Today’s marks the end of our second annual Digital Week at Burson-Marsteller. It sounds odd to talk about Digital Week when we live in a digital world but I think it is important to stop frequently and think about the implications of digital media on communications in general and our work as communications counselors.

It is not news that digital has changed the way consumers access and absorb information. What continues to evolve however is the way that companies adopt to the changing preferences of their stakeholder groups. I am proud to work for an organization that celebrates these changes and puts resources against creating dialogue with employees, developing training opportunities, and for adapting to our clients’ needs. Despite our great team and passion for digital, things are fluid and it can be tough to stay ahead of the trends. Thus, Digital Week provides an opportunity to get everyone speaking the same language in addition to celebrating great work from our colleagues around the world.

We’ve had a big week. We launched a self-guided training program, unveiled the next iteration of our intranet, hosted special events for employees, launched a mobile marketing program, created a collaborative internal thought leadership environment, and released the next phase of digital content on our corporate website. More importantly than all that though is the fact that we have demonstrated as a company the reality that digital media presents a personal opportunity for all of us to grow our knowledge and value by participating and a professional responsibility to be current on digital trends and strategies for our clients.

I want to send a special shout-out to the digital team that managed all of the content and logistics for this week. Our global digital coordinator David Ambrose has done a wonderful job overseeing this event with a fantastic team including Ashley Finch, Stephanie Bonnet, Desiree Collier, Felix Leander, Charles Pownall, and Tery Spataro - thank you all. Of course there are dozens of other folks who contributed as well, ranging from IT to design and everything in between, and we appreciate your support too. Thank you.

While it may be true that every day is Digital Day in a Digital World, I still think it is smart to take time to step back, consider what is important, and allocate resources against moving forward. For our employees, i hope you enjoyed this week and found it to be a valuable learning experience. And for our clients, I’d ask you to take a moment and reflect on how you are leveraging digital media within your organization and think about ways to be better, faster, and bigger. It will make a difference.

NBC News is getting into the education business, the digital education business to be exact, reports the New York Times. In conjunction with the New York Film Academy, NBC News is offering a four-week, eight-week and one-year digital journalism program for interested students. According to the Times, “a crying need for digital technologies” is one of many driving forces behind the new venture.

Although the article cites references regarding push-back in the academic world, specifically the fact that having “digital” tools doesn’t necessarily equate to journalism success, I believe NBC News and the NY Film Academy should be applauded for their endeavor. As a recent graduate and digital native, I know the impetus of understanding and applying digital in today’s world. Part of my job as Global Digital Coordinator is not only tracking current online trends but also evaluating these trends in terms of relevancy for our worldwide clients and Digital team.

Digital is all around us, ranging from websites to mobile phones; from broadcast TV to radio; from blog posts to blog comments…however the question remains: “What do I do with it?” Although the obvious answer (”a lot”) may appear simple, there should be a significant amount of thought and planning before one engages within this medium.

This idea of digital as omnipresent, and more importantly, actionable is present in Burson-Marsteller’s training program, Digital in Action, already in its six month throughout the company. Similar to the actions of NBC News and the New York Film Academy, an organization that values continuous learning and training via solid strategies, best practices and tools around new technology/communication channels serves as the ultimate destination for knowledge sharing, for company, employee and student.

Do you see value in the partnership between NBC News and the New York Film Academy?

After launching Digital in Action in New York last November, the Digital team headed to Chicago this past week for the next phase of Burson-Marsteller’s internal training initiative. Needless to say, it was a great two-day event that helped shed even more light on the importance and applicability of digital in the public relations/communications landscape. (Photos will be uploaded to our Flickr page in the coming days).

As I begin my next leg of travel tonight from the San Francisco bay area to San Diego for the Graphing Social Patterns conference, I wanted to share some interesting take-aways I noted during this weekend:

• Thought sharing: No matter where you are, whether in the Valley, on the US East coast or around the world, having a place (either physical or virtual) to share your thoughts about a certain subject can only advance your knowledge/awareness of a familiar/new area. In my case, I had some great conversations with software developers, marketers and venture capitalists at…of all places…a community car show on Saturday morning in San Jose. By not only actively listening to various stories among professionals about the technology space, but also asserting your point of a view, a deep dialogue emerged where passion and creativity were of utmost importance.
• Collaboration: Even though this was my first visit to Silicon Valley, it became obvious that collaboration among all disciplines and professions acts as a glue that ignites innovation. One startup founder I met makes sure that his house in San Francisco also acts as a co-working space for interested members and employees. People efficiently work together to produce a point of view that is clear and powerful.

So what does this have to do with Digital in Action? A lot, actually. From the two programs launched thus far in New York and Chicago (and one coming up in Miami this week), thought sharing and collaboration among participants helped drive a powerful business and communications point of view before their clients. Digital in Action offers a place for participants to share and create compelling digital programs.

Where do you see the bulk of your innovation and collaboration take place?

I did a digital bootcamp session yesterday for my good friends at Grey Healthcare with a colleague from The Exetor Group. As always, Grey had an enthusiastic bunch, and as usual, I learned as much from them as they *hopefully* did from me. We started the day with a review of the digital communications landscape, focusing on how consumers trust other consumers more than companies, and the implications of that for marketing and communications executives.

We then went into deep dives on how to engage in the blogosphere, the importance of search engine marketing, and opportunity for brands to be conversational within social media. I know for a fact that there are a lot of new Twitterers coming out of the session. We then spent time assessing their clients’ online health, and then practiced creating dialogue around the need for digital as part of an overarching integrated communications strategy.

Given that Digital Bootcamp is a one day course, the day tends to end with a discussion about what’s next in an individual’s learning path. That is the beauty of digital. You truly can learn by doing. The people who feel that they need a ton of training or lots of marketing materials are missing the point. One’s own digital footprint speaks for itself in terms of understanding the space, and the best training is truly getting online and getting it done. It sounds entry level to those of who do this day in and day out, but if you want to learn more about digital, here are the top five things you need to do today to create your own learning path:

• Set up RSS feeds - hard to believe RSS isn’t on auto-pilot for any communications executive, but so be it. Set up feeds for your company, your competitors, your clients, and their competitors. Take the opportunity to create your own personalized newspaper and check it frequently.

• Participate in Social Media - you can’t understand the emotional appeal or the rational value delivered by social networking sites if you don’t participate. Whether it is publishing photos to Flickr or creating a Facebook profile and using it to keep up with friends, the experience of experiencing social media in action will help guide you to learnings for your company or clients.

• Blah, blah, blog - Log on to a blog search engine and have a look at where your company or client is mentioned - good, bad and ugly. But before you get critical of the bloggers, try it yourself. Go to blogspot, or any other free blogging service, and start a blog. Whether you make it public or private, and whether you write about a work-related topic or personal interests, actually blogging will give you unique insights into the challenges of creating interesting content day after day. Truly understanding what it is to be a blogger is critical to trying to reach bloggers on behalf of your company.

• Let your fingers do the talking - Mobile is truly the best way for a brand to have a persistent presence. Think about it - you always have your mobile phone with you, more so than any other device. To understand the power of mobile you need to truly experience the convenience in which you can communicate with friends, as well as the ease of accessing information via the mobile web. And if you don’t have a web-enabled phone, throw your antique away and go get one.

• Put it all together - Take a look at your company, or your client across digital media. What is said about them in blogs? How do they rank in search engines? Are they doing sponsored search? Do they participate in social media? Does their website create dialogue or talk at consumers? Do they have a mobile platform, and if so, how are they using it? Doing some simple searching and then having a look at the competitive set will allow a story to emerge that explains the digital positioning. Once you truly know the existing positioning, you can figure out what to do about it.

It is easy to forget that so much of what we do as digital strategists is merge traditional marketing strategy with new digital concepts in a way that moves beyond encouraging transactions to building relationships. If you want to get more digitally savvy, the best thing you can do is get more digital. I was so impressed with my colleagues at Grey for their enthusiasm and the fervor in which they approached this new opportunity. I plan to try to maintain some of their excitement, and hope you can too.