So it begins

This afternoon I was supposed to have a meeting with the new Executive VP and the VP for Advancement, but alas one didn't show. Building a marketing plan is a team process and one of the hardest parts on a college campus is getting everyone in the same room at the same time. The good news is that the Executive VP and I had a good talk and there is a lot of support for the process.

Basically, we are starting by forming a committee with 3 of the VP's and representatives from admissions, marketing, advancement, athletics, music and some at large faculty members. The other good news is that I convinced a faculty member with some marketing expertise to be part of the committee. As a side note - marketing faculty don't always do well on these kinds of committees. In the past I had one notable disaster with a marketing faculty member.

In his great book on college marketing, "Competing for students, money, and reputation: Marketing the academy in the 21st century by Larry D Lauer talks about the process of building support for markeitng at Texas Christian Univ. On a campus that size he had many more constituents than I need to deal with, but we are currently looking at a committee of about 12.

A former boss and chancellor at mid-size public university used to challenge me to think of the per hour cost of meetings, especially when those meetings were Deans and VP's. It's a good way to think about it, and it challenges me to come up with agendas and exercises that will be valuable enough to get them to care. When that doesn't work, I'll probably just start buying doughnuts.