May 2008 Archives
If you missed it, yesterday Inside Higher Ed ran an article describing the work of "researchers from the Midwestern Higher Education Compact [who] offered an initial analysis of some of the more practical changes that campus officials said they had made in the wake of the Virginia Tech incident."
I am elated with the findings that "most two-year and four-year colleges and universities reviewed and in many cases significantly altered their campus safety procedures, especially in terms of notifying students about possible danger and dealing with students who displayed signs of trouble."
The article was quick to point out that institutions, for the most part, refrained from overreacting their their planning and tactical approach to crisis management.
IHE's coverage is succinct and worth reading. But if you have a smidge of time, I suggest reading the researchers' work, too.
Loretta introduced me to Jott just last week. It is a free service you register for online which allows you to call yourself and record a message, then Jott transcribes the message and emails the text to you! Cool, huh? As the Queen of PostIt Notes, I am trying to wean myself in honor of the trees of the world, but I don't think I would even approach it without Jott. Take a look for yourself!
Did anyone catch the CNN story about the taskforce that determined suggested guidelines for who should be and who should not be treated if a true pandemic flu plague hits the
Among those included on the "do not treat" list in a worst case scenario are "People older than 85; those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings; severely burned patients older than 60; those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease; those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes."
This means we are responsible for keeping our students (those in the population that will receive lifesaving care) healthy and safe during a pandemic flu epidemic. If you are curious where to start in planning, I suggest visiting the websites for the World Heath Organization and the Centers for Disease Control. Also, make sure you check with your local department of health to ensure your planning aligns with their thoughts on your approach during an epidemic. If you want more specific website advice, drop me an email and I'll send the links your way!
Maura and I were lucky enough to invite ourselves to join a recent lunch appointment with Sheldon Steinbach and Fr. Charles Currie. As Maura commented, it sounded like the setup for an amazing joke... a Father, a lawyer and two women sit down for lunch in
Actually, we had a wonderful meal and talked about every topic under the sun including politics, families, junior kindergarten entrance exams, and higher education du jour. When discussing acquaintances in common and trend-setters in higher education, I was struck by the number of repeated names and connections. The conversation induced flashbacks to The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell.
At Elizabeth's suggestion I read the book and took particular interest in the discussion of "connectors." The author discusses the concept and relates it to the game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Well, I'm willing to give my suggestions for higher education's equivalent J. Not all of those below were discussed during lunch, but I can say that I've had positive conversation that included their names over the past weeks.
My nominee for Presidential Bacon is Gordon Gee; in the blog world I am nominating Andy Careaga and Karine Joly for Baconhood; Rae Goldsmith and Tim McDonough for association Baconness; and Larry Lauer and Tom Hayes get nominated for marketing Bacondom.
Do you agree with me, or do you have others you would like to nominate for my newly created designation? Those most commonly mentioned will get a year's supply of SizzleLean (remember that stuff?? Is it even still around??). Or, they decline the processed meat and just get my sincere respect and appreciation!
Let me know what you think J.
Folks often ask me for advice on how to moderate focus groups. You can find some pretty good resources on the Web, but if you are looking for formal training you really have one of two choices, The Burke Institute and RIVA. Many, many professional focus group moderators have been trained at Burke. Their sessions are four days long, cost $2,495, and are offered five more times this year out of the home offices in Cincinnati. RIVA's courses on moderating are three days long and are offered six more times this year in Rockville, MD, which is outside DC. I believe they are a bit more expensive than Burke but they also offer a Master Moderator Certificate. Both sources also have other interesting courses on marketing research topics. Great resources if you are looking for some formal training.
Well, during the week it's all about marketing and branding and such. But on the weekends and holidays (if you are visiting), it's about "little stories you can read in a minute" (as my mother calls them).
Happiness
By Raymond Carver
So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
They sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
There is a video online, called the Honest College Ad, that is just too good to miss.....even though it contains some profanity. I wish the producer would recut the ad without the profanity so I could show it in presentations on campuses and at conferences. It's super funny but also makes some great points about the messages colleges send. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Michael Strysick, PhD, is Executive Director of College Relations, at Austin College. We met recently at a CASE conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. We immediately struck up a great conversation about the recent progress Austin College has made developing its brand strategy. Here are the highlights of an interview I recently conducted with Michael.
Q: How did Austin College recognize the need to engage in a branding initiative?
A: Austin College has had a great deal of success in recent years. We've engaged in $100M in capital projects. The number of million dollar donors has increased from 11 to 46. And, our ranking has gone up. But, marketing was not given a lot of attention because of funding priorities. We had a Board member with a great deal of business savvy; he wanted to beef up the marketing effort.
Q: So, how did you develop the momentum to actually get the money you needed?
A: I put together a powerpoint filled with data; I made my case with the numbers and that really spoke to our board and our President. I collected all kinds of tracking data on where our competitors were advertising (through TNS media intelligence) and was able to provide detailed and compelling data. For example, I was able to show that one competitor was spending 1500% more on advertising per student than we were. I felt like Al Gore with that powerpoint. I gave that presentation over and over again to anyone who would listen. Finally, they did.
Q. Where did you start?
A: With research. A board member put up the seed money for the research; it did not come out of the operating budget. We gathered a huge amount of data through a partnership with a firm called The Richards Group. We did IDIs (in-depth interviews). We did web-surveys. We mined all of our existing data such as ASQ, NSSE, NEIR, CIRP, all that stuff. We looked at our old marketing audits from way back when. We reviewed our strategic planning documents, anything we could get our hands on.
Q: Then what did you do?
A: We locked some alumni, faculty, staff, and trustees in a room for a full-day to plow through all of this information. We wrestled with everything. It was critical for us to include a broad swatch of people; we needed that type of buy-in. The process was so authentic. It was honest and truthful. I am a big believer in the kind of creative tension we had that day. Our charge was that we could not leave the room until we developed a one-pager; we specifically limited ourselves to one page. That one page included a sentence fragment that describes the essence of our College (and we did not allow ourselves to use the word "excellence"). We identified the personality attributes of our brand, the vision for our brand, and wrote a lengthier statement about what our brand stands for.
Q: Where are you now?
A: I view this as a three step process. Step 1 is to develop the brand strategy. Step 2 is to develop a new logo and creative platform. Step three is to develop an integrated marketing plan. We are at the very end of Step 1. We are finalizing our creative brief and then we are moving on to work on our visual identity and creative concepts. Then, we'll move on to actual ads and stuff.
Q: Can we check in with you in about 6 months and see how things are going?
A: Absolutely!
About Michael: He taught English at the college-level for years. Made the transition eight years ago from faculty to administration and learned the communications business by being in the trenches. He sounds a lot more like he's from the corporate world than faculty. Feel free to email him at mstrysick@austincollege.edu. He usually has a good marketing book on hand that he has just finished and can recommend. Just this morning, he sent me a note recommending The Origin of Brands: How Product Evolution Creates Endless Possibilities for New Brands by Al Ries.
For those of you who don't receive Ad Age's e-newsletter, you might have missed the story yesterday about the Dove "Real Beauty" campaign. The ads showed women of various ages, shapes and colors in their underwear and claimed all women are beautiful on the inside and outside. Well, perhaps they didn't really believe it themselves.
The Ad Age article references a feature in the New Yorker, in which the author recounts: "I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual 'real women' in their undergarments," wrote Lauren Collins in the New Yorker article. "It turned out that it was a Dangin job. 'Do you know how much retouching was on that?' he asked. 'But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.'"
Ouch! I actually liked those ads and the lack of vanity they portrayed (or so I thought!).
Remember Dove and their
Remember that whatever you show to students and their parents, they will (and should) expect to see on your campus when they visit. You will need to LIVE those promises, so don't over promise and under deliver. If you do, you are going to disappoint them, just like Dove disappointed me.
PS-- as of today, Dove has denied the photos were altered. Note to self... if I ever need to refute something in the media, do it in a timely manner. Otherwise, you look like you have something to hide or you are stretching the truth.
In my line of work, I frequently find myself looking at various different college websites (the good, the bad and the ugly...). I am always looking for ways that different schools are integrating new technology into their sites. So as I was working on a project a few weeks ago, I ended up spending some time on the Ohio State University site, and now OSU is my new favorite school for two reasons...
Reason numero uno: OSU's "Social (Media) Butterfly" site
I know that OSU isn't the only school using Flikr, YouTube, and del.icio.us, but I love the way they have created an entire page based on new social networking media and linked it to their homepage. In doing this, OSU is opening up the conversation and stimulating interaction between their different audiences. The explanation on the site sums it up nicely.
"The Internet is no longer a one-way street--and at
The page is still in its beginning stages and I am sure it will take some time for it to really catch on, but the idea is fantastic. In fact, I was so excited by OSU's page that I decided SimpsonScarborough could also use some of these tools to involve our peers on another level. As of today, we now have our very own SimpsonScarborough Flikr and del.icio.us sites. They need some TLC right now, but once they fill out a little more our clients and friends will be able to link to them from our homepage.
Reason B: "The" osu.edu web redesign weblog
OSU is in the middle of redesigning their website and are soliciting input on the changes through their redesign blog. I think it is amazing that they are A. asking for feedback and B. people are responding with good quality comments. Every time they make a change they post a list of changes to the blog and then ask for feedback. The idea is that they want to create a more user-friendly site, and how better to do that then to ask the people who use the site on a daily basis?
The redesign blog was recently the topic of an article in the OSU student paper. It explains a little more behind the motivation for the use of the blog in the redesign, but I would definitely suggest looking through the blog itself. So why is this so important? Well, I have to say "why not?" You don't necessarily HAVE to include faculty, staff, students, alumni, etc. in your web redesign process, but by opening up the discussion you are making your audiences feel important, making them feel like part of the university, and making them feel like their opinions matter... not to mention, the possibility of getting some great insight into the web design - all of these are good things. What have you got to loose?
Do you know of any other schools doing something like this? If so, please send me an email at meredith@simpsonscarborough.com.
I just connected with Rolando Rivas at University of North Texas and am fascinated by his title, "Director of Integrated Branding." How great is that? I am not sure that I know of anyone else who has the word "branding" in their title. Anyone out there? Rolando is in the Division of University Relations, Communications & Marketing. This is such a fantastic sign of the direction our field is headed.
PS-- a number of you have listened politely to my O'Hare rat story (therapy at it's best). Guess what? I wasn't alone. After watching the video on CNN all day long while traveling, I'm even more queasy from and traumatized by the "gray alert" at the airport.
-- Teresa
Ohmygosh! I have been without wireless access today, because US Airways and I have been entwined in a tango worthy of airing on "Dancing with the Stars." Ultimately our dance delivered me to Washington, DC. This means I have been watching the CNN Headline News loop in airport terminals and I've been unable to blog about the 75 student arrests on the San Diego State University campus.
Reading the story details online, I thought this paragraph was the kicker:
Among those arrested, 75 were students, one of them a criminal justice major charged with possession of guns and cocaine, authorities said. One student allegedly dealing cocaine was a month short of obtaining a master's degree in homeland security at the California school and worked under campus police as a student community service officer.
Just last week I was trying to convince graduate professionals that they might be on the front line in a crisis, and this grad student proved me right. You may set your sights higher than reinforcement than from a cocaine dealer, but I gotta take what I can get :).
I believe the lesson here is that nobody on a college campus is immune to crisis. Graduate professionals-- your students may be older, but that doesn't mean that they aren't susceptible to poor decision making. Nor does it mean you get a pass from dealing with difficult issues.
For SDSU officials-- congratulations on this bust. This was a proactive investigation from the campus after a drug-related death of a student in 2007, and another student this past February. They deserve kudos for busting this drug ring and showing their conviction to addressing the issue of drug use on their campus.
First, I want to make it clear that this entry has more to do with the real spirit of a University brand than most I have written. My colleagues and I are constantly encouraging college and universities to "Live the Brand." It isn't what you say as much as what you do that truly communicates that for which your institution stands. I just finished reading about a women's collegiate softball game between
I had to go to
Finally, as a community of scholars, we are committed to:
- Helping every student develop and achieve their greatest goals
- Excellence, achieved through a diversity of ideas and people
- A rigorous curriculum and exceptional teaching
- Intellectual inquiry, exploration and application, and
- A supportive university community
I think it is safe to say that the two student athletes who carried Sara around the bases, Mallory Holtzman and Liz Wallace, epitomize the words written above. They even helped the competition achieve their goals! To top it off both players credited their coach as being the role model that taught them to act so unselfishly stating they were only acting as they were taught to act.
This is a story that has received a great deal of attention. It deserves to as the ultimate goal of all of our schools is to help shape the lives and futures of the young men and women who walk through our doors.
Over the past three months I have been fortunate to speak at a number of conferences about crisis communications and I've been asked for suggestions on crisis drill topics. You don't need to be experienced in this area to plan drills, you just need to think through worst case scenarios that can occur on your campus or in your community. I also suggest thinking through situations you feel least prepared to handle. If you are honest with yourself, the crisis drill topics will flow. Then, plan how you would gather the information you would need to begin your institution's messaging and the steps you would take to manage each situation.
I've just returned from a glorious vacation to Mexico and witnessed (hopefully) late teenagers and twenty-somethings enjoying their fun in the sun a bit too much. I didn't know them so they were spared from my mother hen skills, but the imbibers on the beach made me think through scenarios that included alcohol poisoning, arrests in foreign countries, theft in a country where you don't speak the language, etc.
Today is Cinco de Mayo; take five minutes to brainstorm the sticky situations students could find themselves in after a few too many margaritas. In your brainstorming, don't forget to think through the margarita consumption consequences for faculty, staff and administrators. Age alone does not prevent you from making mistakes or being the victim of someone else's mistakes.
When you are brainstorming, remember that hope is never a strategy. The best strategies have been thought through in advance and perfected well before a crisis hits, and our imaginations and our everyday lives can provide the best playing field imaginable. Enjoy!
In a couple of my client visits recently, it's become very apparent that one of the barriers to branding success is the "follower mentality" that exists on most campuses. Most of my clients have aspirant institutions that they are constantly monitoring and tracking and using as a benchmark for measuring their own progress. Don't get me wrong, I am all about understanding the competition; you can't successfully brand your institution in a vaccuum. But, on some (perhaps, many) campuses, competitor analysis turns into competitor obsession. And instead of studying the competition to figure out how we can be different, we try to copy the competition bringing our brands closer together rather than differentiating them. I always laugh when I hear someone say something like "We are the Harvard of Smalltown, Kentucky!" That's a clear sign that a research-based, well-differentiated brand has not yet been established.
