A fresh summer start

For most people, spending their summer studying integrated marketing communications would not be their first choice – especially if this was their first experience in a graduate program.  Starting the IMC program in the summer wasn’t necessarily my first choice, but I am extremely happy that I was able to do so.  Initially I wanted to start the program in the Spring however; I was participating in a service learning trip to Ecuador and since the introductory class is only offered in Early Spring, Summer, and Early Fall I pushed IMC 610 back to summer.  Here are some of the best things about  my summer start!

“Slow time” at work – At UW-Whitewater our summer months are a little bit slower, not entirely slow – but a little slower.  More people take vacation, there are less students on campus, and things are a little more flexible.  I was able to dive into grad school and get a better understanding of the time commitment of classes.  I hadn’t been in classes for three years and I had never taken an online class. Starting in the summer allowed me to gain my graduate school footing while still maintaining my employment.  That’s been the greatest part of the program overall.  I am able to work, go to school, and sneak in a few hobbies here and there because of the flexibility of the WVU online program.

Summer Capstone Class – I will take the capstone class in the summer.  I know that my situation is a little different.  With the tuition support I receive I am only able to take three classes a year instead of the five that are offered.  The way the stars have aligned means that I will also take the IMC 636 class in the summer.  I am very excited about this because I will be able to adjust my schedule accordingly and take the time I need to be able to create a great campaign.  Sometimes you have to think about the beginning and the end!

Don’t wait! – I didn’t want to wait.  I could have decided to push back my starting date to the fall but I thought that if I waited, I would never start.  Yes, a graduate degree is a lot of work.  Yes, your life will have to change a bit.  Delaying the start of the program is not going to change any of that.

Fresh air and warm weather – I know this sounds a little bit ironic, but it really helped.  We’ve had some pretty rough winters here in Wisconsin.  I had always heard people talk about seasonal depression and cabin fever in winter, but didn’t think too much of it until recently.  In the summer you can go out, get some exercise, and let your mind relax just a little bit easier than you can in the winter.  Because of this I was around more people to bounce ideas off of and I was traveling more, which  helped create discussion content for my classes.

I highly recommend starting classes in the summer.  As I said before, you’re always going to have a reason to wait, but it’s not going to make starting any easier.  Once you start, you’ll be happy you did.

IMC Professionals Need to be Teachers

One of the things that I’ve come to realize working in IMC is that in order to be successful you need to be a teacher.   Co-workers need to feel as though they’re part of the team, even if they have no marketing experience.  Last year our organization decided to create IMC plans for each department, which resulted in nine different plans in our building that all worked up to overarching IMC goals. It was a tremendous amount of work, but now our marketing efforts are more aligned and more measurable.

Just as we did when we started developing our branding project, the first step was to teach staff the importance and value of creating these campaigns.  This included multiple presentations and workshops in order to teach the staff about IMC.  Those workshops were followed by a group discussion that helped our staff, as a team, come up with our SWOT analysis and overall IMC goals for the organization.  At the workshops, departmental IMC workbooks were given out in order to help the staff organize their thoughts and ideas.  Staff members were challenged with setting marketing objectives for their department that helped the overall organization achieve overarching IMC objectives.  During the next year, multiple meetings were conducted to create comprehensive IMC plans for use in the 2013-2014 fiscal year.  Here are some valuable lessons learned during this process that I hope will help other marketing professionals in their quest to integrate marketing efforts.

• Teach the importance and value: When you think about it, it’s a good thing that not everyone in your organization is completely focused on marketing.  Everyone at the table is there because they have a skill set that helps make the company productive.  Utilize this to your advantage! Use presentation time to teach the important of IMC and how it will better individual departments and the organization as a whole.  You don’t have to prepare lessons plans, but it is important to teach the significance of what you’re doing.  If co-workers do not understand the value, they won’t be invested and your job will be much more difficult.
• Make things as simple as possible: As previously mentioned, not everyone lives and breathes marketing.  Listen to ideas – you many not use them – but listening helps people feel valued and invested.  Relate marketing topics to things that make sense in their daily work.  What will be meaningful to them? What will make them care about marketing?
• Work together: Our organization is made of individual departments, so it was very important to work with each one and listen to their needs and ideas.  What will work for one department will not work for another.  It is critical to incorporate departmental needs into that of the overall organization.  Facilitating discussion and providing ideas is great however, if individuals feel they help create the ideas and goals, they will be more invested.
• Start with tactics and work your way up: We found that the easiest way to make this happen was to have everyone write down the tactics they’re doing now in the categories they believe they were in (direct, paid ads, public relations, etc.).  Then we worked up to objectives – thinking about what we wanted all of these tactics to achieve.  This was much easier for everyone because they were able to see how much they were doing.  This helped calm nerves and make the project a little less overwhelming.  Then we were able to show how achieving those goals would support the goals of the overall organization.
• Check in consistently: Marketing goals are not the primary responsibilities of everyone in your organization.  Continually checking with departments and sharing information is a great way to keep top of mind awareness and show the value of taking an IMC approach.  There is always emerging media, ideas, and processes that are suppose to simplify life, but consistency is the key to maintaining and getting staff buy in with marketing efforts.
  

Every organization is different and these ideas may not work for everyone.  I believe that no matter who the client is or who you’re “selling” IMC to, you need to be a teacher.  You cannot tell people to be invested, you have to convince them they want to be part of the solution.

What have you learned from working in IMC?  Any other teaching tips you’d like to share?

The perfect fit (and it’s adjustable)

A sunny weekend, August 2009 – I was sitting in my living room beginning to research Masters degree programs in marketing and/or business. Now, on this cloudy day in August 2011, I’m back in my living room blogging as a student ambassador for the IMC at WVU program. Two years have passed, a lot has changed, and now I’m just two classes away from earning my degree. If you’re where I was in 2009, then this post is for you.

One reason I jumped at the opportunity to be a student ambassador is that I know what it’s like to complete IMC coursework under a variety of circumstances:

• Working full time (and traveling 40% of that time) and taking one IMC class per term
• Taking IMC classes “full time” (two per term) while consulting part-time
• Gaining “new dad” status while keeping up with two classes at a time

That last one is a recipe for sleep deprivation, but that’s not to say I’m the anywhere near the busiest IMC student (parents with a job and two classes per term, here’s looking at you). My point is, the IMC program looked like a good fit when I first learned about it two years ago and it’s continued to be a good fit even as my life has changed around it. If you’re considering the program, but not sure how it fits into your life, your career, your goals, etc, don’t hesitate to post a comment below. You can also contact Ainsley, Nicole, or me directly through the Student Ambassador page.

Cats, Maps, and (Online) Classrooms

Hi, I’m Barry. Here we go…

Barry aka Me

With a tip of the cap to Stacy Wise, I’m setting up shop here on the WVU IMC Student blog, along with fellow bloggers Ainsley and Jason.

Blogging central

If all goes well, the three of us may be able to approach the success that Stacy had steering this blog for the past two years. And, we’ll all get to go on vacation to a place that’s half as beautiful as the place where Stacy is right now. Seriously, did you see that island?!?

For now, all I know for sure is that each of my posts will be composed with KEXP on the radio, a 19-lb. cat on my lap, and a Northwest craft brew (whichever one is on $6.99 special at the grocery this week) on the coaster.

I’ll also be your West Coast correspondent, based here in Seattle, WA, where IMC assignments are due 3 hours earlier and we actually get less rain each year than they do in Morgantown. Aside from that, my essentials are all posted on the Student Ambassador page, so we can move right on to the good stuff.

One of my main projects at work last year was to create a series of online learning programs for utility employees. We found a vendor to provide the software platform and I mentioned to the salesperson that I was working on my masters degree through the WVU IMC program. When he found out I was doing everything online, he knowingly asked, “You’ll never go back (to traditional classroom programs), will you?” My answer, which he knew was coming, was “Nope!”

You see, I knew when I applied to the IMC program that I’d be getting the convenience of an online education and the rigor of a fully accredited public university. But once I got underway in IMC 610, I realized that I was also getting access to students and instructors from across the country and around the world. There’s just no way that a classroom program can provide the diversity of backgrounds and experience that you’ll find on this map:

The IMC Map of Students and Instructors

Top that off with the fact that all classes are discussion-based — which means no one gets to hide quietly in the back corner — and you have many of the reasons why I just won’t go back to the old school.

I’ll close out this week’s post with another map that I just made with the help of BatchGeo, a cool extension for Google Maps. It’s a map of all of the places that I’ve worked on my IMC assignments in the past 16 months:

Barry's map of places where he's done IMC work

Three countries, eight states, plus the times that I’ve done work while flying across the country (thank you, in-flight wi-fi). Although, I think the most unusual place I’ve done work so far was on a charter bus to Whistler, BC during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A Question For You

If you’re in the IMC program, what’s the weirdest place you’ve found yourself polishing off that last discussion response for the week? Prospective students, what’s your biggest concern about online education?

Thanks for reading. If anyone needs me, I’ll be completing my assignments from here over a long weekend…guess I can’t be too jealous of Stacy after all!

Lake Chelan, WA -- never been there before...I'll let you know how it is.