January 28, 2023: Finally I make a baseball reference! Plus top headlines and communications tools.
The top higher ed headlines from late January 2023.
Baseball and perception of the self? Sure!
Earlier this week I found out that one of my favorite baseball players growing up, Scott Rolen, was elected into the Hall of Fame. To be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration, among other factors, you have to be retired for at least five years. His last season was in 2012, which doesn’t seem like that long ago to me when I think about that year in the context of baseball, yet the fact stands that 2012 was 11 years ago. I don’t *feel* much older than I did when I was 21 years old watching Rolen and the rest of the St. Louis Cardinals win a World Series in 2006 but that was also…*gasp*…17 years ago.
You can tell how long ago that was by the fidelity of the photo I took of the scoreboard that night with my trusty 3.2 MP Sony college camera:
In the context of marketing and communications, moments of clarity like this always remind me that our perceptions of self versus reality are never consistent. I am no longer a young college student watching my favorite team win a World Series, as much as I’d like to believe I haven’t aged a day.
When it comes to organizational brand management, our assumptions about who *we are* should regularly be challenged. So when was the last time you did a communications audit? I have some thoughts about that on the blog.
Top Stories
Speaking of doing a communications audit, what do you think is going to happen to your brand perception following the latest plan from the DoE?
Some schools are starting to care less and less about what other people think. (If the other people are U.S. News rankings). The list of schools moving away from U.S. News rankings continues to grow.
Here are more tech predictions for Higher Ed (via Campus Technology).
36% of Higher Ed supervisors are looking for other work. College counselors are reaching a breaking point too. I had some thoughts about hiring and retention on the blog last week.
It’s not just colleges feeling the under-resourced. K-12 too (via Higher Ed Dive).
A resource worth checking out.
Have you had a chance to review the latest resources added to PRSA’s Voices4Everyone (V4E) website: Civic Engagement Toolkit: Common Ground & Conversation?
They have a super informative ”Tactics of Disinformation” guide you can download (.PDF). Every communications and marketing pro should be prepared to deal with this.
A Hall of Fame Tweet
Odds and Ends
Universities are failing to capture their data properly (via Higher Ed Dive). What an opportunity for someone to fix this.
But if you’re looking to help schools with a tech solution, please don’t do it this way: JP Morgan shutters Frank due to fraud (via NBC).
On the topic — EdTech funding is down quite a bit (via Holon IQ).
I’m biased from growing up in a college town, but great things can happen when a university is the focal point of a city.
Thanks for reading.
Chris