June 2010

I’m thrilled to be moderating an upcoming Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) panel on “Integrated Communications.” My panelists are powerhouses of marketing, and as such, this is going to be a great discussion. Please see the deets here and REGISTER! I think you’ll learn a lot and enjoy the event.

I am by far no conspiracy theorist, but the silence from the education community to last week’s indictment of their field I am going to take as a plea of “guilty.” Until I hear otherwise.

Please go back and read the follow-on comments to the post, and you’ll notice that no one seems to be coming to education’s defense in this argument. If this is the case, then I argue that we need to do something about it. We can’t continue to allow students to enter the marketing and advertising workforce unprepared to think strategically about how the web and the entire digital environment has changed the game. I think we can all agree to that.

But I don’t want to use this blog as a bully pulpit. Rather, let’s imagine some practical solutions. Here’s a start…

Option One: Opening Our Doors

All of us in the digital consulting and agency world should open our doors to allow university and college professors the opportunity to “audit” our real-world classrooms. They should be allowed to ask questions, come to client meetings, and participate in strategy discussions. If they would like training on how to use certain tools (like Google Analytics or Radian6), then we should allow them to look over our shoulders.

Because we are taking the time to provide ongoing training that may become an unexpected drain on limited resources, I would like to posit that we who participate should receive a tax credit. There needs to be an incentive in addition to pure altruism. Finding a treasure of altruism coming out of this recession may be harder to find than you’d expect.

Option Two: Encourage Adjunct Teaching

This is no new idea. I have taught many classes over the years as a guest lecturer and have taught a full semester at the College of Continuing Education at the U of M. It  makes  sense that those in the current market are going to have a more practical viewpoint on what students need to know to compete for employment in this tough job market. I don’t know what the attitude within the academy is towards adjunct and guest lecturing, but I hope it’s encouraged. If there isn’t a good database of volunteer adjunct faculty, then there should be. Anyone interested in building it? Know of one already? Link to it in the comments section.

Option Three: Audit Current Curricula

A panel of advertising and marketing executives (CEOs, owners, agency heads) should be assembled to take a very close look at what’s currently being taught and help fill the gaps between current curricula and reality. This panel should be consultative, not critical. It should recommend resources, from web sites to bloggers to Twitter follows, podcasts, video blogs, and RSS feeds. You’ll note I didn’t mention books. This is not to say that very current books shouldn’t be included, rather that books are overrepresented as the preferred medium in teaching digital, when taught at all. If there is a “smoking gun” between the economics of book sales for an institution and curricula, then let’s be big boys and girls and snuff it out.

Frankly, I think all three options, working in concert, may be a good beginning solution to the problems in marketing education. But there must be many better ideas out there, existing programs that we’re unaware of, or points-of-view that would suggest I’m all wet. I welcome all of those ideas, beginning with the comment section below. Perhaps there should be a forum on the topic. Minnesota Business? You interested in hosting an event? A conversation?

Thanks again for reading this blog. If you know people in education who can add their perspective, please forward them links to these pages. I’m not trying to go to battle; I’m trying to see if we can pull together and solve a problem.