State Schools

I remember sitting down with the college president of my school when I was elected student body president and having a candid and free flowing discussion about the future of higher education. Beyond remembering his amazing seer sucker suit, I remember the part of the conversation about fundraising. I remember it, because we agreed that in principal state money should never be used to build a building, because that is the role of the state. Money should flow to scholarships.

Twenty years later I don’t think there is college president around who thinks that, and I have witnessed firsthand how campuses that caught on to the reality that higher education was being privatized too late have fallen behind.

Thus, it is interesting to read “The New Public Domain At Public Universities: Less for More” in the New York Times today. It is partly interesting to me because the premise of the article is so easily accepted and there seems to be no turning of the tide. In higher education, we are all rushing to become Harvard, and many of us are ignoring students in the process. More importantly, in ignoring students we are ignoring the very people who can fix those problems that we can already see and those that will inevitably surprise us.

And if I admit it, my response is deeply personal because I worry there will be no place in college for guys like me. I was a solid B student with a B attitude and lots of dreams. I came from a solidly middle class existence, but there was no college fund, and financial aid was a big part of what paid the bills. Where does a kid like me go today? If the state flagships are becoming Ivy’s and students like me frankly don’t matter much, then where do they matter?

It also affects what I do for a living, because I want to spend more time communicating to the students like me that they matter. To recognize the dignity of each potential student I am communicating with. We can spend so much time in marketing talking about a demographic like high achieving students or students that can pay, that we seem to lose sight of communicating to students who need us as much as we need them. That's why I got in the business, if I can't remember that everyday it might be time to get out.

System failures?

I tend to want to make order out of chaos, so it’s not uncommon that I read two articles and find correlation. This morning it was Friedman’s piece in the New York Times, “The New Untouchables” and a very small note from the Bozeman Chronicle in Bozeman Montana “Montana regents look to reinvent university system.”

What Friedman points out is that the current recession may have its roots at least partially in the failures of the education system. The Chronicle article is about yet another effort for someone who is at least somewhat outside the system to encourage reform around the idea of student outcomes and what is best for the state.

I think both Todd Buchanan, the Montana Regent in charge of the effort and Friedman find a point of agreement when they say education in America must be reformed. I want to be careful to say that the failures in education are not the failures of educators, but rather a failure of a system that doesn’t work.

Nobody likes to fix systems. It is messy work. It’s like comparing plumbing with cooking. Fixing systems is like plumbing. Nobody really wants to do it but it has to be done and the consequences of not doing it are terrible. It’s messy, grimy work and at the end of the day the person only knows that the water flows the same way it did before. They don’t realize the damage that was occurring behind the walls, the plumber just fixed things and made it work the way it was supposed to.

Compare that with cooking which many people enjoy. It is creative and while it is messy everyone can see the work that goes into it, and when it goes well you have created something that people eat and are satisfied with. Teaching or any front line profession is a little more like that. I’m not saying teachers are paid enough, or get enough recognition but I am saying that when your kids goes into the classroom and you see that individuals life broadened and you see their progress you know something is happening. At some level you can demonstrate it in the life of one child, and that is enough to rally people around.

The problem is that we don’t do enough plumbing, and the wonderful smells from the kitchen are covering up the rot underneath. It’s time to figure out a way to tackle systems without sacking the folks involved. This will require a level of maturity few of us have (myself included).
We desperately need those inside industries like insurance, education, and others that may be broken to stand up and say, yes we can do better. We need to be honest about challenges and then work on actually fixing them.

The great professors and teachers can make any system work and they do. But in a way, they to become victims of their good work because everyone looks and says, “See it works.” The problem is the system is failing too often.

I think this analogy applies a lot of places.

Picking up Harvards crumbs

The article in today’s New York Times “Leaner Times at Harvard: No Cookies” is like a dispatch from a foreign planet. I’m from the west, and I learned long ago that means my ideas about higher education are very different than those in the east. Additionally, I have spent most of my career nearer the other end of the education spectrum where first generation college students studied to find jobs to take families from poverty to prosperity, not from prosperity to prosperity.

I don’t begrudge Harvard students their hot breakfast. At a recent staff meeting on our campus the attendance was at all time high, and people were visibly excited (me included) because we had been promised breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day.

However, once again what happens at Harvard overshadows the entire higher education landscape. It seems like the Ivy’s always do, and media equate the Ivy’s with higher education in general. By sheer numbers of students this couldn’t be any further from the truth. Most of the teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and entrepreneurs that will shape this century are toiling away at state schools, community colleges, and dare I say it – some are even in for profit online programs.

This focus on the Ivy’s is a pretty significant problem for those of us in marketing and public relations. The big stories are usually about these schools. We have to spend time talking to people who think our faculty are paid too much, our football teams get special treatment, and our students are pampered because news by its very nature is always reporting at the edges, nowhere near the reality of most campuses.

It seems to further my theory that the future for us may be in more and more direct efforts with our stakeholders. It also means that most of us should never, ever, use the “Harvard on the X” analogy when talking about who we want to be. They don’t even get cookies at faculty meetings.

P.S. Posted at 2 p.m.: Since I took the NY Times to task for their focus on Harvard I should also link this very interesting essay by Paul Krugman that in a way makes the point that we are somehow missing the forest through the trees when it comes to higher education in America.

Using Insights to shape Facebook page content

In an earlier post, I wrote about how Facebook usernames help grow brand fan pages. As a postscript, the growth of our university's fan base continued through the month of September. The page reached 2,000 fans on October 8. That's 500 new fans in three weeks, or an overall increase of 286% since the page's username was implemented in midsummer.



Given the size of our enrollment and alumni base, I expect the growth to plateau. But meanwhile, I have found the composition of our fan base fascinating. The group skews female (57%). The age demographics are even more interesting. According our Insights report:

18% are potential future college students, ages 13-17.
32% are currently of traditional college age, 18-24.
25% are probably recent alumni, ages 25-34
11% are ages 25-44
9% are ages 45-54
4% are ages 55+

These statistics have been remarkably stable since June. They did not change significantly even after we added Facebook buttons to our campus portal (for current students) or Admissions page (for prospective students).

The age demographics have made me reconsider how we shape our Facebook page content. We need to keep the material aimed at prospective students, but we need to add more material designed to serve current students and alumni.

About half of our fans live within a two-hour drive of the university. That's important to note when using Facebook to promote special events, such as concerts or athletic competitions. Facebook allows simple segmentation of updates sent to fans. We can shape our communication stream appropriately, routinely inviting those who live nearby but not sending spammy invitations to those far away. (Of course, Homecoming invitations will go worldwide!)

I would like your suggestions about Facebook content for the 25-44 population -- the largest segment of our fan base. If you fall into that category, what kind of resources would you like to see added to your alma mater's Facebook page? Wall posts about alumni, faculty, and student achievements are a natural. What else should be added to the standing content on the other sections -- for example, the Boxes tab or the Events tab?

Post a comment and share your thoughts.

Inside Higher Education ran a piece on Monday that proves that faculty gets a fair amount of their nutrition biting the hand that feeds them. Their review of “Wanna-Be U” is interesting, and highlights a problem that most university relations people have to face at some point.

While, I have no idea if the book has merits, there aren’t a lot of industries where you could write a thinly veiled criticism of your employer and expect that there wouldn’t be consequences. In this case, there will probably be accolades.

For me, it highlights the importance of internal communication and the reality that because of the unique nature of university governance and tenure 100% support is not a goal any of us are going to achieve.

I also find that this is good for me to reflect on, because I seem to find myself most disappointed by the criticism within rather than from without. I’m not too frustrated when those outside of the academy don’t understand and see it as a challenge to communicate. I tend to get frustrated by those inside the walls are unwilling or unable to support the institution.

Of course there is room for disagreement, but in presenting a face to stakeholders outside the university singing from the same sheet of music goes a long way.

Google's "Wave" next?

In the “Further Proof that just doing a new viewbook isn’t enough” column I file Google’s Wave. The short review on CNN today is enough to both make me salivate with possibilities and give me a bit of panic about how I’m going to keep up.

If you read the Buzzmachine blog or have read “What Would Google Do?” by Steve Jarvis you are pretty well aware of how blogs, Twitter, and social networking and media sites have changed a lot about how information gets transmitted. But Wave has me wondering if it isn’t about time for another game changer. Anyone noticed that friends aren’t “Facebooking” as much anymore? I know it is still growing, but when the biggest current growth is among 50 year plus women, I tend to start to wonder where the 20-30 somethings are going.

It’s an old joke, but I can tell you the exact day Facebook lost its cool - the day I joined. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense to use it, expand it, and revolution it as a platform, but what’s true in the world of communication gurus is that there is always a platform lurking out there.

I have started to envision it as a cold war arms race between the tech people and communicators. For every missile they build, we adapt some new technology to our use, and then they get around our processes by building a new missile. Of course, like all analogies this one is fatally flawed because the tech people don’t really want to destroy us, they are just being creative geniuses who want to build a better widget.

However, sometimes trying to get my arms around all the tech stuff I’m feeling a little crushed.

Tricks of the Trade: Getting your Ideas Repeated on Twitter

Social media researcher Dan Zarrella spent the better part of a year studying messages that were shared via Twitter, then repeated by others. Some fascinating -- and useful -- patterns emerged.

Interestingly, Zarrella identified 20 words that were the most likely to be "retweeted." He also discovered which words and phrases were least likely to encourage others to repeat your message.

Additional observations were made about those coveted RTs, including some that could help shape your Twitter tactics. Zarrella's research covers message topic, time of day, readability, punctuation, novelty -- even esoteric details like the URL shortener most likely to be retweeted.

His full report is available here (if you subscribe to his blog). A synopsis was reported by Fast Company.

Direct Public Relations

Back in the classroom in Public Relations class, I’m confronted with how much the reality of public relations has changed. This was pointed out by a friend who sent me an article the other day about media bias and the current ACORN scandal.

There is a bit of bias in the commentary, and if you are upset by the current state of political rhetoric, just stop after the second paragraph. The bottom line of the opening is this; people don’t trust the media and that distrust is getting worse.

This takes me back to thinking about a foundational concept of public relations. We have been taught to focus on getting our stories in the media because people see the media as a more credible source than advertising. While I would agree that because of cost and several other factors public relations is still a worthy goal I have to ask if the world of social media begin to take some of the shine of that particular golden apple. Since most of us read, “The End of Advertising as We Know It” we focused on public relations.

What I’m seeing today though in reality, and I think the theory needs to catch up, is that direct public relations is the new path. Maybe I’m coining a new term, but direct public relations isn’t exactly public relations because it ignores the media, going straight to the “public”. For instance, websites that post press releases that aren’t really press releases. They are never intended for the press, they are actually news items intended for stakeholders of the organization.

It is also not advertising, because there is a veneer of reporting and it doesn’t rely on some other vehicle to carry the advertisement. The item is controlled by and appearing in a company or organizational vehicle.

I know I’m not the only person thinking about this because I hear versions of it in a lot of places. What is missing is that foundational book like Sergio Zyman’s that helps us quantify this new phenomenon.

What I think would be important about quantifying this theory is that it may help explain and is some ways solve resource issues that we are all facing. Many of us still have shops built heavily around a traditional public relations and traditional print public heavy mix. Some (including some of my fellow bloggers) seem to have solved these resource issues, but for Presidents, Deans, and others it would helpful to have a broader discussion on this so that we can retool the offices around the actual functions that need to happen.