Progress & the Key to Mobility Part 2

Recently I was at an advancement conference that included system advancement colleagues from all of our 14 sister institutions.  The opening night, four of the system presidents spoke about the state of public higher education in Pennsylvania.  Our president was one of the panelists.
At the end of the presentation we were asked to write a question.  Three questions would be chosen and the presidents would respond.
The third question chosen was, “How is your institution using the Web in advancement, alumni relations, public relations and recruiting?”
The first president was honest and said, “Frankly, I don’t think we’re using it enough.  We’re making little stabs . . . .”
The second president said he really didn’t know how his university was using the web in those areas.
The third to answer was my president.  She said, “I can’t tell you all the ways we’re using it but I know we are very progressive in certain areas.  We do an excellent job with podcasting and I’d like Dennis Miller, our PR Director, to talk about it just a little bit.”
I was surprised but stood up and addressed my 100+ colleagues — and the four presidents — capsulizing our efforts and putting in a plug for the presentation I would give the next day.
This story has three points:
1. College presidents don’t know much about the new technology.  I know they’re overwhelmed with issues from money to alumni to government, faculty and on and on.  I’m tempted to say they don’t have time to know the new technology.  The fact is, however, I think they should know more about it because it is the way we communicate, shop, play, research, and, increasingly, disseminate news, recruit, friend raise and fund raise.
2. However, if they don’t have time to learn more, we as PR professionals need to keep them informed, not only about what we’re doing but about trends in general.  The fact that I talk about Web 2.0 every time I have a chance, which includes podcasting, enabled our president show that her university is a leader in the field.
3. The third point?  Synchronicity is real. When it happens, make it work for you.
The question about technology–one of nearly 100 pieces of paper containing questions–was mine.

Progress & the Key to Mobility

Okay, so someone at a presentation asked me about accountability and being able to prove that podcasting, vidcasting, blogging, and facebook work.  This has been a sore spot for me for years. I’ve played so many games about accountability for three decades that I’m burned out.

Someone said something about a five-year plan.  I continued my curmudgeon role saying I refuse to plan for more than two years.  The technology changes so fast planning for more than two years is futile.

Myspace and iTunes changed the way we communicate in a seismic way only a few years ago.

YouTube further radicalized it.

What’s on the horizon next year?

Phillip K. Dick becomes more of a “realism” writer every year.

Don’t even think about five years from now.

A young PR guy came up to me afterward and said, “You can say these things and refuse to plan five years from now because you’ve been in the profession for 30 years.  The rest of us don’t have that freedom.”

I told him he was right.

On the way home my wife, Leigh, told me what I already knew and should have said. It was this:

Yes, you do need to continue writing news releases and clip the articles.  You need to keep your VPs and presidents apprised of all the times your institution appears in the paper, and the times your institution appears on TV.  You do have to have some accountability.

While you’re doing this you need to develop your myspace and facebook sites.  You need to do your podcasts or youtube features.  And when they start attracting unique visitors and page views, you need to collect the information and present it to your administration and let them know how progressive your institution is.

Understand , it’s not you, but the institution that is visionary and making the progress.  And it is.  As long as those above you not telling you emphatically to stop experimenting, then your administration is visionary.

Here’s an example of how it works, and I may have written about this before:

Two years ago it was on my agenda every month to tell my VP how many podcast hits we were getting. (I also told the provost, associate provost, president and others).

I told her we were getting downloads in more than 30 countries and that one of my students actually had a fan club.  The news was exotic — and positive.  We all love positive news.  A few months later, she said she needed a presenter for a council of trustees meeting and thought our pioneering efforts in podcasting would be good.

(Note: She had never listened to one of our shows.)

I jumped at the chance, made the presentation.  Only one of our trustees was familiar with podcasting.  After the meeting was finished, one elderly trustee came up to me: “I didn’t understand a thing you were saying but you’re doing a great job!  You’re really keeping Mansfield out there.”

I had the stamp of approval from our trustees to not only with continue podcasting but to keep experimenting with the new technology.

I’ll give another example in the next post that reinforces the above and shows where college presidents are with the new technology.

Progress & the Key to Immobility

I gave a presentation to the PR folks at the University System of Maryland last week. I want to thank Anne Moultrie for inviting me and Becca Ramspott and Dave Ottalini, my copresenters, for their kindness. Everyone at the presentation was great. I talked about the usual things, how I got into podcasting, the fact that you need to be prepared for the unexpected, what I’ve learned in the blogosphere, our experiments with YouTube, etc.
I found what I’ve found with other audiences I’ve talked to:
-PR professionals have not tried podcasting
-PR professionals have not tried blogging.
-PR professionals have not tried vidcasting.
They haven’t done it for two reasons:
-the intimidation factor
-time time factor

There are no real easy solutions to the above. All technology is intimidating until you explore and learn it. There’s just no way around that. There has to be a learning curve. There has to be frustration. There will probably be a point where you say, “I can’t do this!” But when you succeed, the feeling of victory, progress, self-worth, are really rewarding.
It’s the same with the time factor. As The Wizard of Ads, Roy H. Williams has said often, in business there are only two things: time and money. If you don’t have money, you find the time to do something. If you don’t have time, then you find the money and purchase it.
In my case, I didn’t have the money in my budget. I didn’t really have the time, either. I couldn’t make the money. But I could make the time. I did the initial podcasts on my own time, nights and weekends. Once I understood the technical aspects, I brought in work-study students (modest amount of money) and trained them to do all the editing and mixing, thus getting back my time.
Important point. When I got back my time, I didn’t spend it on the traditional PR activities. I used it to explore more Web 2.0 research and experiments.
I realize that I, like others, make this sound easy. Black and white. It’s not.
You have to play games. You have to broker time and activities. You have to do anything you can to do what you know is important for your institution.
The feeling I get from all the folks I speak to is that they know Web 2.0 is important.
It’s not the future. It’s the now.
They just don’t know how to get there because their deans, VPs and presidents (for the most part) don’t understand things like RSS feeds, podcasts, YouTube.
WAIT! We’ve hit it, haven’t we?
The key to immobility!
In my next blog I’ll tell you what my wife, a PR pro attended the session, told me on the five hour drive home.
It’s something I should have said in my presentation, and something I will say here and in future presentations.
It’s simple, logical and works every time.

 

Favorite Blogs at the Moment

I’m making a presentation to my colleagues at the University System of Maryland. We’re going to wander through Web 2.0 Land. I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite blogs and I figured this would be the best way to do it. If they’re interested they can just hit the link and check out a site. If they like it, they can subscribe. The bonus is that I can share them with you at the same time.

Here’s my list, in no particular order.

collegewebeditor Karine Joly is always poking around the cutting edge of things, and bringing them back to us. She’s one of the hardest working people in the business and I’ve come to rely on her site a lot.

directortom Director Tom is a director. His blogs are short, incredibly well-written pieces that are informational and sometimes even inspirational. He knows a lot about branding. We share a love for This American Life, both the radio and TV versions.

lonelygirl15 I’ve done several blogs about this evolutionary piece that combines old fashioned stortelling with Web 2.0 consciousness.

Bob Johnson’s Blog on Internet Marketing. I don’t hit this one on a regular basis but when I do, I spend a lot of time here. Bob is a consultant and shares his discoveries and knowledge.

chrisbrogan He’s young, hip, travels a lot and his enthusiasm shoots right off the screen and gives you a friendly smack.

podcastingnews This newswire type blog is at the cutting edge of technology with its stories. Read this once a week and amaze our colleagues with your intimate knowledge of geek toys.

scobeleizer Robert Scobeleizer is one of the pioneers of blogging, and reporting on tech trends.

seth’s blog Insights into marketing and humans. Seth Godin always delights, informs, surprises.

wired magazine Wired Magazine is at the cutting edge of wired universe. With my left foot in old school, I prefer the magazine because it forces me to sit down, enjoy excellent writing while making me think. But the website keeps me nimble. This is one case where you need to be in both places. Kind of a right-brain, left-brain, juggling-balancing act.
the perfect song This is started out as a blog about my novel, The Perfect Song, and evolved into a mostly humorous journal about middle class daily life absurdities. Kind of crazy but it’s being read around the world. Go figure.

Okay, enough for now. I’ve probably forgotten some but the beauty of blogging is that I can add it later.

Preserving the Living Part 2

My alumni audio interview project was partially successful.  (Yes, the glass is half full).

Somehow I had miscalculated.  I said in my last blog that alumni who come back for alumni weekend love their school and would be more than happy to be interviewed and reminisce. 

I have two students –Nate and Matt — who are bright, ambitious, and charming.  They were so enthusiastic about interviewing alumni they beat me to work so they could scour the campus for incoming alumni.  Just about every alumnus/alumna they approached politely declined the opportunity for an interview.   

 When Nate, Matt and I analyzed this we came to the conclusion that:

 lumni had come back to see friends and take part in the weekend activities

1. A few were intimidated with the new technology
2. Some didn’t even understand the concept of the internet

 Now, it wasn’t a complete failure.  By the end of the weekend my guys got 10 interviews and tons of photos and video.  Most of the interviews were very good with great stories and anecdotes that brought the alum’s particular period to life.  Two of them asked for CD copies because they didn’t have computers.  One fellow had never been interviewed and kept asking if he was doing okay.  He had some great things to share.

The fact that many older alumni don’t have computers just underscores the need to get these interviews.  These are people who rode to school on trains. They grew up in the Depression.   They interrupted their college education to fight in World War II.

 So we did get some rich material that will add much to our oral history project.

 But if I had it to do over (which I will, next year), I think I’ll do the asking myself.  That was my biggest mistake.  I began my career as a reporter.  I’ve spent 30 years in PR.  I have a lot of experience in persuading people to talk, knowing that once they start, they have a lot to say.  I know how to ease them into the whole process.

 Plus I have a lot of gray hair. When I ask, I suppose it has more credibility and maybe authority, than a 21-year-old college student, no matter how bright and sincere he is.

 Overall, for the first time experimenting with this, we did well, and I’m more enthusiastic about this than ever.  Our alumni, our retired faculty and staff, have important stories, anecdotes and insights that add valuable information in a colorful, personal way, to the histories of our institutions.

 I know you’re counting your life out in precious minutes these days. We’re all busy, too busy.  Then again, what’s a few hours when you’re capturing individual history and preserving it for generations?

Preserving the Living

In my May 17 post I talked about  our project of digitizing interviews with university folks that were conducted in the 1970s and 80s. In the May 24 post  I said  I was going to interview as  many alumni as possible this Alumni Weekend, as well as retired faculty and others who contributed to the university and borough.  The importance of this hit home when a beloved retired education professor, outstanding baseball coach, and community leader, died.

He had a thousand stories and they went to the grave with him.

I’ve said in previous posts how important the “story” is.  More than anything in history, the story is at the center of everything.

Technology has given the story new outlets, new ways to make immortality accessible.

Each person’s story is individual and universal.

Director Tom alludes to it in his May 25, 2007 post.  The story, whether it’s an individual or a company, is the same and different.  What’s the same is the universality of our experiences.  What’s different is the individual experience within the overall frame work of the human experience.

Dreams morph into memories.

So, this Alumni Weekend I have two work study students, my news director and myself fanning out like purposeful ants armed with digital audio recorders and cameras.  We’re going to interview as many alumni as we can.

They’re not going to be studio quality — although my Marantz and Zoom recorders are pretty damned good.  But they are going to have good content because our alumni (think your alumni; if you’re with a company, think senior folks and retirees)  want to talk about their lives and their experiences at their college . And whether they attended in the 1930’s ’40s or upward, we know what they’ll contain.  They’ll bring alive their professors, how they entertained themselves, the lifelong friends they made — the basic human experience in the text of their times.

And 10-20-30-100 years from now, these interviews will be as rich and valuable as Beuwulf, and Shakespeare.

One of my students is nervous because he’s never done an interview.   I told him to just make sure the equipment is recording.  I’ll give him a set of standard questions to ask everyone.  By the time he hits question 2, the alum will be talking a blue streak.

What excites me about all this is the freedom the Web and technology have given us.  Up until recently, the history of the university — of most anything local — was written by from one angle by a person who couldn’t write.  Now, if we’re smart, we’ll get history from a hundred angles.  It will be a rich tapestry told from a hundred points of view forming a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

I’ll let you know how we make out.