Tracy's Friday Favorites: Prezi

It was definitely coming, wasn't it? Prezi (www.prezi.com) had to be one of my Friday favorites sooner or later. Those who know me know that this is by far one of my favorite 'tech' tools and one that I think has really helped to make me stand out as a speaker at conferences. Okay, it's not the tool but what you do with it that counts, but Prezi has transformed the way in which I am able to deliver presentations, making them far more entertaining, interactive and visually appealing that dull PowerPoint slides with bullet point after bullet point. It's also enabled me to develop wiki-style workshops, which I love doing as they really engage the participants and get them involved in co-creating their own workshops and programmes, fully sharing the collective knowledge within a room rather than just having a lone voice speaking out at them.

For those who aren't familiar with it, Prezi is a presentation tool, but rather than have individual slides, you work with one large canvas that you can zoom in and out of to highlight key areas of your presentation, talk or workshop. If you like mind-mapping, then you'll probably love Prezi. It's perfect for me as my mind doesn't tend to work in a very linear, structured way anyway. So it means that when I'm planning a conference talk, I can just dump all of my initial thoughts into the one big canvas, then create groupings and move them around to make sense of them, give them shape, and eventually take shape into, hopefully, a beautiful presentation.

The key is not to move too quickly through the presentation, otherwise your audience will complain of feelings akin to sea-sickness! So, as with all technology, don't get carried away with whizzy technology for the sake of whizzy technology.

Here are a few features that it has, beyond just producing beautiful presentations, that I particularly love (and use a lot):

• The ability to embed presentations into other websites, blogs, etc. If you scroll through my blog you'll see a number of posts that have presentations I have given embedded in them.


• Seamless embedding of YouTube videos into your presentations just by pasting in the url for the video (so no fussing with uploading large video files).


• The offline editor (okay, you have to have a paid-for account to get this, but it's worth it if, like me, you do a lot of editing and speech/presentation planning on the go. Many of my presentations are put together as basic structures on train journeys, for example, when I wouldn't be able to use the online editor).


• iPad app. You can't yet edit presentations through the iPad app, but you can show them. And they look amazing. These are great for when you're seeing a prospective client or client on a one-to-one or small group basis and just want to show them something quickly, or for chatting with people on exhibition stands, at recruitment fairs, etc.

IE University have made good use of this for a student recruitment presentation (and I also briefly advised the University of Warwick on one that they created for the same purpose for themselves a year or so back). This is also something that I can help universities put together, or put together for you (with input of graphic designers where required, depending on the brief) so give me a yell if you want to know more. To develop them yourself, it takes a little time to get used to using the site, but after you are used to it, you'll find yourself wanting to come up with all kinds of creative and beautiful presentations. To understand the basic functionality and get my head around it probably took about a day, though of course it takes longer to really get to grips with it and come up with compelling presentations. I've been using it for over 2 years now and for me there is no going back.

"To what end?" The importance of objective setting in marketing and communications

Measurement and evaluation is without doubt the plague of the communications professional. It is also quite probably the reason why communications functions often aren't better resourced and supported than they currently are. Nobody is going to invest in something that they can't be sure is actually working for them. So, the only way that we can really push for better resource to deliver more creative campaigns online and offline is to show the impact that our work has had (or perhaps is going to have).

When I'm running a workshop, speaking at a conference, or just starting out developing a strategy for a client, I'm often asked how we can know whether a particular social media campaign, profile or account is working for an organisation. My question back to them is always the same: 'what were you trying to achieve?' Sadly, the answer back is rarely delivered with confidence and depth. And the answers that most fill me with horror are the following (which I hear a lot):

* "We're trying to build a community"
* "We're trying to engage with our students, alumni, parents, businesses… or just anyone who's interested in us"

So, how do you measure either of those things? And, most importantly, what's the point of doing either of those things?

Building a community for the sake of building a community is a pointless exercise. Everything we do in our organisations as communications and marketing professionals should be done to support some overarching goal or vision (the organisational strategy, if you will). In this respect education organisations are no different to any other business or institution. We have a purpose and in order to deliver on that purpose, we must be clear about where we are going and that every bit of resource allocated to getting there is actually aligned with that vision. Building a community therefore cannot be an end in itself. Even in society at large 'community building' isn't an end in itself. We build communities because we want those communities to do something: to help one another achieve a common goal, to earn money, to reduce crime in neighbourhoods, and at its most basic of levels to work together to provide food so that we don't all die. There is always an end point, and those end points are measurable.

So, this is why when we are planning and developing strategies for online and offline engagement, we need to really push ourselves to develop SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound). And so, I suggest that every time you are justifying why you should be doing something in your marketing-communications activity, you need to be asking yourself the question "to what end?" And keep asking it until you get to the point where you can no longer answer that question. Then, and only then, do you have your objective. At that point, you can then check that it is aligned to your overall organisation's (university, school, college, whatever it might be) vision and strategy. And if it's not, forget it. Move on. Do something else that is aligned to that. Otherwise you are wasting resource. You might deliver great things, but if it can't be linked back to what the organisation is trying to achieve, then why should the person or people responsible for steering and leading that organisation (or the tax-payer) be funding you to do it? And unless your organisation has specifically determined in it's overarching strategy that it's purpose in life is to build a Facebook page with 10,000 members and two new posts per week and a minimum of 5 likes on each of those posts, then your online stats and analytics are also only a tiny part of that measurement process. They might form part of measuring the journey that helps you to get to delivering the objective, but they will rarely measure whether the objective itself (if the objective is correctly set) has been achieved. The only instance I can think of where the web analytics can provide the full picture is in an e-commerce scenario.

So, the process you'll go through and what you'll end up with is something like this:

"Our objective is to achieve x which in turn will deliver y which will mean z, and we need to do this by [date]"

In this process, x and y are equally tactics as well as being part of the objective (they may actually be your strategy). But z must be directly traceable to the organisational vision.

So, please please please, when you're doing any communications and marketing strategy and planning work (especially for online communications, because most people are still just playing with this and not doing it strategically), keep asking yourself "to what end?" If you can answer that clearly and concisely, then you may well also find that your leaders and managers might be more ready to come on that journey with you and put a little resource your way.

As always, give me a yell if I can do anything to help you on that journey.

Tracy's Friday Favorites: Evernote

I'm not good with paper. On my office shelves I have a range of notebooks filled with varying degrees of random notes, crossing many different projects, events, etc. In reality, I take notes and never go back to them not least because I can never remember which of my multitude of notebooks I have written the darn things down in. Don't get me wrong, this is nothing against paper. I love paper. I love books. I love buying beautiful notebooks. Writing with pen and paper is something I do so rarely nowadays that having a beautiful notebook and writing in it has an almost romantic feel for me. But it's just not practical for me.

Enter Evernote. I love this product. Basically Evernote is a tool for note taking. It's multi-platform (I have a single account that is accessed from iPad, mac and iPhone, and seamlessly synchronises between the three) and just so incrediby useful. Within it you create individual notebooks, and then create individual notes within each notebook. This enables you to make sense of everything. I have notebooks for different clients, one for conference notes, another for blog ideas (blog ideas come at anytime, so keeping an archive of them is really starting to help boost the productivity of my blog, and is the place in which I start drafting blog posts now, with several on the go at any one time that I add to as and when I can). Within the notes you can add files, images, links, whatever you need really.

Furthermore you can also email notes to Evernote, and you can tweet to it too, making it easy to store those tweets that you want return to later.

So so very useful for me! I'm even drafting this blog post within it on the iPad. Then when I'm ready to post it, I'll just pick up the same entry on the mac and post it to the blog. Seamless, very easy to use, and an invaluable tool for me.

Can social media help you build trust? (Presentation)

I'm speaking at the LG Communications Reputation Seminar today (#lgcomms). The subject of my talk is whether and how social media can help you build trust amongst employees. Here's the prezi for it. If you'd like to have a chat with me about it, please do email me: tracy@picklejarcommunications.com. You might also be interested in the full day workshop on social media for internal communications that I'm running with PR Academy on 18 October (see here for more info).

Is Facebook's 'subscribe' feature a game-changer for teacher-student engagement?

Could Facebook's latest feature be a game-changer for personal/professional issues around its use in the education sector? Teachers and lecturers have been grappling with the question of whether they should 'friend' or accept friend requests from their students, but the 'subscribe' option may offer an alternative solution.

My recent work developing social media strategies and running workshops for primary and secondary schools reveals that there is particular nervousness about the use of Facebook, and rightly so, for those who work with children. Typically representatives from the schools that I have spoken with are advising teachers to either not be on Facebook at all (!) or at least to not accept friend requests from their students (Missouri in the US even went so far as to attempt to make it illegal for friends and students to become friends on Facebook, though this is currently being questioned as to whether this law can pass, and the decision held until february 2012). However, the danger of this is a 'bury our heads in the sand' mentality, unable to see and understand how young (and old!) people communicate with each other via social media, and unable to see what people in spaces such as Facebook are saying about your school or perhaps even you as an individual.

Some schools have been fighting social media in its entirety: banning it in the classroom, banning it on the school network, ignoring it, and advising teachers not to use it. But some, as this recent article in the New York Times reveals, have realised that this is a battle that they cannot win. Schools are better off to be in there where it is happening, rather than at the edges not understanding the platforms that their children use every day and that influences their lives so much. Whatever children spend a lot of their time doing and interested in should be of paramount interest to teachers since it can tell us so much about how to engage young people and how they want to receive information (which may well extend to teaching materials). I believe that schools also have a fundamental role to play in educating young people in using social media (and any forms of communication) appropriately, and they cannot do this if they do not understand the tools and concepts themselves. Therefore we should be encouraging teachers to be in these spaces and learning about them not closing them down.

Now, however, Facebook has introduced the new 'subscribe' feature for individual profiles. This provides a way for users to see select updates from other users in their news feed, without actually becoming fully-fledged 'friends' on the social network. This is clearly Facebook's response to the audience segmentation that Google+ has introduced to the world of social media through their 'circles' functionality.

The ability to control who sees which messages and updates that you post is a powerful game-changer in social media terms. Until recently, our answer to presenting our different personas depended on us having to manage multiple accounts and profiles: Facebook for friends and family, LinkedIn for professional networking, etc. In short we would have multiple personas developed and communicated through multiple sites. Now through a single platform we can communicate with friends, family, co-workers, clients, whoever it might be, in different ways without having to switch to a different site for each group. We have multiple personas, but through a single site. The rapid early growth of Google+ has meant that Facebook has had to respond fast, and so it has.

The subscribe feature will now enable anyone to be able to share updates with each other, but to select which updates they see by choosing to either make them public, 'friends' only, or private. This is achieved simply by people becoming a 'subscriber' of individual updates, not a friend (i.e. they can't see your full profile if it is fairly well protected). This has particular benefits to teachers, as Mashable highlight in their article on this new feature.

So, as teachers and lecturers may now decide to start those kind of connections on Facebook, one thing needs to be considered: we need to be careful and cautious every time we publish a status update to check the privacy settings of each update. Make sure that you check how it is being posted so you don't accidentally post a status update designed to be 'private' or for your friends only to your 'public' feed. However, common sense and best practice dictates that if you're going to publish an update that you don't want others to see in any form, then you probably shouldn't be posting it online anyway, no matter how 'private' your Facebook account is.

Whatever happens, we're fully expecting this to be something that we're asked to talk more about and demonstrate in our workshops and strategies for schools and universities, and we think this is a positive step for Facebook and for schools.

Tracy's Friday Favorites: Pinterest

I've opted for one of my personal favorites this week, a site that I use purely for personal interest, but could be a marketers dream if they'll ever truly embrace the move towards 'personalisation' in the way in which we engage with people.

Pinterest is a space where you can collect and categorise things that you see that you like, and share those things with others. In my mind, it's a little like a beautifully designed, easy to use, and highly visual social bookmarking site. But most of the stuff that people 'pin' (read 'bookmark') are actual objects and things (or things to do/make, etc) rather than ideas (though you can pin those too if you wish, but it needs an image to go with it). And, quite frankly, it's a space in which I come across stuff pinned by others that are truly cool, creative and inspiring. It's nightmare for the bank balance though as it triggers the 'I want' reaction. Here are my pins.

So, how does this translate to marketing and communications? If you look at very targeted, highly personal campaign approaches like KLM Surprises (thanks Chris Gibbons for alerting me of this), then it provides a great way for companies to get a personal insight into the things their individual customers or stakeholders like and to surprise them with a gift or something they have pinned. Likewise, you'll also want customers and potential customers to 'pin' your products since this is social sharing, and others might make purchases off the back of what they see on Pinterest. And for universities or independent schools, if someone is paying several thousand pounds to attend your institution or send their child there, a few quid spent on something that they truly like and want to say 'thank you' could be money well spent in terms of forming a lasting relationship with them. So, check out if they're 'pinning' anything perhaps?

Happy pinning folks!

Postcard on the run - useful for engaging after events?

This week Mashable reviewed a new mobile app that enables you to create and send real postcards direct from your mobile phone. Postcard on the Run is a free app. When you launch it it gives you the option to create a postcard from existing photos in your phone's photo library, to take a new one, or to use one from Facebook. You then enter in some text (up to 200 characters) and can sign your name using your finger so it appears hand written. You can then select addresses direct from your address book or add a new one (if you don't have the person's address stored in your address book, the app will email them to get it for you). You then pay for the postcard using a credit card and job done - they print it and post it to the recipient for you. It cost me £1.69 to create and send a postcard in the UK and I'm now waiting for it to arrive on my bloke's door mat later this week (will report back on quality, etc when it does). (UPDATE: when I received the email receipt for this it said $1.69, not £1.69, which is a fair bit different. Although on the app it said £1.69, so I'll let you all know the actual price that it worked out at when I get the bank statement in!)

I rather like this idea. The review and the marketing materials for the site focus very much on personal use of it - postcards from holidays, notes to friends and family, etc. However, I can see huge potential of this for marketing and professional networking. Let's say, for example, you're at a recruitment fair for your university or an open day. You can take photos of the guests that you chat with and send them a postcard to remind them of your conversation a few days later. You could have an image ready created to use on the front that includes a QR code or short url to send them directly to your university's mobile site or prospectus app, or you could take a pic of them at your stand or with you (cheesy grins please!) and send that to them to remind them of the friendly person that they chatted with from the university. It could be a great way of adding that personal touch and combining the online and offline experience. For my own purposes, I can see this being rather powerful for use at networking events. When someone hands me their business card or comes to chat to me at the end of a talk, I can then following up not necessarily with an email, but with a little postcard to remind them who I am, where they met me and what we discussed. This could be a lot more memorable than just handing over my business card and having that gather dust on their shelf. I may well start doing this (I'm tempted not to publish this post and to keep the idea to myself too!). I see it as well worth the £1.69 investment per card.

Here's a little slideshow of the steps involved in creating the postcard on the app. Mine is estimated to arrive at its destination in 3 days time.



Created with flickr slideshow.

Introducing Tracy's Friday Favorites: Wordle

One of the most popular conference presentations that I've ever given in terms of the audience reaction at the end of the session was a session entitled 'A toybox of tools to enhance your online communications'. It was an indulgent session that threw strategy out of the window for a while and just looked at some cool and useful (and mostly free) online tools that you could use to enhance your marketing and communications activities. I've been asked to repeat that session a fair few times since I first did it (incidentally it was also the first time I ever used prezi, one of my all time favorite online tools). The attention that I got from that session and the requests for more since have left me suddenly realising that this should be a regular theme for my blog...

And so I give you Tracy's Friday Favorites...

From now on, every Friday I shall aim to share with you a cool/useful tool, site or resource that you can use to add value to your marketing-communications or other engagement activities, or even just for your own self interest. These will be randomly picked and shared, and will swing enormously from stuff that is mindblowingly useful to stuff that is mindnumbingly useless (but nevertheless cool). Just a little fun for a Friday, but hopefully with something useful to it.

So, this week I am kicking off with a fairly well known site, a much-loved one and one that did indeed feature in my 'Toybox' session two years ago, but I still love it and use it as much now as I did then: Wordle.

Wordle.net is a site that you can dump in a random selection of text to create beautiful word clouds. You can manipulate the word clouds, changing the size of words, the colours, fonts and layouts. I've seen these used in marketing and communications, and also seen them used regularly in reports as a creative way of sharing feedback about an organisation, product or idea.

I'm redeveloping my personal website at the moment (tracyplayle.com) and used this to drop a nice little wordle in about things I like. Silly, but I'm sure you can come up with a world of other wordle uses.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Tracy's favorite things, created on wordle.net"][/caption]

 

And here's a little 2 min video showing how easy it is to create one:



I have a fair few ideas and sites already in mind to share with you in future Friday Favorites, but I'm also very happy to receive suggestions for others that you've found that you think I should blog about. Or if you're a company launching a cool site or product that you'd like me to review, then send it through. You can either email them to me (tracy@picklejarcommunications.com) or tweet me (@picklejar).

Do you have a social media problem or an organisational problem?

Why is it that when someone says something negative about our organisation online we think we have a social media problem or a social media crisis? And yet if someone says something positive about us we pat ourselves on the back and remind ourselves what a great organisation we are. The action is the same, albeit with different content, and yet the reaction is different. One we consider to be an issue with a platform or channel (or, worse still, a 'problem customer'), the other we consider to be feedback on our organisation. But both are feedback and the only difference is that one we want to hear, the other we don't.

When Dave Carroll posted a YouTube video about United Airlines breaking guitars, United Airlines didn't have a social media problem, they had a problem with sloppy baggage handling. When a disgruntled customer posted a video of one of their engineers asleep on her sofa, Comcast didn't have a social media problem, they had a problem with an engineer behaving inappropriately on the job. And when 2000 students form their own Facebook group to find out whether their exams are going ahead or not tomorrow because it's snowing too heavily and they haven't had a firm answer from the university, you don't have a social media problem, you have a flawed communications process.

Feedback is everywhere for us to listen to, take note of and, if appropriate, respond to and do something about. We need to hear the bad as well as the good and so does the senior management team. This is a good thing. Because if we don't listen, those problems that might have seem minor at first will escalate, and people will talk about them more, and eventually they'll realise they're not the only one to have a bad experience, and then the power of the group begins. And when that happens, reputations are damaged, organisations fail, and perhaps (if you believe the argument), governments can even be overturned. This is why senior managers cannot bury their heads in the sand and see this as a social media problem. There is no such thing as a social media crisis, only a crisis that finds its voice and resolution through social media. You don't have a social media problem, you have an organisational problem.

Reflections on being a 'consultant' (aka what exactly do I do?)

I wasn't always a 'consultant'. And even to this day it's a word that sits uneasy with me. At last week's CASE Europe Annual Conference I found myself sat in the main opening session next to a young lady who had never met or heard of me before. And the usual opening question came fast: "where are you from"? I found myself, as I often do, apologetically mumbling something along the lines of "Well, my company is Pickle Jar Communications, so I'm a consultant now... but I used to work for the University of Warwick and, erm, I'm speaking at the conference." Let's break this down: I start with a company name that she's probably never heard of, explain that that means I am a consultant, and then attempt to claw myself back into a place of mutual respect and understanding by pointing out that I used to work in-house too and that I must be okay because I'm a speaker. Quite frankly, what I want to scream when I first introduce myself to someone new who works in an in-house role is "I'm not going to instantly try to sell something to you. I'm here to learn and to listen too." I usually only feel comfortable at conferences after people have heard me speak as that's the point at which they realise I'm not there to give them a sales pitch, but instead I hopefully have said something valuable and useful to them - and they haven't paid me a penny for it.

This hesitancy and apologetic nature of the way I at times explain what I do stems back to the fact that I did, indeed, previously work in-house where, like everyone else, I was subject to the sales calls from the wide range of consultants and other vendors trying to get me to buy in their product or service. I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of those phone calls. I know that sinking feeling that you get when you realise the person you are speaking to in the seat next to you at the conference is someone who will at some point probably try to sell something to you (and some really don't waste any time). It sucks, especially when you don't have budget to spend or a need for the product or service. So, when I set up my business I was determined to find another way. I think I have, but I do still miss that ability to close a deal that probably is needed to make me really successful as a business owner. I find it difficult to do because it makes me uncomfortable.

I'm happy that the way in which I've managed to raise my own profile in the sector in which I work has mostly been by providing, hopefully, useful sessions at conferences (without a whiff of a sales pitch), by blogging lots on sites like this and elsewhere, by my voluntary work with the CIPR, and by creating HE Comms, a free social network for HE marketing and communications professionals to network and share ideas, best practice, ask questions etc. In short, I almost try to make up for the fact that I am a consultant who works for the sector and needs business from the sector in order to make ends meet, by giving a lot in return, and sometimes perhaps giving too much of my time for free. Granted, off the back of giving a lot of my time for free I do manage to raise my profile and ultimately win new business, so the returns are there (sometimes - not always), but I still feel apologetic about being a consultant. Why is that?

I like the wikipedia definition of "consultant" at the time of writing this. Or, at least I like this bit: 'A consultant is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter.' I'm at ease with that description. I think that sums up who I am (not so much expert, but perhaps a deeper knowledge than those who work in-house have had the time to develop). And I wonder if my sense of shame (for want of a better word) about being a consultant is all in my head and simply a consequence of the sheer volume of people who whinge about 'social media consultants' and 'PR consultants'.

So, regardless of what I choose to call myself or what others might call me, I've reflected a little on what it is I do that hopefully makes me add value to the lives of those I work with and makes me love this 'job' so much:

- I offer an external perspective on marketing and communications that isn't bound to internal politics or jaded by years of being told you can't do something "because...". This is often why I am bought in to deliver high-level seminars and workshops. I am able to bring a fresh perspective.
- I provide additional resource and support on an ad-hoc basis without the client incurring another salary bill. As such, I provide support as- and when- needed. This isn't always about specific expertise, just about ability and time. The work I did this year to help put the programme together for the University of Warwick alumni day, and the work I did last year on Imperial College's undergraduate prospectus are perfect examples of that. I have the head space that some people within an organisation just don't have, particularly when it comes to projects.
- My distance from an organisation, and yet my knowledge of the sector, mean that I am able to apply proper strategic thinking to projects, again without the distractions of the 'day-job'. I am able to focus and see the bigger picture that sometimes it is difficult to see when you are working within an organisation. This was very much the case when I spent the last Christmas holidays writing an online PR strategy to support the University of Leicester with their Leicester Exchanges initiative, or when I was writing social media strategies for the University of Nottingham, Warwick Business School and Maastricht University in the past year.
- I help people come up with creative ideas by providing them with time-out and the tools and templates to think in a slightly different way about things. I hope this is what I achieve when I run workshops and seeing some of the fruits of that, as has recently been the case in chatting with people like David Girling from UEA (more on this in a later blog post), is really very satisfying.
- I spend a lot of my time focusing on key areas so I can bring specialist knowledge of my subject area, dedicating a lot of (unpaid) time to improving my knowledge and staying fresh in a way that it is difficult to do when you work in-house. In short, I act as a bit of a 'filter' or a sounding board for the sector for new developments and ideas and attempt to apply some critical thinking to that for everyone else in the sector.

People often ask me what exactly it is that I do. So, I think I can summarise this as follows:

- I come up with new ideas for marketing and communications (overarching strategies, projects and campaigns)
- I help other people come up with new ideas themselves (by providing workshops, training and coaching)
- I help organisations put those plans into action (by sometimes doing whatever needs doing: building social media spaces or sites, copywriting, managing events, overseeing a video production).

A lot of what I do could be done in-house, but people don't always have the headspace to do it themselves. And that's what I'd like to be seen as. Instead of an evil 'consultant' trying to sap the sector of its money, I'd like to be seen as a critical friend, a useful pair of hands and as an extension of the sector rather than as a 'consultant'. But I'll carry on using the word 'consultant' until I come up with something better (and before anyone else suggests it, guru is very very much not acceptable and should never be used by anybody in a job title or description). And whatever I call it, I love it. I just wish I was a little better at actually closing the deal on work instead of just having a good profile and reputation.

Can universities get in on the group-purchasing act?

[caption id="attachment_546" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey (Creative Commons/Flickr)"][/caption]For a while now I've been flippantly pondering whether the group purchasing phenomenon led by GroupOn and the like could make its way into the education world as a means of attracting students. Not so much prompted by GroupOn, but inspired by a session I attended at SXSW that looked at trends in the use of online media in China towards forming online groups and using the purchase power of many to approach shops and other vendors (car showrooms, for example), I've thought about this many times over the past couple of years but never really developed that thinking.

This morning, however, I read on Eric Stoller's (@ericstoller) blog that National Louis University will be using GroupOn for an introduction to teaching course.

It was only a matter of time before someone did this. Eric rightly points out that this appears to be a bit of a PR stunt for them with the claim that they are the first university to use GroupOn in this way. This is one of those cases where the medium is being used as a message, rather than as a functional tool, I think. But there's a place for that kind of activity and hats-off to those who try these things first.

But is the GroupOn model really useful to Higher Education and is it, indeed, even feasible? In its current form, I think not. How, for example, do you assess the quality and qualifications of the individual purchasing their GroupOn voucher? Most universities have stringent standards about who they will accept on courses, so I think this model is only really going to work for courses where there aren't entry standards, such as short lifelong learning or 'leisure' courses. But there I can really see a huge opportunity for universities and colleges using this approach.

But I don't want to dismiss the group-purchasing trend altogether for Higher Education degree programmes. And the reason for this is that I don't really think the model is all that new. Universities providing training programmes and bespoke degrees for companies, for example, is nothing new and this is in-line with the group purchasing model. In 2005, for example, the University of Warwick (Warwick Business School) were commissioned by Network Rail to deliver their leadership training programmes. And now they deliver a specific MSc in Network Rail Project Management, on the basis that at least 20 Network Rail employees participate in the course. Universities themselves use group purchasing power to get the best prices for some of their products, forming consortiums to negotiate the best deals. So, why shouldn't this approach be applied by those wanting to study at your university?

I think technology might provide ways for us to form new and unique groups of people (individuals?) to come together to exert some group purchasing power over universities. With the heightened competitiveness that the UK/European sector is about to throw itself into, I think now is the perfect time for prospective students to start thinking in these terms too and testing the waters. But perhaps also universities need to be ready for this, and know how to benefit from such approaches. Afterall, one 'sale' to 20 students is a lot more time efficient that 20 individual 'sales'. And yes, to those in universities who don't like to think in terms of 'selling', it is a sale. And negotiation is going to be part of that.

What do you think?

No place for content errors. They'll haunt you.

I was sitting in a pub enjoying a few drinks with my fella on Saturday afternoon. We're both a tad geeky, so we're sat there with our iPads scrolling various things, catching up on what delights Twitter has to share, laughing out loud as we scroll through awkwardfamilyphotos.com ... as you do... Then he waves under my nose a job description for an anesthetist  at the Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University NHS Trust. A tiny bit tedious, I think, but I read through it wondering what I'm going to see and thinking perhaps I'm missing the point here, or that he thinks I need a career change and a 'real job'. Then, there it is, the offending line, 'Usual rubbish about equal opportunities employer etc...'. Oops. We have a little chat about how poor that is, then move on (more hilarious photos to look at of someone's dreadful haircut and jumper taken in the early 80s - this is the important stuff that the web was invented for). Then yesterday I'm sitting at my desk and the same story pops up on my Twitter feed a few times, because the local newspaper have now written about it and it's spreading around social media. This is the way things go.

Now, I've written a lot of copy in my career in communications. And many a time I have inserted something in as a space holder while I wait until I write what I actually need to write in there. I have also used beautifully and painstakingly crafted 'filler' phrases such as 'blah blah blah', 'write this bit later' or the even more offensive 'Lorem ipsum'. The point is, we've probably all done it. Granted, not all of us have written something that could be deemed offensive (though I expect I've done that too), and most of us probably have replaced the offending text before it gets published. But you can see just how easy it is for it to happen. Quite frankly, I think it's shocking that we even still need to say things about public sector organisations being 'equal opportunities employers' anyway - shouldn't that be a given? However, the point I'm coming to is that these kind of mistakes will have been made hundreds of times all over the place. They'll be spotted, reported and replaced. But now, social media means that the speed with which a mistake can be made and shared leaves us with no room for these kind of errors. A decade ago that mistake even if it made the local press would have been tomorrow's chip paper. Now, it's out there, forever. It's searchable, and it's archived online.

Social media sites are full of mistakes, and we're pretty forgiving of many of them. The odd spelling error, occasional links that don't work, poor grammar. It's really not the end of the world and nobody's organisation is going to die because auto-correct changed a few 's's to 'z's (God bless America). But when the error is in the content, not the construction, then it is less forgivable. This riles me a little as we all make mistakes, but we never used to take everybody out and flog them for it. But now, we do. But I have to say, it did make reading a dull NHS job ad' and the equal opportunities rubbish so much more interesting! Surely we can make this stuff, even the essential 'policy' stuff a little more interesting otherwise who would want to work for you? Just perhaps less offensive... But then employer branding is a whole other topic of conversation.

Getting senior management to understand and support social media activities

This week I delivered a session at the CASE Europe Annual conference. With a different workshop title advertised on the website from that printed and promised to delegates in the programme, I ended up squeezing two themes into one hour-long session, but I think I may have got away with it (feedback suggests I did), and I'm kinda glad that I managed to cover both themes. So, the session started out by looking at how to motivate individuals to use social media, how to motivate them to do it strategically, and then moved on to thinking about how to get senior managers to buy-in to supporting social media engagement activities. As usual, my presentations don't contain a vast amount of text, so feel free to drop me a line or pop a comment on here if you want me to elaborate on any of the points.