Month: November 2014

Our #AMAHigherEd slide deck

Thanks to everyone who attended the presentation Charlie Melichar (@melicharlie) and I delivered on Tuesday at the American Marketing Association Higher Ed Marketing Symposium (#AMAHigherEd). And thanks for the follow-up questions and wonderful feedback. For those who missed it, or who want to reference any of the materials, our presentation slides from “Convergence: Marketers as Masters of the Mix” are below (and also on Slideshare). Unfortunately, the animated gifs don’t come through as they did in real time, but I hope it nevertheless provides some value to you.

It’s been a fun and invigorating conference, and I am thankful for the opportunity to present and to learn from so many smart and talented people. Unfortunately, I’ll miss the final day due to travel.

To all my comrades in higher ed marketing, old friends and new, who I had the chance to connect with these past few days, thanks for the insights, the conversations, the good food and drink, and the friendship. Keep doing amazing work.

I’ll have more to say about the conference in this week’s Friday Five. Until then, follow the conversation on Twitter via the #AMAHigherEd hashtag.

Friday Five: Weekend reading for…

studio-shot-of-reading-glasses-on-book-vstock-llcAfter a long and unplanned hiatus, Friday Five is back with a short reading list that includes something for everybody.

Well, something for five types of readers, anyway.

Here we go:

For presenters: Why I think about ‘Star Wars’ whenever I make a PowerPoint, by Seth Dotterer. Seth emphasizes the importance of storytelling in our presentations.

For policy wonks: How Republicans can improve higher education. This Washington Post op-ed by Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin suggests that the new GOP majorities in the House and Senate “begin by focusing on practical problems that concern large numbers of voters and could be greatly alleviated by a straightforward application of conservative and libertarian principles. Perhaps the foremost example is higher education, which has never been prominent on the conservative agenda but should become so now.”

For data geeks (and content marketers): The best-of-class Nonprofit Content Marketing Report, a Slideshare presentation filled with data, charts and numbers on how nonprofits budget and benchmark their content marketing efforts. A lot to dive into here. Thanks to Chris Syme for sharing the presentation on her valuable blog.

For planners, especially those of the strategic variety: The Art of Not Executing On Your Strategic Planning. This post by Karol Król on Spin Sucks urges a balance between strategic planning and executing on that plan. “Success comes not from having a bullet-proof strategic plan, but from learning to adjust your plan as you go to account for these external factors.”

For list-lovers (and presenters): 10 tips for improving your presentations and speeches, from Garr Reynolds. Step 1: “Turn off the computer.” Good advice for all of us as we head into the weekend.