There’s Still An (Important) Audience for Print Media

I had a good reminder today about audiences and media. Before our bimonthly trustees meeting ,a trustee came over and said his subcommittee had talked about how we needed more publicity to acknowledge the fact that our chorus and jazz vocal group had earned two gold medals and a gold diploma at a recent competition in Austria.
It was, indeed, a huge accomplishment. They were competing against more than 400 groups from 93 countries. Nearly 20,000 singers were involved. Earning one gold is a huge accomplishment. Winning two is nearly unheard of. Taking an additional gold diploma was beyond even the directors’ wildest dreams.
The conversation with the trustee was amiable and I told him I agreed with him,
But it wasn’t over, as I was to find out after the meeting.
We had gotten a fair amount of print coverage, as well as headlining it on our news site and publicizing the blog that one of the choir students posted while over there. We’re also making it the cover story of our alumni magazine summer issue.
After the meeting two more trustees came over with their concern that we find more ways to publicize — in the print media — the victory.
One trustee had a contact at his city’s newspaper. Another trustee suggested hometown releases. I emphasize that it was a friendly but earnest discussion. Our trustees understand alumni and constituent relations. They know the important of PR in recruiting. They care about higher education and they care about our university or they wouldn’t give up evenings and afternoons studying reports and attending meetings.
Our trustees are successful professionals — judges, bankers, teachers, retired CEO’s, and doctors.
And they read the newspaper to get their news.
On my walk back to my office, I was having the same thoughts I had 25 years ago. How can we do more hometown releases?
It’s this steady tension between the traditional and the progressive that is fraying the nerves of PR folks across the country.
Newspapers continue their steady decline and I continue to give presentations about how communication is changing and moving with avalanche force to the Internet,
The bottom line is that print still has an audience.
In this case, it’s a very important one.

I’d be interested to hear the experiences of others in the higher ed field.

Not a Mac Master

As I wrote in my last post a long time ago, I’m slowing down on the professional side to catch up on the personal side.
(Actually the two, as it is for most of us, is inextricably mixed)
One goal among many is to learn to use my Mac. I bought it a year-and-a-half ago partly as a tax write-off but mainly because I’d read so much from Mac users. I’ve never seen such a loyal, devoted bunch.
The fact that the Mac Book is just plain cool looking helped, too.
I really dived into it the first few months, then got busy and it was just too easy to fire up the Dell Inspiron to do my writing and web surfing.
Then I started using iPhoto and found how easy it was, doing all I needed in a much more intuitive way then the much more expensive Fireworks.
Then my Dell decided it couldn’t connect with the Web anymore. I fooled around with LinkSys and a couple other things.
I finally decided this would be the excuse to fully dive into the Mac world. Like learning a foreign language, you can repeat phrases, and read in the language and fool around for years, or you can go to the country and immerse yourself in the language as it’s truly spoken and experience how the language is part of the culture, the daily life, the history and all that makes the country and language what they are.
So I’m in the Mac universe and parts of it are driving me crazy. The pdf I downloaded. Where is it hiding?
If I want information on my hard drive in Windows I simply click C and preferences. Not so in Mac.
On the recording and mixing side, I know Adobe Audition inside out. I’ve been using it since it was Cool Pro. I have a feeling Garage Band is easy but I don’t have the inclination or time to learn a new program (which contradicts everything I said above).
The other problem I have is that our campus is totally PC, so for me to try to use iCal or other Mac organizing features is really duplication and would make my life even more disorganized, which my life can’t take.
Then there are the tiny things that probably makes you Mac vets laugh. Where in Hell’s name do I find a word count? I’m a writer. I write words and then I count them. Sometimes I count them as I write.
Okay, as I write this I fool around, click Edit and click writing tools, then Show Statistics. Three steps I found by accident. Word gives you the word count on the lower left of your screen.
I’m not complaining. I’m learning.
And you’re probably chalking up one more PR guy who needs to get a life.
Anybody out there with some quick, wise Mac tips, send them on. . . .

Summer & the Art of Blog Maintenance

I had a moderate breakthrough this holiday weekend. The weather was beautiful. I worked in the garden and played with the dogs (a German Shepherd and two Australian blue heelers).

My wife and I cleaned and stained two of our four decks. We built all of them and ever since I’ve wondered what the hell we were thinking.

I thought of writing a blog post. Then the thought rolled away as quietly as the large marshmallow clouds above.

We spent Sunday on the decks again. In between I made barbecued spare ribs and a tomato sauce with oregano from the garden to pour over angel hair spaghetti. I simmered them for seven hours and invited my son and his girlfriend up for dinner. We had coffee and my wife’s peanut butter pie on the deck, made small talk and had a quiet, relaxing time.

I appreciated every moment of it.

I did not think about the blog world.

Through the summer at least, I’m going to slow down on them.

Why? For the same reasons you should.

The biggest reason is that summer is very short, at least here in the northeast.

Secondly, I’m behind on a lot of other things I enjoy. I want to read the last two issues of Mac World, PC World, and Wired.

I want to read more slowly and follow more links on my fellow BlogHighEders’ posts.

I want to at least scan the 30 or so RSS feeds on my Google Reader..

I’m aching to get back to work on my second novel, whose characters are as real to me as anyone in this dimension.

Most of all, I don’t want to strain to get a post up. I want each post to have meaning and make a difference in at least one person’s life or job.

Mark Twain once said that when he found he couldn’t write, he did other things and let the well fill up again, and it always did.

I’m going to fill it by doing a lot of the above. I write this because I know everyone of you is in the same situation – too much to do, too little time.

Make time. Then enjoy it.

* * *

Having said all that, I read Ken Wheaten’s blog, “Fox News PR: You’ll Get a Fair and Balanced Beating” about David’s Carr’s column in the New York Times, “When Fox News Is The Story.”

I love Carr’s writing style and approach to the subject. But it made me cringe to see Fox’s PR people– probably accurately– depicted as a tightly-woven band throat-ripping media hit men with the morals of a piranha. Their tactics just reinforce the stereotypes that the PR profession has been trying to overcome.

Read it.

Then go do something fun.

Animoto, YouTube & Summer Camps

I love Animoto. I’ve written previously about doing several productions on commencement and alumni weekend, packaging dozens of photos with music using Animoto and posting them on Youtube. They’ve brought a whole new audiences to us.

Last week we discovered one more. As Christie, my student employee, and I stood out of the porch enjoying a break, a helicopter flew over and circled. “What’s up with that?” Christie asked.

“It’s for Camp Cadet,” I said, realizing I’d forgotten all about it. The helicopter landed behind the mountain on the football field for a demonstration. “Let’s send Matt up for photos,” I said.

Christie was way ahead of me. She and Matt spent the next three days photographing. Photos of the helicopter demo, the session with the drug-sniffing dog, covering a simulated crime scene, and lots of marching.

Camp cadet is sponsored by the State Police. The kids get up at 5:30 every morning, work out, eat breakfast and get on with activities, moving to each new spot in that well-rehearsed march which the kids seem to love.

“I have yet to get a picture of someone smiling,” Christie said after the third day. They were a pretty serious bunch. She went to the cafeteria during lunch. As she took photos she told the kids they were going to be on Youtube. The kids were excited. The counselors were excited. The State Police were excited.

At the end of the week, armed with several hundred photos, Christie spent the weekend producing two shows for Youtube.

Now I’m figuring that every kid will go home and check Youtube. They will text friends. Parents will check it out and call friends and relatives. It sounds like the state police will spread the word among their colleagues.

Again, these are new audiences we wouldn’t otherwise have had.

I’m not concerned about recruiting students. In this case I’m more interested in giving people that something extra, finding new viewers and underscoring that Mansfield is up on the technology.

And yes, we’re going to cover some more camps.