The pressure of deadlines

Deadlines looming and you might not meet them if you don’t start working faster? How I absolute HATE that feeling!

Last week, I felt this way a lot. Each minute of every single day last week, I had to jam-pack it full of as much as it could possibly hold – and then cram in yet more. It was intense! Minute by minute, I could feel myself working harder… and harder… and harder – rushing to meet deadlines that loomed one after another after another.

It’s at times like these that our true nature shines through, doesn’t it? When we’re under an insane amount of pressure. It’s how we choose to respond to such stress that defines who we are – and what others think of us! Are we the type of person who, when building up stress, takes the time to stop for a moment and regain some perspective? Or are we the person who lets some of the pressure leak out, when it inevitably lands heavily on a poor innocent nearby, often to their detriment? Because if we cause those around us to want to avoid us during those times when we’re ‘under the pump’, then they’ll always be wondering ‘what sort of mood is he / she in today?’. Trust becomes an issue, because there’s an environment of uncertainty. Not exactly the best of circumstances.

Yes, it’s a reflective entry this week, but this is a topic I’ve been thinking about for a while now – and last week’s incredibly enormous week led me to believe that I wasn’t the only one facing these sorts of pressures! So – over to you. Do you have any suggestions on how to cope, when life gets so busy that you feel as though you’re a bug on the front windscreen of a speeding train – holding on for dear life?!

CC Image courtesy  felizfeliz at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafimages/3144413361/

Digital marketing for schools – part 4

Well, this post marks the fourth and final in this series on ‘Digital marketing for Schools’. As the last one was a ‘narrative of best practice’, then (as you’d expect!) this is a ‘narrative of worst practice’. So… let’s jump straight in!

As could be expected, there is, generally speaking, a spectrum. At the ‘worst case scenario’ end, there are the schools which have taken a ‘denial’ approach, and refuse to look at their digital footprint. This is ludicrous in my opinion, as no one is monitoring what is being said. I know of one school, with zero official digital presence, that had not one or two, but three ‘hate’ groups on Facebook, filled with the most negative opinions and expressed in the filthiest language that teenagers can provide. No one knew.

A slightly better, but not by much, scenario, is where the school has created official social networking accounts, but then let them lapse. These quickly fill with spam at best, and have the potential to generate negativity towards the school. Not good. Of equal slackness is the lapsed monitoring of generalized information such as Wikipedia pages. Even big schools fall prone to this, and would probably be embarrassed to learn what their wikipedia page has on it.

Finally, having a website which no one visits, or other accounts which have little to zero ROI, are rather a waste of time.

When it comes to digitally marketing your school, it’s no good to just ‘hope for the best’, or worse, sit on your hands. You need to be actively involved if you want digital marketing to be effective!

So where does your school fit? At the ‘best practice end’? Or sliding down the scale a little bit? If so, feel free to contact me – I can offer suggestions, help out, or even do some of the work for you, if you like?!

CC Image courtesy comedy_nose at http://www.flickr.com/photos/comedynose/3856524294/

Digital marketing for schools – part 3

So this is Part 3 in the ‘Digital Marketing for Schools’ series. Today we’re looking at a ‘Narrative of Best Practice’…

A school using best practice has a dynamic website that meets the needs of both current and future parents. It is the place of choice for the most comprehensive information about your school. It is easily navigable, with dozens, if not hundreds of excellent images, embedded videos, and a password protected portal for the student and parent bodies, where they can access the digital component of their studies.

The school’s Facebook page is updated daily, reminding parents of events, fundraiser deadlines, and reporting on school activities. It showcases great photos of school events (and every photo only contains students whose parents have given permission for their child’s photo to be used in marketing / promotional activities!) The school’s twitter account is used in a similar manner, but also contains links to a wide variety of further reading, in the fields of education, technological developments, or even parenting tidbits. Together with the school twitter account, it is the place parents can turn to in times when up-to-the-minute information is needed, for example when floods cause bus services to cease operating, and road (or even school) closures.

The school’s YouTube channel has a variety of videos, each of which is also embedded into the school website. These range from school events such as grandparent’s days, sports carnivals, cultural events, and camps, to classroom activities, interviews with staff, parents and students, to maybe even a school tour. A new video is added every month or so,and these videos are of a high quality.

The school also engages with its community via email, and SMS where appropriate.

The school features in online school directories, and these contain the same information that is in the school’s Wikipedia page and any other online account. The school is also discoverable via google maps, where several reviews rate it as a very good place to educate children, and also through articles in online newspapers.

In general, a school using best practice is active in both its maintenance and its monitoring of, its digital presence, ensuring that it is an accurate reflection of the school, and is consistent with its marketing campaign using traditional media.

So – over to you! Can your school check all these boxes? The next post is the final in this ‘Digital Marketing for Schools’ series. As you can expect, it’s looking at the opposite end of the spectrum; the ‘narratives of worst practice’. Stay tuned!

CC image courtesy PNASH at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pnash/5227436224/

Digital marketing for schools – part 2

In part one of this series on ‘Digital Marketing for Schools’, I looked at what digital marketing actually *is*. So this post discusses ‘why is it powerful’? In other words, what are its strengths and weaknesses? Why should we / shouldn’t we use it?

It is powerful simply because we now live in a digital society. I would imagine that a large majority of your school community has a Facebook account which they use more than once a week. Both staff and parents – perhaps also your older students. Because other social networking sites, such as twitter, YouTube, four square, Flickr and many many many more, are also growing exponentially. And with smartphones now making this digital world so easily accessible, digital marketing has more power in 2012 than it has ever had in the past, and this power is only set to increase over the coming weeks, months, and years.

Digital marketing undoubtedly has its strengths. It also, however, has significant weaknesses, which every business would do well to consider prior to creating and implementing a digital marketing campaign. Its strengths lie in its wide reach and the currency and timeliness of the information you can provide to your customers. Its weaknesses lie in its vulnerability and its potentially time-consuming nature.

Should you use it? In my opinion, yes. You will lose valuable business to your competitors, should you choose to not employ digital marketing as part of your overall promotional campaign.

Shouldn’t you use it? Also yes, but this one is should be qualified further. There are as many ways to use digital marketing as there are available channels. To use all would blow your budget both financially and time-wise, and you would not see the return on investment (ROI) you are seeking. Thus your digital marketing strategy needs to be carefully considered prior to, and throughout, its implementation.

So – now it’s over to you. What are *your* thoughts on the uses  and misuses of Digital Marketing in schools?

CC Image courtesy Jenn and Tony Bot at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ittybittiesforyou/4809306365/

Digital marketing for schools – part 1

Digital marketing is marketing done online, as opposed to promotion of your business using traditional media – newspaper ads, radio ads, TV if you can afford it. Also billboards, posters, flyers, and even the humble newsletter.

Digital marketing, on the other hand, occurs through the screen. Information that you send ‘out’, such as via your website, or emails to your subscriber lists, is classified as ‘outbound marketing’ and is used to maintain relationship with existing clients. In 2012, outbound marketing channels should include engaging with your school community through Facebook, twitter, and maybe even YouTube, Flickr, or your own school’s smartphone app.  However, the true power of digital marketing lies in ‘inbound marketing’ – literally, where potential customers discover your existence through the many and varied channels that they stumble across you, online. Perhaps they are on YouTube and one of the videos from your channel appears on their sidebar of suggested videos to watch. maybe they’re on Wikipedia, and the link to your school’s Wikipedia page is in the related article that they are reading. Or they are on google maps and notice your school’s name and a great photo appears on their page. All of these examples are the reason why a school should be strongly considering what type of digital footprint is out there for their school.

So a quick question then – what sort of digital marketing efforts is your school doing?

(Image made using tagzedo.com. Cool, hey!)

The Basics of Twitter #1 – What is it? Why use it?

So you’re thinking about jumping on the ‘Twitter bandwagon’. Great! Congratulations! Personally, I love twitter. I find it far better than facebook for networking with the people that I *want* to network with. But, assuming that you know very little about what twitter is, this series on ‘Twitter Basics’ will hopefully teach you how to use the service – so that you can enjoy using it as much as I do!

Firstly, what is twitter? At its most basic, twitter is a way of informing others. Your message is limited to 140 characters. When you post it, your message is called a ‘Tweet’. It is then sent to all of your followers (sometimes called ‘tweeps’) and forms part of their tweetstream. Tweeting is useful if you want to get your message out quickly – and if you have a large number of people following you, then your tweets will generally reach a wide audience.

‘Broadcasting’ your tweets is a good way to inform your audience of up-to-date information. But it is by no means all that twitter should be used for. In fact, if all you do is broadcast tweets, you will probably find that people will stop following you, as they don’t want to be talked at, they want to be spoken with. And that’s where the power of twitter lies.

Twitter is an online community. For that community to function, its members need to speak with each other. This is done in one of two ways: through mentions (which can be viewed by the general public) and Direct Messages (which are private, viewable only by the parties involved).

Mentions and Direct Messages are where the conversations are. This is where you want to be, conversing with those you follow, and those who follow you, as this will build your networks. Personally, very few of my friends IRL are on twitter. And so I find that my twitter networks are professional ones. I interact with people who inspire me, who I’d like to aspire to be like in some area of my life. I learn – a lot! – from their tweets, and am kept currently aware of developments in the fields which I am interested in. Twitter is my own personalised link to Professional Development – whenever, and wherever, I want it. And for that, it is absolutely invaluable!

CC Image courtesy Rosaura Ochoa at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosauraochoa/3419823308/

The “Headache-Free” Yearbook – Step Six

I’m a huge fan of DropBox. I love how it doesn’t matter if you’re on a Mac, PC or mobile device. I love how it’s in the cloud and accessible from anywhere with just a click. And I love its capacity for sharing.

But I made the mistake of relying on it too much for a yearbook I created last year. And well over a dozen pages had to be manually resent due to errors in the sharing process. Due to circumstances outside of my control, I was at publishing deadline – and the tool I had selected for the transfer process to the publisher wasn’t cutting it. NOT the best situation to find yourself in! Which is why Step Six in creating a “Headache-Free Yearbook” is –

Don’t rely on the tools. Manage your risks wisely!

No, don’t rely on the tools. Not exclusively, and not when there are other options. And I’m NOT just talking about DropBox here! You should plan ahead for any tool you use, from emailing tools to scheduling tools, to cameras and access to computers, software, online programs, and the Internet. Decide what you’re going to do if, or when, each breaks down or doesn’t perform as expected. Be wise!

In hindsight, my risk management was nowhere near where it should have been. I had no mitigation strategies in place, and so I just had to wear the consequences when things didn’t work as I had expected them to.

That’s one of the reasons I strongly recommend the timeline approach that I outlined in Step Four. Managing your risks wisely is going to help so much in the long run, even though it might be a bit of a pain to think about, in the beginning. Trust me – it’s worth it!

Now, I leave myself time to snail mail a USB – just in case the digital version gets corrupted again. Short of a mail strike, my publishing deadlines are still met. And I’m not left feeling embarrassed.

What experiences have you had with tools that broke when you least needed them too? What advice can you share from what you learned?

CC Image Courtesy zzpza at http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzpza/3269784239/

The “Headache-Free” Yearbook – Step Five

If you’ve been following this series on the “Headache-Free” Yearbook, hopefully by now you’re going along swimmingly. Those stories and images are rolling in, the pages are being created, the deadline’s still some way off, but you’re not particularly stressed about it because you’re “dating” your yearbook regularly, modifying plans where needed, and communicating these new arrangements to team. Brilliant work!

This step should be pretty easy for you then. In fact, it’s really just a reminder of something that I’m sure you already know:

Don’t rely on your staff, when the buck stops with you.

If you’re the one in charge, be there. Be in charge. Be seen to be in charge. You’ve probably been in a team before where the leadership shown was less-than-desirable. Think about that person – and don’t emulate their mistakes!

You know, from your extensive planning, that creating this yearbook is a huge job. And that this job will be made a whole lot easier if it’s shared amongst a team of people. These are my three recommendations for sharing the load:

1. Get their consent. You know yourself that you don’t like being coerced – and neither does anyone else. So ask politely for help – and convince them, if need be, of the value of their contribution. You’ll get a better result every time.

2. Share your vision, and celebrate the successes. Ensure that your ideas are clearly communicated at each stage of the process. And if the people helping you to create this yearbook only ever see you when you’re allocating them work, then they’ll not be particularly motivated. Be proactive in showing them the value of their contribution, and the chances are higher that they’ll be part of the process again next year.

3. Remember that you’re the one responsible. You need to be the person who is actively checking that each member of your team is meeting the deadlines on that timeline you created in Step Three. Don’t go overboard with checking their progress – but DO make sure that you’re doing it! Otherwise you’ll probably end up the one with the embarrassed look on your face.

Working with others can be hard. If your interactions with your team members are more positive than they are negative, then you’re probably on the right track to retaining your assistance for future yearbooks.

These are the recommendations I follow when working with others. I’d love to hear yours!

CC Image Courtesy Philip McMaster at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonpreneur/3880883712/

The “Headache-free” Yearbook – Step Four

You started your Yearbook process this year with extensive planning and effective communicating, writing articles to deadlines, and taking brilliant images. That’s it, right? That’s all that’s required? If only! As Robert Burns noted in 1786, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley [often go awry]”.The most carefully prepared plans may go wrong. We none of us can predict the future. And often life throws us a curve ball, which means that we change our plans accordingly. Hence Step Four is:

Check, modify and recheck as you go.

Are you ready? Because here are my four tips for keeping on top of it all:

1. Create a timeline

A timeline is a document that details exactly what will be done, and by when. It will include events that need to be covered, and when you expect the story to be written, edited, etc. It will also include when images will be taken, edited, etc. And, (most importantly, I find!) it will detail when each page is to be formatted and completed. Try to balance out your timeline so that the work is spread out evenly, if it’s possible. For times where this is not possible, schedule staff as needed to cover the work.

2. Set timeline ‘dates’

You and your Yearbook are probably pretty close. If you’re the one organizing it all, you’ve probably spent many, many hours with it since its inception. Well, now you need to keep that relationship going with regular dates. And yes, by ‘dates’, I’m meaning ‘appointments’, not ‘days’, and not the fruit of a date palm.

How regularly you ‘date’ your Yearbook will depend on how large it will be, and how close to your deadline you are. A larger yearbook will need to be seen more regularly, and if your deadline is in just a few short weeks, you’d be foolish to not meet on an almost-daily basis.

Treat each ‘date’ like a mechanic treats a car. Check everything is in its right place, and is running exactly as it should be. Then smile, give yourself a pat on the back as you recognize the progress that’s been made, and ensure you’re able to make it to the next date.

3. Modify AS SOON AS you recognize the need

Something’s changed, and your previous plan can no longer apply. Act immediately! Create a new solution to the problem that’s arisen. Don’t just put it off – it’ll still be there when your deadline is looming. And unfortunately, the more time-constraints you have, the harder it will be to ‘fix’ the problem to the same high quality that you’ve set yourself for the rest of the yearbook. So modify those plans, and be prepared to modify them again if you need to.

4. Communicate your new plans

It’s all well and good that you now know where you’re heading, now that you’ve modified your plans to account for that curve ball. But if you’re fortunate, you’ll have a team of others around you, and they’d probably appreciate being on the same page as you. So you’ll need to effectively communicate those plans – especially if you’re relying on them to get you what it is you need.

A word of warning here – your team don’t need to be inundated with emails, texts, phone calls or messages about every little change that’s made. Just the ones that pertain to them will suffice. And you might want to schedule a regular meeting time with your team too – just so that you can plan as a team, get and give regular feedback, and so on. Again – don’t make these meetings so regular that they become meaningless. The last thing you want is a low morale amongst your team. You may need them again next year!

So, my recommendation is, that if you want your Yearbook to be as headache-free as possible, you MUST keep on top of your timeline. Refer regularly to it – set yourself deadlines for ‘timeline checking’ and modify and communicate your plans as soon as they occur. After all, who wants to be in situation where, a week or so out from publishing deadline, you suddenly discover that a large number of your pages aren’t completed due to changed events, and that these could have been fixed weeks – or even months! – earlier!

Well, these were my four hints for dealing with those inevitable curve balls. I’d love to hear yours!

CC Image courtesy ZacVTA at http://www.flickr.com/photos/isaachsieh/2522262234/

The “Headache-Free” Yearbook – Step One

Well, the year’s begun, and you’ve been delegated the task of coordinating the Yearbook. (Or perhaps you volunteered, because you’ve never done this before, and you’d like the experience?! Or maybe you do one each year, and would like to offer some advice to me and my readers?) So. What do you do first? Where do you start?

Step One – Plan. A lot. And communicate this effectively.

For me, I start with planning. There are five different questions that need answers, and it’s these that will inform the parameters of my completed product. Get the answers to these five questions, and you’ll be well on your way to getting the process right.

 

Question 1. What is the purpose of this Yearbook?

This may seem a silly question, but it’s really not. Unless you know what the Yearbook is going to be used for, you’re going to be working in the dark regarding what content to include, and how to word / angle that content. So, have a clear direction regarding what the intention is behind the Yearbook. What is its point? For some businesses, their Yearbook might be just a marketing tool. You want to use it to promote the best possible aspects of your business to attract new customers. For other businesses, the purpose of a yearbook might be to reflect on the year. In such cases, the contents of this Yearbook will include the highlights of the year, displayed in such a way as to confirm the positive opinions of your current clients. It may also be used to attract potential customers. So find out why you’re creating it – it will make things easier when it comes to content decisions!

 

Question 2. What is your budget?

This is a very important question to determine, as your budget will determine its size and its overall look. At St Paul’s, we moved from a 30 page black-and-white Yearbook to a 70 page full-colour Yearbook in the space of two years. Obviously, the budget for the Yearbook increased, in line with clarifying the Yearbook’s purpose.

 

Question 3. What do you want your content to include?

In this one, you need to plan out approximate pages for your important items. In a school you may want to have specific pages dedicated to sports or the arts. Obviously you’ll also want pages that are specifically for your class photos or your formal photos of musical  / cultural / sporting groups. I start with a Table of Contents, and ensure that I’ve covered all aspects of the business. I then get this checked with the boss, as there’s no point covering items that don’t need it – and equally as time-consuming is forgetting something that needs to be included, and only remembering at the last minute!

 

Question 4. Who is responsible?

By that, I don’t mean you  - the Yearbook coordinator – but I mean the people who will be putting the individual pages together. Unless that person is you, and you’re going to be creating each and every page, you have a team of people who you’ll be relying on to get the work done. If this is the case, then you need to communicate, communicate, communicate!

Something that may work, if you had the time, is to organise a meeting with these people, “get them on board” so to speak, in that as a group, THEY make decisions regarding timelines and content. That will always work better than just telling your team of people what they have to do and in what specific time frame.

 

Question 5. What are your own deadlines?

Schedule your own deadlines. You need to be responsible for your team. You are the person with whom the buck stops, so it is up to you to create interim deadlines for yourself. At each deadline you need to ensure that you’re touching base with each team member, collecting their work, and generally monitoring that they will meet their deadlines. This point is probably the most crucial, if you want to avoid the end of year Yearbook headache.

 

These are the questions I ask myself when planning. I’d love to hear yours!

CC Image Courtesy premasagar at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dharmasphere/1351111010/