Preview of JIMC (Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications publisher’s essay for Fall 2008
As this Journal goes to press, this is a spectacular year for anyone with an ounce or metric measure of interest in communications. It is in this year that I I have pointed my students, colleagues and audiences in the direction of two significant global events. Each event was widely open to both professionals, diverse and general audiences. Each event was also free; only requiring the commitment of time and some intellectual energy to watch and learn.
The first event that caught my personal and professional attention was the U.S. Presidential election campaign for 2008. Naturally, it started many months before but, as a fan and an academic author on political communications, I welcome the political season.
This year, I heard questions from the press regarding the early horserace; in the most contested party primary in recent history. With a presentation slide entitled “We call them Hillary, Barack, Fred, Mitt, John 1 and John 2, etc. (if you are searching for last names you can feel the pain of the candidates who did not establish their identities). From a more contemporary IMC point of view, the election offered some of the most interesting signs of a constantly evolving form of IMC and communications.
Political campaigns have long represented the most strategic use of every communication tool available. This year’s election added some new ways to link with audiences With a more intensive use of the internet, to not only raise funds (2004) or build an information site (2000) but, in 2008, to connect directly with voter and other highly relevant “communities.”
Politically-oriented, and IMC educated graduate student, Jesse Greenberg and I found that the Obama campaign built one of the earliest and most voter-oriented sites. The Obama Web site included twice as many links as Hillary’s did to other on-line communities. These communities were based on race, sexual preference, religion, age and other unifying concerns about which people gather to have conversations, including those about politics. The links between sites, in a Facebook fashion, created a new sense of community, and implied a form of mutual endorsement. Even John McCain “got it” when, post primary, he re-launched his website with a spectacular demonstration of reaching out to more than the proverbial “base.”
Greenberg and I argue that the opportunity for access to the candidates, via the tools of Web 2.0, enables a more open and progressive form of political access. This access offers voters a greater connection to the candidates’ ideas and actions. In our minds, the leverage of Web 2.0 technologies marks a new contribution the democratic process. This is an important departure from the historical form of access , which had only been available to the wealthiest and most generous donors. You know the rest of the story.
The second event still lingers in your short-term memory: The 2008 Olympics held in China. China has become one of my favorite countries. Over the past five years I have travelled frequently (enough so that I don’t have to pay the airlines’ profit center mistake of extra bag charges when I fly) to teach at a half dozen Chinese MBA programs including Sun Yat-sen, Jinan, Xiamen, Nanjing, Hunan, and Hangzhou Universities. I have rooted for the American Olympic heroes (what else could you call these dedicated men and women, who employ greater discipline than any of us?). Based on a series of talks in China that my colleague Bobby Calder and my friend, the former Governor of Wisconsin, Scott McCallum, I was already telling my audiences to watch the Olympics. Our work at Northwestern allowed us to teach a lesson for business to use IMC in extraordinary ways including building and protecting product, corporate and national brands.
The Olympics demonstrate the dedication of individuals, corporations and nations to the serious and valued marketing of the Games. Again, every possible tactic in marketing was employed; with most incorporating an integrated strategy to fully gain audience, stakeholder and customer allegiance. What a great show of fully-developed branding.
Despite my affinity to the brand and people of China, I did not realize that I would find myself carrying the Olympic Torch in Lijiang China, “One World, One Dream.” In June I brought home the Torch to Northwestern (don’t worry; it is the flame that we pass along). And with the flame, I brought to my family, students, colleagues and audiences another example of the brilliance of the human mind to create and perpetuate brand symbols of ideas, people and products that can even last centuries. Long live free elections, the Olympics and IMC!
Showing posts with label Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
"Fat American comes to Lijiang" My favorite headline
I wasn't happy with the title that showed up in China. This was not the title for the original article in the Chicago Tribune. Still it reminds me to stay fit.
Fat American comes to Lijiang
Lijiang, China
Flag of China
Monday, Jun 09, 2008 23:07
Entry 147 of 348 | show all | print this entry
Enjoying this travel blog? Donate to happysheep's travel fund today!
Good to see the Olympic sponsors getting some leverage with their marketing.
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-olympictorchjun10,0,3796738.story
chicagotribune.com
Northwestern professor to carry university name during run with Olympic torch in China
By Jodi S. Cohen
Tribune reporter
7:22 PM CDT, June 9, 2008
As a Northwestern University communications professor, Clarke Caywood knows something about effective marketing.
So when he carries the Olympic torch Tuesday in China, he isn't going to miss an opportunity to promote the Northwestern brand. Though Olympic officials rejected his idea to hold a Medill School of Journalism banner, Caywood still plans to carry something with the Northwestern name.
He also plans to use the experience as a marketing opportunity when he returns to the United States, perhaps by starting his classes and corporate lectures with pictures of him running with the torch.
"What professor wouldn't like Olympic background music when they open their lectures?" said Caywood, who teaches in the integrated marketing communications program.
"When I give talks to industry and professional organizations, I will certainly put some of this in there as a metaphor for high achievement," he said from Lijiang, China.
Caywood, who has been a visiting professor at several Chinese universities, was invited to be a torchbearer by Samsung Corp., one of the relay sponsors. There will be more than 2,300 torchbearers during the flame's remaining 41/2-month journey to the August Olympics in Beijing, according to Samsung.
The relay has not been the "Journey of Harmony" that Chinese officials envisioned. In San Francisco, London, Paris and elsewhere, the relay was marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations and protests over China's human rights record. The relay also was suspended to mourn China's earthquake victims.
Caywood views the protests as a shrewd communications technique.
"The people involved with the Tibetan issue have a right to find an ongoing event and try to use it as a way to get their story told," he said. "In marketing, we sometimes recommend that, a co-branding."
Northwestern professor Tom Collinger, chairman of integrated marketing communications, said the school has been developing relationships with Chinese universities and businesses. Twenty students are working at companies there this summer, he said, and about 50 percent of the program's students are international, many from Asian countries.
While in China last week, Caywood lectured for the fifth time at Sun Yat-sen University, speaking to the business school's graduate students about crisis and risk management. He also participated in a seminar on building environmental awareness.
Collinger said Caywood has been instrumental in developing Medill's programs in public and media relations, and crisis communications.
"He has really been very much the leader of that area of our curricula," Collinger said.
On Tuesday, Caywood said he expects to run about 200 meters, or about half the length of a standard high school track. Though not a far distance, he said he has worried about getting winded or falling.
"My students will read this and they'll say, 'Clark is OK, but he is a little overweight,' " he said. "At one point, they were talking about running on cobblestone streets, and I thought, 'Oh great, I'll be the guy who falls.' "
Fat American comes to Lijiang
Lijiang, China
Flag of China
Monday, Jun 09, 2008 23:07
Entry 147 of 348 | show all | print this entry
Enjoying this travel blog? Donate to happysheep's travel fund today!
Good to see the Olympic sponsors getting some leverage with their marketing.
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-olympictorchjun10,0,3796738.story
chicagotribune.com
Northwestern professor to carry university name during run with Olympic torch in China
By Jodi S. Cohen
Tribune reporter
7:22 PM CDT, June 9, 2008
As a Northwestern University communications professor, Clarke Caywood knows something about effective marketing.
So when he carries the Olympic torch Tuesday in China, he isn't going to miss an opportunity to promote the Northwestern brand. Though Olympic officials rejected his idea to hold a Medill School of Journalism banner, Caywood still plans to carry something with the Northwestern name.
He also plans to use the experience as a marketing opportunity when he returns to the United States, perhaps by starting his classes and corporate lectures with pictures of him running with the torch.
"What professor wouldn't like Olympic background music when they open their lectures?" said Caywood, who teaches in the integrated marketing communications program.
"When I give talks to industry and professional organizations, I will certainly put some of this in there as a metaphor for high achievement," he said from Lijiang, China.
Caywood, who has been a visiting professor at several Chinese universities, was invited to be a torchbearer by Samsung Corp., one of the relay sponsors. There will be more than 2,300 torchbearers during the flame's remaining 41/2-month journey to the August Olympics in Beijing, according to Samsung.
The relay has not been the "Journey of Harmony" that Chinese officials envisioned. In San Francisco, London, Paris and elsewhere, the relay was marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations and protests over China's human rights record. The relay also was suspended to mourn China's earthquake victims.
Caywood views the protests as a shrewd communications technique.
"The people involved with the Tibetan issue have a right to find an ongoing event and try to use it as a way to get their story told," he said. "In marketing, we sometimes recommend that, a co-branding."
Northwestern professor Tom Collinger, chairman of integrated marketing communications, said the school has been developing relationships with Chinese universities and businesses. Twenty students are working at companies there this summer, he said, and about 50 percent of the program's students are international, many from Asian countries.
While in China last week, Caywood lectured for the fifth time at Sun Yat-sen University, speaking to the business school's graduate students about crisis and risk management. He also participated in a seminar on building environmental awareness.
Collinger said Caywood has been instrumental in developing Medill's programs in public and media relations, and crisis communications.
"He has really been very much the leader of that area of our curricula," Collinger said.
On Tuesday, Caywood said he expects to run about 200 meters, or about half the length of a standard high school track. Though not a far distance, he said he has worried about getting winded or falling.
"My students will read this and they'll say, 'Clark is OK, but he is a little overweight,' " he said. "At one point, they were talking about running on cobblestone streets, and I thought, 'Oh great, I'll be the guy who falls.' "
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.
New JIMC introduction
http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm
The Stakeholder Curriculum of the Future Clarke L. Caywood, Ph.D. Professor and Publisher of the Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm
Most of the business leaders we meet are initially curious about why the faculty and students researching, teaching and working in the field of integrated marketing communications (IMC) are in the Medill School of Journalism and not in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. The explanation is not complicated, but the question has become more common as the IMC students increasingly have been seen as business leaders with stronger financial, marketing and management knowledge and skills.
With over 115,000 people earning the MBA degree each year, the 80 plus experienced graduate students in IMC at Northwestern can be seen as even more valuable specialists with many of the same team, leadership and experience qualities. However, like any “product” in a competitive world the IMC students must possess skills and knowledge that will allow them to remove some burden from their manager or team and have knowledge and skills that their managers and other team members in their firm or agency do not know. In other words, bring something new and useful to the workplace. The competitive advantage of communications, IMC and journalism students is that they have the strongest possible knowledge and insight to the hundreds of categories of publics, audiences and stakeholders beyond the customer.
The history of the teaching of marketing communications, still called advertising and public relations, being taught in the Journalism and Communication Schools is not particularly remarkable. When the schools of journalism (Medill, Missouri, Wisconsin) were created in the very early part of the last century there was demand for educated and well trained men and women to work for newspapers. Before that time the work was not considered a role of higher education. The work included both working as reporters and editors as well as advertising specialists who filled the paper with as much advertising as they could sell and then leaving a “news hole” to fill with news content. At the same time, public relations specialists began to emerge as advisors to business leaders on how to work with the empowered media
To lead rather than follow industry and to offer newer knowledge and skills, during 2007 the Medill School of Journalism is seriously reevaluating its role in modern journalism and media. Under the direction of John Lavine as the Dean of the School (a former publisher and industry executive), the faculty and students are seeing substantial changes in the journalism curriculum. The IMC faculty have again rewritten our curriculum in the spirit of the changes in the market and academic and industry research in advertising, public relations, direct marketing, database marketing, e-commerce, communications, management and marketing.
Our most recent changes include a new core required course being developed by this writer for the class of 2008 students. The course will more fully develop the idea of “social media” as a more modern means to communicate and manage relationships with hundreds of stakeholders that impact a corporation and its employees. We have looked, of course, at the CEO use of blogs, customer blogs, pod and vodcasts. We have tested SecondLife.com as a three dimensional website for avatars (3-D representations of you) to meet and plan, learn and be trained (see Gronstedtgroup.com). We added content to You Tube, Face Book, BlogSpot, dostang, naymz, eon, Flickr and others for building an open source textbook on marketing and marketing communications. Naturally we will be looking at more traditional means to communicate with stakeholders as well. To add value to the process will be using the most advanced computerized media, expert, trend and web tracking systems available to industry. Description and predictive systems such as Biz360 and Evolve24 used by the very top firms in the world will be tested by our graduate students. As Senior Vice President of Grainger Corporation and Senior Lecturer in Investor Relations in our Department for 14 years, Nancy Hobor, noted, “CEOs are looking for leaders who can understand and integrate the corporate stakeholders, not just customer and not just business functions.” (See Caywood in Kellogg on Advertising and Media, Calder, ed. Forthcoming).
The traditions of newsgathering and the requirements of more sophisticated management, marketing and communications are merging in this new curriculum at Medill. In part, the evidence will be in the likely renaming of the School to reflect the requirement that our school graduates, destined for the media and journalism world, will share and integrate some common values with our new undergraduate and graduate students in the IMC program. They both focus on newer technologies that deliver and drive the transfer of information. Even more important, from the value system of ethical public relations, advertising and marketing, we will be able to deliver valuable content to our most relevant; important; and socially, economically and politically crucial stakeholders.
The next generation of Medill graduates be able to identify the widest range of important stakeholders and be able to use the best of the traditional and newer media to reach them. They also will be educated and trained to use the most sophisticated statistical, analytical and insightful software to understand the customer, the media, experts, government and other stakeholders with artificial intelligence..
Over the past 16 years, this Journal has focused on a wide range of stakeholders and their impact on business and society. With the support of the new curriculum, the new connections to our colleagues and students in journalism and media, we expect to strengthen our new offerings of knowledge and skills to the market. You can hire a Medill student to do the core work of your organization but you can also count on them to bring something fresh and intelligent to help your organization achieve its goals.
The Stakeholder Curriculum of the Future Clarke L. Caywood, Ph.D. Professor and Publisher of the Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm
Most of the business leaders we meet are initially curious about why the faculty and students researching, teaching and working in the field of integrated marketing communications (IMC) are in the Medill School of Journalism and not in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. The explanation is not complicated, but the question has become more common as the IMC students increasingly have been seen as business leaders with stronger financial, marketing and management knowledge and skills.
With over 115,000 people earning the MBA degree each year, the 80 plus experienced graduate students in IMC at Northwestern can be seen as even more valuable specialists with many of the same team, leadership and experience qualities. However, like any “product” in a competitive world the IMC students must possess skills and knowledge that will allow them to remove some burden from their manager or team and have knowledge and skills that their managers and other team members in their firm or agency do not know. In other words, bring something new and useful to the workplace. The competitive advantage of communications, IMC and journalism students is that they have the strongest possible knowledge and insight to the hundreds of categories of publics, audiences and stakeholders beyond the customer.
The history of the teaching of marketing communications, still called advertising and public relations, being taught in the Journalism and Communication Schools is not particularly remarkable. When the schools of journalism (Medill, Missouri, Wisconsin) were created in the very early part of the last century there was demand for educated and well trained men and women to work for newspapers. Before that time the work was not considered a role of higher education. The work included both working as reporters and editors as well as advertising specialists who filled the paper with as much advertising as they could sell and then leaving a “news hole” to fill with news content. At the same time, public relations specialists began to emerge as advisors to business leaders on how to work with the empowered media
To lead rather than follow industry and to offer newer knowledge and skills, during 2007 the Medill School of Journalism is seriously reevaluating its role in modern journalism and media. Under the direction of John Lavine as the Dean of the School (a former publisher and industry executive), the faculty and students are seeing substantial changes in the journalism curriculum. The IMC faculty have again rewritten our curriculum in the spirit of the changes in the market and academic and industry research in advertising, public relations, direct marketing, database marketing, e-commerce, communications, management and marketing.
Our most recent changes include a new core required course being developed by this writer for the class of 2008 students. The course will more fully develop the idea of “social media” as a more modern means to communicate and manage relationships with hundreds of stakeholders that impact a corporation and its employees. We have looked, of course, at the CEO use of blogs, customer blogs, pod and vodcasts. We have tested SecondLife.com as a three dimensional website for avatars (3-D representations of you) to meet and plan, learn and be trained (see Gronstedtgroup.com). We added content to You Tube, Face Book, BlogSpot, dostang, naymz, eon, Flickr and others for building an open source textbook on marketing and marketing communications. Naturally we will be looking at more traditional means to communicate with stakeholders as well. To add value to the process will be using the most advanced computerized media, expert, trend and web tracking systems available to industry. Description and predictive systems such as Biz360 and Evolve24 used by the very top firms in the world will be tested by our graduate students. As Senior Vice President of Grainger Corporation and Senior Lecturer in Investor Relations in our Department for 14 years, Nancy Hobor, noted, “CEOs are looking for leaders who can understand and integrate the corporate stakeholders, not just customer and not just business functions.” (See Caywood in Kellogg on Advertising and Media, Calder, ed. Forthcoming).
The traditions of newsgathering and the requirements of more sophisticated management, marketing and communications are merging in this new curriculum at Medill. In part, the evidence will be in the likely renaming of the School to reflect the requirement that our school graduates, destined for the media and journalism world, will share and integrate some common values with our new undergraduate and graduate students in the IMC program. They both focus on newer technologies that deliver and drive the transfer of information. Even more important, from the value system of ethical public relations, advertising and marketing, we will be able to deliver valuable content to our most relevant; important; and socially, economically and politically crucial stakeholders.
The next generation of Medill graduates be able to identify the widest range of important stakeholders and be able to use the best of the traditional and newer media to reach them. They also will be educated and trained to use the most sophisticated statistical, analytical and insightful software to understand the customer, the media, experts, government and other stakeholders with artificial intelligence..
Over the past 16 years, this Journal has focused on a wide range of stakeholders and their impact on business and society. With the support of the new curriculum, the new connections to our colleagues and students in journalism and media, we expect to strengthen our new offerings of knowledge and skills to the market. You can hire a Medill student to do the core work of your organization but you can also count on them to bring something fresh and intelligent to help your organization achieve its goals.
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