Category: video

Friday Five: ‘Watch this’ edition

It’s Memorial Day weekend. Time to get away for a long weekend. So I’ll be brief. Here are five multimedia-centric resources and gems from the realm of higher ed and marketing/PR.

  1. Ron Bronson videoblogs, and he launches this new experiment with a thoughtful commentary on the need to mainstream the higher ed thought leadership community. I’m looking forward to watching more of Ron’s videos. (P.S. If you don’t keep up with Ron’s blog, you’re missing out on some great writing.)
  2. 5 ways to spend your video budget wisely. If you’re like me, you read that headline and think, Video budget? What’s a video budget? Even if you don’t have much in the way of money for video, these takeaways could be helpful. They might even help you make a case for a modest budget.
  3. Content strategy: the miniseries. Well, actually it’s five quick videos of two content strategists talking about content strategy. MeetContent‘s Rick Allen and Georgy Cohen sat down with Margot Bloomstein and Colleen Jones for a video interview, and shared it in five short and sweet episodes.
  4. Video marketing in EDU, a solo Higher Ed Live video by Seth Odell. If you’ve ever wondered about the role of video in higher ed marketing, this show is for you.
  5. EDUMusic Blog is a newish site where musically inclined higher ed folks can show off their talents. Yet another web creation of Mike Petroff. (P.S. Mike is quite a talented musician, and was even as a rude boy back in high school, as you’ll see if you scroll to the bottom of this blog and watch the performance by his high school ska band.)

Why we do what we do

Lately I’ve been trying to make time to watch more TED talks as a way to glean inspiration or new ideas. I usually find at least one or two valuable takeaways from each 12- to 15-minute talk I view.

But sometimes I see a talk that reminds me of something I thought I already knew, but that in the busyness of life I had somehow forgotten.

That was the case with Life lessons from an ad man, an engaging, entertaining and enlightening TED talk by Rory Sutherland of the Ogilvy Group. (The entire video is embedded at the bottom of this post, and it’s worth the 16 minutes or so of your time to watch it, especially if you’re in the business of managing perceptions.)

Sutherland, an effective ad man, reminded me about why I do what I do in higher education. At the 2:55 mark of his talk, he puts higher ed branding, PR and marketing into perspective:

The point is that education doesn’t actually work by teaching you things. It actually works by giving you the impression that you’ve had a very good education, which gives you an insane sense of unwarranted self-confidence, which then makes you very, very successful in later life. …

But, actually, the point of placebo education is interesting. How many problems of life can be solved actually by tinkering with perception, rather than that tedious, hardworking and messy business of actually trying to change reality?

Sutherland is exaggerating, but he has a point.

Those of us who work in higher ed marketing, PR, branding and communications help people solve problems by tinkering with perception. We really do. The essence of building an institutional brand is to add intangible value to the reality that is a college education. And by doing so, we make the intangible tangible.

Making the intangible tangible. That’s what we do, on our best days. Or as Harry Beckwith said, brand-building, brand-managing and marketing is about Selling the Invisible. By doing so, we add value to that thing we sell: an education.

* * * * *

Here’s Sutherland’s talk. I encourage you to watch the whole thing.

 

Mark Greenfield on the flattening of #highered

Anyone who’s interested in the future of higher education ought to watch this video (also embedded below) of Mark Greenfield talking about the flattening of higher ed. The video is less than 10 minutes long and is well worth your investment of time.

This was Mark’s talk from the recent #140cuse conference presented by Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. You can view all of the talks from that event on this YouTube channel.

Friday Five: Black Friday edition (timing social media posts, PR vs. marketing, lessons from Occupy)

A helping of leftovers from this past week’s cornucopia of Internet goodness:

1. When to post to social media. Good insights in this infographic. Most marketers post while they’re at work, but that isn’t when their audience is most likely to be engaged (during the off hours).

2. PR, marketing and the fight to control social media. This summary of a recent study from the PR-minded folks at Ragan Communications comes pre-loaded with the subhead, “A new study suggests PR pros need to fight harder for control of social media.” The actual study (PDF) is not quite as suggestive, but Ragan’s slant should help to keep those in the PR business in a tizzy about marketing’s involvement in social media. When will this PR vs. marketing power struggle end? Can’t marketing and PR just get along?

3. The PR lessons of the Occupy movement, by Bill Sledzik (@BillSledzik). Just one of many great, topical posts at Bill’s blog, Toughsledding.

4. The value of a liberal arts education is quantified (somewhat) by this recent study by the Annapolis Group. This InsideHigherEd.com story breaks it down. Hat tip to Elizabeth Scarborough for sharing the link via Twitter.

5. One video, 40 memes. Y U No click to see if you can find them all? Via @MarkClayson.

Friday Five: Twitter favorites

Time to do some fall cleaning of my Twitter favorites folder. (Warning: None of these have anything to do with Thursday’s big Facebook changes.)

1. Six must-read manifestos to get you unstuck, all from Change This. I’ve read the first one (Hugh Macleod’s How To Be Creative) and the last one (Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start) but have saved this to read them again — and to take a first read of the four sandwiched in between.

2. 12 ways to let people know they matter. Good tips on how not to be a schmuck.

3. 12 content marketing predictions for 2012. 2012 predictions? Already?

4. The best college admissions Twitter accounts you aren’t following.

5. Jedi Kittens. Sixteen seconds of video bliss to end your week, and this post.