Frontier Graduate Course Taps Distance Learning

USC ANNENBERG ANNOUNCES FIRST-EVER COURSE FOR PLANNING AND MAPPING COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Students Will Use ?Periodic Table of Influence? and Web Tools to Break Down and Prescribe Campaigns of Businesses, Politicians and Pop Stars

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 7, 2008 ? Who will win the 2008 U.S. Presidential race and what plays will they run to get there? How will the next embattled corporation fight off the next blogger attack and what moves will it make that protect or peel away its reputation? By what creative genius will a Hollywood production stunt its way to fame and fortune and what strategies will ensure its popular success?

For USC graduate students in the 2007 spring semester, these are questions to which there are specific answers. Chemists have the periodic table and, now, students of communication have one too.

The USC Annenberg School for Communication today announced the adoption of a frontier graduate course, Strategies of Influence: Managing Message, Reputation, Brand and Buzz. Based on a landmark classification system and the critically acclaimed book, The Elements of Influence, JOUR 599 will be taught through a combination of on-site and virtual lectures as part of USC?s pioneering distance learning initiative.

The full credit graduate course will be taught by lead instructor Alan Kelly, a veteran technology consultant and strategist based in the Washington, D.C. area, via two-way and interactive web technologies. Professor Jerry Swerling, director of public relations studies at USC Annenberg, will provide on-site instruction and support.

Designed for pre-professional masters track students in public relations, communication, and journalism as well as marketing and political science, the 16-week-semester syllabus is based on a groundbreaking framework and lexicon of influence theory, researched and tested by Kelly, which presents the first practical and in-depth classification system ? a kind of periodic table ? for breaking down and predicting moves and countermoves of organizations and people in business, politics and entertainment.

Using case-based analysis, strategy mapping exercises, and game-based teaching techniques, students will hone their abilities to analyze public relations programs, marketing promotions, sales initiatives, political campaigns and even information warfare, as well as to predict their consequences.

?This is another first for USC Annenberg,? said Swerling. ?The Annenberg tradition is to advance the science of communication and its professional applications the world over. We live in a world dominated by media and influence and one of our first duties is to demystify that process and its effects. Alan Kelly?s general theory of strategy cracks an elusive and intangible code and gives grounding to appropriate and ethical practices in advocacy and journalism.?

About the Instructors

Lead instructor: Alan Kelly is a visionary business strategist, political commentator, and award-winning Silicon Valley public relations agency CEO. In 2006, he authored the book on which JOUR 599 will be based: The Elements of Influence: The New Essential System for Managing Competition, Reputation, Brand, and Buzz (Dutton 2006 and Plume 2007). Last year, Kelly founded The Playmaker?s Standard, LLC, a management consulting and software services firm specializing in communication and competitive strategy. The firm?s web tools will also be used in JOUR 599. A 1981 graduate of USC?s School of Journalism and public relations sequence, Kelly, 50, is co-creator and co-host of Plays for the Presidency, a news feature at www.politico.com and XM satellite ratio, P.O.T.U.S. channel 130. He is well known for his founding and leadership of Applied Communications Group, a Bay Area-based public relations and research firm that earned numerous best-in-class recognitions for its work from 1992 to 2003 with companies such as Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Genentech, VeriSign, Veritas Software, BEA Systems, TechNet and Informatica. He is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society and serves on the board of trustees of The Institute for Public Relations. Kelly, who also holds an M.A. in Communication Research from Stanford University, is based in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Supporting instructor: Jerry Swerling is professor and director of public relations studies at USC Annenberg. He directs the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center, which publishes the PR Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) Study. In 2000, Swerling was named ?Public Relations Person of the Year? by the Los Angeles Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and has more than 36 years of experience as a senior-level communications professional and educator. He maintains a PR management consultancy which has served such clients as General Motors, Cisco Systems, Home Depot, Intuit, Honda, Michelin, State Farm Insurance, Hyundai, Dairy Management, Inc., Toyota, and others. Swerling is past president of the Counselors Section of PRSA-LA and is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society, the educators and counselors sections of PRSA, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), and the Public Relations Section of AEJMC. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. in Communication from Boston University.


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Note: Course syllabus, electronic logos and photos for USC Annenberg and JOUR 599 instructors are available on request.

Useful links:

• About USC Annenberg: www.annenberg.usc.edu
   
• About the USC Strategic Public Relations Center: www.annenberg.usc.edu/CentersandPrograms/ResearchCenters/SPRC.aspx
• About Jerry Swerling: www.annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Journalism/SwerlingJ.aspx
• About Alan Kelly: www.plays2run.com/about/kelly.php
• About The Playmaker?s Standard: www.plays2run.com/about/about.php
• About The Elements of Influence: www.plays2run.com/about/elements.php
• Publishable image of The Playmaker?s Table: www.plays2run.com/pdf/The_Playmakers_Table.pdf

Click here to read Alan Kelly''s full Op-Ed, excerpted in PR Week on 12/11/2006. 

The Playmaker''s Standard is an essential patent-pending predictive and planning system for members of the influence industries - business leaders, marketers, salespeople, advertisers, PR professionals, political strategists, pundits, journalists, analysts and litigators. The system includes a suite of training, education and consulting services that are based on a variety of collaborative, easy-to-use web services for playmakers of all kinds. All are available online at www.plays2run.com.

Free Web Resources

Visitors to www.plays2run.com, the web home of The Playmaker''s Standard, have free access to a wealth of information and resources. These include:

• The Playmaker''s Forum™. This blog, located at blog.plays2run.com, is a weekly chronicle of the plays of business, politics and pop culture, all with links to the strategy types of The Playmaker''s Table. What plays did Katie Couric run on her way to the CBS Evening News? How did President Bush position the 5th anniversary of 9/11? And how is HP finessing its corporate spying scandal? These cases, and a rich archive of well known plays, are here in this authoritative new blog.
• The Playmaker''s Table™. The centerpiece of the playmaking system, The Playmaker''s Table is an easy-to-use classification system describing each of the 25 plays and three types of surrogates, organized into eight categories and three overarching classes. Public users may access the table and its mouse-over definitions as well as print out four-color PDF files of the table at any size, from wallet cards to war room posters.
• Play Action Maps™. Public visitors to www.plays2run.com can also download sample play action maps of three historic events: Martin Luther King, Jr.''s I Have a Dream Speech, the Nike Sweatshop Scandal, and Rathergate, CBS''s face-off with conservative bloggers. Each map, created on StrategyMapper™ (detailed below) breaks down the play action of these well known events in business, politics and popular culture.
• Excerpts From The Elements of Influence. Downloadable excerpts from Alan Kelly''s landmark book, The Elements of Influence, include the book''s full introduction and a sample chapter on a provocative playmaking strategy known as the Call Out.

Subscriber Services

Subscribers to The Playmaker''s Standard may choose between two options of service, depending on their frequency of need and expertise.

• The Basic Standard™. This web service, available to subscribers for $375.00 per user per year, gives novice subscribers access to a suite of basic playmaker''s tools and resources. These include:

• A powerful, interactive version of The Playmaker''s Table that lets subscribers "drill down" on any play type to information-packed flash cards, each containing case examples, suggested counter-measures, risk/reward ratings, upsides and downsides, best uses, decoding tips, and related terms and plays.
• The Playmaker''s Process™, a methodology for staging, calling, and running the most effective plays in a marketplace.
• Factors at Play™, a reference table of prevailing marketplace variables, used by playmakers to fine-tune their play action (i.e., the moves and counter-moves of people and organizations in a marketplace) for maximum competitive advantage.

• The Professional Standard™. A superset of The Basic Standard (described above), and available to subscribers for $575.00 per user per year, The Professional Standard includes StrategyMapper™, the ultimate weapon for diagnosing, visualizing and prescribing plays. (Special pricing of $95.00 per user per year is available to active students and faculty of accredited institutions.) This interactive work space, most useful to playmakers for rapid response, long-term planning and historical analysis, allows playmakers to collaboratively model and role-play on their computer the moves and motives of allies, opponents, and independent players of a marketplace. In addition, it…

• Plots the plays that have been run on you and the plays you''re running on them. Using the metaphor of an interactive digital whiteboard, players can quickly model and visualize the moves and motives of allies, opponents and independent players of a marketplace. The result is a significantly clearer understanding of the patterns, sequences, trends and tendencies of a player''s marketplace and its play action.
• Generates play action maps along a timeline and automatically generates usage statistics to help playmakers understand a competitor''s tendencies as well as their own. Are we confrontational or passive? Is the competition assessing, conditioning, or engaging us? Are we framing this issue? Is our rival trying to lure us in?
• Facilitates role-playing and scenario-planning to better forecast what an opponent''s playmaking moves could be, and how they can be neutralized and flipped for competitive advantage.
• All maps produced on StrategyMapper™ may be published as read-only PDF documents and securely distributed within a client-user''s work group.
• Includes a library of demonstration play action maps that break down and illustrate well known cases in business, politics, and popular culture, such as the Pepsi Challenge, the recent public battles between Airbus and Boeing, and political skirmishes from the Bush vs. Kerry presidential campaign.

Training and Education

Led by Standard-certified consultants, subscribers may enroll in a variety of onsite and online workshops and seminars. Pricing varies by group size. These include:

• Playmaker''s Boot Camp™
  • A full-day playmaking blitz for Basic Standard and Professional Standard client-users, conducted by Standard-certified consultants.
  • Reviews all component parts of The Playmaker''s Table, focusing on individual illustrated play types, definitions, prescribed uses and their associated risks and rewards.
  • Introduces The Playmaker''s Process and Factors at Play (described above).
  • Using completed play action maps, presents business case studies to connect attendees with real-world playmaking. Examples from politics and popular culture are also showcased to quickly link playmakers to The Standard''s intuitive lexicon.
  • Challenges attendees to analyze plays and the play action of their industry, particularly the habits and moves of competitors as well as those of their own organization.

• Pro Playmaker''s Clinic™
  • An intensive full-day clinic for Professional Standard client-users. Identifies patterns and tendencies of playmakers in a client-user''s marketplace. What plays does your competition run? How do you (the client-user) typically respond? What keeps your rivals off-balance? What plays can you run? Which ones are out-of-bounds?
  • Introduces Alpha Plays™ and Beta Plays™ and the principles of Fit & Friction™.
  • With prepared cases from the client-users'' industry, puts subscribers in the drivers seat as they develop play action analyses and planning scenarios using StrategyMapper™.
  • With completed play action maps, organizes attendees into teams to play Crazy Ivan''s Disco™, a fast-moving team game of fast-thinking playmaking skill.

• FastStart™ and FastMap™ Webinars

• Conducted by netconference, these 60 and 90-minute "webinars" get new subscribers on the playmaking fast track and, for advanced client-users, an online refresher on plotting moves and counter-moves using StrategyMapper™.

Research, Consulting and Support

Also available to subscribers of The Playmaker''s Standard are custom research and consulting services. Pricing varies by engagement. These include:

• Custom Play Action Maps. For subscribers who are short on resources or time, Standard-certified consultants expertly analyze marketplace moves using StrategyMapper™. Resulting maps may be up to twenty-four moves in length. Findings are based on information drawn from public sources, client-user-provided reports, and other data.

• I*POW Advisory (An Industry-Specific Play of the Week). Each week, Standard-certified consultants issue to subscribers, short and easy-to-read analyses of recent plays in your industry. Like the Play of the Week on our blog (a running commentary of the plays of business, politics, and pop culture), I*POWs bring the discipline of playmaking home to your work and your team. All I*POWs feature links to The Playmaker''s Standard to help client-users drill down on that week''s play, quickly update a Play Action Map, or perhaps start a new one.

• Consultations. To hone a strategy, dissect a competitive threat, or mine a marketplace opportunity, Standard-certified consultants work with your team to break down your research, discern competitive moves, and build action-and-reaction scenarios to put client-users in control of their marketplace. This support includes:

• Advice on play selections and play-sets against specific threats or opportunities.
• Review client-user strategic plans - by department, division, technology, geography, or vertical industry.
• Coach executives and managers through called plays and planned play action sequences.
• Analyze and comment on industry news and developments.

• Playmakers On Call™. For multiuser-subscribers of online services, Standard-certified consultants provide support by e-mail and telephone. Pricing is based on a percentage of a contract''s value. These services support inquiries regarding log-on and access to The Playmaker''s Standard; site navigation; identification and use of classes, subclasses, plays, factors and process steps; assistance with the construction of play action maps, play action map backup, security, database administration; and subscription upgrades and terminations.

About The Playmaker''s Standard, LLC

The Playmaker''s Standard, LLC (www.plays2run.com), is a software services and consulting firm specializing in strategy execution and dedicated to the discipline of playmaking. We help business leaders, policymakers, strategists, marketers and media professionals manage competition, reputation, brand and buzz for competitive advantage. Our suite of patent-pending online products, workshops and consulting services, based on The Elements of Influence, the landmark book by CEO and founder Alan Kelly, includes The Playmaker''s Table™, a first-ever "periodic table" of the 25 moves and countermoves of business, politics, and pop culture, and StrategyMapper™, a collaborative web tool that helps playmakers quickly map and forecast the underlying strategies of a marketplace and their options for winning. The Playmaker''s Standard is based in the Washington, D.C. area.

About Alan Kelly

Alan Kelly is a foremost authority in competitive strategy and a leading innovator in the fields of communication, research and technology marketing. He is the CEO and founder of The Playmaker''s Standard, LLC, a software services and consulting firm specializing in strategy execution, and author of The Elements of Influence: The New Essential System for Managing Competition, Reputation, Brand, and Buzz. As founding CEO of Applied Communications Group, an acclaimed San Francisco-based public relations and research consultancy, he formulated the discipline of "playmaking" while counseling some of the best known global technology companies, including Oracle, HP, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Genentech, among others. Kelly holds a master''s degree in Communication Research from Stanford University and now lives in Maryland.