Want to be a Conversation Auditor when you grow up? More predictions on the emerging careers of '09.

Today brings the second installment in my series of guest posts about the emerging careers of 2009. My goal is to help students, job seekers, employers and everyone else make sense of how new jobs are taking shape (or should be) in a rapidly evolving business world.

I met Auburn University Professor Robert French a few months back, and it's safe to say I was blown away by his enthusiasm and foresight with new technologies. (Scroll to the bottom for links to his work.) While officially a professor of public relations, I think Professor French has a lot to teach us all. Here's his take:

These jobs actually do already exist, but they are so new that I believe many people either don't know about them (beyond the online early adopters) or haven't considered them — yet.

• Conversation Auditor - Media tracking has been going on for a long time, but many firms are now devoting staff to solely online conversation mining.  These types of activities range from new clients and exploring their consumer base to investor relations (IR) and following those trends. The emphasis here is that people are being hired to do it solely online. One of my students is finishing up an internship at the White House for the Office of Strategic Initiatives. Her job was to track online conversations about issues of interest to the White House.

• Online Customer Service Rep: Imagine a company that now runs a call center doing customer service for many different corporations.  Now, consider adding to that staff that track conversations about products and services for the sole purpose of contacting the individuals and/or engaging in conversations (comments) in blogs, on Twitter and elsewhere.  Some companies are doing this — Zappos, Dell, for example.  But, I don't know that they have a job title that specifically identifies the employees as such.

Beyond customer service issues like complaints or seeking refunds, consider news and information sites that are becoming respected references.  What options are available to readers?

• Online Ombudsman: Again, ombudsmen have been around for a long time. Think of the sites that are now gaining greater readership than traditional news outlets. ESPN now has Le Anne Schreiber, and the NYTimes has spread their ombudsman activities to the Web, too. Now, consider sites like HuffPost, Digg, TechMeme, Mashable and others that have huge followings but no formalized process for dealing with reader issues. I can see those sites adopting the ombudsman philosophy.

In higher education, we already see faculty and staff (administration) positions focusing on social media, or what I prefer to call emerging digital media.

Recently, a community college issued a job opening for a PR representative to work closely with the president and university relations.  The job description is written with an emphasis on many online activities.  Similarly, emerging digital media faculty positions (tenured and non-tenured) are being posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education more and more.

Auburn Professor Robert French is a 25-year veteran of public relations. He writes about social media on the infOpinions blog and has developed powerful PR resources such as PROpenMic.org, PRProspects.com and PRblogs.org. You can follow him on Twitter at @rdfrench.

Also in this series:

• The emerging careers of '09: Advergirl's predictions.
• How coding and culture will shape the jobs of '09.
• WIll '09 be the year of the strategist?

Comments

[Robert French]

Thank you, David, for your kind words and this opportunity to share in your blog. Much appreciated.

Given the economy today, these new jobs (and being able to show potential employers you can do them) has made the focus upon new skills even more important for my students. We intend to continue providing our core traditional PR education, but actively enhance those classes with experience in emerging digital media.

I'm sure the jobs above are only scraping the surface. Looking forward to your future posts on the topic.

Thank you!