Two classes in the IMC program at Northwestern University in Evanston and in Chicago IL. have accepted a challenge by the management of YUM! Brands to plan the second year program of a hunger prevention week. Last year the company generated 1.5 billion impressions of awareness on the hunger issue around the globe (98 countries). Because of the commitment, dedication scale, they were asked by the UN to "give a voice to hunger and starvation" around the world. The company has clearly developed a program that is not intended to sell product but simply to "save lives". Sad but important statistics such as a child dies of hunger every 5 seconds around the world motivated the top management and over 1 million employees, family and friends of employees of YUM! (including KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver, A&W) to join in a volunteer, awareness and donation effort. Inaddition to the $50 million in prepared food donated to the poor and hungery each year; the effort raised an additional $16 million . Additional milllions of dollars in volunteer hours (where employees were paid by the company) contributed to the overall effort. We will conduct research, compare their effort to best practices of reputation programs by companies and not-for-profit organizations, prepare a plan and recommend actions for the company's leader of the effort - Jonathan Blum (Chief Public Affairs Officer). The final work will be done by experienced, educated and trained IMC students by the end of May. While we have had other clients of importance; we have not had a client where our contribution might be considered to driectly save lives! at this scale (with a company with 1 million employees).
Last year we worked on a similar projectd for Aidmatrix. com. We have also had projects for CocaCola, Rhapsody, Harley Davidson, Jeep, Chrysler, Mayer Brown Rowe and Maw (law firm) and other
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
IMC
February 12, 2008
Comments and two questions:
One of the specific challenges of the residency program is to offer to the companies the best set of knowledge and skills of the students. Of course, we are offering bright, educated and most often work experienced students from Northwestern University. However, we also need to offer to the companies a person with a specific set of skills and knowledge (see some of their requirements above). We are building a new list that will include elements of the new "communities, stakehoders and web 2.0" class. For example, the students will know about the running debate on the "wisdom of the crowds" vs. the "culture of experts and their credentials". They will know about new polling methods using automated dialing and success and their use in business (Rasmussenreports.com). They will understand some of the valued uses of Second Life (for training and education) for Electrolux. They will understand about building longer term relationships and stakeholder maps with stakeholders from the work of GE . Healthcare. Tokoni.com has given them experience on understanding how communities can be built around sharing of experiences with discussion with the Founder and Chair of the new firm as well as the start-up experiences of the same person on eBay. In other classes they understand the value of databases, how to construct and analyze them. They know how to use the more advanced elements of SPSS for statistical report generation. From Finance they know about ROI, Break-even, performance ratios, activity based accounting, balance sheets and income statements and more. They certainly understand the key ideas of marketing with a much strong consumer and stakeholder orientation. I need to build this list to include many more specific skills and help to implement strategies. For example in the Spring MPR class with YUM! brands they will know how to use some of the most expensive and productive media and advertising tracking systems for planning and decision-making. What else can I add to this list?
One note I want to add: If you will go the You Tube site that I have attached, you will see what many of the faculty consider to be a terrific self-marketing effort of a student to qualify for a highly competitive internship at the Coca-Cola company. The student shows enormous maturity and creativity to stimulate their interest. What do you think?
Comments and two questions:
One of the specific challenges of the residency program is to offer to the companies the best set of knowledge and skills of the students. Of course, we are offering bright, educated and most often work experienced students from Northwestern University. However, we also need to offer to the companies a person with a specific set of skills and knowledge (see some of their requirements above). We are building a new list that will include elements of the new "communities, stakehoders and web 2.0" class. For example, the students will know about the running debate on the "wisdom of the crowds" vs. the "culture of experts and their credentials". They will know about new polling methods using automated dialing and success and their use in business (Rasmussenreports.com). They will understand some of the valued uses of Second Life (for training and education) for Electrolux. They will understand about building longer term relationships and stakeholder maps with stakeholders from the work of GE . Healthcare. Tokoni.com has given them experience on understanding how communities can be built around sharing of experiences with discussion with the Founder and Chair of the new firm as well as the start-up experiences of the same person on eBay. In other classes they understand the value of databases, how to construct and analyze them. They know how to use the more advanced elements of SPSS for statistical report generation. From Finance they know about ROI, Break-even, performance ratios, activity based accounting, balance sheets and income statements and more. They certainly understand the key ideas of marketing with a much strong consumer and stakeholder orientation. I need to build this list to include many more specific skills and help to implement strategies. For example in the Spring MPR class with YUM! brands they will know how to use some of the most expensive and productive media and advertising tracking systems for planning and decision-making. What else can I add to this list?
One note I want to add: If you will go the You Tube site that I have attached, you will see what many of the faculty consider to be a terrific self-marketing effort of a student to qualify for a highly competitive internship at the Coca-Cola company. The student shows enormous maturity and creativity to stimulate their interest. What do you think?
IMC
February 10, 2008
This past week I sent out an e-mail letter to a few dozen colleagues who are either the CCO (VP) of Corporate Communications of a corporation with $3 billion in revenue (mostly Fortune 200) or the Sr. officers of a public relations and communications agency with large billings. Some have replied immediately including two very, very large firms. A challenge I face is that most of the U.S. firms do not have the time or inclination to offer international students in marketing and communications visa standing (if they were to employ the student) to stay in the U.S. It may be up to the School to make the argument that this generation of marketing and communications students are as strong as the earlier generations of engineering and science students who were eventually sponsored. However, we do not make it a condition of summer internships to offer a visa (no job has been offered). However, many of the companies may consider placing a the international students (55%) in corporate post in their home country if they have offices there.
The jobs requested from me will demand strong writing and editing skills, strong team skills, planning ability, knowledge of stakeholders, media and PR.
Effective project management is essential and typically involves:
· Learning and analyzing client businesses to determine communications issues
· Developing actionable recommendations
· Building strong client relationships through effective integrated communications
· Participating on multi-disciplinary teams
· Interacting with internal and external resources such as research suppliers, advertising/creative agencies and other corporate resource groups
Other skills include:
Marketplace Insight Integrated Solutions
- Target Market Analysis - Communications Planning
- Needs-Based Segmentation - Marketing Planning and Integration
- Customer Understanding - Brand Building
- Messaging Assessment
Message Generation Execution and Measurement
- Positioning - Program Implementation
- Key Message Development - Communications Measurement
- Creative Strategy - Process Evaluation
- Persuasive Business Writing - Six Sigma/Commercialization
The market is chaotic this year. I suspect the softening business market will make it difficult to match students, but I know that we will match students to excellent projects. Watch this space for more information on residencies.
This past week I sent out an e-mail letter to a few dozen colleagues who are either the CCO (VP) of Corporate Communications of a corporation with $3 billion in revenue (mostly Fortune 200) or the Sr. officers of a public relations and communications agency with large billings. Some have replied immediately including two very, very large firms. A challenge I face is that most of the U.S. firms do not have the time or inclination to offer international students in marketing and communications visa standing (if they were to employ the student) to stay in the U.S. It may be up to the School to make the argument that this generation of marketing and communications students are as strong as the earlier generations of engineering and science students who were eventually sponsored. However, we do not make it a condition of summer internships to offer a visa (no job has been offered). However, many of the companies may consider placing a the international students (55%) in corporate post in their home country if they have offices there.
The jobs requested from me will demand strong writing and editing skills, strong team skills, planning ability, knowledge of stakeholders, media and PR.
Effective project management is essential and typically involves:
· Learning and analyzing client businesses to determine communications issues
· Developing actionable recommendations
· Building strong client relationships through effective integrated communications
· Participating on multi-disciplinary teams
· Interacting with internal and external resources such as research suppliers, advertising/creative agencies and other corporate resource groups
Other skills include:
Marketplace Insight Integrated Solutions
- Target Market Analysis - Communications Planning
- Needs-Based Segmentation - Marketing Planning and Integration
- Customer Understanding - Brand Building
- Messaging Assessment
Message Generation Execution and Measurement
- Positioning - Program Implementation
- Key Message Development - Communications Measurement
- Creative Strategy - Process Evaluation
- Persuasive Business Writing - Six Sigma/Commercialization
The market is chaotic this year. I suspect the softening business market will make it difficult to match students, but I know that we will match students to excellent projects. Watch this space for more information on residencies.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Medill
Every year for the past 20 a number of faculty with industry and government experience and deep affiliations have generated paid internships (we call them residencies due to their graduate level assignments) for our 80+ graduate students. I have raised approximately 400 paid residencies for my students. While it is a tough and lengthy process (from January to May each year) I enjoy the increased student contact and discussions with corporate officers. The students show remarkable level of skills, work experience and new knowledge from practical classes at NU in the traditional fields of public relations, advertising, marketing, direct marketing and research. We educate and train students to first be "business men and women" then "experts and leaders on the use of communications to solve strategic business and organizational issues". Finally, they are knowledgable at a leading edge level to "integrate" the communications, strategies, policies and tactics of the firm to strengthen the organization's brand with consumer and other stakeholders. The use the latest media tracking systems such as VMS, Biz360 and other sophisticated computer generated data tracking of experts, journalists, topics and more in print, broadcast and radio. They also (under our leadership) know SPSS statistics packages, Second Life and other newer media. Many of these skills are needed by modern corporations.
We place students in individual residencies in the U.S. and overseas (Shanghai) team projects for 11 weeks during the summer. The companies pay the tuition for individual residencies ($11,500 in 2008) and some living support for out of town firms. The faculty are involved in defining the challenging nature of the assignment, being in contact with the students and visting each student during the summer.
We have worked with hundreds of firms including most of the Fortune 200 and many of the next Fortune 200 (emerging start-ups and Web 2.0 companies. Many of the firms have offered full-time positions to our students when they graduate each December. Just this week I received a Blackberry note from a Fortune 10 CCO (Chief Communications Officer) within 1 hour of my sending him a note to request a "public affairs" oriented student for the summer. I always have a number of students who have worked on Capitol Hill (Washington D.C.) and will qualify for his needs. I begin the more detailed process by finding out more details about the work of the firm and the specific talent needs for the project.
This process has several more stages to go that I will share with readers of Tokoni.com (By the way, Tokoni leaders will be speaking in my new class on "Communities, Stakeholders and Web 2.0" this next week). More to come.
February 10, 2008
This past week I sent out an e-mail letter to a few dozen colleagues who are either the CCO (VP) of Corporate Communications of a corporation with $3 billion in revenue (mostly Fortune 200) or the Sr. officers of a public relations and communications agency with large billings. Some have replied immediately including two very, very large firms. A challenge I face is that most of the U.S. firms do not have the time or inclination to offer international students in marketing and communications visa standing (if they were to employ the student) to stay in the U.S. It may be up to the School to make the argument that this generation of marketing and communications students are as strong as the earlier generations of engineering and science students who were eventually sponsored. However, we do not make it a condition of summer internships to offer a visa (no job has been offered). However, many of the companies may consider placing a the international students (55%) in corporate post in their home country if they have offices there.
The jobs requested from me will demand strong writing and editing skills, strong team skills, planning ability, knowledge of stakeholders, media and PR.
Effective project management is essential and typically involves:
· Learning and analyzing client businesses to determine communications issues
· Developing actionable recommendations
· Building strong client relationships through effective integrated communications
· Participating on multi-disciplinary teams
· Interacting with internal and external resources such as research suppliers, advertising/creative agencies and other corporate resource groups
Other skills include:
Marketplace Insight Integrated Solutions
- Target Market Analysis - Communications Planning
- Needs-Based Segmentation - Marketing Planning and Integration
- Customer Understanding - Brand Building
- Messaging Assessment
Message Generation Execution and Measurement
- Positioning - Program Implementation
- Key Message Development - Communications Measurement
- Creative Strategy - Process Evaluation
- Persuasive Business Writing - Six Sigma/Commercialization
The market is chaotic this year. I suspect the softening business market will make it difficult to match students, but I know that we will match students to excellent projects. Watch this space for more information on residencies.
We place students in individual residencies in the U.S. and overseas (Shanghai) team projects for 11 weeks during the summer. The companies pay the tuition for individual residencies ($11,500 in 2008) and some living support for out of town firms. The faculty are involved in defining the challenging nature of the assignment, being in contact with the students and visting each student during the summer.
We have worked with hundreds of firms including most of the Fortune 200 and many of the next Fortune 200 (emerging start-ups and Web 2.0 companies. Many of the firms have offered full-time positions to our students when they graduate each December. Just this week I received a Blackberry note from a Fortune 10 CCO (Chief Communications Officer) within 1 hour of my sending him a note to request a "public affairs" oriented student for the summer. I always have a number of students who have worked on Capitol Hill (Washington D.C.) and will qualify for his needs. I begin the more detailed process by finding out more details about the work of the firm and the specific talent needs for the project.
This process has several more stages to go that I will share with readers of Tokoni.com (By the way, Tokoni leaders will be speaking in my new class on "Communities, Stakeholders and Web 2.0" this next week). More to come.
February 10, 2008
This past week I sent out an e-mail letter to a few dozen colleagues who are either the CCO (VP) of Corporate Communications of a corporation with $3 billion in revenue (mostly Fortune 200) or the Sr. officers of a public relations and communications agency with large billings. Some have replied immediately including two very, very large firms. A challenge I face is that most of the U.S. firms do not have the time or inclination to offer international students in marketing and communications visa standing (if they were to employ the student) to stay in the U.S. It may be up to the School to make the argument that this generation of marketing and communications students are as strong as the earlier generations of engineering and science students who were eventually sponsored. However, we do not make it a condition of summer internships to offer a visa (no job has been offered). However, many of the companies may consider placing a the international students (55%) in corporate post in their home country if they have offices there.
The jobs requested from me will demand strong writing and editing skills, strong team skills, planning ability, knowledge of stakeholders, media and PR.
Effective project management is essential and typically involves:
· Learning and analyzing client businesses to determine communications issues
· Developing actionable recommendations
· Building strong client relationships through effective integrated communications
· Participating on multi-disciplinary teams
· Interacting with internal and external resources such as research suppliers, advertising/creative agencies and other corporate resource groups
Other skills include:
Marketplace Insight Integrated Solutions
- Target Market Analysis - Communications Planning
- Needs-Based Segmentation - Marketing Planning and Integration
- Customer Understanding - Brand Building
- Messaging Assessment
Message Generation Execution and Measurement
- Positioning - Program Implementation
- Key Message Development - Communications Measurement
- Creative Strategy - Process Evaluation
- Persuasive Business Writing - Six Sigma/Commercialization
The market is chaotic this year. I suspect the softening business market will make it difficult to match students, but I know that we will match students to excellent projects. Watch this space for more information on residencies.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Controversy at Northwestern's Medill School
Two articles (attached below) on the subject of our new Dean at the Medill School of Journalism (John Lavine) report partly on my opinion of the Dean's actions. The Chronicle articles are, in general, more accurate and on point. In general, I agree with his conclusions and reading of various audit reports on the immediate past and future of Medill. However, I have taken exception with his announcement that "faculty governance has been suspended" at Medill. Since my appointment by Dean Bassett in 1989, I have worked for 7 Deans (Edward Bassett, Michael Janeway, Acting Deans Abraham Peck and Jack Doppelt, Ken Bode, Loren Ghiglione and John Lavine. Dean Lavine is the first Dean to give direct attention to the IMC Department and to show a willingness to offer undergraduate courses in IMC and PR. One Dean, Michael Janeway, was rebuffed when he attempted to "cleanse" the School of the popular undergraduate courses in Advertising and Direct Marketing. For many years we have flown below the radar for the School. Despite the lack of recognition in the School, the University has called us a "excellent skunk works" (a compliment)and supported our decisions as a faculty on tenure and new curriculum. In general, we have enjoyed relatively positive relationships with the very practical journalism faculty. I have successfully co-taught courses with Associate Professor George Harmon (business editor and full-time faculty). Our relationships within Medill faculty have been very constructive so it concerned me that the Dean (with tacit support from the University administration) took away the committee and faculty power of the School. Even though I agreed that the School needed a stronger plan and direction to be a competitive part of NU as a research 1 level university, I was concerned that the Dean's "heavy hand" was a negative force for the reputation of Medill. A truly independent faculty in a controversial area such as journalism could not be strengthened or built if there was a threat of administrative control over research and teaching. I expressed my concerns a number of times to John Lavine. At one early point he agreed that he "would not say" the offending terms, but he continued to act on them. Finally, I was asked as a member of the University version of a "senate" (General Faculty Committee) as a representative of Medill to report to the GFC on the Dean's actions. The members of the GFC were concerned from reading various articles in the University publications and from word of mouth. They were worried that the Dean's actions were a violation of University policy and the general traditions of "the academy". While I advised the Dean that the GFC had taken up a discussion on his actions (truth to power), I was also advised by the GFC leadership they would call the Dean for a Q&A before acting. During the change in GFC leadership and Medill's representation on the GFC; action was taken without the invitation to the Dean. This was unfortunate, but the final message to the Dean from the GFC was not entirely inaccurate. Since that time the Dean has continued to implement the 2020 plan for Medill with a smattering of support and input from independent faculty. The final outcomes may be worth the planning, hiring and aggravation. However, the means to the end may still haunt Medill until we can demonstrate our progressive spirit as an independent and thoughtful faculty and student body.
From Chicago Reader Blog
Lavine's absent accusers
November 16th - 6:21 p.m.
Because the future of journalism is so unclear, the curriculum changes at the Medill School of Journalism can't easily be criticized on the grounds that they're not preparing students to function in it. Who knows? So the case against rampaging dean John Lavine, who took over Medill almost two years ago after running Northwestern's Media Management Center, is anchored by the charge that he's left his faculty out of the process. Last June the university's General Faculty Committee unanimously passed a resolution that found Northwestern's “suspension of faculty governance at [Medill] to be unacceptable and in violation of the University’s Statutes.”
On November 12 Lavine and his students engaged in a Q & A in Fisk Hall. Lavine shrugged off the resolution: "The issues they had are not really issues with us, they are issues with the administration." He conceded that the faculty weren't all enthusiastic about the changes, but journalism has changed and "can we really stay where we were?" Here's a partial transcript of the proceedings.
The occasion might have been much more dramatic. Two recent grads, Andrew Bossone and Camille Gerwin, tried to organize a confrontation where someone would rise and read aloud a petition signed by some 80 alumni. It began, "As a member of the alumni community of the Medill School of Journalism, I endorse changes to the school that will improve the quality of the education for students, enhance the reputation of the program and add value to the diploma that I hold. I believe, however, that any changes should be taken with careful consideration and deliberation. These changes MUST include votes from all faculty members . . . "
The petition concludes, "It is [the faculty's] right to decide on the future of the school. It is also their right to express dissent without fear of losing their jobs. I therefore endorse this petition to immediately restore faculty governance to the Medill School of Journalism."
If all had gone as planned, that person would also have read a two-page letter (pdf) by Gerwin and Bossone to the board of trustees that expressed their "concern and discontent." "To begin with," they wrote, "we are appalled at the manner in which these changes are being implemented. Because faculty governance has been suspended, Dean Lavine has been making changes unilaterally or with staff members that support him indiscriminately. Those who have expressed dissent have been demoted or forced out . . . "
If Bossone and Gerwin had been on hand, they might have stood and delivered. But Gerwin is now working in Boston and Bossone in Cairo, Egypt, and from those great distances they could locate no one willing to lead the charge. So the moment passed. The petition and the letter were simply e-mailed and snail-mailed to the trustees and to provost Daniel Linzer. By Friday afternoon there'd been no response.
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Tags: Medill School of Journalism, John Lavine, Andrew Bossone, Camille Gerwin
NU faculty rips Medill
June 22nd - 1:22 p.m.
The faculty senate at Northwestern University has formally accused NU’s administration of abolishing democracy at the Medill School of Journalism. A resolution passed unanimously June 6 by the General Faculty Committee says it found NU’s “suspension of faculty governance at [Medill] to be unacceptable and in violation of the University’s Statutes.” The resolution predicts “curricular changes that are ill considered . . . the demoralization and enmity of the faculty . . . damage to the national reputation of the School . . . the loss of and the inability to hire faculty who believe that the faculty’s role in governance is important for students, faculty and the public.”
The backdrop to this blunt resolution is a series of internal and external audits in recent years that judged Medill--which enjoys seeing itself as a journalism school without equal--as an academic basket case. President Henry Bienen and provost Lawrence Dumas stepped in. Skipping the usual faculty search committee they named John Lavine (pictured) the next dean in late 2005, and in early 2006 they booted aside the incumbent, who had months to go on his contract. Lavine was already on site: he was the founding director of NU's Media Management Center, a fee-charging profit center housed in the journalism school.
An article on Lavine in the fall 2006 issue of the university alumni magazine said he’d been given “free rein to transform the school.” It explained that Bienen and Dumas “suspended formal faculty oversight at Medill for the 3 1/2-year transition period in which Lavine will shepherd the integration and revamping of the [Integrated Marketing Communications] and journalism programs and faculty.” IMC and journalism are Medill’s two basic divisions.
The resolution continues, “If the Administration in the future concludes that an unacceptable academic situation warrants the temporary suspension of the normal role of the faculty ‘to prescribe and define the course of study’ [a quote from NU’s statutes], such suspension should be only for a set, limited period and only after formal approval by the Board of Trustees made after the consideration of the views of all concerned faculty.”
Medill professors I’ve spoken with say a three-and-a-half-year suspension is hardly “temporary.” And it’s news to them if the Board of Trustees had any say in the matter, let alone heard from “concerned faculty.” The GFC resolution was signed by the committee chair, law professor John Elson, and submitted to Bienen and Dumas. They apparently haven't responded. Elson wouldn’t comment, but Lavine did. He said the GFC didn’t talk to him before it acted, and its members obviously don’t know what he knows.
And what’s that? “We’ve had more faculty involvement in the last 18 months than in the decade before that. We have 12 major committees reaching across the entire faculty.” True enough about the dozen committees. But unhappy professors say Lavine just pays lip service to them. A new curriculum is going to be introduced over the next four years, and although professors have been consulted individually, one told me, “We don’t vote on anything. We have no vote. Anybody who dissents is labeled ‘antichange.’” Another outsider heads up the new curriculum project--Mary Nesbitt, who'd been (and remains) managing director of the Media Management Center's readership institute before director of the women-in-newspaper-management project at the Media Management Center until Lavine brought her over.
Lavine wasn’t blindsided by the resolution. Clarke Caywood, who teaches PR and marketing for the IMC side of Medill, was on the GFC when the resolution was proposed, though not when it was voted on (he says he'd have voted "aye"). He says, “I told Lavine a few months ago--truth to power--‘You should know it’s coming.’ His reaction was, ‘I think I’m doing the right thing.’ I don’t disagree with him, but I think his way of doing it leaves something to be desired.” That said, Caywood believes that the Medill faculty has long had a "passive-aggressive" relationship with the administration, with unwillingness to get involved running a close race with willingness to take offense.
A J-School Adapts to the Market - Chronicle.com
The Chronicle of Higher Education ... At the center of the controversy is John Lavine, who became dean in January 2006 after founding and directing ...
chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i49/49a00801.htm - 29k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
The Chronicle: 6/24/2005: Use the Smart Classroom: A Spanish ...
The Chronicle of Higher Education · Information Technology ... As the game unfolds, Ms. Lavine -- an associate professor of Spanish at the University of ...
chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i42/42b01001.htm - 24k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
[ More results from chronicle.com ]
From Chicago Reader Blog
Lavine's absent accusers
November 16th - 6:21 p.m.
Because the future of journalism is so unclear, the curriculum changes at the Medill School of Journalism can't easily be criticized on the grounds that they're not preparing students to function in it. Who knows? So the case against rampaging dean John Lavine, who took over Medill almost two years ago after running Northwestern's Media Management Center, is anchored by the charge that he's left his faculty out of the process. Last June the university's General Faculty Committee unanimously passed a resolution that found Northwestern's “suspension of faculty governance at [Medill] to be unacceptable and in violation of the University’s Statutes.”
On November 12 Lavine and his students engaged in a Q & A in Fisk Hall. Lavine shrugged off the resolution: "The issues they had are not really issues with us, they are issues with the administration." He conceded that the faculty weren't all enthusiastic about the changes, but journalism has changed and "can we really stay where we were?" Here's a partial transcript of the proceedings.
The occasion might have been much more dramatic. Two recent grads, Andrew Bossone and Camille Gerwin, tried to organize a confrontation where someone would rise and read aloud a petition signed by some 80 alumni. It began, "As a member of the alumni community of the Medill School of Journalism, I endorse changes to the school that will improve the quality of the education for students, enhance the reputation of the program and add value to the diploma that I hold. I believe, however, that any changes should be taken with careful consideration and deliberation. These changes MUST include votes from all faculty members . . . "
The petition concludes, "It is [the faculty's] right to decide on the future of the school. It is also their right to express dissent without fear of losing their jobs. I therefore endorse this petition to immediately restore faculty governance to the Medill School of Journalism."
If all had gone as planned, that person would also have read a two-page letter (pdf) by Gerwin and Bossone to the board of trustees that expressed their "concern and discontent." "To begin with," they wrote, "we are appalled at the manner in which these changes are being implemented. Because faculty governance has been suspended, Dean Lavine has been making changes unilaterally or with staff members that support him indiscriminately. Those who have expressed dissent have been demoted or forced out . . . "
If Bossone and Gerwin had been on hand, they might have stood and delivered. But Gerwin is now working in Boston and Bossone in Cairo, Egypt, and from those great distances they could locate no one willing to lead the charge. So the moment passed. The petition and the letter were simply e-mailed and snail-mailed to the trustees and to provost Daniel Linzer. By Friday afternoon there'd been no response.
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Tags: Medill School of Journalism, John Lavine, Andrew Bossone, Camille Gerwin
NU faculty rips Medill
June 22nd - 1:22 p.m.
The faculty senate at Northwestern University has formally accused NU’s administration of abolishing democracy at the Medill School of Journalism. A resolution passed unanimously June 6 by the General Faculty Committee says it found NU’s “suspension of faculty governance at [Medill] to be unacceptable and in violation of the University’s Statutes.” The resolution predicts “curricular changes that are ill considered . . . the demoralization and enmity of the faculty . . . damage to the national reputation of the School . . . the loss of and the inability to hire faculty who believe that the faculty’s role in governance is important for students, faculty and the public.”
The backdrop to this blunt resolution is a series of internal and external audits in recent years that judged Medill--which enjoys seeing itself as a journalism school without equal--as an academic basket case. President Henry Bienen and provost Lawrence Dumas stepped in. Skipping the usual faculty search committee they named John Lavine (pictured) the next dean in late 2005, and in early 2006 they booted aside the incumbent, who had months to go on his contract. Lavine was already on site: he was the founding director of NU's Media Management Center, a fee-charging profit center housed in the journalism school.
An article on Lavine in the fall 2006 issue of the university alumni magazine said he’d been given “free rein to transform the school.” It explained that Bienen and Dumas “suspended formal faculty oversight at Medill for the 3 1/2-year transition period in which Lavine will shepherd the integration and revamping of the [Integrated Marketing Communications] and journalism programs and faculty.” IMC and journalism are Medill’s two basic divisions.
The resolution continues, “If the Administration in the future concludes that an unacceptable academic situation warrants the temporary suspension of the normal role of the faculty ‘to prescribe and define the course of study’ [a quote from NU’s statutes], such suspension should be only for a set, limited period and only after formal approval by the Board of Trustees made after the consideration of the views of all concerned faculty.”
Medill professors I’ve spoken with say a three-and-a-half-year suspension is hardly “temporary.” And it’s news to them if the Board of Trustees had any say in the matter, let alone heard from “concerned faculty.” The GFC resolution was signed by the committee chair, law professor John Elson, and submitted to Bienen and Dumas. They apparently haven't responded. Elson wouldn’t comment, but Lavine did. He said the GFC didn’t talk to him before it acted, and its members obviously don’t know what he knows.
And what’s that? “We’ve had more faculty involvement in the last 18 months than in the decade before that. We have 12 major committees reaching across the entire faculty.” True enough about the dozen committees. But unhappy professors say Lavine just pays lip service to them. A new curriculum is going to be introduced over the next four years, and although professors have been consulted individually, one told me, “We don’t vote on anything. We have no vote. Anybody who dissents is labeled ‘antichange.’” Another outsider heads up the new curriculum project--Mary Nesbitt, who'd been (and remains) managing director of the Media Management Center's readership institute before director of the women-in-newspaper-management project at the Media Management Center until Lavine brought her over.
Lavine wasn’t blindsided by the resolution. Clarke Caywood, who teaches PR and marketing for the IMC side of Medill, was on the GFC when the resolution was proposed, though not when it was voted on (he says he'd have voted "aye"). He says, “I told Lavine a few months ago--truth to power--‘You should know it’s coming.’ His reaction was, ‘I think I’m doing the right thing.’ I don’t disagree with him, but I think his way of doing it leaves something to be desired.” That said, Caywood believes that the Medill faculty has long had a "passive-aggressive" relationship with the administration, with unwillingness to get involved running a close race with willingness to take offense.
A J-School Adapts to the Market - Chronicle.com
The Chronicle of Higher Education ... At the center of the controversy is John Lavine, who became dean in January 2006 after founding and directing ...
chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i49/49a00801.htm - 29k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
The Chronicle: 6/24/2005: Use the Smart Classroom: A Spanish ...
The Chronicle of Higher Education · Information Technology ... As the game unfolds, Ms. Lavine -- an associate professor of Spanish at the University of ...
chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i42/42b01001.htm - 24k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Fundraising presentation announcement
Never, Ever Use Public Relations Without Measurement…
New Metrics for Fundraising!
Clarke L. Caywood
October 3, 2007 Wednesday
In this session Clarke Caywood, a leading expert in marketing and public relations, will discuss the use of newer comprehensive databases for electronic, web and print media and expert tracking in public relations and marketing. Dr Caywood will explore how charities can also track and measure their public relations effectiveness and offer tips for improving targeted community, press and expert awareness of their organizations.
About the Presenter:
Clarke L. Caywood is Director of the Graduate Program in Public Relations and past chair of the Department of Integrated Marketing Communications in the Medill Graduate School, at Northwestern University. Professor Caywood teaches graduate classes in crisis management, communications management, marketing and public relations. He was named by PRWeek as one of the most influential 100 PR people of the 20th century (PRWeek, October 18, 1999) and one of the top 10 outstanding educators in 2000 (PRWeek, February 7, 2000). He was named Educator of the Year by the Public Relations Society of America in 2002-2003). He received the Educator of the Year Award from the Sales and Management Executives - Chicago Chapter.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will be able to:
• Implement media and print tracking for public relations and marketing
• Audit their organization’s needs for commercial systems or “home grown” processes
• Judge the offerings of multiple vendors in this growing professional service
• Identify ways to track and measure public relations effectiveness
• Boost community awareness of their organizations
Target Audience:
Mid to Senior Level and recent graduate degree holders
New Metrics for Fundraising!
Clarke L. Caywood
October 3, 2007 Wednesday
In this session Clarke Caywood, a leading expert in marketing and public relations, will discuss the use of newer comprehensive databases for electronic, web and print media and expert tracking in public relations and marketing. Dr Caywood will explore how charities can also track and measure their public relations effectiveness and offer tips for improving targeted community, press and expert awareness of their organizations.
About the Presenter:
Clarke L. Caywood is Director of the Graduate Program in Public Relations and past chair of the Department of Integrated Marketing Communications in the Medill Graduate School, at Northwestern University. Professor Caywood teaches graduate classes in crisis management, communications management, marketing and public relations. He was named by PRWeek as one of the most influential 100 PR people of the 20th century (PRWeek, October 18, 1999) and one of the top 10 outstanding educators in 2000 (PRWeek, February 7, 2000). He was named Educator of the Year by the Public Relations Society of America in 2002-2003). He received the Educator of the Year Award from the Sales and Management Executives - Chicago Chapter.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will be able to:
• Implement media and print tracking for public relations and marketing
• Audit their organization’s needs for commercial systems or “home grown” processes
• Judge the offerings of multiple vendors in this growing professional service
• Identify ways to track and measure public relations effectiveness
• Boost community awareness of their organizations
Target Audience:
Mid to Senior Level and recent graduate degree holders
American Academy of Advertising Comment
Integrating media planning in advertising and PR
One of the changing silos in our industry and field of study has been the consolidation of the media planning business. With consolidation came buying power. With power came new strategies, new leadership and newly named and renamed firms. While small buying groups exist, the newer model seems to be aligned with the growth of the marketing holding companies in advertising, direct database marketing, e-commerce, public relations and media buying. Yet, the last frontier for integration seems to be media planning. Why is that?
Our goal at Northwestern University has been to work with many of the holding companies to place our graduate students in summer internships, to visit their headquarters with students when we travel to other cities (like London Paris and Tokyo), conduct research, to invite their leaders to speak and to sit on the board of visitors for the school and to place our students in agencies. The placement in agencies comes after a long drought where more than 85% of the students over the last 15 years have graduated from IMC to work for corporations or other client organizations instead of agencies. Recently I have been working with the Counselor’s Academy of the Public Relations Society of America as a lonely and lowly academic. The objective is to reconnect our students to the agency world with new media planning and research skills.
One of my objectives has been to discuss new media planning during the recent month with a variety of agencies, industry organizations, companies, executive MBA students – mostly from four Chinese universities, MBA’s and our own graduate IMC students the value of integrating media planning. What we mean by integrated media planning is obvious to students and audiences when described as “coordinated research, planning, securing and evaluation of all purchased and earned media”. The obvious need to coordinate and jointly plan both advertising and other purchased media with earned media or public relations is not done according to the vendors who provide the tools that would permit advertising and PR to strategically plan media for a client.
Ask any advertising director in a company or agency what profitable target media they have chosen for message delivery of the new corporate or product/service brand strategy. Then, ask any PR director in the same company or holding company PR agency what their targeted media will be for the same program. If the communications leaders are not targeting the same media to reach similar readers, viewers and listeners; the C-Suite in the client company and marcom media companies would want to know why not.
Just as selecting media for advertising has become a science and management art; the field of selection and analysis of earned media (including print, broadcast and blowing) for public relations is now more of a science. Today, far richer databased systems permit media managers who want to know which reporters, quoted experts, trade books, new publications, broadcasts, bloggers and more are the most “profitable” targets for public relations developed messages. Using the new built-in media metric systems PR directors can calculate return on investment on advertising “versus” PR and with PR, read and judge a range of positive, neutral or negative messages, share of mind, measures of media impact, advertising equivalency and many more. Even ad equivalency, a number frequently challenge by some PR academicians, can be useful in the context of dozens of other financial and volume numbers.
Companies like Harley-Davidson with over a billion media “hits” on their 100th anniversary need artificial intelligence or its closest cousin to count and measure their media effectiveness and efficiency. The systems are used by high risk and high visibility corporations like McDonalds, Genentech, Bank of America and other firms with sensitive markets (food, pharma, environment, privacy, ethnicity, etc) who need to plan and adjust their media performance constantly and coordinate their results with the advertising plans.
At Northwestern with my colleagues Martin Block and Frank Mulhern; we have redesigned the traditional media class and other classes in Marketing PR and Issues Management in not so traditional ways to include the use of donated media metric services (valued at several thousand dollars per month) from educationally oriented companies including www.Biz360 for over 4 years. Other firms including VMS and Evolve24 have offered support.
Now, when the chief marketing officer and other C-suite officers ask the holding company’s integrated agency directors of advertising, public relations or IMC if they the media are fully planned to reach targeted audiences; they can answer affirmatively.
One of the changing silos in our industry and field of study has been the consolidation of the media planning business. With consolidation came buying power. With power came new strategies, new leadership and newly named and renamed firms. While small buying groups exist, the newer model seems to be aligned with the growth of the marketing holding companies in advertising, direct database marketing, e-commerce, public relations and media buying. Yet, the last frontier for integration seems to be media planning. Why is that?
Our goal at Northwestern University has been to work with many of the holding companies to place our graduate students in summer internships, to visit their headquarters with students when we travel to other cities (like London Paris and Tokyo), conduct research, to invite their leaders to speak and to sit on the board of visitors for the school and to place our students in agencies. The placement in agencies comes after a long drought where more than 85% of the students over the last 15 years have graduated from IMC to work for corporations or other client organizations instead of agencies. Recently I have been working with the Counselor’s Academy of the Public Relations Society of America as a lonely and lowly academic. The objective is to reconnect our students to the agency world with new media planning and research skills.
One of my objectives has been to discuss new media planning during the recent month with a variety of agencies, industry organizations, companies, executive MBA students – mostly from four Chinese universities, MBA’s and our own graduate IMC students the value of integrating media planning. What we mean by integrated media planning is obvious to students and audiences when described as “coordinated research, planning, securing and evaluation of all purchased and earned media”. The obvious need to coordinate and jointly plan both advertising and other purchased media with earned media or public relations is not done according to the vendors who provide the tools that would permit advertising and PR to strategically plan media for a client.
Ask any advertising director in a company or agency what profitable target media they have chosen for message delivery of the new corporate or product/service brand strategy. Then, ask any PR director in the same company or holding company PR agency what their targeted media will be for the same program. If the communications leaders are not targeting the same media to reach similar readers, viewers and listeners; the C-Suite in the client company and marcom media companies would want to know why not.
Just as selecting media for advertising has become a science and management art; the field of selection and analysis of earned media (including print, broadcast and blowing) for public relations is now more of a science. Today, far richer databased systems permit media managers who want to know which reporters, quoted experts, trade books, new publications, broadcasts, bloggers and more are the most “profitable” targets for public relations developed messages. Using the new built-in media metric systems PR directors can calculate return on investment on advertising “versus” PR and with PR, read and judge a range of positive, neutral or negative messages, share of mind, measures of media impact, advertising equivalency and many more. Even ad equivalency, a number frequently challenge by some PR academicians, can be useful in the context of dozens of other financial and volume numbers.
Companies like Harley-Davidson with over a billion media “hits” on their 100th anniversary need artificial intelligence or its closest cousin to count and measure their media effectiveness and efficiency. The systems are used by high risk and high visibility corporations like McDonalds, Genentech, Bank of America and other firms with sensitive markets (food, pharma, environment, privacy, ethnicity, etc) who need to plan and adjust their media performance constantly and coordinate their results with the advertising plans.
At Northwestern with my colleagues Martin Block and Frank Mulhern; we have redesigned the traditional media class and other classes in Marketing PR and Issues Management in not so traditional ways to include the use of donated media metric services (valued at several thousand dollars per month) from educationally oriented companies including www.Biz360 for over 4 years. Other firms including VMS and Evolve24 have offered support.
Now, when the chief marketing officer and other C-suite officers ask the holding company’s integrated agency directors of advertising, public relations or IMC if they the media are fully planned to reach targeted audiences; they can answer affirmatively.
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