SimpsonScarborough: Intelligent Marketing for Higher Education

My friends over at Stein Communications did me a big favor today. I am working with IPFW to help them shift their University Relations and Communications department from being totally focused on print to being focused on communications in the much broader sense…and specifically, on embracing digital media more fully. It struck me that Stein and a lot of other creative firms inside and outside of higher education, have gone through a massive paradigm shift in the last 5-8 years.

Stein was 100% a print-focused firm 5 years ago. But, then they hired Terry Hamrick, who I have dubbed Stein’s “electronic communication evangelist.” Terry spurred massive change at Stein. The organization that was once totally focused on providing print solutions to colleges is now a leader in the interactive world. How did they go about supporting this change? Who did they have to hire? Who did they have to retrain? How did they bring together the wild-haired designers from the “print side” with the geeks from the “Web side?” They explained how they managed this transition to the folks at IPFW today and one of the attendees at IPFW told me he “took four pages of notes.” It strikes me that most colleges are trying to manage a similar transition and organizations like Stein that have already been through it can provide some good advice on how to organize your print organization for a Web world. Hey guys, how about doing a session on this at the AMA. Well, in the meantime, everyone can settle for reading your newsletter.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough