Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The jobless grad and a stroke of PR genius

I read with the following headline with a fair amount incredulity:
Alumna sues college because she hasn't found a job (CNN)
Let's just let that sink in a moment.

Really?!
Basically, the 27 year-old woman is alleging a business-oriented NYC school's career advancement office did not live up to expectations by not doing enough to find her a job nor providing any leads or career advice, yada yada yada, she wants over $70K.

There are already a number interesting news items, multiple blog posts and advice being offered based on this woman's actions.

Real (PR) Genius
Cover of "Real Genius"Cover of Real Genius
All that aside, I want to point to what I thought was a stroke of public relations genius announced earlier today by the The Ski Channel Founder and CEO, Steve Bellamy:
I don't know who came up with this idea for The Ski Channel, but I read the online press release at first with amusement then with amazement. They were able to zero in on a hot topic that was making the rounds on the internet that had absolutely nothing to do with their company or industry and morph it into what I think is and will be a positive bit of publicity and harmless, tongue-in-cheek fun.
"Either Ms Thompson is a cunning out of the box thinker and we want her," said Bellamy "or she isn't, and her position would not last long.  Either way, the law suit would no longer be clogging up the courts because there are now no damages.  She now has a bonifide job offer...If she is this feisty, we'll try her out. But if she is playing the victim card and pushing her problems onto everyone else - then her job wouldn't likely last long." [emphasis added]


What do you think? Was this a good jump for The Ski Channel to make?

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