as it just me, or did anyone else get back from Christmas with a head full of cheese and Baileys? Anyone else stare at programmes and apps and think "I know this; I can do this," before getting up and walking away from the keyboard as if it's some kind of alien being?
Looks like there was a power surge over Christmas. The bloody keyboard's eaten the bloody box and monitor. Again.
Still, I'm back in and on it. Calmly scything through emails from fanciful agencies telling me how they can revolutionise the way I work. Models, promises, webinars. Like I need any more models, promises and webinars. I'm also noticing bits of tape and tinsel which have seen in as many new years as I have. They need to come down. I need to think of a few new year's resolutions. New year's resolutions - a Liszt
Frans Liszt
The new year brings new resolutions, like bad colds bring on chesty coughs and 'snuffles'. In bloggeeee style, and in a desperate attempt to GET SOME HITS, here is a LIST of the ten things I'm going to achieve in the forthcoming calendar year.
HECOS - a sensible response
Make sense of politics. The sensible thing - a complete removal of the political set - won't happen. I've had about a year avoiding news. I've made contact with Luton's Deputy Mayor, who's a lovely chap. I'm going to re-engage. Probably;
Work out why it is, exactly, that applicants, enquirers and students aren't engaging as much with our surveys as they used to. Because they're not;
Brush up and prepare for HECOS. It's upon us, unless Brexit's done for it. I know, full well, that there are implementation guides and common aggregations hierarchies to get my head around. Which I will do, at some point. Honest;
Remind myself there are over 2,200 HECOS codes. And for 600 of these "the JACS3 term could map equally well to a range of HECoS terms".
Think about this point. 600 codes. Revisit point 3. Decide the best course of action with HECoS is to keep my head BURIED IN THE SAND;
Keep a better grasp and grip on what's happening in the sector. People sniff at my loyalty to the Times Higher, but I sometimes surprise myself with how brutally informed I can sound after a few days' submersion in either the THE or WonkHE;
Try not become even more appalled at the marketisation of the sector and all the BS it's brought upon us;
Get out more often. Staff development budgets have crawled under a rock, but it's good to occasionally get out of the silos which limited resources and constant initiatives tend to keep us buried in. Talking to colleagues and sharing problems isn't always acceptable. It depends on the problem and who you're talking to. But it can help..
Continue to sneer at mindfulness and Millenials. Not Millenials themselves, you understand, but the whole compartmentalisation, labelling and lazy dismissal of younger folk.
Listen to more jazz.
Wow! Making lists really helps. Remember me at the beginning of the blog, all self-pitying and confused? Just look at me now, ready and fired up. FOR ACTION.
Clearing. Yes, Clearing. That. From where you are, it might feel like "that time of year", though various parts of MAR are already "on it" ready to fight the annual rearguard with our finely honed collateral. Clearing, I suspect, will take on its familiar air of desperation masquerading as opportunity. Or should that be the other way round? Either or both ways, business as usual.
Or is it? This year, you could say, is more of the same. However, shifts in the market seem to have conspired against the Uni:
lower numbers of 18 year olds;
apprenticeships still being talked about and anticipated (leading to late engagement in the recruitment process), though not fully understood by some in the sector, let alone the students;
greater levels of offer making by medium and higher tariff HEIs, some of whom have lowered their tariffs;
more vigorous marketing by a wider selection of HEIs, with institutions coming in earlier and wielding what appear to be higher spends and shinier incentives (e.g. Northampton laptops and Bucks New's new Clearing Access bursaries).
Mood music from UCAS and others continues to encourage applicants to pursue aspirational choices, without a thought of whether Russell Group and - forgive the vernacular - "posh" unis are right for everybody. While choice and opportunities are abundant for students, universities are focussed on the bottom line and, as a result, becoming less touch-feely and more hard nosed in their approach.
University recruitment 2020?
All a far cry from what feels like the old, pastoral days of Clearing, but which - as Ellie pointed out last week - was only a few years ago. New Clearing has HEIs of all stripes and colours snarling and promising and focussing their attention on students who don't have the same level of impartial advice in schools. I would suggest that this state of affairs gives a far greater likelihood of hasty, hypnotised entrants entering academic worlds which may feel more hectic and, potentially more – well – "academic" than they had hoped.
University marketing 2020?
We owe it to potential students and to each other to make sure we give people the best information and the best opportunity we can. Most students, one hopes, will have a fulfilling life changing experience; most who come to Bedfordshire will also acquire life changing debts. Manageable, justifiable - arguably. But certainly nothing most sane people would blithely rush to embrace.
What will I be doing this year? I'm getting out of the office and will need to brush up on my phone manner. The continually stretching gap between initiatives/day-to-day departmental operation and resource has seen me drafted into manning phones in the PG Centre for the first couple of days of Clearing this year. I'm half looking forward/half dreading it. Talking to people on the telephone rather than fighting fires on email will be interesting and quite a departure from the blinkered monster that is email.
The author sends an email
Phones, eh? Many colleagues will still have them on their desks. Take a look. It's that funny black wedge with the handset with coily lead coming out of it. Remember? A device enabling people in remote locations to talk to each other. But not on the internet.
When telephones were bad....
This telephone thing was debunked in the second half of the last century, but really comes into its own in Clearing, when people from different backgrounds and frames of reference need to talk and really understand each other, rather than just shouting directives. Could there be a wider use for it in the normal working week, I wonder?
A write up of a recent trip, pushing out and exploring a world beyond conditional formatting on Excel and poorly executed SQL queries....
The Atrium's a funny place. It's home for those bits and pieces of "Professional Services" which most people avoid. HR, IT, Finance, Facilities, Marketing, Admissions and the UK Recruitment team. Those sorts of people. And, more recently, a group of academics who "must have said something" and have been banished to the south east corner of the building. Listen carefully, and you can hear them, powering up SPSS and trying to tap distress signals through the malfunctioning heating system.....
While the wheels of power turn, shiny buildings take shape and teaching and learning goes on across Park St, life in The Atrium can feel disembodied and not very university-like. The place where crates hang out, looking menacing, and mismatched furniture comes to die.
The Atrium - 'come see us sometime'
It's nice to get out and about every now and again. Some time earlier this year, I was asked to facilitate a forum at the University's recent Teachers and Advisers Conference. This took place last Wednesday and was a treat, even if I missed most of the catering. My own fault; I was getting this fantastic picture taken by a proper photographer:
"Do you want fries with that?"
The session - where such diverse institutions as Vandyke Upper to Central Beds College to Hitchin Boys School were represented - enabled me to perform a covert piece of market research and to listen into the thoughts and concerns of those present. Given that everyone had signed up for a "forum", and, therefore, a meeting of minds and exchange of ideas, I saw my role very much in terms of just nudging things along and throwing in the odd question bomb or two. Such as:
"What pressures do young people face if/when they're thinking about university?"
- and -
"How can schools and universities help?"
After a series of breakouts, the first issue to generate heat was finance:
debt aversion - potential students need to understand repayment terms;
more communication around bursaries is needed;
maintenance - some won't attend if none available, creating another 'squeezed middle'; i.e. households with incomes more than £25k pa, but who don't have the level of income which would support their kids through unis;
party people - those along for a ride and who don't see themselves as ever earning enough to start paying back.
There was some discussion and one or two points of departure for people in the group. Certainly, year on year, the Save our Student quantitative survey gives some graphic stats. For the 2017 results from more than 2300 students, click here.
A more pronounced and unified response was given to unconditional offers, which were picked up on throughout the day. They're not popular with schools, let me tell you. I've blogged about unconditional offers before and explained why I think U offers aren't great.
Still, I don't have to deal with the fallout. Teachers and advisers do. We were told how unconditional offers lead in a proportion of students dropping attendance and grades. The group recognised universities' needed to maximise income, but those who have been more profligate at dishing out offers came in for heavy scorn. Nottingham Trent and Lincoln were mentioned in despatches.
The third main area of concern was mental health. No surprise, although very sobering to hear about anxiety, self-harming and communication issues among people at a key, challenging moment in their personal developments. Again, recently published statistics, this time from the Institute for Public Policy Research, quantify some of the issues (for example a six-fold increase in cases of declared mental health conditions in 2015 vs 2006 and record numbers of student suicides and a 20% increase in the number of students dropping out and suffering mental health conditions. For more detail,see the IPPR website).
All in all, a valuable day spent out of the office. I've just had and will have very different excursions this week, to the London School of Commerce. By which time, I'll probably be gagging for the reassuring comfort of my two screens, Microsoft Powerpoint and my tea/soup drawer.
Right, so I didn’t read the leave calendar properly and have
had to take a load of leave time for the end of the year, rather than lose it. My fault.
Or “my bad” as the kids probably don’t say anymore. I had something prepared,
but it’ll have to wait until next time. Here’s a filler; a rather rushed but
hopefully useful guide to what’s useful for me when you ask for market research
from MARC.
Precise needs – Aims and objectives. Right? Stuff we teach
on a huge proportion of our courses, but which curiously goes AWOL when initiatives
are half baked then chucked around with a clear need for action, but a panicky
feeling of not really knowing what the action should be. Crystallising precise
needs can be useful to you as well as to me. Many requests I have are pleasingly
specific to which I respond, usually with a stunningly presented answer. Here are some clues about what makes a nice, specific request.
If you don’t know what you’re after, say so. GO ON; SAY IT. “I’m
not sure what I’m after”. As long as you’re not expecting the moon on a stick,
or a silver bullet, we can work round this. It might be time to ask for a
meeting……
A meeting – yes, I can be “meeting resistant”. Many
sensible, sane people are. Meetings can, after all, be talking shops better
covered by an email. If you have a very specific course title you want to test,
or need recruitment details from competitors, again, with a set list of
courses, let’s not meet. If there’s any room for misinterpretation, however,
then let’s meet. Or call me. I’m on x 3379. I don’t mind woolly requests.
Really. The work can often be more interesting than number crunching cohorts.
Me and fashion parted in the mid 1970s
Background – always helpful. Often covered in meetings,
though not always at other times.
Remember, I’m a man with limitations. I know
nothing about Fashion, Criminology, Computing, HRM, Forensics, Sport Therapy,
Civil Engineering or Marketing. You know far more about your subject area than
me. You may have come from a different institution which may do things better
or differently to us. The latter far more likely than the former, obviously. Sharing
background is, however, a two way street. Look at all this stuff on the intranet, for example……
A deadline. I have other work. I do not sit around twiddling
my thumbs waiting for stuff to come in. I
do not have a team; I have spreadsheets.
When giving a deadline, try and think of a date. You know; DD/MM/YYYY. That kind of thing. It might be fun and edgy to
say it, but “as soon as possible” is not a deadline. “As soon as possible” =
“put
my request at the top of your list;
I don’t want to hear/care what else you’re
working on;
my work is more important than anything else you’re
doing right now;
I am more important than the rest of those people you’re
working with”.
Right, ok. I know “as soon as possible” isn’t
this really, and that it's more ‘light touch’ bribery. I’m only human and, therefore susceptible
to bribes and other forms of flattery and bullying. But please, tell me when you need your work done. If it’s for a meeting, let me know it’s
for a meeting and let me know how long you’d like to digest whatever I can
produce before this meeting.
Put a crap deadline into the system; expect crap back
And again, “yesterday” is not a
deadline. “Yesterday” is an admission of failure, on your part. “Yesterday” means
the boat has sailed and you’ve been caught out. It may not be your fault, but I
cannot meet a deadline that’s in the past. Please recalculate and bear in mind
exactly what I’ve said about “as soon as possible”.
So that’s what would be nice to have
when you ask for market research. I accept and will work to lesser briefs. I often
do. Here’s The Beach Boys to wrap things up. Let’s try and forget they might be Republicans.
In the last few years, a number of institutions of various shapes, sizes and repute have been dishing out unconditional offers on the basis of predicted grades. But is this good practice? Do students benefit?
For my money, the answers are usually a resounding 'no' to both questions.
Some applicants will receive an offer and think 'game over'. The foot will come off the gas and performance will slip (recent UCAS research show that those who receive unconditional offers are 23% more likely to miss their grades than those who didn't - see this chart borrowed from a 2016 UCAS research paper);
Employers look at A level grades (particularly for apprenticeships, graduate schemes etc), and will disadvantage those who have slipped as a result of the above;
Schools are put in a double bind of a) trying to re-engage unconditional offer holders and b) trying to mitigate against knock on effects to classmates and colleagues;
Schools may also 'play the system' and encourage enrolment at more 'prestigious' institutions if, for example, they predict grades which will see applicants accept a place at (for example) Poppleton rather than Poppleton Metropolitan;
Sorry; I think, I might be in the wrong place
Students who may receive more support and fare better at Poppleton Met but who are lured to Poppleton, may end up at the 'wrong' uni and become disenfranchised and alienated from higher education altogether;
Similarly, course choice may be driven, not by passion for the course or research into the uni, course content, teaching etc., as by a decision based on flattery and an HEI's reputation and/or ability to promote itself;
Long term effects on many universities are likely to be damaging - "Lower tariff" institutions will lose income and "Higher tariff" will see a reduction in their league table scores after a few years of declining entry tariff points;
If the logical endgame of this process is the reduction in the number of departments, courses and institutions, there will be less choice in the market;
The enthusiasm for unconditionally offering to students evidently regarded as little more than three years' worth of fees (or at least one, if things do inevitably go belly up) is - to my mind - indefensible. And another sign the HE system is on a trajectory where, however much students are said to be at the centre of the system, they're not. Market is king and institutions manipulative and resourced enough to succeed will fight, claw and elbow their way to the surface.
All comments, criticism and name calling in the box below please.
Unonditionally Guaranteed. The Captain's reviled commercial effort. 'Nuff said.
Bedfordshire's tariff requirements are low. While this impacts on league table and other reputation measures, it demonstrates our widening participation mission. It also presents an awkward question; do we want to make unconditional offers to non-ABB students and risk helping damage applicants' A level results, denying them the chance to shop around with more points in Adjustment or Clearing and/or restrict their future career choices?
We have an alternative to unconditional offers. Our foundation year option and the 'guaranteed place' may sound similar to an unconditional, but it is different. We do not offer unconditional entry to level 4, but have a foundation offer for students who - for whatever reason - need it. This could quite conceivably include those who have been burned and underachieved after being falsely lured in by an unconditional offer in the past. If and when we get these people, great. The fear is, however, that they will already have been put off by HE altogether.
Hope you got through the turkey, Baileys and mince pies (other festivities/comestibles available) and are plugged in to take 2018 by the horns (other animal parts also available).
January often brings hope and expectation. Or a sense of tension and gloomy foreboding. Is such optimism/pessimism well-founded? One way to find out would be to do a survey.
Meh.
In this blog, I’m going to look at when it's good to use surveys, their limitations and when you may be better off doing something else. Knocking a survey together is dead easy; crafting a questionnaire that delivers is a different prospect. It's like comparing Dairylea with Stilton. And so, ok, sometimes there's time for Dairylea......... if you're a maniac with no taste (see left).
Why survey?
Good question. One you should always ask yourself and/or your survey sponsor. If you don't have a clear set of aims and objectives, scrap the idea. If the reason for doing the survey is anything like “It would be quiteinteresting to…..”, turn on your heel and FLEE.
Medieval fleeing
Surveys can confirm hypotheses and quantify suppositions, but rarely provide insight. If you're after insight or new ideas or have no idea of your audience views, you should chatting to them, not surveying. Listening rather than asking questions. Unless you have a good idea of your outcomes or potential outcomes beforehand, you’re on dodgy ground setting questions and expecting meaningful answers.
How do I confirm hypotheses and quantify suppositions?
Surveys. Though bear in mind, surveys are blunt instruments. The ideal market research survey should:
be accessible (usually online - but do consider anyone without access to computers);
be as short as possible - only ask questions key to the survey aims and objectives and keep open ended (non-precoded questions) to an absolute minimum;
be piloted (tested). Get another set of eyes. I get fantastic help from colleagues in the CRM team, who have no problem telling me when questions or layouts don't work. I don't pretend to be Gary Gallup or Micky Mori, but would be happy to cast an eye over any survey you may be proposing - give me a shout;
like I said, be AS SHORT AS POSSIBLE - if you don't need to know the views of different sexes or age/ethnicity groups, don't ask (it's good practice from a GDPR point of view);
be something which can be acted on – don’t ask about a la carte dining experiences if you’re researching locations for a grotty tea bar;
Keep questions as short as possible
be something people will want to do. Offer incentives (very important for students; staff aren’t allowed a prize draw, although you could think about a charity donation based on the number of responses).
Check and share data early – an early check will confirm if an online survey is working. It may also prepare managers for any shock results if you're lucky/unlucky to get them.
Be prepared to be ignored
So. There will be times when minds are already made up. I recently carried out a survey looking at different choices of artwork. It was a good survey and gave a clear "winner". Inexplicaby, the third most popular design - there were four in all - was used. Fine. This isn’t a sob story. It does, however, illustrate how running a survey can be a waste, both in development and time spent by respondents. It’s always worth asking “will these results matter”? If not, why are you surveying?
Who do I survey?
You should be looking to represent the views and taking time to identify and reach a specific audience. This could, for example, be students, applicants or staff. It could be a combination of groups. Think about each audience's expectations – students and applicants may expect an incentive (immediate gratification), staff may be looking for feedback down the line to engender (so encouraging engagement and buy-in).
When should I survey?
Again, think about your audience and plan.
For most audiences avoid holiday times;
Check what else is going on, survey-wise. If you want to survey students, you need to contact the Student Experience team;
If you want views on an initiative, it's best to ask the questions after the initiative;
If you want to test the initiative, you may think about repeating questions before and after the initiative and check out the difference.
Anyway, this is all basic stuff. Quant 101. But then surveys should be basic.
Thanks for reading. This weekend, I'm going to have a shave and a haircut. i might think about The Ramones. Here's The Ramones with a top tune:
In this blog, I'll try and offer some thoughts on the year 12s and year 13s I've recently had the pleasure to meet and have tried to understand.
First off, the terminology. Customers, consumers, partners,
stakeholders? Or maybe students? How about students? Let's wrestle these poor souls away from the marketplace, if only for this blog, and recognise, perhaps, that the whole seller/customer model has a place in £9k fees, but isn't the be all and end all, especially for many 17 and 18 year olds.
So, students. More to the point, potential University of Bedfordshire students. Do we know who they are? Do we need
to know who they are? Do we understand them? Should we care?
If your answer(s) to the second and/or last question is/are "no", then contact ODTU for Customer Service 101 or nearest equivalent. And I would suggest a reality check for anyone who claims to have supreme confidence in saying they fully know and understand our emerging cohorts.
Beds' Mkt Research Manager in 'sales mode'
Over the last few months, I've joined the charm offensive that is 'student recruitment'. Granted, I’m less charm/more offensive, but given recent team shrinkage, I've 'had a go'. I've also been lucky enough to have had access to Summer Schools, thanks to Tam and her lovely colleagues in Partnerships. And here’s a roundup of some of the questions I’ve been
asked while hoofing around various places (Luton, Norwich, Ipswich, Chatham and, err, Luton again).
Could you tell me about the course?
Is emo still a thing?
Perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but this was a question I often had to deflect. With the best
will in the world, when a 16 year old goff/emo person asks me about fashion it’s not going to go well. For either of us. This is why descriptions in the prospectus
and signing to the web need to be as clear as possible; not an easy task and always worth
sense checking and running through the filters of i) a potential applicant; and ii) a
numb-nut trying to sell to the potential applicant.
What are the entry requirements?
People usually want to know why our requirements are so low - when our WP mission is explained, this usually plays out well enough, thank you very much.
Where is Bedfordshire exactly?
Weall know. I always assumed others would. A few do, though many have no idea. Luton and Bedford may be the
centres of our universe, but for many, they're an unknown mystery (don’t worry Aylesbury and MK; you’re on the map and referred to as and when). Once location is established and proximity to London confirmed, the atmosphere is usually lightened and some valuable time has been taken up which otherwise would have been spent talking about something you know very little about. Like fashion.
Do you do Forensic Psychology, Fashion Management, Aviation
Engineering, History, Politics …..etc.
We’re always asked for courses we don’t deliver. If I can't cross seell, I pass these
enquirers to either Bath Spa or Birmingham City (i.e. the stands nearest us, in the
hope that hangers in the enquirer’s group will buy my supplicating look and talk to me and so discover where Bedfordshire is). Sometimes works; sometimes people move away from me at great speed.
Can I have a pen?
We’ve had pens in the past. And stress light bulbs, memory
sticks, selfie sticks, tote bags and lanyards. This year we had nothing, so instead, I played “watch people pinch things from
Birmingham City”. This was easier and more manageable than writing 'on the spot haikus' which may have been achievable on a slow day and might have been more of a talking point. Not having freebies meant we
couldn’t generate as much frivolous traffic as in previous years,
although we didn't have the budget this time and the time spent not talking about stress light bulbs probably led to a
better level of engagement.
(at UCAS convention)Is Cambridge Uni here?
One particular charmer asked if Cambridge were at the UCAS fair, then looked at me as if I needed to crawl back under
whichever filthy stone I’d emerged from and not bother them with any further
engagement. I happily misdirected them and left them to enjoy the rest of their snobby existence.
Do you do a course in stripping? Only my mate wants to open
a strip club…..
At the other end of the scale, this from Luton. Cheek goes down better than snobbery. If I’d have had the
presence of mind I might have recommended a business course, but I moved things
on when asked this in a focus group.
GIF from search on 'paint stripping'. The least indecent one I could find. Doesn't really work in the context of the blog. Sorry.
How do you pronounce ‘Bournemouth’? I break words down. You
call it ‘Bournemouth’; I’d call it “Born mouth”.
My grandparents lived in Dorset; I was able to confirm that however it's pronounced, you'd be better of in Beds.
Other points of note:
16 and 17 is a weird age. Some of these kids looked older
than me; others looked like wee bairns.
Tribes are alive and well. Hearteningly and although
millenials and GenZed-ers and wannabes are all hooked onto portable devices,
one size by no means fits all. A few draconian schools still insist their kids
wear the school ties (“they won’t come to us” I was advised by a wise
colleague, who proved to be almost, if not entirely spot on). There are still
weirdos and introverts and thesps and cross dressers and jocks and nerds and
alternatives and all sorts of wonderful
That said, some of these new fashions are BONKERS.
Especially in the eyebrow area.
"I was at a school 6th form recently,talking to university
applicants. When I could understand what on earth they were talking about, it was quite an eye opener. Perhaps the most striking statement was
along the lines of
All universities are the same. All of them. Yours; everybody.
From what I’ve seen of Hertfordshire and Oxford? The
same
WOW! If in any way representative of a wider view, this cockeyed opinion would delight Herts and give the Dreaming Spires a rude awakening, presumably
with the Dons and other hallowed academic types wondering whether 'perhaps they
should take this “marketing” thing seriously after all'. I suspect, however,
that maybe, just maybe, there was a
certain level of mischief and or disingenuous-ness at large when those words
were oh-so-casually thrown asunder. Some smart aleckery designed to baffle the
man from the local uni.
We’re all older and wiser
That's right. We are all older and wiser than year 12s and year 13s. We can
prove it, too, what with our life experiences, musical tastes and the ownership of
houses and licences (e.g. driving, marriage, television). Yeah, I know, right? We should, however,
give the kids a bit of respect. The Kids, as Pete Townsend
pointed out, are ‘alright’, after all, even if they speak in tongues, can’t/won’t
concentrate, call good things ‘sick’ (possibly? They used to…….) and don’t sit
down with cutlery to eat their ruddy dinner.
Meanwhile, back in MARC, one of Bob C’s favourite analogies
concerns vanilla ice cream. Bob Cozens, as most readers will know, is our
Director whose use of vanilla ice cream is because of its inherent dullness and
– more importantly – ‘sameness’ from one dreary block to another. To many,
vanilla ice cream is something trapped and unloved in other people’s freezers’
ice monsters. A redundant carton passed over for the more exotic Viennetta or
Cornetto. Or even a Mivvi.
Off colour vanilla ice cream
This analogy doesn’t entirely work for me. I like vanilla ice
cream, along with marrows, mild cheese, cottage cheese, suet puddings and other
comestibles which are a bit ‘retro’ and don’t taste of anything. If I want to
talk about university courses presenting an identikit of each other and the same
brain-freezing prospect from one institution to another, I’d be inclined to
talk about fudge, treacle or brown food in ‘piles’, ‘morasses’ or ‘messes’.
Get to the point. Is there a point?
Food aside, there is a point. A real point. University courses
have two price tags. One differentiates (entry requirements), the other doesn’t
(the near universal £9,000 price tag). If we put entry requirements to one side
(a big ‘if’ I grant you), when applicants look at similarly packaged courses at
different institutions, they’re not going to choose generic stodge over shiny bells
and whistles on courses our marketing chums would suggest offer USPs (i.e. ‘good
bits’).
And thinking back to those with lower UCAS points; in an
increasingly competitive market place even those with lowest expectations have a
wide choice before and during Clearing.
When given a once in a lifetime shot at the world’s most
extensive pizza menu, who exactly, will turn round and say “You know what, I’d kill
for a Margherita”. I’ve been Marcoms’ Social Secretary (Lunchtimes) for over a
year now, and no one’s ever chosen Margerita*. Not EVEN when it boasts hand
torn organic Buffalo Mozarella. A Margherita is a Margherita is a Margherita.
Whaoh there! My arteries are literally dying of boredom
And guess what; year 13 and year 12 students GET IT. Course pages and prospectuses
are furiously scanned and course and uni choices made by irrational minds
subject to the forces of behavioural economics and whatever socio-emotional
forces rage in the adolescent system. Minds which profess to no being able to
differentiate between Herts and Oxford; minds which will make irrational
choices.
Please; get to the point.
With all this irrationality, it’s harder to make and convey
any sense, so when you’re writing NCPs and copy for the web, remember
your audience (think more BTEC or A levels than Jedis, grandmasters, masterminds, laureates or gurus). Be succinct and make every word count. Do you need, and will confused school leavers go ape for acronyms, impenetrable language, state of the art cliches and waffle? I can
get away with it here; I’m not trying to sell anything.
Anyway?
Anyway, I’m off to Luton's premier jazz club this evening, then off work tomorrow and Monday. At the weekend,
the Hatters conclude their weird up and down season. I dreamed that Nathan Jones
(Luton Town’s manager) went absolute ape last night and ran down the pitch, in
a tiny fury at a comical but ultimately painless defensive error. Before then,
I’m off to hunt down the new Magnus Mills book, then go and see Wire, which I’m
extremely excited about. They’re from Watford, are very old, a bit 'arty' and sound (sounded)
like this:
See you nodding your head, nursing a pint, towards the back but not so far back that you have to squint to make anything out.
Adios!
*Admittedly, our Marcoms lunches do not represent a
representative sample of the whole world and everyone in it, and other factors
come into play when applicants make their choice of where to apply and where,
ultimately to study.
As I write this, I can tell that this blog post is probably
going to be a two-parter (you lucky things), therefore this post will be more
about scene setting and our aims and ambitions for now.
So I’ll start with the context part. Once upon a time
someone coined the term the ‘digital
workplace’ (basically all of the tools and technology provided by a
workplace to enable its employees to do their jobs) and ever since ICT teams
and Internal communicators alike have been grappling with how they can improve
collaboration, employee engagement, communication, finding and sharing of
information, business applications and agile working (being able to work from
anywhere at any time).
This is supposed to represent the digital workplace, hopefully you get the picture.
An intranet is one of the key components of a digital workplace
and here at the University of Bedfordshire a project to review of our intranet in.beds is in
full-swing (and long overdue!). It is also particularly timely as improving the
‘staff experience’ is a key priority on our new strategic plan which launches
in the summer.
As part of our digital workplace offering, we’re also
looking at developing other tools and encouraging the use of Office 365 and Yammer (for which I have somehow volunteered to run a fringe event about
at our annual staff conference – gulp!) among others, but I will come to talk
about this more in a future post.
Why is an intranet important?
Personally, I don’t believe that having an outstanding intranet
is the answer to great employee engagement- there are so many factors involved
here. However, I do think that it plays an important role in helping staff to
do their jobs more effectively and adds to a positive staff experience (if done
well!).
What makes a great
intranet?
Ideally a good intranet should include:
An engaging and dynamic homepage
Interesting, useful and engaging content
An opportunity for collaboration and sharing
A useful and intelligent search functionality
A quick way to find important things which make
it easier to get things done
A more personalised user experience
A journey to
improvement
We want to make our intranet a useful tool for our
colleagues and aspire to the best practice components listed above, whilst also
being realistic at the same time- it can’t all happen at once. It is something
that will require continuous improvement and we will constantly need to manage
a cyclical process of review, development and measurement.
I’m pleased to say that we’re on the first steps to
understanding what our colleagues need and how we can support that. We recently
ran an online survey (with the help of our fabulous Market Research Manager
Andrew Kingston) to identify how colleagues use in.beds and their likes and
frustrations among other things. Using this, plus analysing our intranet usage
stats and conducting focus groups (to come in the next few weeks), we should
have a pretty good idea of where the gaps are and where we can make an
improvement.
Unlike some big corporate companies out there, we don’t have
masses of money to spend revamping in.beds, but with the help of our talented
digital marketing team, we can go a long way to contributing to a better
digital workplace for our staff.
In my next post, I will reveal what our research found and
what exciting plans we have for the intranet going forward.
This Blog is written by the central Marketing team at the University of Bedfordshire. We hope to share some of our achievements and exciting projects that we've been working on in our busy world of publications, photoshoots, and campaign planning, with some good old creativity thrown in there for good measure. We also hope to give you a taster into what we get up to in and around the University.
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