Month: May 2007

Lies and the lying marketers who tell them

I am completely dumbstruck by this account from Beyond Buzz author Lois Kelly about an occurrence just before spoke to a global company’s marketing staff.

One of the company’s marketing execs told me that some customers would be speaking before me to give the marketing team a sense of what the real customer is all about. Wow, I thought, what a great way to open the conference. Hear the real views of real customers in their own words. Fantastic.

But – unbeknownst to most of the marketing staff — these “customers” were actually actors hired by the advertising agency. As I was sitting in the green room with them, the actors let it slip to me what was really going on.

If this is how the marketing “professionals” of our major corporations act, it doesn’t bode well for the profession.

Call me Pollyanna, but I really have a hard time imagining that, in this day and age, when we hear so much talk about the importance of trust in customer relations and transparency in business practices, people are pulling these kinds of stunts. With their own marketing staff, no less.

Friday Five, Wednesday edition

Today was Staff Recognition Day at UMR. In keeping with the theme for the day, I dressed like a pirate and called my place of employment “UMRrrrrrr.” (I also took a camera-phone self-portrait of me in bandanna and eyepatch, which Facebookers can find on my profile there. I won’t be posting it here. So Facebook me if you dare. Arrrrr!)

Anyway, the day was filled with all manner of officially sanctioned falderal. Which means tomorrow is nose-to-the-grindstone day. That means little to no blogging here tomorrow, and then on Friday I’ll be in a meeting for most of the day. Thankfully, I’ve been plucking tidbits from the web and stashing them away like a rabid squirrel hoarding acorns. So here is an early harvest for you, a Wednesday edition of the Friday Five.

  1. Two takes on Twitter. Is the microblogging tool-of-the-moment merely a stage for self-indulgent blather (kind of like some blogs, present company excluded) or a welcome addition to the digital lifestyle? CNET brings you two views.
  2. The model commencement speaker. An English prof opines on graduation speeches. The worst commencement speakers? Politicians. The author’s favorite? Mr. Rogers. Via Arts & Letters Daily.
  3. 100 Ways to Kill a Concept. “So, you’ve got an idea. A big idea. But will your idea take flight? Not if you let your concept be killed by all the usual excuses you hear from your managers, your bosses, your spouses—excuses motivated by fear or possessiveness.” A manifesto in PDF by Michael Iva. The list of excuses is worthy of posting on a door, a la Martin Luther, and I confess that as a manager, I’ve made more than my share of them. Via Change This.
  4. Speaking of killing a concept … or in this case a sacred cow: Presentation Zen ponders, Who says we need our logo on every slide? Plus more about the good and bad of PowerPoint.
  5. Pundits are (nearly) always wrong. More wisdom from Seth Godin. Pundits miss the mark, he says, “Because they measure ‘presentation.’ Not just the PPT presentation, but the way an idea feels. How does it present. Is it catchy? Clever? Familiar? We measure whether or not it agrees with our worldview and our sense of the way the world is.”

Higher Ed Experts webinar on viral video: it’s free, but you must register by Friday, June 1

Looking for some free professional development? Sign up for the inaugural webinar from Higher Ed Experts, How to go viral with your videos on YouTube. But you’ve got to register by 1 p.m. EDT this Friday, June 1.

What are you waiting for? It’s free. Who doesn’t love free?

Here’s the official seminar description:

Find out what’s behind successful YouTube videos in higher education.

For this inaugural webinar scheduled in June, a panel of 3 to 4 different higher ed experts will share their lessons learned.

This free webinar will be open to the first 300 HEE members (membership online form) who registrer for it below.
Date

06/14/2007 ~ 01:00 PM ET–02:00 PM ET
Speakers

James Todd, Duke University
James Todd, writer and producer for the Office of News and Communication at Duke University, is responsible for his institution’s online videos available on YouTube and other video sharing websites.

Dr. Michael Wesch, Kansas State University
Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Wesch is the author of the most viewed (with more than 2 million views) higher ed YouTube video: “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.”

And when you’re done registering, why not join the Higher Ed Experts community? It, too, is free.

While I’m on the subject of Higher Ed Experts and its webinars, I may as well plug the Crisis Communications 2.0 Week series schedule for June 26, 27 and 28. Subtitled “Lessons Learned after the Virginia Tech Tragedy,” this series features an impressive array of presenters. (Well, two of the three are, at least. Joe Hice from the University of Florida and Michael Dame of Virginia Tech are true pros who know their stuff. The third presenter is just some interloper.)

This one will cost you a little money, but only $250 per registrant — and $100 of that will be donated to the Hokie Fund at Virginia Tech.

Here’s the official scoop:

“Crisis Communications 2.0” Week is a 3-webinar series designed to help people working in universities, colleges and schools plan their communication response to emergencies, deal with crises in the age of tsocial media and benefit from the lessons learned after the Virginia Tech Tragedy — directly from the source: VT director of Web Communications, Michael Dame.

June 26, 1PM-2PM ET

Crisis Communication 101: How to Prepare and Plan for Campus Emergencies
Joe Hice, Associate Vice President Marketing and Public Relations at the University of Florida will share his experience planning, testing and implementing UF crisis communication plan set up to deal with the numerous hurricanes hitting Florida.

June 27, 1PM-2PM ET

Crisis Communication 2.0: How to Deal with Scares in the Age of Web 2.0
Andrew Careaga, Director of Communications at the University of Missouri-Rolla, will share his experience dealing with the blogosphere and other social media outlets after an international graduate student claiming to have a bomb and anthrax was subdued by campus police, arrested and charged with six felonies last February.

June 28, 1PM-2PM ET
From the Inside Out: Lessons Learned in Crisis Web Communications after the Virginia Tech Tragedy

Michael Dame, Director of Web Communicationsat Virginia Tech, will provide an insider look and analysis of his institution’s Web communications after the tragedy, helping every institution understand what happened and prepare for the unthinkable and the unplanned.

This is a special webinar series priced at $250 instead of $150: $100 per paid seat will be donated to the Hokie Fund of Virginia Tech.
Date

26.–06/28/2007 ~ 01:00 PM ET–02:00 PM ET

Speakers

Andrew Careaga, University of Missouri-Rolla
Andrew Careaga is a blogger, PR guy and occasional freelance writer with more than 16 years’ experience in higher education PR and marketing. He’s currently director of communications at the University of Missouri-Rolla, one of the few public universities in the nation with a tight technological focus.

Joe Hice, University of Florida
Joe Hice, APR, is associate vice president of marketing & public relations for The University of Florida. He is responsible for marketing, advertising, public relations and employee communications activities at the University. He also directs the University’s news bureau.

Michael Dame – Virginia Tech
Michael Dame is the director of web communications at Virginia Tech. He is responsible for the public content, organization and structure of the university’s website. He managed the website homepage updates throughout the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Regular price

250 USD
Available methods of payment

* Credit Card
* Check

Deadline for registration

06/18/2007 08:00 PM ET
Registration

Register online

Does computer science need a makeover?

Wired Campus asks: Is ‘Computer Science’ an Outdated Term?

As enrollment numbers in college computer-science departments continue to dwindle, professors are contemplating ever-more-elaborate strategies to keep the United States from slipping further in the international engineering sweepstakes. One particularly popular idea: rebranding computer-science programs to broaden their appeal.

According to the Associated Press, more than a dozen universities have created “media computation” programs, which hope to introduce students to computer science through digital art and Web design, not traditional programming.

Got to admit, comp sci doesn’t have the greatest image in the world. But I’m not sure renaming the discipline — “putting lipstick on the pig,” to use the vernacular — is the solution. I’m not saying a “renaming” of the discipline won’t help, but it’s only part of the solution. Showing prospective students how computer science can change the world is one possible approach. That’s something some UMR students have been working on to try to attract more females to the discipline.

Move over MIT, here come the Gators

When you think of U.S. universities that excel in creating high-tech startups and spinoffs, which schools come to mind? MIT, perhaps? Cal Tech? How about the University of Florida?

Florida may best be known for its powerhouse NCAA football and basketball programs. But it’s also among the nation’s leading startup incubators, and thanks to a recent Business Week article spotlighting the school’s tech transfer operation, the Gators may one day rival MIT and Cal Tech as a haven for brainiac startups. (Link via University Business.)

The university that didn’t produce a single startup a decade ago had 13 in 2004-2005, according to the latest annual survey by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). That total falls short of MIT, Cal Tech and the 10-campus University of California System, but those universities had better watch their back.

As Business Week reports, the U of Florida is serious about creating business.

The rise is the result of a change in strategy, which boils down to treating intellectual property like merchandise and then marketing these products to targeted customers. In a break from conventional wisdom, the university also shuns its own inventors when it comes to running startups, relying instead on hired guns who have proved they can make a go of business. “Our scientists are very good at science, and they’re at a university because they enjoy research,” notes David L. Day, director of the university’s Office of Technology Licensing. “But I wouldn’t go to my barber for an eye exam. What works best is if they stay in the lab and I go and find a been-there-done-that, made-money-for-investors management team.”

Business Week calls the University of Florida example an “out-of-nowhere success” that demonstrates “there are effective ways to attract capital and nurture campus-born technology industries.” But the success wasn’t accidental. It’s the result of a plan that began in 2000.

Unfortunately, too few universities in the U.S. are following Florida’s example. “Much of American higher education is still struggling to transform ideas into cash,” Business Week explains.

It’s not because of a lack of brainpower or funding. As the Business Week report notes, “University-based research spending has jumped nearly 45% since 2000, to $42.3 billion in fiscal 2005. … Yet the pool of university money earned from license fees has risen at half that pace.”

Florida has clearly decided to invest in business incubation. With a tech transfer staff of 19, the Gainesville university is “in the same upper tier as MIT and Hopkins, though way behind the California system.”

“The licensing office also has an annual budget of $5 million. One of the staff’s duties is to keep tabs on university research to assess what breakthroughs might be worth patenting and licensing. That’s no small task: Florida spent $518.8 million on research in the 2005-06 school year and employs some 4,000 faculty members and 8,000 assistants in its labs.”

Will what worked at Florida work elsewhere? Maybe it’s worth a shot.