Children, it's ok to be in PR. Just be ethical.

When things go wrong in politics, things tend to go right for the media. Political corruption lead stories and exposés (local and national) can be the stuff on which journalism careers are made.

Because of this duality, it's no surprise that a well-respected (and well-followed) journalism academic and commentator, Jeff Jarvis, would chime in on the recent #bridgegate scandel in New Jersey. Quick recap: NJ Gov. Chris Christie fired a deputy chief of staff as part of some fallout over what apparently was a politically motivated George Washington Bridge toll booth and lane closure issue.

On Friday evening, Jarvis was tweeting screen captures from released government staff emails involving early reporting and a Wall Street Journal inquiry into Fort Lee toll booth topic that lead to "stonewalling." Most of his commentary was about what one would expect from a journalism associate professor.

However, one of his tweets raised the hairs on the back of my neck when he wrote: "Children, this is why you don't want to be a flack for a living."

Children, this is why you don't want to be a flack for a living. pic.twitter.com/nmaIVQWYJ1
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) January 11, 2014

Well thanks, Jeff. </sarcasm>

Let's just go ahead and paint the PR profession with the same damaging brushstroke because some political staffers (perhaps with questionable ethics) wrote some internal emails trying to figure out their next steps. Of course they should know by now that electronic communication within government agencies falls under FOIA rules and tend to eventually see the light of day. Duh.

What bugged me is that Jarvis picked this episode to flippantly dismiss thoughts by students of going into public relations, strategic communications or really any career in which one might be referred to as a "flack" for an organization. To be clear, I do not believe for a second that his remark will be the deciding factor for a student exploring the field of mass communications to scoff at PR. To me, it's just sad (infuriating?) reminder that our profession gets a bum rap.

It's up to us as PR professionals to practice strategic communications in an ethical manner. We should be among the chorus of calls for transparency, honesty, and open communication. I'll leave you with the charge given to us from the PRSA Code of Ethics. The Code advises PR professionals to:

• Protect and advance the free flow of accurate and truthful information.
• Foster informed decision making through open communication.
• Protect confidential and private information.
• Promote healthy and fair competition among professionals.
• Avoid conflicts of interest.
• Work to strengthen the public’s trust in the profession.

Perhaps even academics like Jeff Jarvis can appreciate their future hacks working with ethical flacks. (tongue-firmly-in-cheek!) Or at the very least, I hope he understands that ethical PR pros actually do exist.

Photo credit: tracylee via Flickr Creative Commons

We Choose Texas Public Schools

Over the last decade, it seems numerous groups have thankfully formed to advocate for public school districts across Texas. While these groups have strong commitments to public education, each has its own vision, mission, and objectives, often leaving school districts, parents, employees and public school supporters without a simple unifying message or call to action. My hope is for more people to stand up and say, "We Choose Texas Public Schools."

We Choose Texas Public Schools is a concept campaign offered freely for public school district communities, parents, students and staff. I came up with it for a public education celebration rally in February that my school district hosted with four other districts in North Texas. We had yard signs (pictured above) made to distribute to attendees. (The cost of these signs was covered by a sponsor.)

School choice continues to be a major topic of debate and conversation both in the Legislature and out in the public space. Texas public schools educates nearly 5 million students. I'm not going to delve into the arguments for/against restoring state education funding, school vouchers, high stakes testing, or other un-funded mandates in this space. Again, there are other public education advocacy groups already making positive steps for these debates. Healthy debate is good in my opinion. I offer this simple idea as a counter-message to the negative notion repeated again and again that students are “stuck” in public schools. In actuality, many families simply choose public education. I want to give a unifying message for those parents who freely choose Texas public schools.

Be proud, Texans and share that choice.

Please feel free to share, use, distribute the We Choose Texas Public Schools concept. I've shared the PDF of the yard sign art for others to use. I look forward to seeing how this concept develops.

5 Reasons to Make Your In-house Editorial Calendar

How does your communication department function? Is it stuck in an old mindset of spray and pray (as in spray the press releases out to the media and then pray for coverage) or do you treat the department like your organization's own newsroom where content creation and direct communication with your community are the objectives? I'm an advocate of the latter as part of the department's function for public relations in school districts and nonprofits. An internal editorial calendar is a smart way to help in-house PR departments meet leadership goals and strategic communication objectives all year long.

Keeping an editorial calendar for your communication department allows you to:

1. Effectively plan around the monthly and yearly occurrences in the organization
2. Position yourself and department as the go-to source for information
3. Drop-in plans for special events and target dates
4. Establish timing for press releases, newsletters, blog posts, video production, etc.
5. Allows you to get back on track with messaging when things go wrong

That's great but how do you do it? 

Here's how to get started. I'm sure there are other possibly better or more creative ways to make an editorial calendar but here's what I did. I found a simple template in Google Docs (now Google Drive) for a blog Editorial Dashboard. Then I made the appropriate adjustments for a week-by-week calendar for the department to use all year long. 

First, drop in everything for which you have set dates on the calendar. You're looking for those things that happen every year. For a school district, we have many items to quickly drop in such as holidays, board meetings, first and last days of school, high school homecoming dates, graduations, etc. 

Next, add the target or scheduled dates for any special events like any facility ground-breaking events, building dedications, board elections, bond elections (referendums), etc. (Don't forget to include important weekend event dates.)

Once these items are in, it's time to work to include your planned schedule for your recurring communication channels: electronic and/or print newsletters (external and internal if applicable), regular video updates from leadership, blog post schedule, and planned Facebook page posts. This part is an ongoing exercise and and you never really feel finished because things inevitably get shifted and you'll have to make adjustments. The calendar just gives you a guide to bring things back in order. 

We've all had those days (weeks) when things are going wrong or we're in full-blown crisis communication mode and we know in the backs of our minds some things are getting lost in the shuffle. An editorial calendar can serve as your reference tool to get back on track. I've found ours to be a solid source for making sure our timing for important announcements doesn't interfere with something already planned. We've used the calendar to remind leadership of important issues and how they play among established plans, dates, and events.

What do you think? Have you created an editorial calendar for your communication department? Are there any other benefits or tips you can add? As always, the comments are yours.

JPS Health Network: A Changing Vision and Communication Lessons

The best way to tour a hospital and check out its fluorescent lighting is from a standing position, not while lying on your back. At least that's what we were told by JPS Health Network President and CEO, Robert Earley.

For the record, he's right.

Robert Earley, 

 JPS Health Network
President and CEO

Recently, the Ft. Worth Chapter of PRSA took its monthly lunch program on the road and got an "unfiltered view tour" [his words] of Tarrant County's public hospital with Mr. Robert Earley. This tour was our chance to hear from this local leader who is using a strategic communication and community outreach campaign to help change hearts and minds about the Tarrant County Hospital District.

"We're in the life and death business," said Earley of the work JPS does for what last year was over 1 million people. "We hope it's more life." 

As the county's public hospital, JPS gets a bit of bad rap. There's a misconception that since it's funded by tax dollars, people tend to think the care would be sub-par and that there's no need to provide additional resources through private funding. To be clear, his pre-tour talk did not come across to me like a fundraising effort. Instead, he just pointed out parallels to other publicly funded institutions getting additional resources from benefactors to programs they support. (cough - college football coaches salaries - cough) Funding challenges are typical for public institutions and there were many of those challenges he inherited.

As for the care, he explains that he wants a cultural shift. They had previously been operating in a realm of mediocrity. "We're not there yet," he said. Earley recognized, "while the care was good, [they] weren't treating people right." So he made some changes and expected more.

He wants JPS to be a place where best-practices in healthcare are created and then followed by others. Earley expects more from his 4,500 employees: "When people walk in the front door, everybody gets respect."

When they hire, he says they take a "360° approach." They want people with the right skill-set and heart.

Robert Earley has Three Rules for the JPS Health Network staff:

1. Own It. He wants staff to be proud of where they work. When they hear about the good, it's ok to share that they work for JPS. When there are challenges, it's still ok to share that they work for JPS.
2. Seek Joy. He wants employees to smile. Ideally, he hopes they have reasons to smile throughout the day. Healthcare can make for a stressful environment, providing clear direction and positivity can go a long way.  
3. Don't Be A Jerk! Earley is on a personal campaign to against "jerkdom." He cites examples in our society where we seem to raise up jerks and jerk-like behavior ahead of being simply good people.

"We are trying to be a transparent organization." Earley is using what I consider to be a smart community relations tactic with on-site tours. One example of this unfiltered view was that we were encouraged to ask any question along the way; anything was fair game. He's proud of JPS being the Level 1 Trauma Center for Tarrant County. We saw operating rooms, including two that stay staffed, stocked, and ready 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Honestly, it's highly impressive.

Here are some additional public relations take-aways from Robert Earley and the JPS tour:

• The JPS team observe other healthcare systems going through challenges and then they look internally to see if they have the same issue(s).
• They want to establish a network by which they can communicate directly with stakeholders and not be reliant on traditional media methods.
• The quality and safety standards as an organization are constantly in need improvement.
• Training is top-notch: A JPS nurse receive approximately $64,000 in training. (Trauma nurses get double that amount!) The problem they have is talent retention. Nurse get well-trained, work a while then split. Earley said they have about a 20% turnover rate, which is way too high. (I wouldn't be surprised if JPS starts an aggressive campaign to keep their talent.)
• Earley instituted a chair policy in the hospital. A folding chair hangs behind the door of the hospital rooms and doctors are required to remove the chair and set it next to patients so that they can be at eye-level with them to talk.
• There are so many electronic and networked aspects of healthcare in general and especially within the hospital, but not much in their communication. Yet.

During the Q&A period, someone asked how do they tell the JPS story. Earley responded with a smile, "we hired J.R. Labbe."

Jill "J.R." Labbe is the former editorial director for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. I think this is an intriguing move for JPS and for Labbe. I'm interested to see how she can bring her skills to the other side of the news for storytelling and work from within the organization. She expressed some parting words in the newspaper about her new role:

While my responsibilities as vice president of communications and community affairs at JPS will differ greatly from what I've been doing the past 20 years -- and the irony of going from inflicting pain on government employees to being a government employee is not lost -- my love for this community and the people who call it home will not.

Wise move, JPS.

Robert Earley concluded by letting attendees know that others are welcome. They'd appreciate more people coming to JPS and seeing first-hand what's happening and how things are changing for the better. There's work to be done and it's wonderful to see organizational communications and community relations take starring roles in the process for this organization.

Good communication tactics stand up to fire test

A towering flame just beyond one's backyard is quite possibly one of the most disturbing things a homeowner can see.  We recently had one such flame:

To quote Alfred E. Neuman, "What, me worry?" 
In any other circumstance, a fire of this magnitude so close to a neighborhood would be quite alarming. However, thanks to some effective corporate communication tactics, Chesapeake Energy alleviated fears, doubts, and general concerns.

The issues: Chesapeake Energy determined a need to conduct flaring operations at a location just west of my neighborhood to "more effectively assess a natural gas well’s production capabilities and determine areas where pipeline is most needed to begin transporting the gas to market." [source] From a PR perspective, their problem included the proximity to neighborhoods and area businesses and what needed to be done to help educate the community.

They kept it simple: From my perspective, the Chesapeake Energy communications tactics employed stem from a strategy which is heavy on community education and engagement.

• We were first informed of the planned flaring operations via a letter from the company explaining the procedures, safety, and general information. 
• The letter included a link to their Web site dedicated to answering additional questions on these and other relevant drilling-related topics divided by neighborhood. 
• Lastly, a sign was placed at the entrance to gas well that gave relevant and useful information such as permitting, 24-hour supervision on-site, an emergency number, and of course their Web site again.
  (If you look closely, you can see the flames through the trees.)

To be clear, I have no connection to Chesapeake beyond concerned neighbor to one of their natural gas wells. In fact, I didn't think much of the initial letter when I read it. We, like most families in our neighborhood I am sure, were startled by the fire. (I even joked about it on Twitter and Twitpic.) Nevertheless, there was a good lesson here for communicators who want to avoid not having coporate messages heard.

Communication Carry-out:  With the right tactics and tools (even the simple ones) you can achieve effective communication enlightenment: message sent — message received. This is just my way of highlighting what a corporate communications win looks like from a member of the community.

What do you think? The comments are yours.
(Note: As a sat down to write this post, the flaring operations ceased.)

Academia meets Twitter: The Presentation

Getting a handle on Twitter for communication and professional growth in an educational setting.

I started a series of posts to prepare for a presentation entitled Academia meets Twitter for the eMarketing Techniques for Educators event in Austin. This post will serve as a means to follow along during the presentation as well as for attendees to refer back to for future reference:

Twitter can be a game-changer for online communicators. Education provides countless opportunities for various forms of communication, especially online. This leads to the question: Can Twitter be incorporated into an effective online communication strategy for educational institutions?
 

The short answer is yes and I wanted to explore how educational institutions can and are using/trying Twitter to assist in their communication efforts.

Communication needs
We can all agree with the general assumption that there are many areas within an educational institution that require effective communication in order to help meet objectives:

• News Updates
• Athletics
• Admissions
• Marketing/PR
• Development
• Alumni Relations
• Etc.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? 
Think of Twitter as a tool that could be a worthy addition to communication tools already in use.

Twitter is...

• a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time (Twitter)
• a social networking and micro-blogging tool (photo: geishaboy500)
  

Yes, but what is it?

 Let's try connections, conversations, community, and content.

For educational institutions, Twitter can be...

• a cost-effective (free) option to accentuate existing messages;
• a broadcasting tool to announce relevant information to specific audiences; and
• a (brief) conversational tool to appropriately respond to relevant inquiries and follow-up questions or comments. 

Two Twitter Types

Broadcaster

• useful if audience knows what they are getting
• another way to push information
• works best if you have good information to give
• could fill a need from specific area or topic

Conversationalist

• provides a "voice"
• seen as an authority and source
• ROE - return on engagement
• a way to interact with those interested in the institution
• all about building relationships

 Twitter is not... 

• a silver bullet for communication problems

"It won't replace crime alerts, regular campus e-mails or our cooperation with local news outlets to help ensure community awareness of important safety issues, but it's an important addition." (quoted from Univ. Michigan adds voice, text messaging for emergency notification, not specifically about Twitter, I just like the sentiment.)

Let's Explore

Broadcaster

• http://twitter.com/UOregonNews
• http://twitter.com/georgiasouthern
• http://twitter.com/johnmaeda
• http://twitter.com/uwgbtutoring
• http://twitter.com/UofA 

Conversationalist

• http://twitter.com/butleradmission
• http://twitter.com/ECCdistrict509 
• http://twitter.com/SDSU_NewsTeam
• http://twitter.com/ThunderbirdNews 
• http://twitter.com/MarquetteU
• http://twitter.com/UTAustin

Want to see more examples? http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Universities

Twitter and Professional Growth

• Referrals
• Community
• Networking
• Commerce
• Knowledge
• Serendipity

Referrals

Community

Networking

Commerce

Knowledge

Serendipity

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon 
• Part 6 - Hurst Euless Bedford ISD
• Part 7 - Elgin Community College
  

Related articles & presentation sources

• Twitter in the mainstream
• When is Broadcasting OK on Twitter?
• Is Twitter a Tool for Alumni Relations? The Potential of Intentionally Weak Ties 
• Are you listening?
• Twitter, Your Free Text Messaging System
• Using Twitter for Higher Ed
• 10 Reasons to Monitor Twitter
• Question of the day: Should universities tweet?
• How individuals use Twitter
• Activating Alumni Networks with Twitter 

 

For inspiration, thoughts, and discussions, special thanks go out to: @BarbaraNixon, @BradJWard, @PRsarahevans, @morate, @vargasl, @GeoffLiving, @davidnielsen, and a few more not on Twitter. 

Academia meets Twitter: Part 6 - HEBISD

This is Part 6 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Hurst Euless Bedford ISD
Twitter Handle: @hebisd
Participant: Dave Nielsen
Hurst Euless Bedford ISD Communications Department, Assistant Webmaster

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Communications Department

How often do you monitor the profile?
Rarely. I look at the automatic new follower emails that Twitter sends, and I follow the account from my personal account, but I login and double check things less than once a month.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Our website uses a custom-built CMS which outputs an RSS feed of headlines, body text, thumbnails, and links. Twitterfeed takes that RSS feed and posts the headline and a TinyURL that points to the link. Right now, it's entirely automatic, although I would reply manually if anyone sent an @Reply or Direct Message.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
The majority of the followers look to be spam/marketers. Beyond that, it looks like we've got a couple students, and maybe a community member or two. I've never really investigated this.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
Right now, it's very much a testing the waters thing, and we don't have any specific goals in mind. I wanted to make sure that we had control of @hebisd for possible future use. The way it's setup now, it's mostly just a way to for anyone who's interested to see what's going on in the district.

Additional Comments
Right now, we don't actively promote the Twitter account, nor have we shared the RSS feed url. I've setup a Facebook Page for HEBISD, but it's mostly just to save that space for possible future use. I'm guessing that next time we do a survey on how stakeholders would like to get news and information from the district, we'll include some choices/questions about online tools and social networking, and use that as guidance on how to proceed.
--
Vedo's Thoughts: I wanted to be sure to include an example here of a public school district to show that Twitter can also be useful in a k12 setting as well. Plus, they are being proactive and staking a claim in Facebook for future use. Full disclosure: I run the Mansfield Independent School District's Twitter Profile. At this point it is a broadcast only profile as well with a modest number of followers. Like Dave, we are looking at ways to use this tool effectively and hope to meet some additional communication goals for the district. One other thing, Dave was very forthcoming and had some additional thoughts concerning what is sent using the school district's profile versus what he posts from his personal Twitter profile. He points out that he tries, "to post responsibly in that regard." Well said.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon

Academia meets Twitter: Part 5 - University of Oregon

This is Part 5 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

University of Orgeon
Twitter Handle: @UOregonNews
Participant: Zack Barnett
University of Oregon, Asst. Director Web Communications

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
The Office of Communications supervises the Twitter account, specifically two RSS feeds from our news site, uonews.uoregon.edu. I’ve encouraged writers and PR pros in that office not to let the feeds stand alone, and to use the account to “tweet” informally about university news, as well. We use the media relations site as a clearinghouse of stories. We might not send a release to reporters, but the site might have a sidebar featuring an award. The writers more and more are using their personal twitter accounts to highlight pieces like this, but I’d also like to see them use an informal and conversational voice to communicate more than simple news headlines.

How often do you monitor the profile?
I receive e-mail notices when people like you start to follow us. Once a week I try to check out new followers to see who they are and to make sure they are not promoting inappropriate, spam-like material. Once or twice I have noticed regional journalists who are on twitter and have set the office up to follow them, hoping that the journalists will return the favor. That’s been successful a couple times. Other than that, because we use Twitterfeeds, I do very little maintenance on it other than check out new followers.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
I believe it is Feedburner, which is not a Twitter app but an open source app that twitter leads you to. I see potential for using Twitpic and other stuff especially for emergency communications. I believe the LA Fire Dept. uses lots of cool things like cell phone video to communicate. Not sure if they use Twitter.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
For a while it seemed as if everyone was a j-school prof or student. Now we’re getting a solid mix of PR pros like you, journalists, TV stations, but I’d say it really is a younger demographic or students and recent grads.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
As an international research university, we should be on the leading edge of trends. Our foray into Twitter started as an experimental effort at just that. Now it augments our typical communication efforts. We offer sneak peaks at YouTube videos we use for featured stories on our homepage. For example, we might have a 300-word feature article and 60-sec. Video scheduled to be the centerpiece of the uoregon.edu on, say, Jan. 8. I usually complete the video and post it to YouTube a couple weeks before that, then I embed the video on the Media Relations site. When I embed the video, we have a “Multimedia” RSS feed that sends a note out to our Twitter followers letting them know that a new video is posted. Then, YouTube’s insight feature allows us to track where viewers of the video are coming from. We get a fair amount of referrals from twitter in the days before the video goes live on our actual homepage. As we convince more faculty and staff to start blogging, I’d like to use the UO Twitter presence to call attention to the new posts. I’ve thought of having students Twitter, of having contests on the best tweets, or photos or various things. Lee Aase at the Mayo Clinic offers a lot of insight into Twitter and how organizations can apply it. If you haven’t visited Aase’s Social Media University, Global site, I highly encourage you to do so. I was reluctant to jump into personally, then I did and I really enjoy it.

---

Vedo's Thoughts: This is another example of a broadcast-only profile and it appears to be a very strong information source for the University. They are also making a conscious effort to track and measure effectiveness of their profile on other areas of communication.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 -Georgia Southern University

Academia meets Twitter: Part 4 - Georgia Southern University

This is Part 4 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.


Georgia Southern University  
Twitter Handle: @georgiasouthern
Participant: Christian Flathman
Georgia Southern University, Director Marketing & Communications

 
From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Currently, the Twitter profile is set up in the Office of Marketing & Communications

How often do you monitor the profile?
Regularly. We may update the profile multiple times each day depending what is going on.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Multiple people monitor so these vary. I am updating using the Google app as we are considering switching to Google Apps for e-mail and other utilities at the University.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
Our profile is still relatively new, but it looks like the majority of followers are current students.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
I wanted to primarily use this as a means to provide an additional avenue to communicate with current students. When I arrived just over one year ago, the University's student communication efforts were very limited. I do hope to expand this to alumni, prospective students and staff.  We are still evaluating the tool for long term use, but have seen interest grow quickly.  I came from outside academe (previously worked at GE and Michelin).  When I first arrived here, the University knew they needed to change, but this office was primarily a traditional public affairs operation still using press releases and posters to communicate activities.  University communicators need to embrace these tools and learn that traditional communications activities are becoming low reach/impact. [emphasis added]

---

Vedo's Thoughts: This is an example of a broadcast-only profile in that they have chosen to use Twitter as a tool through which they can send out the relevant information to their audience. I think that as long as they follow some basic rules for broadcast-only profiles, Georgia Southern's Twitter presence will grow and they will ultimately reap the communication benefits. [Thanks to Barbara Nixon for pointing me to her school.]

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
  
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
  

Academia meets Twitter: Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management

This is Part 3 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Thunderbird School of Global Management
Twitter handle: @ThunderbirdNews

Participant: Brian Camen

Thunderbird School of Global Management, Public Relations Coordinator

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Communications & Outreach

How often do you monitor the profile?
The profile is monitored a few times per day.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
The only Twitter applications we use is the basic search function. We have an RSS feed set up to monitor when people tweet @ThunderbirdNews.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?

The Thunderbird Twitter account was rolled out during the last week of the fall trimester So far we have done a soft launch. Students are on break. As of January 5, we have 68 followers without any official communications being sent out to students, alumni and the rest of the Thunderbird community. Once we officially launch the account by notifying our constituents, we expect our number of followers to continuously grow. [Note: This Q&A e-mail interview took place during the Winter break. As of this writing, @ThunderbirdNews has 163 followers.]

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
The primary goal for Thunderbird in using Twitter is to increase our public relations and communications reach to members of the Thunderbird community, prospective students and prospective corporate clients. Thunderbird has more than 38,000 graduates, and our alumni live and work in more than 140 countries. This is a great way for us to help them stay connected and informed about what’s going on at Thunderbird.

We also hope to increase the visibility of our recently launched Thunderbird Knowledge Network, a new Web portal that promotes thought leadership and engages participants in meaningful discussion on global management issues. The interactive site includes a combination of text, audio, video and graphics from Thunderbird faculty, alumni, and students. Twitter allows us to tweet about the latest blog, columns, polls, and forum updates to the Knowledge Network. 

---

Vedo's Thoughts: The most compelling things about @ThunderbirdNews to me is the good choice to engage in appropriate responses to replies and that they are targeting different members of their community - prospective students, current students, and alumni. I think the challenge for this institution will be to maintain a good level of relevancy for the community. They seem to be off to a good start.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1: TCU
• Part 2: Butler University
  

Academia meets Twitter: Part 2 - Butler University

This is Part 2 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Butler University
Twitter handle(s): @butleradmission, @butlerbloggers, and @butlersports
Participant: Brad J. Ward
Butler University, Coordinator for Electronic Communication

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
I work in the Admission department and oversee several accounts. There are several for admissions (@butleradmission, @butlerbloggers, then each blogger has their own account that links to @butlerbloggers) and another for Athletics (@butlersports).

How often do you monitor the profile?
I use several tools such as TweetBeep, TwitterFeed, and RSS to monitor the accounts. This allows me to keep an eye on activity and participate when needed without taking too much time out of my day to utilize Twitter. I check the RSS throughout the day and look at tweets as they are emailed to me via TweetBeep. Some days there is more to monitor than other days, but it's never overwhelming.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Other than the ones above, I don't really use any.  I use TweetDeck for my @bradjward account, but generally use the web interface to handle all Butler related twittering.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
I don't have concrete numbers, but I have found MANY alumni and community members through Twitter Search and RSS, and more current students are beginning to follow.  Recent graduates and senior PR students seem to be very active on Twitter.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
I just want to be able to connect with people interested in Butler and provide information for them when needed.  More than that though, it's all about building the relationship.  Twitter will be gone some day and we'll all move on to something else, but the relationships we build will continue into the future. Overseeing Twitter is a small portion of my time at this point, but we have built many meaningful relationships over the past few months. 

---

Vedo's Thoughts: What I find as the most important takeaway from this Q&A is that Brad understands and appreciates the value of relationships no matter the tool. There is no magic social media bullet, the magic comes from engagement and fostering meaningful relationships. Is there anything that jumps out to you?

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction  
• Part 1: TCU

Academia meets Twitter: Part 1 - TCU

This is Part 1 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

TCU  

Twitter handle: @tcu
Participant: Amy Peterson
Texas Christian University, New Media Designer

From which department does the Twitter profile run?

TCU’s Office of Marketing and Communication is always monitoring the changes in the communications landscape and saw Twitter and YouTube as powerful tools to reach the growing number of people using social networks. Jess Price with the Media Production branch of Instructional Services, was instrumental in getting Twitter off the ground. He designed the profile, integrated the content, monitored the feed and responded to @Replies. He had been administering the site until I was hired in August and we are now transitioning those responsibilities over to me.

We started an RSS feed 4 or 5 years ago and used the feed to auto-populate to our Twitter profile during the first few months of its launch. The content itself comes from several sources.  We use Twitterfeed to link the main RSS feeds from Marketing & Communication and Athletics (as well as our YouTube feed) to Twitter. That means the bulk of the content is created by either Marketing & Communication or Athletics themselves—and auto-populated on Twitter. For the first several months, though, we were more or less letting our profile run by itself.

We recently decided to manually add content to Twitter (in addition to the auto-generated RSS feeds).  So far, this has included daily updates on campus happenings. We are also planning on doing some "live" tweets for big events. Our first attempt at this was done when Jess tweeted about the Christmas tree lighting while it was happening and I later tweeted about the uploaded video of the lighting. We also try to engage our followers (and non-followers who have questions) where appropriate.

As we move forward to a new semester, we're waiting to see what new features Twitter unveils next year that might shift how and to whom we share content.

How often do you monitor the profile?
I monitor the site continuously while at work and check it a few times during the evening while at home.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
 At work I use TweetDeck and on my iPhone I use Tweetie.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
By examining the tweets, it appears we have students, alumni, sports fans, and students’ parents following us. News organizations, other colleges, and some businesses are following us as well. We decided to follow the news organizations and colleges, but do not follow any businesses that are simply trying to advertise. Our site is new and we are still trying to determine what category the bulk of our followers are in.

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Vedo's Thoughts: Aside from TCU being in my hometown, I wanted to start with them as a feature to highlight the fact that they started as a broadcast-only Twitter user and have transitioned to engagement through appropriate responses.

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
  

Academia meets Twitter: An Introduction

I am presenting at a conference at the end of January a breakout session entitled Academia meets Twitter: Get a handle on Twitter for communication and professional growth in an educational setting.

This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to this topic...

Twitter can be a game-changer for online communicators. Education provides countless opportunities for various forms of communication, especially online. This leads to the question: Can Twitter be incorporated into an effective online communication strategy for educational institutions?
 

The short answer is yes and I wanted to explore a few educational institutions who are using/trying Twitter as part of a variety of communication needs. In the coming posts, I will present some very gracious participants who provided answers to questions regarding their institution's Twitter usage.

(Photo credit: Mullenkedheim)