[Stanford Quad, with Hoover Tower in background.]
I get to speak in a lot of public places, but I'm rarely invited in to the classroom. So I felt a particular honor when Robin Stavisky told me that naked Conversations and Cluetrain were the two required books at her Stanford University Continuing Education Class on Social Media.
I immediately accepted when she invited me to come in to speak to her 22 students. Robin is an old friend. When I still owned and operated SIPR, she was founder and a competitor at New Venture Marketing, which continues as a specialist in Web 2.0 digital technologies. But at the beginning of time, when Apple and Intel were still startups, she and I worked together at Regis McKenna,Inc., a fountainhead PR firm of the early 1980s.
I often speak to much larger audiences, but this one had me nervous. Stanford is one of a great number of elite universities that would have snickered had I applied as a student, and here I was being asked to speak. I arrived more than an hour early and walked around looking at buildings that seemed taller than I had remembered them.
[Robin Stavisky's classy class.]
The class started and I was immediately at ease. Robin is fortunate to have a wonderful group, of intelligent, engaged and thoughtful students coming from several countries and ranging in age by at least 30 years. Robin gave me an embarrassingly favorable introduction and the group asked me some of the best questions I've heard so far.
I had a ball. I hope I get to do more classroom events in the future.
