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Communicating the Value of a College Education

January 13, 2012 By 4 Comments
Conversation

The following are the notes from my presentation as part of a panel on “Communicating in the New Normal” at the College Board 2012 Colloquium held in Newport Beach, CA January 7-9.  I was part of very august company: moderator Phillip Ballinger, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment and Director of Undergraduate Admissions at University of Washington at University of Washington, Marie Groark, Executive Director of the Get Schooled Foundation, and Millree Williams, Executive Director for Public Affairs Strategy at the University of Maryland. The New Normal: The Changing Communications Landscape The need to explore new models was the emerging theme of the Colloquium.   I’d like to take us up to 20,000 feet for a minute and talk about the new model of communications and the media landscape that is the new normal. How many of you use Facebook personally? Compare this 30% to this number: 96% of your target audience, people aged 18 to 35, is on social networks.  The … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Education, Emerging Technologies, Psychology, Social Media & Networks Tagged With: , ,

Dangerous Method: Engaging but Not Satisfying

December 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Spielrein and Jung

The film, A Dangerous Method, is an ambitious effort to portray the complex and tumultuous evolution of the relationships and theories among the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, his protégé Carl Jung, and the patient-turned-psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein.  The movie is beautiful and engaging but not very satisfying.  But then, it is based on the untidiness of real life, and titans of western thought though they were, Freud and Jung were still human beings.  The film is well worth seeing, but be prepared to come out thinking 'huh, interesting' rather than 'wow!'  Dangerous Method succeeds as a largely nonjudgmental chronicle of impassioned people and big ideas that unfold over time.  In taking this long and very human view, however, it sacrifices emotional force, and leaves mostly ambivalence.  It's greatest moment is the glimpse of Carl Jung through the eyes of Spielrein as someone wanting to look beyond the dark side of the psyche into human potential. Few figures … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture & Society, Psychology Tagged With: , , , ,

Reverse Mentoring Won’t Work

November 30, 2011 By 1 Comment
No Respect Taken, No Respect Given

The Wall Street Journal reports that reverse mentoring has finally cracked the workplace so that senior executives can learn more about technology, social media and the latest workplace trends.  Great idea, but reverse mentoring won't work.  It violates the very premise of a social media environment that it purports to address.  Mentoring must be about a two-way flow of information and respect.  What organizations need is collaborative mentoring. Reverse mentoring is exactly the wrong way to think about knowledge exchange in an organization.  We live in a time of social networks and peer-to-peer connectivity.  Calling it reverse mentoring implicitly supports the linear and uni-directional exchange of information and existing organizational hierarchies.  Reverse mentoring won't work because it challenges not only the existing hierarchy but essentially tells someone who spent years developing skills that it's not good enough.  Whether that's true or not, it's not how you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Psychology Tagged With: , , , , ,

All The World Is A Story

November 20, 2011 By 2 Comments
2011-11-20-tree-in-book-square-250w-storybook

Transmedia storytelling is rapidly becoming the new ‘must have’ in marketing and entertainment.  Its adoption is slowed, however, by the confusion over what exactly it is.  Like most things, there are lots of definitions, but with transmedia storytelling, it’s easy to be distracted by the promise of the wide array of tools and get caught up in the romance of ‘building out a storyworld,’ — and end up overlooking the substance.  Good transmedia storytelling starts with the story. The story doesn't live in the storyworld.  The story starts with and lives in the brain.  The brain is the vehicle for engagement.  Successful transmedia storytelling provides the brain with multiple vehicles for participation.  Participation creates immersion because we ‘buy in.’ It is a renewable energy source because it creates the motivation for continued engagement. If you mention ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ to aspiring artists, their eyes light up and their minds fill with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cognition, Psychology, Transmedia Tagged With: , , , ,
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