You’re Invited …

Dear Friends:

I’ve submitted three of my photographs from last fall semester’s gallery class which was exhibited at the SoHo Photo Gallery. These three photos will be on exhibit at the New York University AMC Artist Show from May 15 – June 3.

I would be honored to have you visit the gallery and see the work that I accomplished under the tutelage of Professor T. Lawrence Wheatman in a class he taught at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies called: From Beginner to Exhibitor.

When and Where

NYU
Kimmel Center
Stovall Gallery
60 Washington Square South – 8^th Floor
New York City

Mon-Sat: 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Sun: 12 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Preview the Collection Showcased at the SoHo Photo Gallery

 

 

I’ll Take the Maserati

One of our consultants and really close friend, Josh Moritz, from Customer Growth Inc has been slogging through his executive MBA program at Babson College. He wrote an article, which appeared in the Financial Times, about his life as an adult student in an intensive distance learning program conducted mostly online. 

I can empathize with Josh having once been an adult undergraduate student who struggled to get a bachelor’s degree over the span of 10 years. Distance education is by no stretch “easier” than classroom learning. In fact, I have found it to be quite the opposite. Distance education requires strong discipline to keep a regular study schedule, learn in isolation (even if communication with a professor is just a phone call or email away), with very little motivation other than the innate burning passion to achieve the overarching goal of graduating. For 8 years that’s what I struggled with. It wasn’t until the final four semesters of my studies that I realized I was never going to finish unless I went back to the classroom, studied in an environment with cohorts and professors who are all there to motivate and cheer you on to completion.

One of the things I’ve learned since joining NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies is that ALL adult students struggle to finish school whether it’s an undergraduate degree or a masters. It becomes doubly difficult to stay motivated if one takes courses by distance education – the kind where you are sent books, audio tapes, videos and assignments, complete them, and then send back for feedback. For institutions that offered these types of programs, retention was abysmal. It’s nobody’s fault. That’s just the reality of an adult student’s life. His learning environment affects his extrinsic motivations, thereby affecting his ability to complete each course successfully. 

Much has changed in the realm of distance education since I graduated in ’99. Commercial reach of the Internet and the World Wide Web did much to bring the classroom closer to the distance learner. Online learning burst onto the higher education scene in the past decade allowing the student to experience true cognitive transfer of knowledge in collaborative environments. And this is important. Adults in school, like Josh, are used to workplace environments where collaborations and team efforts to complete projects or solve problems are encouraged. Almost always, there is face-to-face interaction. A conversation with the boss. A brainstorming session with colleagues. And this is why most business schools have created classrooms similar to real-life conference rooms where much of the intellectual exchange takes place in a round table rather than desks facing forward.

Online distance ed emulates these collaborative and situated learning environments very closely. No longer does a student have to study in isolation. No matter how far flung a region you might be from, time and distance is rendered irrelevant by the Internet. And just like workplace and classroom contexts, camaraderie develops through social media outlets such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Personalization of relationships take place. True transfer of knowledge and development of competencies consciously and subconsciously transpire – key ingredients to achieving future professional success.

Still, this doesn’t mean studying and schoolwork is now easier. There is still the juggling of priorities among the personal, professional, and academic lives. The program rigor remains challenging and even more so for those in online distance education programs than in classroom formats.

Reading Josh’s MBA diary brought back the memory of all those arduous hours of studying that I did. Yes, I had enjoyed every learning minute of my academic life. But as they say in text-messaging speak: BTDT. Don’t want to do it again. I wish Josh much success as he nears completion of his degree. I’ll take the Maserati.

Read Josh Moritz’s Article: MBA Diary: Cash Flow Analyses Can Be As Much Fun As A Maserati
Source: Financial Times

SCPS Summer Bulletin Cover: A Wegman Weimaraner

If you are not familiar with Wegman’s works, you might be taken aback at this semester’s cover featuring a weimaraner dressed as a man enjoying a clear summer day at Washington Square Park perusing a past SCPS bulletin. Those who know Wegman, however, will understand that the image evokes the satirical humor of dog as man and that it complements his famous collection of weimaraner photographs. To see some of them, just Google William Wegman, or click on this link.

Wegman’s fascination with photographing weimaraners began while teaching at California State University in Long Beach, when he acquired his first weimaraner and named it Man Ray, (after another famous artist and photographer). He named a subsequent dog Fay Ray (a play on the name of actress Fay Wray). To understand his canine humor, is to understand our current bulletin cover. 

NYU SCPS 2010 Summer Bulletin Cover

SCPS has been showcasing artworks on its course catalogs since 1934. The concept of using cover art as brand for School began in earnest when my boss, Associate Dean Dorothy Durkin, joined the School in 1970 as then the director of the marketing department. Borrowing a page from The New Yorker cover designs, Durkin set out to revolutionize the way the School’s bulletins were printed two years later. To establish the covers as a brand, she pulled together three dominant themes: the city’s vibrant life, the School’s relationship to the city as preeminent provider of continuing education, and showcasing the talent of the art community.

Renowned artists such as Al Hirschfeld, Jonathan Milne, Rafal Olbinsky and many others illustrated covers that depict more than just the archetypal American urban university campus. They also portray the kaleidoscopic changes in career, culture, and society as a whole.

Although the summer bulletin cover is not Wegman’s first commissioned work for us, it is the first that includes the soulful expression of a weimaraner. You may love it or hate it. But I feel every bit as proud to have our bulletin a part of his famous weimaraner series of art.

Related Links:

About William Wegman: http://www.wegmansworld.com 
NYU SCPS Summer Bulletin Press Release: http://www.scps.nyu.edu/about-scps/newsroom/news/2010/04/nyu-scps-lightens-up-the-dog-days-of-summer.html
About NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies: http://www.scps.nyu.edu
History of NYU-SCPS Covers: http://www.scps.nyu.edu/about-scps/mission-and-history/scps-bulletin-covers.html
About Dorothy Durkin: http://www.dorothydurkin.com
About FP Design: http://www.fpdesign.com

Also, take a look at our Bulletin Builder – It’s a pretty neat tool that will allow you to customize your own bulletin choosing just the pages that interest you. https://www.nyuscps.dg3.com/

Policy Making for Social Media in Continuing Higher Education: Don’t Forget Market Research

I’ve been asked to attend a meeting Friday that involved a group of Web, IT and upper management people, who will decide on the protocols for departments creating social media pages. Although I have been doing quite a bit of research on the subject, I had at first considered that policy making was a bit premature for me to be involved as market researcher. However, as I thought about it more, I realized that there is no better time to be involved than at the ground level. Here’s why: 

Many believe that engaging in social media is the “hot” thing these days and should be a part of it if they aren’t already because, well, everybody’s doing it. Hence, institutions and corporations are setting up guidelines for social network participation in order to safeguard their values, uphold the mission, protect the brand and image of the entity in the public space.

However, like it or not, the reason for social media’s existence in businesses, including continuing higher education, is marketing related. A simplistic way of explaining this is that we engage in socal networks and have conversations with customers in order to better understand who they are and hence, allow us to tweak our marketing messages to entice them to buy. In social media, how we learn about our customers is through content. That’s because content is the foundation from which we measure and research all things marketing related.

In February, during the DMCNY’s participation in New York’s Social Media week, Dan Scudder at Rapleaf, Inc talked about measuring social media content. There are two things you look for: Content that generates “listening data” and “profile data.”

Listening data is mining texts on Facebook updates, blog comments, tweets, participation in LinkedIn groups, and the like. Texts can reveal positive or negative feedback, satisfaction, brands awareness, and loyalty — all of which are tools that aid in refining advertising, direct marketing, publications, and public relations. Listening data is also used to take immediate action against problems that might arise before they have a chance to spread and wreck a reputation.

Profile data gives us demographics of fans and followers. Not just age, geographic location, or race, but hobbies, where you went to school, and a variety of likes and dislikes. Facebook analytics allow advertisers to view a fan’s profile information in order to target ads based on interest. And it’s not just profiles of fans and followers, but their fans and followers become fair game. We get to know all those third degrees of separation people providing us with a fresh market opportunity that we would not have otherwise accessed without social media.

Discussion of content at the policy-making level is important or at least at this level, should be a part of the conversation. And it shouldn’t end there. At the second phase of implementing social media strategies, participants should undergo a tutorial of how to begin the dialogue in social networks that will encourage meaningful interaction. Because only when there is rich dialogue that takes place in these networks can we maximize our efforts at collecting data.