Fellow Communicators,

We had an excellent turnout for yesterday’s meeting at which Chris Heltne shared the results of his survey of our group. Thanks again to Chris for his leadership in undertaking the survey and using the results to spark a very productive conversation among us.

During the past year, the resources available to Duke’s communicators have expanded significantly with the launch of the ProComm professional classes, which have been very well received, and the Duke Style Guide, which offers a rich array of tool kits, branding guidelines, policy guidance and more. These new resources complement the ongoing Duke Communicators programs, which provide opportunities for professional growth and networking throughout the year.

As we heard at yesterday’s meeting, however, many of you would welcome even more assistance with issues such as strategic planning, resource allocation, time management or technical skills.

In anticipation of the meeting, several of us identified ways we might provide better resources and coordination in the future. Here are some changes we are now planning to make:

  • We’ll upgrade my periodic e-mail messages into a real newsletter, one that supplements the meeting announcements with more “news you can use” and updates on what people are doing. We’ll also create a new online space that offers the same information and other helpful resources.
  • The newsletter will include information about communications jobs at Duke, gathered by Paul Grantham and his colleagues, and provide updates about group members, ProComm classes and events of interest (such as our Fourth Friday gatherings or meetings of our various affinity groups).
  • We’ll work with Denise Haviland and Blyth Morrell to move even more resources to the Style Guide, enhancing its utility for communicators seeking help with everything from video production to social media strategy.
  • We’ll do more to coordinate and highlight the affinity groups that have emerged in recent years around topics such as social media, video and photography.
  • We’ll strengthen the Duke Communicators group on LinkedIn as the main location for real-time conversation among our members. Going forward, we ask that you use this forum instead of sending messages to the e-mail list, which has become a bit cluttered with content of varying interest. The LinkedIn group is also a great place to learn about your Duke colleagues.
  • Finally, we’ll consolidate and keep updated a single directory for Duke’s communications community.

As noted at the meeting, those of us in leadership roles consider it among our most important responsibilities to assist all of you – not only with your occasional crises or unexpected questions, but also with your careers. Mike had to leave the meeting a few minutes early but would have been the first to say we urge you to stay in touch and let us know how we can help.

We are all fortunate to have such an amazing group of colleagues. You are the reason Duke is so widely admired across the higher education community for the quality and effectiveness of its communications. With these changes, we’ll help everyone to become even better. Stay tuned.

–David