Duke Communicators Network

NEXT WEEK’S EVENT: RECRUITMENT COMMUNICATIONS

Are you among the many Duke communicators who are called on to create brochures, websites and marketing materials to recruit students? If so, then you won’t want to miss our Duke Communicators meeting next week, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, in room 4047 at the Law School. Three of our members will discuss how they are handling recruitment communications, and you’ll have a chance to share your own questions and ideas as well.

Andrew Park, executive director of communications and events at the law school, will present his team’s recent strategies for attracting applicants and enrollees, both online and off. Michael Evans, director of marketing and communications at Duke’s nursing school, will describe how the school developed and implemented a new student recruitment program. Kathy Phillips, associate director of undergraduate admissions, will share some innovative new admissions publications and describe how these fit into a broader recruitment strategy.

Even if you don’t work directly on recruitment communications, you may find the presentations and conversation informative for your own projects. If you can join us, please RSVP to sakiya.lockett@duke.edu.

NOVEMBER EVENT: DESIGN

In November, we will turn our attention to design. ONC’s Jonathan Lee will lead a program that considers the many ways in which design is changing and how these trends may affect your own websites, newsletters, social media posts and other materials. (Jonathan is still putting the program together, so please contact him if you have requests or suggestions.)

For now, hold the date: 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21, in Perkins Library 217.

MORE UPCOMING EVENTS

• Fourth Friday at Fullsteam. (Beer, the weekend, fellow communicators – what more do you want?)  – 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24
• #PictureDuke Photo Club Meeting – noon Wednesday, Oct. 29, Perkins Library 217
• Op-ed workshop, 9-11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 24, Perkins Library 217

See all upcoming events

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OUR GANG

The Office of News and Communications welcomes Julie Schoonmaker as its new video manager. Julie comes to us from News14 Carolina and worked previously as a television reporter in Wilmington and New Mexico. She will be producing stories and video material for Duke Today and other purposes, and is already compiling a list of possibilities. (If you have news leads with a visual component, please let her know!)

After many years of service at Duke, Scott Wells is retiring, effective today (Oct. 10). He has done terrific work for many members of our communications community, such as by helping to book television and radio interviews with countless Duke experts. Two of Scott’s colleagues, Greg Hobbs and Tom Wilson, will handle these roles going forward. (As a reminder, the studio is not a 24/7 operation. Barring scheduling conflicts, weekday interviews can usually be arranged from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Most other interviews have to be conducted elsewhere.) Scott, thank you for everything you’ve done on behalf of Duke’s communicators and wider community.

Do you have news about new or departing colleagues, or about our gang more generally? Please post it on the Duke Communicators group on LinkedIn and we’ll share some of the items in this newsletter. The LinkedIn site is also a great place to discuss professional ideas with your colleagues across the university. Recent topics have included blogging, microsites and promotional items for outreach events.

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DISCUSSIONS AND BLOG POSTS

• DDMC, which focuses on digital media at Duke, is geeking out about newly released sports cameras! [DDMC blog]
• Did you miss our September meeting on the state of the web – or perhaps you were unable to write notes fast enough to keep up with all of the great material that was presented there? The slides are available online. [LinkedIn Group]
• Marsha Green asked about tools for making a timeline on websites and got some great answers from colleagues. [LinkedIn Group]

More affinity groups and blog posts
More discussions

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JOBS

(Job information compiled from HR data by Paul Grantham’s office.)

• Marketing research specialist for Duke Community & Family Medicine
• Senior marketing specialist for Communications & Donor Relations
• Web content strategist for Pratt School of Engineering
• Senior public relations specialist for Medical Center Development
• Marketing and communications writer (public relations specialist) for School of Nursing
• Communications manager (senior public relations specialist) for Fuqua School of Business
• Staff assistant (with significant communications duties) for Office of Postdoctoral Services
• Senior news writer/producer for Office of News and Communications
• Senior marketing and communications specialist (senior public relations specialist) at Duke Global Health Institute
• Director of communications at School of Medicine, Neurosurgery
• Public relations specialist (temporary) for Nicholas Institute

More jobs

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AND FINALLY

If you haven’t yet seen the #WhatsYourForever site created by our colleagues at the Duke Alumni Association, it’s worth a visit. The site features videos of Grant Hill, Retta Sirleaf, David Rubenstein and other prominent Duke alums reflecting on their “forever” passions. Along with the Ideas That Move the World Forward series launched recently by Duke Forward, you’re sure to find some inspiration – for both your audiences and yourself.

I hope to see you at our event on Wednesday. Consider yourself recruited – and please do remember to RSVP to sakiya.lockett@duke.edu.

–David

OUR NEXT EVENT

Our next Duke Communicators meeting is at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24 in Perkins 217. Blyth Morrell, Cara Rousseau and Karim Ali will present Duke’s 2014 “state of the web.” They will cover recent online trends and strategies at Duke and the wider world, ranging from design to social media, development, mobile, security, search engines and other topics. Plan on spending the entire hour for lots of tips and practical information to bring back to your own office.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to sakiya.lockett@duke.edu.

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Also note our next event, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15 in Room 4047 at Duke Law School.

The topic will be recruitment communications. Several members of our group will share websites, brochures and other materials they’ve developed for recruitment purposes, notably (but not exclusively) for prospective students. They’ll also describe how they’ve used marketing surveys and tools spanning the technological spectrum from QR codes to thank-you cards. We hope this will be an instructive hour for any of you who get involved with recruitment.

I’ll send more details when we get closer to the event. For now, hold the date.

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MORE UPCOMING EVENTS

• #PictureDuke Photo Club Meeting – 12 p.m. Sept. 24, Center for Documentary Studies
• Fourth Friday at Fullsteam. (Beer, the weekend, fellow communicators – what more do you want??)  – 4 p.m. Sept. 26

See all upcoming events

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OUR GANG

Camille Jackson is leaving the Office of News and Communications to become the senior public affairs specialist for the Duke Consortium on Social Equity, She will create a communications strategy for the consortium, which launches in March. It is comprised of four research centers and aims to address and suggest remedies for disparities in health, education, employment and the arts. Camille has done amazing work for ONC and the university, becoming one of our most skilled and admired colleagues. We will miss her in our office even as we cheer this recognition of her excellence and wish her well with an important new responsibility. ONC expects to post her position soon.

Courtney Lockemer began a new position as communications manager for Duke’s Online Education Initiatives. She will share information about MOOCs and other online initiatives through online.duke.edu, social media and other channels. Courtney worked previously as a marketing specialist in the Office of Information Technology, returning to Duke recently after a stint at Columbia University.

Emilie Poplett joined the Office of Global Strategy and Programs and the Office of Global Communications as a global communications specialist.  She will produce stories about Duke’s global engagement and maintain the global.duke.edu website. Emily comes to Duke from Wisconsin.

Do you have other news to share about new colleagues, promotions, departures, presentations, interesting projects or whatever? Post it on our LinkedIn site (see below), which is where we gather a lot of the information you see here!

More news

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DISCUSSIONS AND BLOG POSTS

• Interested in 3D printing? Join the Duke Digital Media Community for an open discussion about the state of 3D printing at Duke. (DDMC blog)
• Andrea Martin asked for advice on internal departmental communications. Aside from humorous answers about blaring trumpets, she got some good answers. (LinkedIn group)
• Need resources for video animation? Casey Hart asked about this and got some helpful pointers and resources. (LinkedIn group)

More affinity groups and blog posts
More discussions

***

JOBS

(Job information compiled from HR data by Paul Grantham’s office.)

• Marketing research specialist for Duke Community & Family Medicine
• Departmental web administrator for Nicholas Institute
• Senior public relations specialist for Medical Center Development
• Marketing and communications writer (public relations specialist) for School of Nursing
• Senior marketing specialist for Communications & Donor Relations
• Communications manager (senior public relations specialist) for Fuqua School of Business
• Staff assistant (with significant communications duties) for Office of Postdoctoral Services
• Library sales coordinator for Duke University Press
• Senior strategic public relations advisor (clinical research comm specialist II) for Duke Clinical Research Institute
• Public relations specialist (temporary) for Nicholas Institute

More jobs

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BOTH WISE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL

Duke’s home page has begun featuring #WisdomWednesday every week. The beautifully produced videos featuring short, inspiring talks come from an “Ideas That Move the World Forward” campaign developed by Duke’s development communications office. Jennifer Haslip and her colleagues there can provide you with weekly updates and snappy graphics to promote the videos on your own sites. Audra Ang (audra.ang@duke.edu) and Melissa Antaya (melissa.antaya@duke.edu) have the details.

Duke’s home page has also been featuring “Duke’s Entrepreneurial Spirit,” a series of stories, videos and photos produced by the Office of News and Communications to coincide with the university’s Entrepreneurship Week. The series, the largest ever produced by Duke Today, highlights entrepreneurial activity in many parts of the university, perhaps including your own. Cara Rousseau (cara.rousseau@duke.edu) can provide you with graphics and other promotional material to use on your websites, print materials or elsewhere. 

AND FINALLY …

We’ve rolled out a web-based home for the information in this newsletter to help you find it easily without searching through your e-mail for previous newsletters. You can find it online at communicators.duke.edu.

Please remember to RSVP to Sakiya for our event next week. And if you have professional questions, news, jobs or other information to share with your fellow Duke communicators, please make the most of our LinkedIn group.

I’ll hope to see you next week at our “state of the web” discussion.

–David

OUR NEXT EVENTS

To kick off the fall semester, our next communicators meeting will feature a special guest: President Brodhead, who will discuss the new school year with Mike Schoenfeld. We hope you will join us in the Bryan Center Griffith Film Theater at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2.

Also, hold the date for our communicators meeting at 2 p.m. Sept. 24 in Perkins 217. Blyth Morrell and Cara Rousseau will lead a program highlighting online trends at Duke and more widely.

Please help us plan for both events by sending your RSVP to sakiya.lockett@duke.edu.

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PROCOMM REGISTRATION OPENS TUESDAY

Paul Grantham has organized a great set of ProComm classes for the fall semester. Don’t miss out on them! Online registration will open just after midnight on Tuesday, Aug. 26 through Duke’s Learning Management System. These classes typically fill up quickly, so get your clicking finger ready. Additional details and links are at http://sites.duke.edu/procomm/. If you have questions, please contact Paul directly.

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MORE UPCOMING EVENTS

• #PictureDuke Photo Club Meeting – noon Aug. 27, Perkins Library 217
• ViTaL (Videos in Teaching and Learning) Informal Lunch – 11:45 a.m. Sept. 15, Penn Pavilion
• #PictureDuke Photo Club Meeting – noon Sept. 24, Center for Documentary Studies

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OUR GANG

Robin A. Smith has joined the Office of News and Communications as a science writer, working with Karl Bates and others. She worked previously at the Duke Lemur Center and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center at Duke. She also has a Duke Ph.D. in biology and taught for three years in the Thompson Writing Program, so she knows Duke well.

The Fuqua School of Business marketing department welcomed Andy Medlin in July to his new role as a senior public relations specialist. Andy was previously an admissions officer at Fuqua.

Andrea Martin began a new role at Duke in July as the senior public relations specialist with the Dept. of Community & Family Medicine. Previously, she worked in the Office of the University Registrar as the publications coordinator.

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DISCUSSIONS AND BLOG POSTS

• Andrea Martin asked for resources on how to teach faculty members about social media and got some great responses. Read them here. (Duke Communicators LinkedIn group)
• Andrew Park started a discussion about lead generation Twitter cards, which grew to cover other types of Twitter cards and appropriate metadata tags. Follow the conversation. (Facebook #DukeSocial group)
• Speaking of metadata, Sean Aery wrote a great post for our social media blog on enhancing your content for social media shares.

***

JOBS

(Job information compiled from HR data by Paul Grantham’s office.)

• Public relations specialist for Duke Science & Society (IGSP Genome Ethics, Law & Policy)
• Marketing research specialist for Duke Community & Family Medicine
• Associate director communication for DGHI-Admin
• Communications manager (senior public relations specialist) for Duke’s Online Education Initiatives (LIB-CIT Admin)
• Departmental web administrator for Nicholas Institute
• Senior public relations specialist for Medical Center Development
• Marketing and communications writer (public relations specialist) for School of Nursing
• Senior strategic public relations advisor for Duke Clinical Research Institute
• Senior marketing specialist for Communications & Donor Relations
• Clinical research communications specialist II for DCRI
• Communications manager (senior public relations specialist) for Fuqua School of Business
• Public relations specialist (temporary) for Nicholas Institute

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AND FINALLY …

You’ll note the new format of our newsletter, which is based on the excellent suggestions many of you provided at a recent meeting. Many thanks to Sonja Foust, who is helping me compile everything. Please let Sonja and me know whether you find this new format helpful.

In the coming weeks, we’ll also be rolling out a web-based home for this same information to help you find it easily without searching through your e-mail for previous newsletters. Stay tuned.

For now, best of luck with the new semester! We’ll hope to see you at our meeting with President Brodhead next week.

–David

Fellow Communicators,

Our next meeting is at 3:30 p.m. Monday, August 4, in the Forest Meeting Room at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club.

Two of our communications colleagues there have organized a great program about how they are marketing the hotel at a time when the local economy and communications landscape are changing, with several new hotels about to open in Durham.

Jack Schmidt, director of sales and marketing, and Sheena Cooper, marketing manager, will describe the hotel’s current marketing strategy and discuss the many ways in which it interacts with the rest of the Duke community. At the end of the program, which will last about an hour, they’ll offer refreshments and tours. If you have time, you might also want to hang out at the hotel bar or elsewhere to network with your fellow communicators.

Please help Jack and Sheena plan appropriately by sending your RSVP by noon tomorrow (Friday) to sakiya.lockett@duke.edu. If you signed up previously with Sakiya, you’re all set.

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Here are our three new events:

• A special guest is joining our annual kickoff meeting for the fall semester: President Brodhead. He and Mike Schoenfeld will lead a discussion about the year ahead. Hold the time: 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2. Location to be announced.
• What’s new on the web? Blyth Morrell and Cara Rousseau will lead a program highlighting online trends at Duke and more widely. 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, Perkins 217.
• Do you help recruit students, visitors, donors or others? Then don’t miss our October meeting, which will focus on recruitment communications. We’re still putting the meeting together, so please let me know if you’re doing something interesting that you might share with our group. 4 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 15. Location to be announced.

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Would you like the glory of being the 200th person to sign up for the Duke Communicators group on LinkedIn? Well, then move fast – very fast – because the total is now 199. During the past few weeks, the site has emerged as an active forum for conversation and information sharing among our members. Recent discussions have dealt with online quizzes, website usability, Instagram, webinars, infographics and more. Once again, we ask that you use this group instead of sending messages to the Duke Communicators e-mail list.

As promised, we’re also planning to roll out a newsletter and other new tools for you … more to come on that later.

Hope to see you Monday afternoon.

–David

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

Fellow Communicators,

I hope you’re having a great summer. We’ve organized two new Duke Communicators programs for you to enjoy before the fall semester begins. Please add these to your calendar:

Duke Communicators Survey Results

10 a.m. Tuesday, July 15, in the new programming space for the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity on the main floor of the Bryan Center, Suite 100, near the top of the main stairwell. (Map: http://maps.duke.edu/embed.php?id=21&mrkId=2748).

Chris Heltne, director of marketing and communications for Student Affairs, will share the results of a survey he conducted among our members. The 38 responses he received offer insights into what many of you are thinking about your audiences, goals, tactics and concerns. Several respondents – i.e., some of you – will participate in Chris’s presentation, after which I will discuss actions we’re considering to help Duke communicators with their jobs and careers. (For instance, we’re looking at ways to better integrate Duke Communicators meetings, ProComm classes, the Duke Style Guide and other resources.) Come share your own ideas and suggestions!

Marketing at the Washington Duke

3:30 p.m., Monday, August 4, in the Forest Meeting Room at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club

What would you do if it was your job to promote one of the region’s leading hotels and golf courses, a magnificent facility affiliated with a great university? Now suppose your hotel is located in a city with a rapidly growing economy, including several new hotels that may compete for your customers.

At this meeting, you’ll hear from two of our communications colleagues who face these questions every day. Jack Schmidt, director of sales and marketing, and Sheena Cooper, marketing manager, will tell us about the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club’s current marketing challenges and activities. They’ll also discuss the many ways in which the hotel interacts with the rest of the Duke community.

As you might hope, they’ll serve refreshments, too. If you have time, you might also want to hang out after the event, at the hotel bar or elsewhere, to network with your fellow communicators.

If you plan to attend either event, please RSVP to sakiya.lockett@duke.edu.

I’ll hope to see you there.

–David