was the only form of experiential marketing outside of grocery store sampling - and the Playboy Club
• social media? You mean the martini recipes in Esquire?
• not only did digital media kill the radio star, it crippled the mysogynistic album art industry
• our measurement framework included AVE, coupon redemption or direct reply postcards
• Kinkos was the gateway to the internet - and to $1 colour copies
• mailing lists were maintained in Dbase
• a clippings search involved your fingers, some index cards and a librarian