Category: books

Book review: ‘Advancing Higher Education in Difficult Times’

lauer06_lg.jpgIf you’ve been in the business of higher education for any stretch of time, you’ve likely heard the old saw that the reason academic politics is so vicious is because the stakes are so small.

From the perspective of Larry D. Lauer, the author of Advancing Higher Education in Uncertain Times (2006, CASE), politics is a fact of life in a campus setting. If you don’t have the stomach for it, you’re better off finding a job in some other sector. (Good luck, though, finding a line of work where politics doesn’t come into play.)

So, politics are a fact of life in education. But these days the stakes are anything but small.

That’s Lauer’s take on the situation, anyway. Because just like every other major institution in the world, the enterprise of higher education is undergoing “swift and possibly fundamental changes,” Lauer writes in the introduction. “There is a different attitude toward the role of governments, who should support education, the responsibilities of students and parents, higher education as a competitive industry, and even the declining reputation of American institutions. Some would say it is an industry at risk. At minimum, it is an industry about to change – and change dramatically worldwide.”

Advancing Higher Education in Uncertain Times is Lauer’s prescription for managing these changes and thriving in the uncertain days ahead. Not surprisingly, Lauer, a vice chancellor of marketing and communication at Texas Christian University who frequently speaks about and consults on integrated marketing topics, advocates a leading role for institutional advancement – especially marketing – in ensuring higher education’s success.

There’s good reason that Lauer is one of higher ed’s leading champions for integrated marketing. Throughout Advancing Higher Education in Difficult Times, Lauer consistently preaches the gospel of IM – sometimes boldly, often subtly. For instance, he advocates a marketing focus for strategic planning, explaining that “institutional marketing is a way of thinking, not a way of commercializing. It is a way to involve leadership in analytical processes that position an institution for managing change.” Most of us from the advancement side of higher ed will nod vigorously in agreement, even if our top administrators and the faculty haven’t yet bought into the notion.

Lauer’s book begins with an overview of the state of the world — touching on global terrorism, shifts in governmental philosophies, etc. — and its impact on higher education. He then moves on to describe the qualities of an ideal leader and to promote institutional advancement’s importance in charting the future course for colleges and universities. (For readers outside the higher ed biz: “institutional advancement” refers to the collection of school employees involved in fundraising, alumni relations, marketing and communications, and in some cases, student recruitment/enrollment management.) From there, Lauer drills down to discuss more tactical issues – such as how to conduct a communications audit, how to connect marketing efforts with the campus’ strategic planning and my favorite chapter, “Learning to Love the Politics.”

As a primer on the challenges facing higher ed and the role advancement professionals – especially marketers – should play in helping their universities cope, Lauer’s book is fine. It’s greatest value to practitioners may be the concrete how-to information it offers about conducting a communications audit or creating buy-in on campus. The appendices – two guides for developing either a marketing-driven strategic plan or a mission-driven marketing plan and a case study from a Canadian university, reprinted from CASE’s magazine, Currents – also provide valuable guidance. Lauer’s pragmatic take on university politics should also prove worthwhile to many readers.

My one disappointment in the book was its lack of attention to the role technological change is certain to play in higher ed – especially in advancement. In the chapter on alumni relations, for example, Lauer discusses the importance of an institutional web site and notes that electronic newsletters to alumni “will remain critical components of the electronic mix.” But there’s no discussion about how universities can use social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook might help alumni relations professionals build networks among alumni. Likewise, little is said anywhere about technology’s impact on media relations, the rise of blogging and viral video, or the use of RSS feeds to get our information to alumni, prospective students or other audiences. Overall, though, I like what Lauer has to say about the future of higher education and the importance of our work as advancement professionals. This book should be a valuable addition to any university marketer’s library.

Read an excerpt from Advancing Higher Education in Uncertain Times, by Larry D. Lauer.

Quotable: the decline of news

I see a world in which the pursuit of truth in service of the public interest is declining as a cultural value in our society amid this technological tumult; a world where professional journalism, practiced according to widely accepted ethical values, is a rapidly diminishing feature in our expanding news and information systems, as we escape to the Web to experience the latest “new” thing.

I see a world where corporations such as Google and Yahoo continue to enrich themselves with little returning to journalistic enterprises, all this ultimately at the expense of legions of professional reporters across America, now out of work because their employers in “old” media could not afford to pay them.

Book review: ‘Naked Conversations’

Last weekend I finished this year’s must-read book about blogging, Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers. The book is the work of a couple of A-list bloggers, Microsoft’s Robert Scoble (job title: technical evangelist) and tech consultant Shel Israel. Although written for a business audience, the book’s message should resonate with bloggers of all stripes — including those of us involved in higher ed PR and marketing. The title says it all: blogs should be about conversations (remember thesis No. 1 from Cluetrain: “Markets are conversations”), and those conversations should be naked. Not forced. Not false. Not driven by marketing departments or mission statements.

In Naked, Scoble and Israel do a good job of promoting good blogging practices. They cite numerous examples of how blogging has helped a wide array of companies in a variety of ways — from softening Microsoft’s public image as “the Borg” to helping tailors, attorneys and PR consultants build their customer bases, to giving Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban a forum to chat with fans and gripe about officiating.

The book is not an impartial, dispassionate look at blogs and blogging. Scoble and Israel are true believers who wear their love of blogging like a badge. But they also point out that there are right ways and wrong ways to blog, and show — again, using real-world examples — how blogging the wrong way, or ignoring the blogosphere’s impact on a company’s public persona, can harm a company’s reputation.

Scoble and Israel also offer some valuable insight into the cultural aspects of blogging. They devote an entire chapter to the national influences on blogging: why some cultures (France, the USA) seem more attuned to blogging than others (Germany, China). (It turns out that blogging takes root and thrives in nations with a history of freedom of speech, debate and the marketplace of ideas.) They also point out the irony of Google and Apple — two companies often lauded for their innovation but that restrict employee blogging much more so than the stodgier companies (at least that’s how I tend to thing of them) like Sun or Microsoft. But these are digressions from the main gist of the book, which is that blogging — the best blogging — must be rooted in conversation. The beauty of the blog is its conversational tone, its openness, its interconnectiveness with other blogs, and the two-way street nature of comments and trackbacks. Businesses that embrace these aspects of blogging, Scoble and Israel say, will enhance their public persona by giving online customers a view inside the corporation.

Tough on marketers

They give marketing and PR folks a rough way to go, for the most part. But I can’t fault them for that. For the most part, this criticism is deserved. Many marketing and PR pros are behind the curve when it comes to blogging. There are a few bright spots out there, a few PR and marcomm folks who get it, and Scoble and Israel give them props.
Again, the best advice Naked Conversations offers readers — whether you’re blogging for business, pleasure or that broadly defined purpose of “evangelism” — is this:

[B]e real. If you are going to blog, be authentic. Keep your conversations naked. Let people know who you are and where you are coming from. … There may be no rulebook or designated enforcement squads, but the blogosphere is filled with members committed to keeping it a “clean channel,” unadulterated by clever, cute, or contrived entries.

Much of the groundwork for Naked Conversations was laid over the previous two years at Scoble and Israel’s Naked Conversations weblog. There, they shared drafts and ideas and garnered input from various bloggers about the project.