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Archive for the ‘Higher Education’ Category

Lesson 224 The Academy in Transition

Posted in Higher Education, Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Planning, Strategic Communication on July 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Much of my summer is being spent writing my fourth book about advancing academic institutions. This time my motivation has been the major changes speeding our way in education, and how far-reaching they are likely to become.

On the one hand, governments are changing their roles and funding levels in significant ways. And at the very same time education, and most especially higher education, is also becoming a global industry. All this happening simultaneously is certain to become a major, possibly even revolutionary, game-changer.

When I also take into account that the digital technology revolution is already changing how teaching and learning are being delivered, I realize that everyone inside and outside the academy will be affected. Both how we deliver education and how we communicate institutions will be dramatically different tomorrow.

University presidents, deans, faculty members, students, everyone in advancement professions, as well as alumni, key donors, and anyone else supporting the academy, should therefore already be preparing  for a completely different marketplace. Student enrollment patterns will become more global. Faculty will have new and intriguing international opportunities. And foreign institutions will suddenly be offering your corporate partners and foundations visibility and business opportunities in very interesting places.

My book will be my contribution to preparing for these changes. What lies ahead looks very scary, I must say. But on second thought, this new day could also be very exciting!  The book is scheduled for release mid-way through 2015.

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Lesson 222 Teaching Media Literacy

Posted in Higher Education, Lessons Learned, Media Literacy on June 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Should we be teaching media literacy to everyone?  And if so, how should we go about it? Once again these questions come to mind as I consider a request to offer still another course about the consequences of media for undergraduate honors college students. The issues certainly are endless:

*So much news today is virtually unedited, and facts go unchecked.

*Too many people select their news sources to reinforce their biases.

*When politicians and extremists repeat lies over and over again they begin to sound true.

*Words such as “democracy,” and phrases such as “breaking news,” lose their meaning when so many manipulative people misuse them every day.

*One-way communication always breaks down, and the result is constant rumor and misunderstanding.

*More communication is not necessarily better in an already information saturated world.

*Television news images look real, but they too often mislead.

*Social media effectively mobilizes action, but rarely provides real substance.

*Many young people may be losing human intimacy capabilities through excessive texting and social media.

And the list goes on. Most of these issues are not new to us. Even so, we go about our daily lives thinking very little about the psychic and social consequences of our media obsessed world. So, should we be teaching media literacy? And if so, where and how do we go about it?

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Lesson 221 Strategy…Then Tactics

Posted in Higher Education, Integrated Marketing, International, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Strategic Communication on June 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

On a recent trip to London I met with several university colleagues. I was interested in how they saw the challenges facing the future of our industry affecting those who market and communicate our institutions.

They shared my concern that many people new to our profession are focused so intensely on social media that they may be missing opportunities to learn about strategic thinking and planning, which is what really drives everything we do.

We discussed how social media use was changing almost daily. Experience is revealing what each one does well, and what it doesn’t. Facebook is good for reaching some constituents, but can be a waste of time when overused or when your “friends” are changing their patterns. Twitter can bring people to a website or meeting, but following or tweeting too often can be more fun than useful. It’s true that you can tweet links to connect people to more substantive material, but that works only when they follow those links and respond to them. True professionals in this field will be constantly evaluating all their tools, and will be making adjustments as use patterns change.

Leadership in marketing and communication happens at the strategic thinking and planning level. Knowing how to select the tools preferred by each audience, and then to use them simultaneously to increase intensity, is the key to success. And by the way, the tools selected will almost always include a mix of both old and new media.

With the coming sea change in higher education, this profession will have more opportunities for leadership than ever. Becoming an expert in new media might get you a job today, but learning about strategic thinking and planning just might get you a really exciting career!

 

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Lesson 218 Media Adventures in London II

Posted in Higher Education, International, Lessons Learned, Media Literacy on May 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

TCU honors students and I have wrapped-up our explorations of “How Media Revolutions Change Everything”  with a second week of site visits in London.  This week it was the BBC, the British Film Institute (BFI), and the CBS London Bureau.

The visit to the BBC produced a surprise adventure into the world of archives.  We were asked to consider the challenge faced by those charged with archiving a new media world where far more information is generated than can be captured and stored.  Current BBC thinking is that while the “story” or lesson of a great work scholarship, literature, or other media might be digitized for posterity, the details of all these great achievements cannot. This contradictory idea of a significant loss of history in a “big data” world was shocking.

At the BFI we explored how media revolutions, politics and declining resources can combine to change the culture, identity, and founding mission of a unique and historic institution. The BFI was originally charged with the preservation of a distinctly British film industry, but somehow also became a custodian of a national British identity. But recent budget cuts and political influence, as well as the new media revolution, have caused many insiders to fear it is losing its’ uniqueness, and thereby its’ national prominence. Again, we were surprised by discovering still another way media revolutions can change everything… including the stature of long established institutions.

The CBS London bureau functions as a hub from which foreign correspondents travel to cover the world. Digital technology and social media have change every aspect of news reporting, with smaller cameras, instant satellite transmission, GPS mapping, mobile phone connections, and even citizen-produced i-phone contributed photos. Here too, however, budget cuts have closed bureaus, eliminated staff, and reduced the number of events that can be reported. Reporters therefore tend to “herd” to the same stories. Our take-a-way was that while CBS correspondents are the best in the business, it’s also important for the consumer to know what stories go unreported. And what is even more compelling is the number of people who are now getting all their news from alternative, mostly unedited, and often inaccurate, new and social media sources.

The students and I have had an exciting adventure in media ideas over the last 10 weeks. We began by “Skype-ing”  in experts to our classroom on campus in Texas, and concluded by meeting face-to-face with experts in London. We ended where we began: Media revolutions indeed do change everything. And what’s more, even if we wanted to there is very little we can do about it!

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Lesson 217 Media Adventures in London

Posted in Higher Education, International, Lessons Learned, Media Literacy on May 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The question today is: How has the new media revolution changed what you do?

This week I have been in London with my TCU honors college students, and a college administrator. We have visited the American Embassy, an organization that publishes a web-based newsletter about higher education in the Middle East, and the Executive Editor of the Economist.  In addition, I visited with a Pro-Vice-Master in the University of London system. The consistency of their responses has been a bit surprising.

All emphatically made the point that social media is here to stay. But they all also remain uncertain about longterm effects, and they all see new media usage patterns going through almost daily changes.

U.S. Embassy diplomats admitted they are not using social media yet to maximum capacity, and point out that their most effective work remains face-to-face dialogues in some of London’s most difficult and volatile neighborhoods. Social media they see as a tool to mobilize participation in events, but don’t yet see it as solving international relationship problems.

The Middle East higher education newsletter uses social media to drive people to its’ website, and sees Twitter as more effective for that purpose than Facebook. They emphasize that success is still all about content. Stories must be more concise these days, but it is content that determines readership. Significant numbers of Middle East populations are illiterate, and so while social media reaches the educated people, mass responses are still face-to-face generated in the streets. The people we talked with were very anxious to make the point that in Cairo, for example, life as a whole goes on rather normally, and thousands are enrolled in and still attend universities.

The Economist remains primarily a weekly print publication, but it also features a substantial website that carries fast breaking stories, an e-newsletter , several Apps, an audio version, and many associated live events and seminars. The executive editor confessed that it challenges them to determine how and when daily new media use changes require adjustments in what they are doing.  So far, however, they remain one of the most important news publications in the world.

The University of London Pro-Vice Master’s big concern is that in her world of professional university advancement she sees young people coming into the work so focused on tactics and social media that they are not paying enough attention to strategic thinking, planning, face-to-face events, and content. Social media have permanent roles to play, she agrees, but all of the other media tools are still in the mix, and actual onsite experiences are what truly define an institution.

This has truly been an enlightening experience. Next week it’s the BBC, the British Film Institute, and the CBS London Bureau.  Stay tuned, there will be more to come.   

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Lesson 215 NGOs as Public Diplomacy

Posted in Higher Education, International, Strategic Communication on May 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Recently I met with several members of an association called Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP). I was surprised to learn there are thousands of them in several cities around the world… and they are not all in government positions. Many work for professional associations, embassies, international banks, consulting firms, and countless NGO’s.

NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) range from disaster relief, to healthcare, to conservation and cause-promoting organizations. Most are non-profit and international in their outlook.

If “strategic communication” is defined as planning and implementing communication initiatives to achieve specific outcomes, and “public diplomacy” is defined as people communicating directly with people in other cultures the basic elements of their beliefs and values, then NGO’s are clearly using strategic communication tactics to carry out basic public diplomacy.

There are many varieties of public diplomacy carried out each day by thousands of governments and NGO’s. One would think we would be making much greater progress toward world peace. And while many of these organizations also have education programs, we might just have to call upon education institutions to complete the job.

Higher education potentially is the purest form of public diplomacy. People gather to learn about each other’s way of life, the elements of global leadership, and how to use research and knowledge skills to solve world problems.  Maybe as this industry becomes even more international, we will finally have the groundwork in place to achieve a true community of nations.

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Lesson 208 Media and Societal Unrest

Posted in Higher Education, International, Media Literacy on March 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

When television was clearly the dominant medium, a revolutionary group generally declared victory by taking over the main television station. In this age of 24/7 cable and social media, however, the situation is far more complex.

For example, in the Middle East there still are literally hundreds of newspapers, magazines and journals. Foreign newspapers also maintain bureaus. So print clearly is still an influencing factor, especially locally. Adding satellite communication and digital media to the mix is changing the game, but the change is not yet complete. How you receive news in Cairo is therefore likely to be quite different from how you receive it in the U.S. It’s content and tone are going to be different as well.

In addition to many news publications, in “Arab spring” countries there are also government-owned and privately owned television organizations. There are countless foreign networks and press services, including  CNN, BBC, Associated Press (AP), Independent Television News (ITN), Reuters, Agence France, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and more. Freelancers also cover these hot spots and sell reports to local and foreign outlets, many of which are in the U.S. Most western-based media organizations are facing budget cuts and have fewer reporters in the field. Therefore, the landscape, and the nature and quality of coverage, is constantly changing.

For example, the major U.S. television networks and newspapers have reduced the number of their news bureau locations around the world, and so their coverage is mostly provided by a very few constantly traveling correspondents, independent news services, or freelancers. Thus, the remaining  correspondents all tend to rush to the current hot spot (often referred to as “herding”), leaving many cities and entire regions of the world largely unreported.

Internet access varies, although we sometimes think everyone has it. For example, I am told that in Egypt only 21 percent of the population has access and that the actual literacy level of the population at large is quite low. So the reach and impact of websites, bloggers, and social media still remains a bit unclear. It therefore is assumed that Twitter and Facebook are used by smaller groups to stimulate on-the-street word-of-mouth, which in turn brings about demonstrations. In the final analysis, it seems word-of-mouth still remains the most effective medium, no matter how it is generated.

Fundamental questions become those of the “chicken and egg” variety: Does unrest due to unemployment, poverty, or government corruption inform media reporting, or does overly aggressive reporting bring about unrest? And once demonstrations begin, does television coverage primarily  inform, or primarily over-dramatize? My analysis suggests that each unrest situation is different.  Sometimes unrest comes first. Other times, it is media reporting.

Remaining questions for the news consumer: Do media organizations exercise adequate social responsiblity? Does competition for audience too often cause them to over dramatize? Can media become inappropriate participants in complex situations? What is the consumer’s role and responsibility?

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Lesson 203 “Boutique” Colleges

Posted in Branding, Higher Education, Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Strategic Communication on February 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I imagine a world where a large number of innovative small colleges become the “boutique agencies” of higher education. They will use the advantage of their size to become quite nimble and highly innovative as they design totally new approaches to address the competitive realities of the future.

Such small, lean and highly creative boutique groups have emerged in the advertising and public relations industry to compete head-to-head with the well established, large, high-priced, high overhead  and cumbersome agencies. In response, small teams of professionals and creatives have come together  with little or no overhead to produce very innovative project and branding solutions, make compelling use of digital media, and serve clients with a price that makes sense.

The boutique college idea came to me at a recent conference as one president reported how she was able to align her tuition price directly with what it actually costs to deliver her college’s special kind of undergraduate education experience. Thus, she refreshingly will no longer be stating a higher tuition in order to maintain a high discount rate.

Discounting is the common practice in all of higher education that has enabled significant financial aid for some… which really amounts to a discount on the price. But the practice has evolved to where it confuses virtually everyone about what an education actually costs to deliver. Now there is at least one small college that is creatively addressing the problem.

Diversity of institutional type has been the hallmark of American higher education. Even so, in this age of intense competition and economic hardships, many have predicted the decline and fall of small colleges. “Boutique colleges,” however, with talented leaders who maximize the creative possibilities of their size, just might be able to show the rest of the world that American institutional diversity can and will  continue to lead higher education into the future.

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Lesson 202 State of the Union

Posted in Higher Education, Leadership, Strategic Communication on January 31, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The State of the Union address each January has evolved to an hour-long (or longer) list of every problem imaginable, along with statements about how to solve them which have little (and sometimes no) actual substance. President Obama’s speech this year was no different.

No matter your political bias,  it seems obvious that there is no way the country can afford to accomplish all these recommendations. It is therefore likely that most people will conclude this exercise was mostly just talk. And with such an endless list, it is impossible to remember what the president might really want to accomplish.

By covering so many issues the president gives up an opportunity to control the message you receive. In fact,this kind of speech actually allows you to choose whatever points you want to remember… and those are likely to be the ones that make you most mad! This type of speech, intended to unite and inspire, will  inevitably end up dividing and confusing.

I suggest that next year the president revise the state of the union address format to focus only on a few of his priorities. In fact, it would be best to limit the speech to only 3 or 4 points, with possibly only one of them emphasized. His introduction should focus on convincing the audience that he knows their priorities, as well as their pain. The body of the speech should follow with a pragmatically thought-out plan for actually solving the main problem, with a brief description of how he is addressing the others. Examples can then support these points with credibility– rather than having so many of them come off as emotional platitudes. His conclusion should then be a quick summary, with a dramatic call to action. It’s deadly to sound like you are concluding when you are not!

Days before his speech this year the president said his priority will be to close the widening gap between the rich and poor. I believe it would have been a much more successful speech if he would have focused mostly on that point, made his case with a substantive plan, and then called the country to action.

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Lesson 201 Breaking Bubbles

Posted in Higher Education, Lessons Learned, Media Literacy on January 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

A large group of students and faculty in TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication gathered this week to hear Bob Schieffer talk about the consequences of the communication revolution. One of his major themes was that in this world of 24/7 cable, blogs, and social media, it’s possible to surround yourself with information based only on your own personal biases. And what’s frightening is that it’s possible to do that without realizing what you are doing. Schieffer’s point simply was that if you don’t take the initiative to hear the other side, you are not getting the all the essential facts.

In my work over the years, I have found that selective processes work in many ways in many situations. For example, institutional executives often become insulated because they get their information solely from people in their inner circle. These people tell executives, and even lower level managers, pretty much only what they want them to hear, or what they think the “bosses” expect to hear. Often it is not the whole story.

We tend to create information “bubbles” around us, and then think we are fully informed. Bob Schieffer’s message essentially was that in today’s information-saturated world, each of us must become our own editor. We must seek out various sources of information, ask whether or not the information is one-sided (or even true), and then act cautiously on the information we come to trust over time.

I continually ask my students if they think we should be teaching “media literacy” as  a subject of study in schools?  Should there be an entire course on understanding how media changes the way things work, and how to become your own editor?  Should it be required?  At what grade level should it be offered? How about offering such a course open to everyone at the university level?

Last week I argued in this blog that the internationalization of higher education has the potential to develop truly global leaders and citizens, enhance cross-cultural understanding, and solve world problems. This week I add: Should becoming an intelligent and skilled editor of confusing and contradictory information be a requirement for a truly global education?

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