Last week, the writers behind Syfy’s Eureka went public on their blog about a bizarre hostage situation that had been going on in their office. Between random notes glued together with letters cut from magazines and threats of teddy bear torture, the Eureka staff managed to craft together a nearly perfect post illuminating the kind of corporate culture they have in their office.

As with many such situations, this one began with a puzzle – literally. See, the Eureka writers had taken to doing jigsaw puzzles when they needed to think about something else besides writing. While attempting a particularly daunting 1,500 piece map of the night sky, they discovered that a key piece, part of the galactic equator, had been kidnapped. This set in motion a sordid tale that involves both sides taking hostages – on one side, the aforementioned puzzle piece. On the other, two teddy bears that were blindfolded and threatened with execution unless the piece was returned.

The whole thing is documented on their blog, complete with pictures of the escalating ransom notes, and it’s worth a read, if only for a laugh. What I find most entertaining about this, though, is that it makes a pretty clear statement about their office culture without ever specifically talking about it.

Many people distrust declaratory statements about a company’s culture made by the company itself and, as it turns out, with good reason. According to much academic research, people tend to be pretty bad self-evaluators, often being more forgiving in their assessments of their own personalities. Discrepancies between self-perception and others’ perceptions are nothing new and psychological research has been discussing this for almost half a century. There’s even research specifically on self-presentational theory (that is, how we talk about ourselves) that suggests we present ourselves in ways designed to create a favorable impression and avoid looking foolish or inconsistent.

Read the rest of this entry »

BNet featured an article recently on Tonecheck, a new technology that will analyze the tone of emails before they’re sent. Similar to existing standard spell checks, this software purports to go over every inch of your email, looking for little ambiguous statements that might get you in trouble.

Think it sounds too silly? Tonecheck references a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that shows that those same tone and language faux pas cause email messages to be misinterpreted 50 percent of the time. I’m skeptical that a technology will be able to address tone any better than a human, but it does make one think about how schools communicate.

Consider the implications of that research, though: half of all emails miss the mark, whether it’s to convey an idea, a marketing message, or wish your grandmother happy birthday. Because of tone, for every two emails you send, one of them is going to be interpreted incorrectly. Today, I’ve already sent 22 emails. How many have you sent?

Picture via Nataliedee.com

Yesterday, I delivered two webinars discussing the social media space and potential uses in the higher education market. It probably doesn’t come as a shock to most people that social media is on the rise. Right now, three-quarters of adult internet users communicate through social media. To continue reaching potential students, colleges and universities need to include social media in their marketing strategy.

In yesterday’s webinar, we reviewed current market trends and discussed how colleges and universities can interact with current and potential students through social media venues. For anyone who didn’t have the opportunity to attend, I’m embedding the presentation here for you to see it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include any of the wonderful questions we received from participants, but for anyone interested, we’ll be giving another social media webinar in July. We’d love to see you there.

In today’s digital wireless world, the question is no longer if mobile marketing is needed for immediate and long-term success, but rather how we can utilize and harness the power of this medium.

Below are key insights to current trends that increasingly make mobile an attractive addition to a school’s marketing toolbox.

1. Mobile is Huge.

Nine out of ten U.S. residents are mobile subscribers, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA). There are currently 285.6 million mobile subscribers in the U.S., with nearly two-thirds of them using text messaging actively, and about 70 million of them having the ability to access the Internet from their mobile phones.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to share some thoughts and reflections about CCA’s annual conference in Las Vegas last week. On Thursday evening I sat at The Imagine America Foundation (IAF) Gala and watched Jack Larson receive The Pioneer Award. For those not familiar with The Pioneer Award, it is the lifetime achievement award within our circle of the education world. Jack was well deserving of the award; Career Education Corporation founder, entrepreneur and solid family man.

The Pioneer Award is one of the many awards and activities that IAF is involved in during APSCU’s events and one of the many activities that IAF is involved with during the year. For those unfamiliar with the IAF, let me explain its mission:

Established in 1982, the Imagine America Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing scholarship, research and training support for private sector colleges and universities. Since its inception, the Foundation has provided over $40 million in scholarship and award support for graduating high school seniors, adult learners and U.S. military veterans attending private sector colleges nationwide through its award-winning Imagine America programs. The Foundation also publishes vital research publications for the higher education sector, honors achievement in private sector education and offers faculty development training.

At Friday’s Award Luncheon, IAF presented our military students with outstanding achievement awards for scholarship and leadership. The ceremony was a remarkable recognition of the sacrifice these women and men have made for our country and to their families. The Foundation’s support of our military is only made possible from the continued support of our corporate partners.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently there have been a number of great blog posts on the transparency between lead buyers and sellers (For example: this Transparency and Love post at LeadCritic).  I want to add a few thoughts to this issue by discussing the relationship between transparency and transportability in the education space.

One of the things that has always struck me about education versus other verticals is the lack of transportability of leads.  Transportability is a measure of how many buyers can make use of the product being sold.  A market that deals with highly transportable products (like Google keyword clicks) tends to be very efficient because of the number of buyers participating.  A market that deals with non-transportable products (a silent propeller for a submarine – I had to get the Navy reference in) is typically not efficient.

So how does transportability vary across different performance marketing verticals?  To get a sense you can look at three transportability factors: brand, product and geographic transportability.

Read the rest of this entry »

Regardless of the industry, brands are often tempted to repurpose their television advertisements or promotional talking-head videos as online video. To a certain extent, this type of thinking is understandable. After all, who wouldn’t want to maximize the return on an investment in video content by putting it everywhere they can?

Don’t do this. Or, at least, if you do happen to do this, don’t expect them to get a lot of views or engagement.  Almost every piece of consumer technology invented in the last fifteen years has been devoted to helping consumers get what they want, when they want it and usually without advertising messages.  Do you really expect those empowered consumers to start searching for the same advertisements that most aren’t paying attention to on television right now?

Don’t be ashamed to admit you agree. I’ve worked in advertising for years and I’ll confess I can’t stand watching advertisements. With the exception of one 30-second spot that never fails to make me laugh, I can’t think of any television advertisement that I’d waste my free time watching online. How many do you want to watch? Admitting that different mediums require different types of messaging isn’t a sign of a weakness. It’s the first step in social media recovery.

So, without further ado, I present the following videos. Drawn from the realms of both business and healthcare (and one that’s just plain cool), they should make you envious. They don’t all have view counts over a million. All but one of them didn’t have a creative agency involved in their production. But these are your competitors when posting a video online and, hopefully, provide a bit of inspiration to do something different.

Lab Romance

View Count: 68,048

Read the rest of this entry »

In just a few short weeks we’ll be gathering at the annual CCA Convention. This year, CUnet will be at booth 811 and encourages everyone to stop by and shoot a hole or two of golf with us! You can even enter onsite to win one of eight Callaway Diablo Edge Drivers that we will be giving away at the end of the show.

If you’d like to learn more about CUnet, our activities at the CCA or schedule a meeting with us during the conference, go to www.cunet.com/cca. If you sign up for a meeting with us through the site, we’ll have a special gift waiting for at the conference.

Fore!

Welcome to the CUnet Blog.  This inaugural post marks our first official public contribution to the social media landscape and, over the coming months, we hope you’ll enjoy viewing our perspectives and potentially contributing your own voice to our discussions.

Even though the concept of the corporate blog may not be new, our launch comes at a very unique time in the history of CUnet. Over the past nine months, CUnet has significantly expanded its pool of talent and added a variety of new offerings and services that help our clients’ succeed. CUnet now offers best-in-class services in the areas of mobile marketing, social media, display advertising, pay-per-call telephony, search engine optimization and school operations consulting.

With the introduction of these new services, the size of our company has also grown, requiring the creation of more than 30 new positions that never before existing at CUnet — and we’re still continuing to hire new employees (For those job seekers looking to join us on this adventure, please click here to view our current job openings).

In addition to the growth we have experienced at CUnet, the industry we work in as a whole is about to potentially face significant changes that may affect both educational institutions as well as the marketers that work with them. We seek to provide insightful, helpful information for those who are seeking a fresh, honest perspective about the education landscape.  Whether from our consulting teams, providing tips for marketing more efficiently, or viewpoints from Capitol Hill, we look forward to participating in engaging conversation with our readers.

With all the new talent we have in place, we have decided to make this blog a collaborative effort from all the staff at CUnet, offering fresh perspectives and a variety of opinions.  We hope you will enjoy reading our posts as much as we look forward to creating them.

Matt McLaughlin
President