My employer, Grand Rapids Community College, is one of two schools taking part in a pilot program being offered by the Follett Corporation (the entity the college outsourced its bookstore services to several years ago) to rent textbooks to students as opposed to forcing students to buy them, which could result in a savings of over 40% in some cases.
It's likely Follett is being forced into this position by online services like Chegg.com which offer textbook rental and are quickly gaining popularity.
Given how much dissatisfaction there is out there with textbook prices, I'm amazed this didn't happen sooner (though the used textbook market and meta-search engines like BigWords.com have helped keep text prices lower). That same dissatisfaction could provide the momentum that gets the open source textbook movement going.
It's an uphill battle (as California is finding out), but if academics could agree on a universal platform upon which to develop them, open source textbooks could be the future. Think of it: a world where everyone has access to free textbooks created by the brightest minds from around the world on any given topic and proofed by thousands of pairs of eyes. If published on a flexible base (like XML), they could be turned into digital texts (or students could pay a third party to print a copy for them), they could be readily turned into versions for students with disabilities (braille or audio), pushed out to mobile devices, or incorporated into enterprise course management systems like Blackboard.
Interestingly enough I don't think traditional textbook publishers have to disappear in an open source model. They could sustain themselves by focusing on the ancillary textbook material for faculty: translation services, banks of test questions, suggested classroom activities, exercises, multimedia teaching aids, video game modules, etc. - the opportunities are limitless.
Showing posts with label Higher Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Higher Education. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Must-Watch Clay Shirky TED Lecture
John Gilmore once said "the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." As Clay Shirky notes, that was illustrated very clearly in Iran this past week as wired Iranians were able to communicate and organize demonstrations against the election results.
Shirky elegantly puts into words what we're dealing with: the Internet is the first medium that makes possible the "many-to-many" communication model which renders obsolete a great many long-held conventions (from when the media was limited to one-to-one or one-to-many). This helps me better explain the implications for two spheres of thought very important to me:
1. Journalism and the Future of Democracy
One of the things that worries me about the idea that we're coming to rely more and more on citizen journalists and less on professionals is the fact that we stand to lose the most important function professional journalists provide: investigative journalism.
If, however, the "many-to-many" paradigm established by the Internet (reinforced by social media) - will it matter? If anyone with a conscience can leak anything to the entire web-accessible world - how will any organization public or private be able to keep anything a secret? As for-profit news entities are shuttered, it strikes me that one of the most important things we can do is build up strong legal protections for whistleblowers and encourage platforms like WikiLeaks.
2. Education
Think about this quote in the context of the future of education:
Shirky elegantly puts into words what we're dealing with: the Internet is the first medium that makes possible the "many-to-many" communication model which renders obsolete a great many long-held conventions (from when the media was limited to one-to-one or one-to-many). This helps me better explain the implications for two spheres of thought very important to me:
1. Journalism and the Future of Democracy
One of the things that worries me about the idea that we're coming to rely more and more on citizen journalists and less on professionals is the fact that we stand to lose the most important function professional journalists provide: investigative journalism.
If, however, the "many-to-many" paradigm established by the Internet (reinforced by social media) - will it matter? If anyone with a conscience can leak anything to the entire web-accessible world - how will any organization public or private be able to keep anything a secret? As for-profit news entities are shuttered, it strikes me that one of the most important things we can do is build up strong legal protections for whistleblowers and encourage platforms like WikiLeaks.
2. Education
Think about this quote in the context of the future of education:
"In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap ... In a world of media where the former audience are increasingly full participants ... in that world, media is less and less often about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals. It is more and more often a way of creating an environment for convening and supporting groups. [...] The question we all face now is 'how can we make best use of this medium even though it means changing the way we've always done it?'"Anyone think for a second that the next generation of students are going to have patience for an educational process that doesn't welcome their collaboration at every level (from curriculum design to assessment)?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Seth Godin vs. the Textbook Industry
In a recent blog post, Seth Godin took the textbook industry to the woodshed ("Textbook Rant"). I have a couple of points of disagreement, but overall I think most of his analysis was spot-on and highlights some of the paradigms about education that need to change.
That's partially due to the industrial design of our [now-outmoded] education system, and it's partially due to the constraints of having to aim for a very broad audience (which limits how creative one can be in the presentation of subject matter). It takes a long time to put together a textbook because the text is only a small portion of the whole job. I would wager nearly half of the work involved in a textbook goes to producing the host of tools, assessments, guides, and other materials for use in the class which reinforce the material and help faculty assess the progress of the students in retaining and applying the material.
These realities don't excuse textbook manufacturers from their culpability, however. They could be innovating, but they're not because they've hit upon a lucrative way of doing business and have grown complacent ... which means it's right about time for someone innovative to come along and upend their business model and run them out of circulation.
As Godin notes, one could imagine the model of textbooks moving completely away to exhaustive, one-time paper texts and toward a constantly-evolving web-based model that is updated/maintained by a collaborative of faculty and experts (I would say even students would bring some valuable insights to the process).
Unfortunately I don't think it's as simple as Godin suggests. A cursory glance at the debate raging over where scholarly research should be published hints at the unseen complications that exist. Here are a few I can see (and some possible solutions):
- My first point of disagreement was his assumption that marketing textbooks are representative of textbooks in general - I don't necessarily think that's the case. Some fields (like marketing) are more malleable (for lack of a better word) than others (like algebra). Compared to algebra, marketing is somewhat newer and is inherently more subjective in nature. Moreover, while there are always new developments in mathematics, they don't happen as rapidly as those in fields like marketing.
- My second point of disagreement is that I think Seth tends to interact with self-directed, high-achieving individuals who function very well independent of the traditional academic system. For the majority of students, the approach most textbooks take tends to be more effective because they have a bit more difficulty following the more esoteric references or directing their own activities/exercises to reinforce the material.
That's partially due to the industrial design of our [now-outmoded] education system, and it's partially due to the constraints of having to aim for a very broad audience (which limits how creative one can be in the presentation of subject matter). It takes a long time to put together a textbook because the text is only a small portion of the whole job. I would wager nearly half of the work involved in a textbook goes to producing the host of tools, assessments, guides, and other materials for use in the class which reinforce the material and help faculty assess the progress of the students in retaining and applying the material.
These realities don't excuse textbook manufacturers from their culpability, however. They could be innovating, but they're not because they've hit upon a lucrative way of doing business and have grown complacent ... which means it's right about time for someone innovative to come along and upend their business model and run them out of circulation.
As Godin notes, one could imagine the model of textbooks moving completely away to exhaustive, one-time paper texts and toward a constantly-evolving web-based model that is updated/maintained by a collaborative of faculty and experts (I would say even students would bring some valuable insights to the process).
Unfortunately I don't think it's as simple as Godin suggests. A cursory glance at the debate raging over where scholarly research should be published hints at the unseen complications that exist. Here are a few I can see (and some possible solutions):
- The first barrier will be the publishing industry (which includes some academic institutions that have their own publishing houses) which won't go down without a fight. Similar to the music industry's reaction to file-sharing - they'll likely try to maintain their monopoly by suing or lobbying their competition out of existence (a lawsuit from a single intellectual property violation could decimate a start-up venture). They're also not above bribing faculty in the same way drug companies schmooze health professionals.
[Solution: have a powerful academic institution house the effort so that it could fight off vexatious lawsuits.] - Second, though many engaged faculty would leap at the model he suggests (of cobbling together a customized text from crowdsourced "chapterettes"), there are a lot of more complacent faculty who won't be interested in assembling their own text (or in doing it for free, as many receive a slice of the profits from textbooks).
[Solution: Make the platform user-friendly and compatible with enterprise content management systems like Oracle/PeopleSoft and Blackboard.] - Third, it may also be difficult to find people to do the less fun tasks associated with producing textbooks (like creating the test banks of questions, exercises, classroom activities, lecture guides, etc.) which is what makes the traditional model appealing to over-worked faculty looking to outsource as much of the labor associated with teaching a class as possible.
[Solution: If a prestigious academic institution backed this effort, one could appeal to creators by allowing them to associate themselves with that institution.] - Fourth, someone also needs to create the platform or build the network that would enable enough creators to gather together to create enough content to make the system viable.
Monday, June 08, 2009
The Contentious Debate Over Academic Freedom
The group Free Exchange on Campus has published an excellent report rebutting the allegations that the whole of public higher education is a gigantic propaganda outfit that brainwashes students into leftists. It also tracks the origins of the movement against academic freedom (which is curiously similar to the movement that has berated the media for being liberally-biased) and identifies the principle players pushing to insert .
Given the current contentious political climate and some of the recent developments at GRCC, I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes an issue and there is new pressure to enact Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights."
View Report: Manufactured Controversy (.pdf)
Given the current contentious political climate and some of the recent developments at GRCC, I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes an issue and there is new pressure to enact Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights."
View Report: Manufactured Controversy (.pdf)
Friday, June 05, 2009
On Crediblity and Higher Education
I'm of the opinion that too few higher education institutions are making strides toward ensuring their relevance as human communication continues its Internet-enabled seismic shift. This is increasingly clearer as I read two seemingly-unconnected reports (posts? accounts? who knows what to call them anymore).
First, Seth Godin blogged about an intriguing venture he's been working on ("Learning From the MBA Program") - an unaccredited, invitation-only MBA program. One can already hear traditional academics sniffing with upturned noses . The program is almost entirely hands-on practical learning and involves only 5-20 hours of lecturing per week. It's also heavy on field trips and superb guest speakers.
Godin recalls his own graduate school experience:
Those in higher education likely know to take them with a grain of salt given how difficult it is to compare colleges/universities as they're constantly-shifting and complex institutions. I don't think the same is true of the general public, a significant portion of which relies on these rankings to make this important life decision (also evidenced by the facts that a reputable university would take this sort of risk to get ahead in the rankings).
The link between these two stories is credibility. A connection to a respected institution from which one can derive credibility.
We in academia sort of assume that "accreditation" objectively confers credibility and that it will remain the gold standard forever (in the same way a lot of people sort of assume that a degree will remain the gold standard in education). While I think both will continue to hold value - they're losing a bit of ground to other ways of demonstrating credibility as a result of the democratizing power of the web enables upstarts to flourish.
I can't speak for others, but I certainly would consider a job applicant that was hand-picked to run through a program by Seth Godin. Yet, in the current industrialized model of human resources someone without an accredited degree might be weeded out of the application process for a large organization before the interview phase, but I bet there's already pressure to change those practices (because there's surely a lot of talented people being unfairly excluded).
All of this presents an opportunity for colleges and talented individuals like if they're innovative enough to seize upon it.
Update: More rankings shenanigans have been uncovered at the US News & World Report, this time with the University of Southern California.
First, Seth Godin blogged about an intriguing venture he's been working on ("Learning From the MBA Program") - an unaccredited, invitation-only MBA program. One can already hear traditional academics sniffing with upturned noses . The program is almost entirely hands-on practical learning and involves only 5-20 hours of lecturing per week. It's also heavy on field trips and superb guest speakers.
Godin recalls his own graduate school experience:
"We didn’t do this at all at when I was at Stanford. We spent a lot of time reading irrelevant case studies and even more time building complex financial models. The thing is, you can now hire someone to build a complex financial model for you for $60 an hour. And a week’s worth of that is just about all the typical entrepreneur is going to need. The rest of the time, it’s about shipping, motivating, leading, connecting, envisioning and engaging. So that’s what we worked on. It amazes me that MBA students around the world aren’t up in arms. How can schools justify taking $100,000 in cash and teaching exactly the wrong stuff."Second, the Charlotte Observer and New York Times have reported a Clemson staffer has turned whistleblower and spilled the beans on how the university has manipulated its rankings in the the US News & World Report annual rankings.
Those in higher education likely know to take them with a grain of salt given how difficult it is to compare colleges/universities as they're constantly-shifting and complex institutions. I don't think the same is true of the general public, a significant portion of which relies on these rankings to make this important life decision (also evidenced by the facts that a reputable university would take this sort of risk to get ahead in the rankings).
The link between these two stories is credibility. A connection to a respected institution from which one can derive credibility.
We in academia sort of assume that "accreditation" objectively confers credibility and that it will remain the gold standard forever (in the same way a lot of people sort of assume that a degree will remain the gold standard in education). While I think both will continue to hold value - they're losing a bit of ground to other ways of demonstrating credibility as a result of the democratizing power of the web enables upstarts to flourish.
I can't speak for others, but I certainly would consider a job applicant that was hand-picked to run through a program by Seth Godin. Yet, in the current industrialized model of human resources someone without an accredited degree might be weeded out of the application process for a large organization before the interview phase, but I bet there's already pressure to change those practices (because there's surely a lot of talented people being unfairly excluded).
All of this presents an opportunity for colleges and talented individuals like if they're innovative enough to seize upon it.
Update: More rankings shenanigans have been uncovered at the US News & World Report, this time with the University of Southern California.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Social Media Ethical Dilemma: the Admin-less Facebook Group
Case Study: As with any institution of a reasonable size, Grand Rapids Community College has its detractors who occasionally express themselves via social media.
One of the handful of anti-GRCC groups on Facebook recently had its administrator vacate his position, leaving the group leaderless. The ethical dilemma I'm presented with is: do I seize this opportunity to join the group, establish myself as the admin, and promptly abolish the group?
The answer is, of course, no. That would be unethical, and I run the risk of making the problem worse. Here's why:
One of the handful of anti-GRCC groups on Facebook recently had its administrator vacate his position, leaving the group leaderless. The ethical dilemma I'm presented with is: do I seize this opportunity to join the group, establish myself as the admin, and promptly abolish the group?
The answer is, of course, no. That would be unethical, and I run the risk of making the problem worse. Here's why:
- First, criticism is perfectly fine - not everyone has had a positive experience and they're entitled to tell the world about it. Moreover, their complaints are powerful in helping frame the college's priorities which ultimately resolves the problems.
- Second, the deletion of the group may be noticed by those who are currently members as a status update, which may spark an investigation which (along with their resulting ire) will be directed at me - a GRCC flak.
- Third, the content on the group is barely-coherent and riddled with profanity, anti-gay slurs, misspellings and shoddy grammar - so it's unlikely many people will take it seriously.
Monday, May 04, 2009
The Radically-Transparent Classroom
Two stories in my feed reader caught my attention this weekend that hint at the growing friction between outmoded academic traditions and Web 2.0:
There have already been a few incidents that have hinted at the future of a radically-transparent classroom (like Jay Bennish, and the much-less publicized case of David Paszkiewicz).
Instead of being sensationalist fodder for special interest groups, however, it could be that transparency provides educational institutions with the leverage they need to overcome the problematic aspects of tenure in a constructive way. Make no mistake: having protections in place for faculty (like tenure) is absolutely necessary to ensure quality education. This is especially true in the polarized era we're living in where an indelicately-worded comment in a discussion on any of the hot-button issues in education (like the teaching of creationism/intelligent design) can bring out the torches and pitchforks.
The first way transparency can help ensure better quality education is the ability social media gives students to connect with one another and share information. It's no longer the case that poor conduct on the part of an educator (which includes, by the way, ending the "voicemail hell" students all too frequently find themseves in) is lost to the wind after the twenty or so students that witnessed it go their separate ways at the end of the semester. It can be documented and indexed (i.e. searchable) so that it is readily available to future classes that will be able to easily document patterns of bad (or good) conduct by educators.
Second, due to the fact that so much of what makes dismissing a bad teacher so difficult is the highly-specialized nature and context of each individual situation and the difficulty in documenting poor performance - it would seem that social media and technology may provide both the tools and framework to ensure that we can more efficiently provide due process for educators when a dispute arises.
There is a constructive way to go about this, and it can be a great thing for all those involved if it's done right. What that means, however, is that educators (and administrators) will need to relinquish some of the outdated policies they've come to rely upon and be more responsive to the concerns of their stakeholders (which is something the majority of faculty are doing already).
- First, the L.A. Times recently published an in-depth report about the difficulties of firing tenured teachers (Song, J. "Firing Tenured Teachers can be a Costly and Torturous Task,"May 3, 2009).
- Second, the UK Times Higher Education edition published a story (Attwood, R. "Students Union Accused of Snooping on Lectures," April 20, 2009) about the University and College Union (UCU) objecting to the Manchester Metropolitan Students Union's (MMSU) new practice of encouraging students to report (via text message) when faculty are late or when they suddenly cancel lectures.
There have already been a few incidents that have hinted at the future of a radically-transparent classroom (like Jay Bennish, and the much-less publicized case of David Paszkiewicz).
Instead of being sensationalist fodder for special interest groups, however, it could be that transparency provides educational institutions with the leverage they need to overcome the problematic aspects of tenure in a constructive way. Make no mistake: having protections in place for faculty (like tenure) is absolutely necessary to ensure quality education. This is especially true in the polarized era we're living in where an indelicately-worded comment in a discussion on any of the hot-button issues in education (like the teaching of creationism/intelligent design) can bring out the torches and pitchforks.
The first way transparency can help ensure better quality education is the ability social media gives students to connect with one another and share information. It's no longer the case that poor conduct on the part of an educator (which includes, by the way, ending the "voicemail hell" students all too frequently find themseves in) is lost to the wind after the twenty or so students that witnessed it go their separate ways at the end of the semester. It can be documented and indexed (i.e. searchable) so that it is readily available to future classes that will be able to easily document patterns of bad (or good) conduct by educators.
Second, due to the fact that so much of what makes dismissing a bad teacher so difficult is the highly-specialized nature and context of each individual situation and the difficulty in documenting poor performance - it would seem that social media and technology may provide both the tools and framework to ensure that we can more efficiently provide due process for educators when a dispute arises.
There is a constructive way to go about this, and it can be a great thing for all those involved if it's done right. What that means, however, is that educators (and administrators) will need to relinquish some of the outdated policies they've come to rely upon and be more responsive to the concerns of their stakeholders (which is something the majority of faculty are doing already).
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
YouTube .EDU Hints at Possible Future of "Open Source Education"
YouTube's recent release of its ".EDU" site which features channels and content from educational institutions hints at a possible "open source" future for education (particularly higher education). Grand Rapids Community College has a thriving YouTube channel as a result of the excellent work done by our Media Technologies department (which produces content for the Grand Rapids Public Schools as well as a number of local colleges and universities).
In fact, GRCC is one of the heavyweights in the new YouTube EDU site (as others have noticed, including Time Magazine in a recent article titled "Logging on to the Ivy League"); it has more content up than Harvard and almost as much as MIT. Many of the four-year universities in Michigan don't even have YouTube channels.
Watching the potential of online courses leads me to this question: what is the difference between an online course and a traditional course? This question is important, because as online course content from top-tier universities is increasingly available for free through the web - they're going to offer some serious competition to other education institutions.
One of the things the web does best is to free people from the geographic bonds that hold them; you're no longer limited to the offerings at your local mall, dating pool, or social circles. The same is true of education.
I see a possible future where students from across the US (and around the world) take online courses from the best faculty at the best schools, and the role of regional higher education becomes to provide the necessary support services, lab space, proctoring and resources for those students to become credentialed.
That is to say, your semester (assuming there's still a need to keep rigidly-defined calendars, which is less and less likely) looks something like this:
If we're free of some of those time constraints - suddenly a dramatic window opens up for personalized, one-on-one interview-style assessments of one's ability to comprehend, master and think critically about course material.
The reasons this can't be the near future are rapidly eroding away - which means that it's an increasingly likely future. Something to consider.
Related:
In fact, GRCC is one of the heavyweights in the new YouTube EDU site (as others have noticed, including Time Magazine in a recent article titled "Logging on to the Ivy League"); it has more content up than Harvard and almost as much as MIT. Many of the four-year universities in Michigan don't even have YouTube channels.
Watching the potential of online courses leads me to this question: what is the difference between an online course and a traditional course? This question is important, because as online course content from top-tier universities is increasingly available for free through the web - they're going to offer some serious competition to other education institutions.
One of the things the web does best is to free people from the geographic bonds that hold them; you're no longer limited to the offerings at your local mall, dating pool, or social circles. The same is true of education.
I see a possible future where students from across the US (and around the world) take online courses from the best faculty at the best schools, and the role of regional higher education becomes to provide the necessary support services, lab space, proctoring and resources for those students to become credentialed.
That is to say, your semester (assuming there's still a need to keep rigidly-defined calendars, which is less and less likely) looks something like this:
- You fill your class schedule this semester with an online Chemistry class from M.I.T., an online English class from Yale, an online Social Science class from U.C. Berkley, and an online Ethics class from Oxford.
- You watch podcasted lectures, participate in collaborative group exercises with Google Apps, and interact with the faculty (or their graduate assistants) in immersive virtual environments.
- Then, when it comes time for tutoring, lab experiments or testing/assessment - you head to Grand Rapids Community College for the one-on-one instructional support and hands-on learning (which is GRCC's true core competence as a "teaching" institution).
If we're free of some of those time constraints - suddenly a dramatic window opens up for personalized, one-on-one interview-style assessments of one's ability to comprehend, master and think critically about course material.
The reasons this can't be the near future are rapidly eroding away - which means that it's an increasingly likely future. Something to consider.
Related:
- If you haven't seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED lecture, do yourself a favor and check it out.
- Professor David Wiley at BYU was recently interviewed about the idea of "Open Source Education."
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
MiBiz January 2009 Knowledge Roundtable
I recently participated in a MiBiz's January 2009 Knowledge Roundtable (along with what looks like most of the other members of the West Michigan Public Relations Society of America board). Overall the piece was good, but the demands of concision meant that most of my responses had to be cut down (which I completely understand) but unfortunately they were cut in such a way as to look incomplete (so I look somewhat scattered and inarticulate; or at least MORE scattered and inarticulate than I usually am).
Here's the piece. Below are my comments in their entirety.
1. What skills do communications students need to learn to land good jobs? Are schools doing a good enough job of preparing them?
There are a number of skills; paramount among them is writing. Interpersonal communication skills may become more important than writing in the future as technology moves us away from text-based communication toward a more visual culture (some say Flickr is in the process of replacing blogging).
The skill of being able to learn (and it is a skill) is critical as well; often as communicators we are speaking on someone else’s behalf to an audience we must understand well to effectively reach - so the ability to learn on-the-fly about both sides (and the mediums through which you will be communicating) dramatically improves the effectiveness of the communication process. This is especially important given how diverse our world is and how rapidly change happens. Students will also need to know how to think critically, how to problem-solve, and how to be creative (which is also a skill that can be taught).
Students will need to know how to use technology and how to think about using technology, though noting this almost goes without saying because of how tech-saturated youth culture already is (it’s basically second nature to “digital natives”).
Unfortunately I don’t think most schools do as well as they could at formally preparing students with some of these skills (especially the non-traditional ones), however they do informally provide the forums and opportunities for students to acquire and develop them.
This reality is symptomatic of the fact that our entire education system (K-12 included) is somewhat outmoded; it’s designed to respond to the needs of an industrial economy and as a result does not focus on the skills and disciplines that will define the emerging global economy (which will require skills like learning, ideation, critical thinking, problem solving, etc.). As a result of the Internet and the ubiquitous technology available to us, it is a waste of time to have students memorize the exact year the Magna Carta was issued (1215, incidentally; I just looked it up on Wikipedia). Rather, we should be teaching them how to locate that information, and how to think critically about it when they do find it.
Moreover, we’re too exclusivist about how we provide higher education. Our pedagogy too often responds to only a handful of learning styles well because it’s been acceptable if a large percentage of the population avoids or washes out of higher education. But if you look at educational attainment rates over the past 50-60 years, we’ve gone from 10 percent of the population having a bachelor’s degree to nearly 30 percent (a bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma). In the knowledge-based global economy, a life-long pursuit of education is imperative to every worker. To remain competitive, the U.S. must have a highly-educated population - and higher education needs to provide more support services and new ways to teach those outside the top ten percent.
Humans learn surprisingly well through a hands-on approach of trial and error, which is why I see video games as one of the most promising avenues for education in the future (but that’s another essay for another time).
2. How can communications practitioners help guide the educators to create the most effective educational programs?
The best way for communications practitioners to help guide educators to create the most effective educational programs is to participate in the process. They can do this by becoming faculty (even part-time) or by involving themselves with the programs at their local higher education institutions (through offering internship and professional development opportunities for students or just through engaging in dialog with the program heads). Additionally, professional organizations frequently have commitments to help build educational programs in higher ed., which is one of the reasons why I’m on the board of the West Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
3. With the maturation of the Internet age and the era of constant access to publics, how is the profession changing? What non-traditional skills will become commonplace in the next decade?
If it were possible, the profession has become even more of a “24/7” job due to the immediacy of the Internet. Transparency has gone from a lofty ideal to a practical imperative because of how difficult it is to conceal anything in an era when everyone has a blog and a web-accessible videophone in their pocket. Communications is more profoundly affected by globalization than other disciplines (but, conversely, has become more valuable to organizations - creating new opportunities).
More significantly, though, there has been a paradigm shift away from anonymous, mass communication and toward very targeted, intimate communication that many communicators haven’t quite grasped yet (which shows up in the clumsy attempts large organizations are making at trying to use social networking platforms).
It is difficult to say with accuracy which non-traditional skills will become commonplace in the next three years, let alone the next decade. Based on what we’ve seen so far from the decline of the traditional mass media and the rise of social networking platforms (like Facebook and MySpace), interpersonal communication skills (relating well to others on a one-to-one basis) will be invaluable. It’s also likely that fields like library sciences will be highly important given how critical it will be to sort and sift through the petabytes of data we’ll all have to wade through on a daily basis.
4. How would young professionals outside of the communication field benefit from more training in or exposure to communication skills?
Given how intrinsic communication is to everything that we do, they would benefit in every conceivable way. It’s virtually impossible to have any job that does not regularly involve some form of communication (even someone in a cubicle who writes code all day would find communications philosophy helpful in making their code more parsimonious and effective).
5. Given the current economic turbulence, how can professional communicators make their value known in the workplace and, more importantly, make the case for the importance of their jobs?
Ironically, communications professionals tend to be very lax at managing their own reputations and their department’s reputations (likely because they’re so focused on managing the reputations of others).
Nothing conveys value like doing quality work and being gracious and responsive to the requests of co-workers and stakeholders (good, old-fashioned customer service) - so one must start there. Related to that, communicators should get out of the office and physically circulate around their organizations (especially if they’re large) and talk to departments about their communication-related needs. In addition to learning about new opportunities (and threats) - you can raise your profile and be of service by “cross-pollinating” and connecting one department to another (I’m continually surprised by how many overlapping interests I find).
Another regular practice for communicators is continually benchmarking against competitors and other organizations similar to one’s own. Being able to demonstrate that a practice, policy or organization structure is utilized by another successful organization can be very compelling.
In addition, communications pros must make sure to “close the loop” on their projects by cataloging and analyzing what worked (and more importantly, what didn’t work) and making available that information and formulating plans to improve the next time around.
Another easy way to demonstrate your value is to repurpose/repackage the work you regularly do as a communications professional and syndicate it throughout your organization when it might be valuable to others outside the profession. So, by way of a really simplistic example, if you’re in PR, you’re regularly scanning the media - so put together a report of articles relevant to the industry your organization is in and publish/circulate it.
Here's the piece. Below are my comments in their entirety.
-----------
1. What skills do communications students need to learn to land good jobs? Are schools doing a good enough job of preparing them?
There are a number of skills; paramount among them is writing. Interpersonal communication skills may become more important than writing in the future as technology moves us away from text-based communication toward a more visual culture (some say Flickr is in the process of replacing blogging).
The skill of being able to learn (and it is a skill) is critical as well; often as communicators we are speaking on someone else’s behalf to an audience we must understand well to effectively reach - so the ability to learn on-the-fly about both sides (and the mediums through which you will be communicating) dramatically improves the effectiveness of the communication process. This is especially important given how diverse our world is and how rapidly change happens. Students will also need to know how to think critically, how to problem-solve, and how to be creative (which is also a skill that can be taught).
Students will need to know how to use technology and how to think about using technology, though noting this almost goes without saying because of how tech-saturated youth culture already is (it’s basically second nature to “digital natives”).
Unfortunately I don’t think most schools do as well as they could at formally preparing students with some of these skills (especially the non-traditional ones), however they do informally provide the forums and opportunities for students to acquire and develop them.
This reality is symptomatic of the fact that our entire education system (K-12 included) is somewhat outmoded; it’s designed to respond to the needs of an industrial economy and as a result does not focus on the skills and disciplines that will define the emerging global economy (which will require skills like learning, ideation, critical thinking, problem solving, etc.). As a result of the Internet and the ubiquitous technology available to us, it is a waste of time to have students memorize the exact year the Magna Carta was issued (1215, incidentally; I just looked it up on Wikipedia). Rather, we should be teaching them how to locate that information, and how to think critically about it when they do find it.
Moreover, we’re too exclusivist about how we provide higher education. Our pedagogy too often responds to only a handful of learning styles well because it’s been acceptable if a large percentage of the population avoids or washes out of higher education. But if you look at educational attainment rates over the past 50-60 years, we’ve gone from 10 percent of the population having a bachelor’s degree to nearly 30 percent (a bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma). In the knowledge-based global economy, a life-long pursuit of education is imperative to every worker. To remain competitive, the U.S. must have a highly-educated population - and higher education needs to provide more support services and new ways to teach those outside the top ten percent.
Humans learn surprisingly well through a hands-on approach of trial and error, which is why I see video games as one of the most promising avenues for education in the future (but that’s another essay for another time).
2. How can communications practitioners help guide the educators to create the most effective educational programs?
The best way for communications practitioners to help guide educators to create the most effective educational programs is to participate in the process. They can do this by becoming faculty (even part-time) or by involving themselves with the programs at their local higher education institutions (through offering internship and professional development opportunities for students or just through engaging in dialog with the program heads). Additionally, professional organizations frequently have commitments to help build educational programs in higher ed., which is one of the reasons why I’m on the board of the West Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
3. With the maturation of the Internet age and the era of constant access to publics, how is the profession changing? What non-traditional skills will become commonplace in the next decade?
If it were possible, the profession has become even more of a “24/7” job due to the immediacy of the Internet. Transparency has gone from a lofty ideal to a practical imperative because of how difficult it is to conceal anything in an era when everyone has a blog and a web-accessible videophone in their pocket. Communications is more profoundly affected by globalization than other disciplines (but, conversely, has become more valuable to organizations - creating new opportunities).
More significantly, though, there has been a paradigm shift away from anonymous, mass communication and toward very targeted, intimate communication that many communicators haven’t quite grasped yet (which shows up in the clumsy attempts large organizations are making at trying to use social networking platforms).
It is difficult to say with accuracy which non-traditional skills will become commonplace in the next three years, let alone the next decade. Based on what we’ve seen so far from the decline of the traditional mass media and the rise of social networking platforms (like Facebook and MySpace), interpersonal communication skills (relating well to others on a one-to-one basis) will be invaluable. It’s also likely that fields like library sciences will be highly important given how critical it will be to sort and sift through the petabytes of data we’ll all have to wade through on a daily basis.
4. How would young professionals outside of the communication field benefit from more training in or exposure to communication skills?
Given how intrinsic communication is to everything that we do, they would benefit in every conceivable way. It’s virtually impossible to have any job that does not regularly involve some form of communication (even someone in a cubicle who writes code all day would find communications philosophy helpful in making their code more parsimonious and effective).
5. Given the current economic turbulence, how can professional communicators make their value known in the workplace and, more importantly, make the case for the importance of their jobs?
Ironically, communications professionals tend to be very lax at managing their own reputations and their department’s reputations (likely because they’re so focused on managing the reputations of others).
Nothing conveys value like doing quality work and being gracious and responsive to the requests of co-workers and stakeholders (good, old-fashioned customer service) - so one must start there. Related to that, communicators should get out of the office and physically circulate around their organizations (especially if they’re large) and talk to departments about their communication-related needs. In addition to learning about new opportunities (and threats) - you can raise your profile and be of service by “cross-pollinating” and connecting one department to another (I’m continually surprised by how many overlapping interests I find).
Another regular practice for communicators is continually benchmarking against competitors and other organizations similar to one’s own. Being able to demonstrate that a practice, policy or organization structure is utilized by another successful organization can be very compelling.
In addition, communications pros must make sure to “close the loop” on their projects by cataloging and analyzing what worked (and more importantly, what didn’t work) and making available that information and formulating plans to improve the next time around.
Another easy way to demonstrate your value is to repurpose/repackage the work you regularly do as a communications professional and syndicate it throughout your organization when it might be valuable to others outside the profession. So, by way of a really simplistic example, if you’re in PR, you’re regularly scanning the media - so put together a report of articles relevant to the industry your organization is in and publish/circulate it.
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