Coming out of High School I had a dream, like many Mormon boys of my age, to have good grades and get accepted to Brigham Young University. It was the “Notre Dame” of the Mormon faith, and having sat through many BYU football games with my family cheering them on and getting the nudge from my Dad I felt I was destined that I too would go there some day. I was very disappointed after High School when, while my 3.5 GPA was decent and I excelled in extra-curricular activities, it wasn’t decent enough for the school of my dreams and I would never graduate from there. I went on to follow the dot-com boom and bust, and get my degree late, graduating Summa Cum-Laude at Strayer University (take that BYU!). Even today, I’m still a very strong BYU football fan, and longed for that dream of the “BYU Experience”.
Today, my dream came true, and I was able to finally participate in the school I grew up so dearly loving. I guess you could say it was my “Rudy” moment. I’ve spoken many places recently but this was truly a highlight. Today I had the opportunity to Guest-Lecture an Intro to PR class at BYU. Despite having some issues getting YouTube to load on the BYU network (I’m told it’s not due to censorship, but rather strain on the network – yeah right), the lecture went extremely well! I compared the likes of Professor Harold Hill in “The Music Man” and that small town of River City he was selling to to Social Media, and used his lessons learned to share some of how Social Media should be used. My slides are below and if you ever want to see it in person I’d love to present it for your group or organization! For those in the class that are now readers, thank you to all of you and Dr. MacFarlane for the great opportunity you gave me!
