Graduation collaboration: Sharing the workload on commencement programs

There are few higher education publication projects that are more collaboratively time-intensive than the commencement program. It's a document that will be treasured for decades by graduates and parents alike, and whether your institution is graduating 50 students or 5,000—it had better be accurate.

Of course, reaching perfection can be an elusive goal for any publication, let alone a commencement program. It's a herculean task requiring extensive collaboration from the registrar's office, student affairs, academic deans, faculty award committees, etc. Academic recognitions may not be finalized until weeks before the event, and it's tempting to delay production for the inevitable last-minute changes.

Since our communications office began producing our graduation-related programs two years ago, we've found Adobe InCopy to be an invaluable tool for managing the process. It's a basic word processor that can link directly into an Adobe InDesign document, where the graphic designer can alter the appearance and organization of the layout. Think of it as a content management system for a printed document, instead of a website.

By saving the files to a shared campus file space and separating sections of the program into different linked files, several users in different departments can update the document at once. Once the information has been finalized by the various offices, the communications office finishes the publication and sends it to the printer.

To train other departments on how to use InCopy to update the program, I used TechSmith's free version of its Jing screen-capture video software to narrate the steps for finding the files and editing them in the program. Watch the training video.

Another technical trick for checking accuracy is to save every official name to your InDesign user dictionary. It won't catch every mistake, but running a spell-check to the entire document after this step can catch some elusive name errors.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com/omgdek under Creative Commons license.

QR codes: the good, the bad and the ugly

Looking for an easy, trackable way to drive people to your website? Never fear, QR codes are here!

You don't have to be a smartphone user to notice these trendy little marks popping up on everything from magazine ads to outdoor signage. For the uninitiated, these little QR (quick response) codes are just text that can be scanned into a smartphone using one of the many available QR reader apps. The text may be a sentence, an e-mail address, or (most often) a Web page, and readers will often open the links into a Web browser.

While I'm still using a dumbphone, I'm jumping into this trend head-on for our print advertising and direct mail pieces. As much as we want people to visit our website, it makes sense to make this process easier. We have yet to know whether this is a temporary fad or the start of a lasting bridge between the print and online world, but the cost is minimal enough to make this worth a try.

Smartphones aren't necessary to generate these codes, and you don't need to pay a dime to generate codes with analytics. They are ugly, but as long as you keep some of the contrast, you can spruce up the look slightly in Photoshop. So how do you get started?

• Set up a free account with a URL shortening service that offers QR codes and analytics. Right now, bit.ly and goo.gl both include QR code generation for all shortened links, and they also track clicks. Accounts for both of these services are free, and I wouldn't be surprised if market pressure leads similar services to follow suit in the near future.
• Make sure your site is (at least moderately) friendly for mobile devices. If a huge portion of your website is Flash-driven, you'll want to phase that out before driving mobile users to it. Smartphone users will expect that the sites they're going to have been created just for them, so don't violate this expectation by making it incompatible with their phones.
• Focus on function, then form. Designing around these codes can be tough. They're not inherently attractive, and they need to be at least .75" square in size to work. Test them out *every* time you use them, just like you should for a regular Web address. The more phones you can test on your first few designs, the better. Once you know the original code works, then you can experiment with color variations (then test them again).

Happy coding!

Maximizing Your Photo Budget, Part 2: Avoiding the Cover Photo Curse

You have found the perfect cover picture. It has interesting composition, beautiful lighting, and blends nicely with your approved design. The publication is on its way to the printer, and then it happens.

The student quits school, and your dean wants the photo replaced.

You've just been struck by the cover photo curse. It happens to the best of publications (see also Sports Illustrated), and can wreak havoc on the nerves of editors and designers alike. There are often reasonable arguments for keeping the cursed photos, as most external audiences would never know the stories of the photo subjects in our stock images. Depending on the stage of production, changing the photo can be costly as well. However if it's not too late to replace such photos, we'll usually be expected to do so.

So how can higher ed communicators avoid the photo jinx?

• For featured students, get high-level approvals before getting their portrait. I love to get recommendations for "poster students" from faculty and administrators, as many of the professors who are hesitant about responding to other marketing/media inquiries will go out of their way to promote their favorite students. But before I move forward, I always run the names past our dean, student life director, registrar and honor court adviser. The e-mail typically goes like this: "If there is any reason—and I don't need to know why—this student shouldn't be prominently featured in our marketing, let me know."
  
  
• For favorite candid shots, share them early with your dean. If you're using a photojournalistic style of photography, by definition you're not staging the shots in advance. Instead, share your favorite new shots with the leadership before you get too attached.
  
  
• Plan your shots with high-achieving students, if you can. Certain groups of students, such as competitive teams, honors classes or admissions/alumni ambassadors, go through a screening process to become a part of the group. While this approach is far from foolproof, your chances of photographing someone who might get into trouble are decreased.
  
  
• Aim for more seasoned students. Students in their first semester or first year of classes (depending on the duration of the degree program) may still be learning the ropes of graduate school and may choose another path. I once featured a first-year law student who was at the top of his class on a full-tuition scholarship, but left to pursue a career in film production.
  

In the end, there is sometimes nothing you can do to avoid the photo curse. Superstitions aside, life happens to all of us, and the graduate school years are often a time of transition. But with a little planning, we can mitigate our risks.

Maximizing Your Photo Budget, Part 1: Selecting Your Photographer

The old adage is true: in higher ed marketing, a picture is worth a thousand words. There are few things that can impact your design and brand messaging more than the photography you use, and without a good selection of photography, your ability to communicate is severely limited.

But in an age of shrinking budgets, how can you get the most bang for your photography buck? By being resourceful and planning well, there are many things university communicators can do to maximize their dollars in this important area.

• Consider your style. When I started working for my law school eight years ago, a corporate photographer was hired annually to do a two-day shoot with staged, perfectly lit shots. He and his assistant would spend an hour lighting a small area, then we would fill in a few students and a professor to interact. The result? About 15-20 of the most beautiful, phony marketing images that made our prospective student focus groups cringe.
  Ever since that discovery, we have used a more journalistic style of photography to show a truer, more authentic view of our campus life. But the rewards of this change extend far beyond messaging and impact; we also get a much higher yield of shots. Instead of getting 8-10 different images in a day, we can get dozens (if not hundreds), so the cost per shot is drastically reduced.
  
  
• Finding the photographer (assuming you don't have a professional on staff). Professional photographer rates can vary widely, ranging from less than $100 an hour to $4,800 for a day. The key is to know what you're looking for and do your homework. Local newspaper editors can refer freelance photographers in your area, or you can also check with marketing peers at other institutions or agencies. The CASE College/University Editors Photographers List is also a good resource for photographer recommendations from around the United States. Once you have a few names, be sure to look at their portfolios and check references with their other clients. Rates do not necessarily correlate with ability, and you don't want to waste time, effort and budget on work that doesn't fit your needs. Ask the photographer about your project, including their expectations for setup needs, whether they use an assistant, their approach to photo editing, and other issues.
  Also, don't automatically dismiss photographers who are outside your area. Some who specialize in higher education may coordinate shoots with several universities in a geographic area for reduced rates, and others may charge an affordable rate with limited travel costs. If you can offer on-campus accommodations and cafeteria vouchers, you may even be able to negotiate on the travel fees.
  

Check back next week for part two of this series: Avoiding the Curse of the Cover Photo.

Have you heard about the census?

In case you missed the billboards, television, radio, print, online or direct mail advertising, there's a census going on! Many are growing tired of the $133-million campaign designed to increase survey return rates. It's a consistently branded message with high saturation, and for heavy media consumers, those messages can be hard to escape.

Those of us who work in higher ed, particularly in marketing communications, can experience similar saturation with our own brand messages. The same color palettes, the same typeface families, the same look on brochures and print collateral, the same Web design. Even if there is latitude in the brand's application among different audiences and demographics, the consistency of a well-managed brand can feel boring for those who live it every day.

For some, the temptation to revamp brand guidelines every 2-3 years can be great. But right around the time we want to abandon the design ship, that's when our outside audiences are just beginning to identify and recognize our look. This impact is magnified in Web site designs, where it takes time for users to grow accustomed to the placement and organization of links and content.

No, we shouldn't let our designs to become dull and dated. The key is to take a balanced approach in adding fresh elements while staying true to the core brand imagery. Sophisticated designers and strong creative directors can maintain this balance; we just need to keep reminding ourselves and our internal counterparts that we are not our own target audience.

Social Media and Faculty Publicity

Faculty stars. You know who they are, and so do they. They may be prolific authors, influential activists, professional leaders or international speakers. Their achievements are frequent and important within their spheres of influence.

And these stars want you to magnify their shine through publicity.

Not too long ago, there weren't many options for handling stellar, PR-happy faculty. You could give into their requests for publicity in the few channels available (namely news releases or institutional publications), featuring them with such frequency that other quieter professors become obscured. The other option was to draw a line in the sand and say no, offending the well-regarded faculty member. Needless to say, both options had significant drawbacks.

Enter the social Web to the rescue!

With a flexible and well-designed Web site and social media presence, higher ed communicators now have a broad range of tools at their disposal for promoting faculty achievements. Instead of saying "no, we can't write another news release about you" to a prestigious professor, we can now respond with "congratulations, we've already posted your news to your department Web page and our college's Twitter feed." Here is our new range of options:

• College/university magazine article
• News release
• Home page spotlight
• Lower-level Web site features (i.e., departmental home pages)
  
• Facebook update (reserved for accomplishments that reflect more widely on the institution)
  
• Twitter update
• Flickr/YouTube (if media available)
• "Faculty applause" or "Faculty in the news" Web pages
  
• Testimonial quotes/features in marketing materials
• E-newsletter profile

Environmentally Friendly Marketing

In honor of Blog Action Day 2009, here are my tips for reducing your marketing department's environmental impact:

• Integrate print and online communications. Print and online media each have their own strengths and weaknesses. By blending both through integrated campaigns, you not only increase your effectiveness; you can reduce publication page counts and the economic and environmental costs associated with them. One of our favorite tactics: instead of using larger direct-mail pieces, we prefer designing oversized postcards directing audiences to the Web.
• Take another look at your print vendors. The printing industry has discovered that the market demands more environmentally conscious alternatives, and many companies have responded with cost-effective means of meeting the need. Even if there isn't an FSC-certified printer in your area, find out what your vendors (and their competitors) are doing to reduce their environmental impact.
• Examine paper choices throughout your college. There is a wide variety of green-certified papers available. Think beyond publication printing, and also consider your institution's choices in letterhead and copier paper stock.
• Don't forget everyday decisions. Print electronic documents only when absolutely necessary. Keep a recycle bin next to your office trash can. Reuse office supplies when possible. Optimize your computer's energy settings.

Five Surefire Ways to Lose a Higher Ed Client

There are lots of ways that consultants, printers and other vendors can lose a client (or a prospective one). Many are understandable–differences in philosophy, budget changes, etc. Other reasons for losing a client should be obvious. Here are the top five gaffes that companies have made in trying to get—or keep—my institution's business:

• #5: Botch the first project. While all companies should give their all to every client, no project is more important than the first one. Screw that one up, and you won't get repeat business.
• #4: Unnecessary gifts. It's one thing to give a branded set of pens or notepads to a client; it's another thing to offer them a $100 gift card. Most institutions have policies against it, and you're putting the recipient in the annoying and awkward position of sending it back. Let your work speak for itself, and if it can't, don't expect me or my colleagues to discard ethics and standards because of a gift.
• #3: Insist that the client is wrong. An owner of a printing company once made an unauthorized change on press that altered the design from the approved proof. When I complained to the rep, she relayed my frustrations to the owner, who then—not once, but twice—tried to "improve" the situation by telling me I was wrong despite all documented evidence to the contrary. The owner's attempt at saving his ego (in addition to other errors on the same project) ultimately cost the company a client of six years.
• #2: Go behind the decision maker's back to their boss. I've seen both advertising reps and high-priced consultants make this mistake. They don't get the answers they want from their main liaison, so they go over their head without consultation. Do these people not realize that the supervisor will immediately speak to their employee who has the everyday responsibility for working with that vendor? (Just to be clear—I'm not referring to specific project problems or unprofessional conduct—I'm referring to appeals for more business.)
• #1: Try to start an incident. The incident that inspired this post happened yesterday. A vendor who violated #5 a few years ago sent a letter to one of our student environmentalists, telling her that my institution should be using environmentally responsible printers and papers (even though we already do—just not with that vendor). Thankfully, I was able to clear the record with the student, but I'm still shocked that any sales rep could possibly think that they could try to use political pressure to gain business.
  

It's that time of year again...

It's law school caring and sharing season! That wonderful time of year when all of the law schools tell all of the other law schools how wonderful they are. The smell of freshly printed publications, the gifts of faculty appointment postcards from across the country, the anticipation of what exciting announcements might come from your peer institutions...

Many of the deans and professors at my institution forward this assorted marketing collateral to my desk, and over the years I have gathered quite the collection. Most of the publications are quite reserved (as is expected when marketing one's academic prestige to an audience of professional academics), but there is always one or two unusual tactics that strive to distinguish themselves in the volume of mail.

From a design perspective, my favorite mailpiece of all time came last year:

This clever piece featured a hospital gown on the cover. Recipients were invited to untie the lace in the center to "peek" at what was inside: a list of health law lectures and programs. A bit risky considering the audience, but if the goal was to stand out from the pack, they succeeded. (However if their goal was to break into the Health Law category rankings in U.S. News, it didn't work.)