Carroll Community College Powers Up PR, Marketing and AI Outreach

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Peter Woolfolk: Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world.

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Now this podcast is ranked by Apple as being among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide, so we want to thank all of you, our guests and listeners, for making that happen.

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Now question how important is communications and media exposure for colleges and universities?

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There are a few colleges and universities that have or do not appreciate the full value and benefits of a robust and strategic communications plan for their institutions.

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My guest today recognized that problem and began a major communications overhaul to acquire the benefits afforded by this turnaround.

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And let me say personally I've had that experience as a vice president coming to Fisk University here in Nashville, Tennessee.

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I ran across an experience where the college just didn't do any outreach to deal with the media Somehow.

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They said that the senior officials just didn't appreciate it or thought that the media was not treating them fairly, which I found not to be the case at all.

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And getting a rigorous outreach program is very, very important for any and all colleges and universities.

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So joining me today from Westminster, Maryland, to discuss this issue are Carroll Community College President, Dr James Ball, and Lisa Slappy, Chief Communications Officer.

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Welcome to the podcast.

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Thank you for having me Very nice to be here.

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Okay, so let's start with you, Dr.

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Ball, being at the College of West Minnesota.

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What circumstances did you recognize or face, or when did you come to realize that you needed better community relations and community outreach?

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What was it?

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And then we can talk about how you went about correcting it.

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Dr.

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Ball--Well, thanks for that question, Peter.

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It's been an evolving process over many years.

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In the years where local paper was very robust in Carroll County, maryland, it sold a lot of newspapers and it was a little bit before electronic distribution became the thing, we relied on a lot of press locally between our local paper and Baltimore Sun and other sorts of paid advertising that we wanted to do and so on.

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And you know, image and reputation, we know, is everything, and so we sort of evolved in our process for approaching it over the years.

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It used to be that you know what we would do would be to create a relationship with a reporter and it would be something that we would float by that person.

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And you know, here are our topics, here's what's going on, these are the stories that you might be looking at.

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We'd be creating press releases on a regular basis and those press releases might gin a lot of follow-up, interest from the paper.

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So we relied a lot on the paper to help us approach getting that news out, help us approach getting that news out.

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But you know this is happening everywhere.

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Local approach to news is, while it's still very viable, in many ways it's much more difficult to keep going and people have moved in large measure towards using social media and other kinds of approaches that are a little more eccentric to their needs and their interests.

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So, you know, we are in that continuum where we had initially relied on the paper to you know we would bond thoughts and conversation with them, but we also relied on them to bring things forward and what we realized is that over time we needed a strategic plan to develop the key messages that we needed to send out to our constituents across our county, and we serve people in several of the neighboring states and counties as well who like to come to Carroll, though we tend to as community college service, primarily our service areas.

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But our strategic committee was involving many of the folks on campus who were doing the outreach, and so we pulled our admissions folks together, our marketing folks together, our, you know, the folks that are planning events and our programs around student affairs and all that.

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We got those folks together and said you know, what should we be doing to increase the continuity of our messages and making sure that we are creating a consistent message, a consistent use of the college's image and our sort of reinforcing that image and talking about our central mission all the time and that worked pretty well for us for a while.

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You know, we got the interface between all those different areas that we're trying to formulate.

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Collateral to go out to the public became a much more centralized approach and you know that was a very helpful thing to us for a while and it consolidated a lot of what we were doing and it saved us a lot of time, though we realized over time too that that was not an effective way to go, that we had to be broader and we had to have everybody marketing and telling a story across the campus.

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And our marketing team was separate from our communications team and that communications and marketing didn't always understand together what the central communication strategy was still.

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So the weakness there, when you're sort of working in silos, is that unless marketing knows exactly what's going on at the college and what all the events are, unless they're out there with us talking with students, talking with the visitors that come to campus and seeing how the impact of our campaigns are coming across to the public, we'll do a good job, but we won't do a great job.

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So what we're in the process of doing now is combining our communications area and our marketing area into one sort of central unit, and the idea there would be to create common themes, common messages, and then look to all the possible ways that we can pull those events and messages together so that there is a consistent stream, a planned stream and a message that then can be reinforced by individuals as they talk to their audiences on LinkedIn, facebook, instagram and so on.

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So that integrated approach across campuses is where we're really trying to go, and I'll admit to you, peter, that the social media side of that is something that I'm not particularly good at.

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I understand that it should be done, I understand that it's essential for today and the way that Gen Zers look at things, for example, we've got to be there, and I'm a little slow to learn that, I'm a little slow to get to it and to pull it out, but we have a lot of people on our campus that do that regularly and do a great job, and what we're saying is we've got the opportunity to, you know, reinforce those consistent messages and get them out to a much broader audience than we've ever been able to do before, and you know.

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So, in a nutshell, that's where we're going right now.

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Peter Woolfolk: Let me jump in here right quick, and then, Lisa, you can come in, because when I heard the word silo I said oh my goodness, my antenna went up.

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I'd been in the Clinton administration and when I was there I actually worked in the US Department of Education and sure enough, there were silos there.

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So as assistant secretary, we had to wind up getting those down because we found out, first of all there were duplications of effort and you know, one side, one group, didn't know what the other was doing, so all of those kinds of things.

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So we had to fix that, so that you know everybody, and a lot of times it was, as I said, duplication of effort.

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At Fisk University, when I was there, I actually went down to meet personally, meet with the news directors of every television station and the city editors and reporters of every newspaper there, and most of them told me that that was the first time anybody from Fisk University had showed up.

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So you know, and having worked in Congress, one of the things I found out was that if you want reporters to cover your story, give them everything they need Data, background, access to the congressman, all those other kinds of things and it really helps boost your opportunity to reach out and get your exposure.

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Now, lisa, I'm going to back up and let you take over from here.

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Thank, you.

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I'm going to back up and let you take over from here, thank you.

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What Dr Ball said was right on target, because since I've been here, we have been talking about how can we best disseminate information, also receive information, make it seamless and I always say our faculty and staff are our best ambassadors, along with the students.

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So, getting out of the silos, we're working on that.

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Ensuring information, something like a signing, an articulation agreement, signing with one university or another college that has so many legs that we can use that for so many different things.

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But when you have like silos, like okay, well, I'm going to just do this piece and that's it, and then no one is thinking big picture, raising up to the strategic level of where we are so that we can use any event, all the things that we're doing.

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We're doing a lot of great things here at Carroll, but it's so much sometimes it's like, okay, we can't put all of this out.

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But going back to going to the TV stations and things of that nature, I remember when I first got here and I was talking to my administrative assistant and I told her I said, all right, one of the first things we need to do is I need to go to the local TV stations and the newspapers so I can meet people, talk to them and that type of thing.

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And she was like, okay, we're going to work on that.

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And as soon as I got here, you know, I actually started working.

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I almost didn't have time.

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But guess what?

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They're still on my list.

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And it makes it even better now because, with the integration of communications, pr and marketing, the whole team can go now.

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The whole team can listen to what they're looking for the whole team and I think that will help us with the new approach and the integration and for everyone to see these messages, these things that we're saying and doing.

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They must line up and they have to understand.

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The whole team needs to understand this is where we are, this is where we're going and on this side we've got to make sure we communicate it.

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And one of the things you know I've always said and learned since I've been doing this is, when it comes to communications, marketing and PR, we can't communicate our way out of something that our actions got us into.

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Only our actions can get us out of it.

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But we can communicate our actions and I want to ensure that we're definitely on the right path for our actions and our communications, lining up and making sure that we present a united front when we push out messages and we talk about all the great things we're doing and building those relationships.

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And to me, one of the other important pieces is the relationships on the community relations piece, the partnerships, the stakeholders, the organizations.

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Carroll County is one of those where every organization is trying to look out for the other one.

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They're very helpful.

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We're trying to make sure, okay, what can we do?

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How can we help?

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And I just love that.

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And the school is a big piece of that, the fact that it has community in the name of Carroll Community College.

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It is truly community.

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They mean that it's not just part of that and our strategic initiatives.

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We actually live up to that.

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We do all we can to ensure that we're part of the community and when people think about education like hey, maybe Carroll Community College has that and I like that they think of us first when it comes to that.

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You know, let me just jump in the game, because something you said certainly rang a bell with me about having a signing ceremony and of course, as I said, I was in politics.

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So the first thing that came to my mind when I heard that Fisk University was going to sign some sort of a research pact with one of the Air Force bases, I wanted to make an event out of it, rather than issuing a press release.

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I actually had a signing ceremony on campus.

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I asked the folks in the physics department could you get the I forget the Air Force Base out in Ohio that did that, can you get them to come down for this signing ceremony?

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I had the ROTC out there, band players, members of the media, city council people, all those kind of things.

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So I made an event out of it.

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So those kind of things.

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I mean some folks might just see it as just an exercise.

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I just wanted to think a bit bigger and, you know, use some of our political background to let people see because now it's a visual and it captured really everybody's attention that this was which might not have been a big deal just to say we've signed this agreement with this research, the air force research level, whatever.

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But now everybody paid attention because it was covered by the newspaper and uh and and tv.

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So one of the things I always did look for is how can I get it make a bigger splash with this thing, uh, rather than just issuing a press release?

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So those that kind of thinking also helps you to find other ways to get exposure.

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Dr Ball, you can jump in on that piece right there, because we actually did that.

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We sure did, and we just had a signing yesterday actually with University of Maryland Baltimore campus with University of Maryland Baltimore campus, umbc, who has a new president, dr Valerie Shears-Ashby, after a very successful president in Freeman Hrabowski, and so it was a great day to be able to meet her.

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We had a signing of our Transfer Articulation Plus agreement, which is basically a dual enrollment and a guaranteed transfer pathway for our students, and we did have a student who was there at the signing, who had learned about that as she came in the door thinking that she'd be a nursing student and then, along the way, paid some attendance at some career seminars we had on campus and she learned from a seminar around social work that that was really what she wanted to do, and UMBC's program is excellent in social work.

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It's renowned nationally.

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So you know was it was an easy decision for her to make a switch and move over, so we were able to highlight her as a student story.

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We were able to welcome, as part of Maryland, a new president to Maryland who was just an exceptionally vibrant person and a you know a research chemist even in her background just a tremendous background.

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And in fact, just before our call, I was trying to post some of the pictures from that event on LinkedIn and then I was going to hashtag her and others and start to get that information out.

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And I have a fair number of followers on LinkedIn.

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As I say, I'm not one of the power users, that's for sure, but when I post, people tend to pay attention and like it.

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So it's a way that we can really celebrate what we're doing, celebrate this new connection and this new relationship that we have with a new president and her staff, and really inform Carroll County about it.

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There's no doubt in my mind that's going to get picked up by the press and it will be reinforced in the local paper.

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But it's nice that we kind of control that effort to begin with from the start by the approach that we're using.

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You know it's certainly delightful to hear about you.

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You know the growth, or I should say the expansion of your communications outreach.

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Now, just out of curiosity, because I know I've done it here with the podcast, have you begun to incorporate any sort of artificial intelligence into your communications outreach?

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Everybody's using it.

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Some are you know social media team uses it.

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Lisa, do you want to comment Because you do a lot of writing?

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Yes, we have incorporated some of the AI because I think it's with most institutions, Everyone's kind of playing with it, learning it finding out what it can and can't do.

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And sometimes you can, you know, ask it a question and it'll give you an answer, and they may jar like, oh okay, yeah, that'll help me formulate a better answer.

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So, yes, I think we're all using it, we're all learning, we're all trying to understand it, and it does make some areas of communication a little bit easier, because it can start something for us to get us thinking, and then from there we say oh, yeah, and then add our pieces and do that.

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And I think AI is being used in every aspect of life, from science to education and everything in between.

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Well, you know, one of the things that I did I stumbled onto it, but I'm actually to promote the podcast and I'll do it with this episode is that I use some of those avatars now where you know you can write what the people speak on screen, and what I do is that I take the highlight from this.

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Not exactly, but what I will do is listen to what we've said and then come up with a highlight that will last for about a minute and I'll have an avatar speak that and then I will put it out one or two days before your episode airs so that people can actually see it and draw attention to it.

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Because the way I get valued, if you will, in terms of the popularity of the show, is how many downloads do I get?

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For the most part in a year, and each year my downloads have increased.

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But having advertised to say well, fine, you know, coming on on April 22nd, you know we've got Westminster Community College talking about A, b, c and D and tune in wherever you get your podcasts, that sort of thing.

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And it really, I guess, adds an interest because, as you said earlier, james, that avatar not avatars, but Gen Zers what do we need to do to get their attention.

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That is one of the things I do to get their attention is use those avatars to help spark some interest in their listening to the podcast.

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Yep, brilliant.

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It's a wonderful tool.

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So let me ask you so fast.

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No, I was about to ask you is there anything that we have missed in terms of what you guys have been doing in terms of the expansion of your communications outreach?

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I think process is really important and being able to assure that across the organization people understand the aim and the importance of it.

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We've talked about it.

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I don't know that we've done a great job of helping people to understand and sort of adopt the change.

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And change can be tough around these kinds of issues.

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For example, I was actually having a conversation with Lisa about this just this week.

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Change I don't think people are actually all that resistant to change.

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I think what happens is that they are used to doing things a certain way.

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They've got a big investment in what it's taking them to get to their success level methodologically and that sort of thing.

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So that big investment they want to preserve.

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And then when we come in and we say, hey, we're doing a good job the way we're doing it, but we can do an even better job by being much more comprehensively connected to one another, really removing silos, really trying to be holistic about defining our messages, defining our goals for those messages, defining the many audiences that they need and then defining the ways in which we can get those out, and that the communication process internally and externally, and that the communication process internally and externally is consistent with the messaging that's going out across the service area.

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You know it's a very difficult thing to do.

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It requires and you know, peter, you knew this in your career along the way for sure you know when you are very busy and you can't get done what you're doing, and then we say to people you got to do it differently.

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The first thing you say is what have you been smoking?

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You've got to be kidding me.

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I have no time to do what I'm doing now.

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So how do you help people realize that, yes, you have an investment in, but here's where we can go to make it even better.

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And we need your talent, we need your ideas, we need your vision and we need your commitment and we need to form that together.

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And we need your commitment and we need to form that together.

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So, without that communication process around the communication process, we're just never going to get anywhere.

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And I think people once they see or even accept that this could be better and they get a little commitment into doing it, then it's about celebrating and really getting the people on the back that have been involved in it and so on.

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And that's where we are at this point.

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We're really trying to get over some of the change humps.

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We're really trying to come together to create that shared vision in a way that people have buy-in.

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I've said for a long time in my career that people in education don't typically get rich and famous unless they're great podcasters like you.

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But you know they do this work because they are committed to the goals you know.

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So you've got to have shared buy-in in creating those goals and you've got to have not just the shared buy-in comes from everyone working together to create a vision that they can agree to and see themselves in as it moves forward.

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You know, you said some very important things that really got my attention and I really agree with, and that is you know, first of all, you've got different audiences.

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Everybody doesn't receive the same message the same way, so you've got to listen to that audience.

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They need to make sure they are heard, that their voices are in that and that they can have perhaps some input, depending upon what the decision is have some input, because as long as they know that you have not overlooked us and that we are part of it, then the going gets a lot easier.

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Part of the jobs that I have down here in Nashville is working with the government agencies, and when they want to launch something new, they want to have a community outreach meeting.

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So we go in there, not we, but we set it up for them so that, let's say, the juvenile court can go in and listen to the community what they think about it, what are their concerns.

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The other thing is that people might have a lot of misconceptions if they don't fully understand what it is.

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That's where the resistance comes from.

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So once you and the other part of what I like to do is I want to find out who is the loudest critic and then I want to go have a meeting with that particular person or persons to find out what their concerns are and how accurate they are.

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So once you, you know, understand that process as you've identified talk to the people who make the loudest resistance, find out what the issue is, and sometimes maybe they misunderstand what it is, but once you talk to them and they have a chance to get it out and that there's a way.

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Well, you know there's a way.

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I think we can work together on this thing.

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The hope and the resistance that was there begins to disappear, because now they've listened to me and I can be a part of it, have part of the input.

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Absolutely, and you know I think that's extremely important, peter.

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You know the people that are the.

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You know I found for a long time in my career that because they do a similar kind of thing, the most resistant people can be the most influential for or against, can be the most influential for or against, and if you can manage to work with them to win them over, they'll do that change job for you Absolutely.

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And it's a very important point you make there.

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Well, let me say thank you very, very much for joining me today on the Public Relations Review Podcast.

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My guests today have been Dr James Ball and Lisa Slappy, carroll Community College, joining us today and talking about the successes that they've had in implementing their new communications plan.

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So we want to make sure that you have a chance to listen and, if you've enjoyed the show, give us a review.

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And if you want some more information about what happens at Carroll Community College, give Lisa Slappy a call and she'll be glad to help you on that one.

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And also, again, thank you for listening and look forward to the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast.

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This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Thank you for joining us.