Category: Friday Five

Friday Five: On creativity, social 2.0, ‘Networked,’ higher ed’s future, ‘useless’ degrees

Happy Friday! Enjoy these nuggets of knowledge gathered from some of the brightest people and organizations on Twitter:

  • For all you misunderstood creatives out there, take a couple minutes to watch this video on how creativity works (and if you’re a brave soul, share it with your favorite clients). Via @timsamoff.
  • An introduction to Networked: The New Social Operating System, the new book by Lee Rainie (of the Pew Internet Trust) and sociologist Barry Wellman. According to the Pew Internet Trust, Networked discusses how “the large, loosely knit social circles of networked individuals expand opportunities for learning, problem solving, decision making and personal interaction.” After skimming this excerpt and watching Rainie discuss its premise on video (embedded in the first link), I’m convinced this is an important resource for higher ed marketers. It is now on my ever-expanding to-read list.
  • Welcome to Social 2.0. This infographic (shared by @NealSchaffer) identifies four new market segments “most likely to look to customer communities when making purchasing decisions.” While none of the four groups is directly relevant to purchasing decisions related to higher education, their characteristics could offer insight into some of our more recent graduates or lifelong learners.
  • Five ideas for improving the future of postsecondary education, from Toronto’s Globe and Mail, may address specific challenges facing Canada’s institutions, but some of the ideas could transfer to institutions elsewhere that face similar situations. Thanks to Jake Pringle (@jdp2222) for sharing.
  • Finally, for a refreshing perspective on the oft-maligned liberal arts education, read The Importance of Being Useless, from Times Higher Education. In these days, when we try to measure and quantify every conceivable aspect of higher education in order to demonstrate the value of college to a jaded public, it’s comforting to know that, in Aristotle’s day, “a useless education was the highest and most noble form of education because it represented the genuinely free education of the genuinely free man.” This essay argues that looking at the history of liberal arts “creates the opportunity to consider what a modern liberal arts education might look like in relation to its ancient and medieval counterparts.”

Friday Five: Money quote edition (#highered angst, #brand storytelling, the #debates and more)

Lots of good stuff to share this week. Here are five worthwhile posts and articles, each equipped with a money quote to whet your appetite for more. Enjoy these morsels.

1. Let’s calm down about higher education is a refreshing perspective from The Atlantic. It comes at just the right time, too, with all the hand-wringing about the state of affairs of higher ed these days. (I’m not immune to a bit of that hand-wringing, myself.)

The money quote:

The point here is not to deny the existence of problems in American higher education. That would be absurd. The point, rather, is to say that much of the writing about the current “crisis” in American higher education is meant to scare, not to inform; to back agendas, not to enlighten or improve. The worries that afflict us are as old as the Republic. American higher education is not going down the tubes.

2. 7 basic types of stories. Which one is your brand telling? A look at the archetypes of stories from a panel of branding and storytelling experts, put together by Ad Age. Quote de money:

“Brands are stories,” [Droga5 executive creative director Ted Royer] said. “They want to embody a story. When we start working with a client, we don’t want to take a brief. We don’t want to just say, ‘What’s your problem?’ We want to go right back to, ‘Why was your company started? What’s your mission?’ We talk about mission all the time, and it’s just another way of saying, ‘What kind of story are you on? What kind of story do you want to tell?’ … Part of our job as an agency is to reignite that and really figure out what that story is.”

3. 11 PR observations from the first presidential debate is PR Daily’s analysis of the way the two presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, came off from a public relations perspective. Sharp observations, all the way down to the way the candidates dressed (although the writer, Brad Phillips, failed to mention how huge and prominent Romney’s American flag lapel pin was compared to Obama’s). Worth the read if you’re interested in PR, branding and personal communication. Money quote:

It’s important to point out that as flat as President Obama was tonight, he didn’t have a particularly “bad” single moment; nor did Mitt Romney have a strong one-liner that will become a memorable debate moment. … Still, don’t mistake this analysis for a prediction of what’s going to happen in November. The two presidential candidates will debate two more times this month, and a strong showing by President Obama and/or a weak showing by Mitt Romney will inevitably change the media narrative yet again.

4. Universities are failing at teaching social media, from Fortune and CNNMoney, quoting William Ward (@DR4WARD on Twitter), of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Quoth Ward:

Digital and social skills can be applied across majors and discipline, not just in a social media class. Faculty must change how they research, learn, communicate, and collaborate and model this behavior in all their classes and for their students.

5. Measuring the real value of a college degree, by Jeff Selingo of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Show us the money quote, Jeff:

[B]efore we buy a car, we can find various measures on everything from gas mileage to results of safety tests. We can turn to objective sources, like Consumer Reports, to check comparisons of similar vehicles and the Kelley Blue Book to see which cars hold their value over time. But when it comes to potentially one of the most expensive purchases in a lifetime, the attitude from colleges has always been that we should just trust them on the quality of their product.

Good weekend, all.