Educational administrators work hard trying to determine what skills employers are looking for in college graduates. We love to see our students happily and gainfully employed.

According to a recent survey conducted on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), you – the “hirers” of the world, are relatively happy with the way we are preparing graduates for entry-level jobs, but you also see room for improvement.

• You appreciate the value the broad knowledge base a liberal arts degree affords but,
• Even more important than an undergraduate major, you’re looking for graduates who demonstrate strong critical thinking, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Collaborative problem solving skills are essential.
• In addition to resumes, you like to review electronic portfolios.
• Applicants must demonstrate strong ethical judgment
• Reflecting today’s global economy, you are interested in students with intercultural skills. Quoting the report, “While employers may not be clamoring for colleges to increase their emphasis on civic learning or on teaching about global issues, they widely agree that all students should receive civic education and learn about cultures outside the United States.”

So as educational administrators, how can we ensure that we are providing college graduates with the most current and useful resources?

In my case, I extend my own outreach beyond academia. I realize that the more I can continue my own professional education and stay current in the “best practices” across the business community, the better equipped I am to provide cutting-edge tools and information to my students. My primary resource is the Communications Media Management Association. CMMA is the premier professional organization for people who manage the creation, distribution and utilization of communications media for corporations, non-profits, government agencies and educational institutions.

Through my active participation and service on the Board of Directors of CMMA, I am able to build professional networks and gain insight and best practices from management leaders in such diverse companies as Mayo Clinic, Best Buy, Monsanto, American Family Insurance, and many more. As a result, George Mason University students benefit from my own continuing education and networking. It’s important to ensure academic relevance is in line with practical, field experiences and communities.

The global business community requires a vast array of experiences, resources, and professional networks. The earlier educators can bring this information to their college students, the better the graduates’ future employment opportunities. After all, education takes place in and out of the classroom.

This article contributed by Susan Kehoe, CMMA Board of Directors

My team supports a lot of live events, and we’ve always encouraged our clients to make their meetings as interactive as possible. Giving participants a way to provide real-time feedback not only keeps them engaged, it also helps them retain the content.

Whether it’s YORN, “the real-time opinion getter,” or Event Pad for “one-to-one event interaction,” our clients are interested in finding innovative ways to use these new tools. In addition to experimenting with the use of them in large meetings, they’re being used in bid meetings for new business with clients, and in executive board meetings for real-time opinion gathering.

YORN and Event Pad are great examples of online companies that take full advantage of the fact that all of our audience members have a mobile device, sometimes two, with them when they attend a meeting. Their solutions are cloud-based, and generally very easy to use.

These mobile device driven polling and opinion gathering resources are definitely challenging our ability to sell our traditional audience response system to our clients. Some clients are also opting out of using mic runners for Q/A sessions, relying on the text gathering capabilities of the system instead. However, we still have skills and insights we can offer our clients that allow us to add value to the interactive experience.

Here are some things we’ve offered as production professionals that can enhance the use of YORN or Event Pad in our meetings, and generate some additional production services as well:

Speaker and Emcee Coaching

Our clients don’t always consider the impact real-time opinions from participants can have on the role of the meeting emcees and speakers. Our production team can prep and train the client and emcees for the meeting on how best to handle the flow of the participant feedback.

Hiring Professional Talent

We sometimes recommend and hire professional talent to take on the role of the YORN emcee. This allows the internal hosts of the event to stay in a neutral role, while the hired talent fields the questions and reacts on the spot.

Technical Producer for Opinions and Polls

Our busy clients still appreciate having someone they can lean on for coordination, and so we’ve offered to have one of our producers take on the role of integrating YORN into each presenter’s message and working with the tool to program all of the polls.

Opportunities for Creative, Graphical and Scenic Integration

We can shine creatively by using these new channels to reinforce the themes in our events, both before and during the event. We offer to present the data from the polling tools in a more appealing way since many of the display functions in these tools lack visual sophistication. We can also sell additional projection or scenic options to enhance the user experience while featuring these tools creatively on screen.

By viewing new technology as an opportunity rather than a threat, we’re continuing to be trusted consultants to our clients!

Yorn and Event Pad are just two available options that we’ve tried — if you’ve used another tool you like, please share your experiences.

This article was contributed by Thomas M. Densmore, CMMA Board of Directors

But in the eyes of the Department of Labor, one of them probably isn’t really an independent contractor (what, you were expecting a joke?). Sure, all three freelancers are free to work wherever they choose and they have the flexibility to pick and choose this project or that. But, unless they can check all the right boxes during a DOL audit, things might not be as rosy as they seem.

The point of this post is not to spread doom and gloom over the growing group of freelancers in the workforce and the companies that enlist their valuable services. But I’ve done some reading lately, and it appears that the increasing number of misclassified independent contractors is on the DOL’s radar. Try these numbers from Colorado on for size*:

• From 2006 – 2010, the percentage of Colorado workers who were misclassified grew from 7.8% to over 14%.
• From June 2009 to December 2010, over 14% of all Colorado workers were misclassified.
• During the same time period, the Colorado DOL conducted over 2100 random and targeted audits and found that about 43% of employers were misclassifying workers.

Again, the majority of companies and freelancers out there today would breeze through an audit with flying colors. But if you got a funny feeling while reading this (and you can safely say it wasn’t from the author’s writing style – or lack thereof), it might be in your best interest to check out https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-(Self-Employed)-or-Employee%3F. If that doesn’t make things crystal clear, there are quite a few firms in the marketplace that can help based on your industry and a variety of other factors.

Now, how many freelancers does it take to change a light bulb?

* From the Colorado DOL’s Annual Compliance Report, published May 18, 2011, on House Bill 09-1310, Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors

Article contributed by Brad Kemp, CMMA Partner, CrewConnection | PayReel

Great projects and disasters all start in the same place. And just one step can make the difference between the two results. Get this step right and we’re well on the way to success. Get it wrong and we could be on the way to wasted resources, an ineffectual product and a dissatisfied client. This critical step is to clearly define what the project needs to accomplish. Before starting any work we must learn and understand the goal of the work we’re considering.

This isn’t any secret – it’s something we’ve all learned from hard experience. Starting without clear objectives almost always leads to work that’s not going on the show reel. Think back to your own difficult projects. The chances are good they involved clients who didn’t know what they wanted.

Conversely, we worked with a client who was quite clear about the goal of his business meeting. He was also very transparent that the work had to be different and, that his career might be affected by the outcome. We responded with a complete package including a style guide, invitations, staging, videos, speaker support and room décor right down to unique seating and custom desk blotters. The result was a distinctive, highly successful meeting that was talked about (and emulated) for months. It was successful because every element was aimed at meeting that one, clear objective.

Our departments have and will continue to be asked to do more, and typically with fewer resources. We have to make sure that the work we do is as effective as possible. This is particularly true in demonstrating our value as strategic partners. Understanding the goal of the work being considered is a critical step. Defining the goal isn’t always easy and it can be work for the client but, it is imperative. Clear goals fuel the creative brief. They can act as a touchstone against which all creative ideas can be tested. Clear goals are essential when we’re measuring success and, well defined goals can help ensure efficient, economical production that doesn’t waste anything on endless revisions.

In defining goals, get the right people involved from the start. Be certain to gather input from anyone who will be approving the final plans. Then ask the clients to define the goals for the project. Ask this question in different ways and then look for nuances, missing information, inconsistencies and any contradictions. Keep asking questions until you are certain that you understand clearly what the project needs to do. In the process you’ll learn what the client wants or thinks is important. Use this to shape how the work will be done.

Starting well is the best way to ensure that a project will end well. Start by taking the time to thoroughly clarify your clients’ objectives.

This article was contributed by Jeff Boarini, CMMA Board of Directors

“An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.” — Winston Churchill. To me, an optimist… innovation is all about seeing opportunities as you go through your daily routine – the things you read, the people you meet and hopefully few calamities!

Innovation is anything but new. Many years ago I read an article that basically stated that many organizations focus on addressing problems, the most successful focus on raising the bar. The opportunities we’ve embraced over the years have kept us a value to our organization. We have always seemed to have “that person” who was always curious and had the drive to push new processes or technologies. As we move forward with fewer people, even “that person” is overwhelmed by his workload with little time to think about anything else.

How do we change that? How do we ensure that innovation continues to happen? One of the ways we can do this is by creating a culture where innovation thrives. Building an environment through the effective use of people provides the competitive edge needed to build value within the organization. I am eager to attend the CMMA Fall Conference in Nashville to find out more about creating a culture of innovation – what I’m doing right and where I could improve. Here are some of the things we’ve determined in my department over the years:

If passion exists, nurture it. Look for small ways to give employees, at every level, the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents. As busy as we’ve become with recent downsizing, it is important to set time aside to try new things. I encourage reading trade magazines, networking with local company peers and visiting local companies as ways to inspire innovation. Finding out what other people are doing to solve their problems can often trigger a completely different solution to one of your problems or a new opportunity.

Have a goal to work toward. Ideas can come from anywhere to accomplish a variety of things but we’ve found that some direction helps. At our annual planning meeting we talk about things we can do in the next twelve months to provide greater value to our organization. This can be in terms of services we provide, programs we start or abandon, or technologies we introduce. We have some goals that we continue to work on such as our digital infrastructure. And, we have new ones that are added such as mobile delivery. So mobile delivery becomes a trigger when we meet with peers or vendors and something is said that ignites ideas to move us forward.

The leader’s role. Fortunately it’s no different than a leader would normally do. Inspire the team to keep moving toward the desired goal; keep everyone focused on the priorities; provide assistance and opportunities for funding as warranted, set the example of ways innovation can be achieved, and reward those individuals who have gone the extra mile.

I would be interested in your comments or stories around building a culture of innovation. How have you achieved it in your organization?

This article was contributed by Steve Tingley, CMMA Board of Directors