Krywosa, IMC

Its hard to believe. Both that its only been six months and that six months have actually passed…

If you dont know me, the change to Higher Ed was from my 8 year career in education based, grassroots non-profit work, both at the local and national level. I did a lot of strategic outreach through traditional PR, branding and web work, so when my current position opened, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to specialize in web comm and build on my social media integration strengths.

I thought the leap would be of similar strengths and weaknesses, but it was a much grander departure than originally envisioned. Here are my top five lessons from the first six months in office:

1. Politics, Politics, Politics: It seems like not much can get done because someone else may be upset. Funny, I thought we were all working towards the same goal. Oh, we’re not? Huh. Learning how to navigate the waters has been the largest challenge, especially when its not clear who has final say on things. If  you ask, it just might start WWIII.

2. Decentralization: Without one area for messages, branding, and strategies to filter through, how will we know we are successful? Further, how do we get a full picture of how we present ourselves to students? With no real jurisdiction over groups, no ax can be wielded when web content is stale, incorrect or just poorly written. Getting everyone on the same page proves tiresome since meetings become events with 20+ people at the table. Coming to an agreement is even harder.

3. Fiefdoms Proliferate: Not sure why someone doesnt want to let you in? Maybe its because they are master of their own kingdom, having been there for 20 years and  are afraid you’ll uncover that they do not really have any content knowledge beyond ‘the way its been done’. This is problematic for many reasons, but primarily because it kills any new employee’s idealism. Second, it allows outdated ways of doing things (interoffice mail, for example) to eat up precious staff time. A little bend here and there goes a long way to incorporating new ideas, while helping employees gain new skills, making them actually invaluable.

4. Old Way (My Way) versus New Way (Your Way): Building on #3, many employees feel threatened, not only by new technology and social media, but by your expertise in an up and coming field. This leads us to ‘this is the way its been done’ and we all know how that goes. Frustration abounds and proactive newbies end up thwarted and denied action on innovative ideas. How long will these employees last? Who will observe their tenacity and strategic thinking and snatch them up? I could give a few examples…

5. Slow Sallies: Mix 1-4 together and what do we have? A slow operation that gets even slower when educating people on new tactics and strategies becomes central to moving anything forward (which, it should). Decisions cannot be made because multiple people hold multiple keys to one lock. They must Rubik’s cube themselves together to actually work. Stars must align. In such a climate as the recent financial downturn + the proliferation of newer and newer technologies and vendors, timing is essential. Look around at all of the great ideas that you’ve seen come to fruition lately: without this, how will your school stay afloat and top of mind? How will you compete? Slowness is not an option.

With that, I remain up to the challenge. I’m optimistic that stars will in fact align. There’s a tide turning here and its exciting to help steer the boat that rides it. Even though its been tough, organizationally and personally, it leaves everything on the table.

Now, if only everyone would show up for dinner…

Remember: when pitching new media usage to your management team that they have no clue what you are talking about. All they know are the negative issues they’ll have to deal with in trying to keep a hold of the reigns. After you walk them through the actual technology, you can then remind them about the importance of transparency. It not only helps you build great credibility, it also allows you to combat those negative comments. The ones you’d never have known if you didn’t implement the two-way channel.

I just tried to do a search for college access blogs through Google and found a few – much to my happy surprise! But, I was quickly denied any further gratification by realizing that none of them had (working) RSS feeds! A few had feeds, but those didn’t work, but the majority had none at all. If college access practitioners want to spread the word about the work that they are doing – very helpful to those trying to recreate this work from scratch – then adding RSS is a must. Without it, you rely on your audience to be engaged enough to run back and check for updates.

Do them a favor and offer working RSS feeds! They’ll love you for it.

I recently attended a national summit for College Planning Centers to discuss ways in which they could incorporate new media into their strategies. As questions rose regarding using social bookmarking sites (Delicious, Digg, Technorati, etc.) I began to get uneasy. How will the college access arena rally around this new technology if they cannot agree on terms to tag?

While I may be doing a great job tagging articles ‘education’ and ‘college access’ and ‘financial aid’, others may be doing something different. It was brought up that much more education is needed regarding new and social media in this industry to enable us to really harness the power that social bookmarking offers. Add to this, that much content of interest to college access practitioners does not allow users to socially bookmark it.

I will be working on definitions of prevalent new media and its uses for college access organizations as well as pitching groups of key words for their use. Also, if people aren’t sharing their bookmarks or funnelling them into one shared site, then much of our collective efforts could be wasted. If you would like more information, to be involved or have ideas, please email me at jessicakrywosa@gmail.com.

More to come…

I’m finding that there’s a disconnect among people regarding marketing being equally as involved in on the ground and in the air type work. Most seem to think marketing ends where ground campaigns begin, but I beg to differ.

This idea stems from the concern that traditional marketing has been notorious for being a push medium. The ‘new’ marketing is all about pull – being an active participant in the trenches with your consumer/client. Social marketing has always been about this: understanding your target market and finding a creative way to change their behavior (or solve their problem). Funny how traditional marketing is just now beginning to play the game this way. To them I say, welcome to the team.

For those non profits who think marketing is not for them think about how you do your outreach. You have a problem to solve whether its getting parents to show up for a parent night or finding out how to reach your rural populations. These are problems that social marketers can help you solve – and better yet, show you how to find out the solution so that you may do so on your own in the future.

I never wanted to be a marketer. As a child, I wanted to be a ballerina. A singer. A MTV video director. Never the ever hated marketer. Never.

Now, I find myself in that role. Having never considered the career of marketing, I also never knew about the hatred people have for marketing and those who are a part of it. As I encounter it in conversations at work, with new people I meet and fellow marketers, I realize this hatred comes from the fact that many so called ‘marketers’ are practicing (sales) marketing in a very traditional, boring and wasteful way. Obviously, people in this new media world of web 2.0 and prevalent viral marketing hate them. But they are not me and my fellow marketers.

You see, I am in a world of a clean version of marketing. Call it social marketing. Call it college access marketing. Basically any form of non-profit awareness, buzz building and behavior changes (for the common good!) is where my people fall in the marketing world. We don’t ’sell’ – per se. We bring to light ideas that people already have within them. Barriers that they don’t know there are ways to overcome. We provide this insight and help find ways to go beyond what people have typecast themselves into believing is achievable for them. We do this in a variety of ways that reach people where they already are. We provide information in a way that people use, that is easy, and that is different.

But, isn’t that what marketing really is? Someone should tell those other guys.