First, read Loosen the Shackles (Guardian Online 7 July 2005). Second, let's reflect on any lessons for the average HEI oriented web site. So what's the relevance to HEIs and associated bodies?
Like most corporate sites the average HEI oriented Web site can easily become the victim of its marketing and communication professionals' view of the world. As the Guardian article states of corporate sites, they are: ” … too static, formal and impersonal.”
Underlying this corporate perspective is a belief they are promoting or at least protecting their 'brand' but despite large expenditures and effort the result is more often than not something so functionally anondyne that, as the Guardian article suggests, “In the main, they are bland brochures.”
And how many HEI oriented web sites have yet to get the syndication message, i.e. where's the RSS feed folks? Of course syndication suggests dynamic fast-changing content and, as we know, that suggests a lot of involvement from information creators … not just a few souls slaving away within a beleagured marketing and communications department.
“Search engines like blogs and feeds such as RSS means their content spreads quickly.”
Bloggers make some organisations nervous because they are … well … just so difficult to control. And yet some of these bloggers can connect in a way that a whole marketing and communications department cannot. As Justin Hunt wrote:
“Traditional marketing material is not going to work in the blogosphere where values such as honesty and personality really count. Style of writing, quality of content and design will be decisive success factors.”
Ok, all over the UK I now hear HEI's Directors of Marketing and Communications cry, “Morrison's got a point … let's do it … let's build a blog into our Web site … but we've got to have a really tight policy about what people can and cannot write about”.
Sorryeeeee … 🙂 … Won't work.
If HEIs can't be ideas engines what organisations can? The 'brand' message that needs to be conveyed is one of dynamism, being a source and recipient of ideas (so stimulate and gather that user feedback folks), and being an organisation which conveys a sense of high participation in information generation and reflection. A user-oriented Acceptable User Policy (AUP) to prevent illegal use or abuse is one thing but, as the Guardian article suggests,
“… corporates who enter the blogosphere are going to have to learn to loosen the shackles on their bloggers. Too much control will be the death of a blog.”
Many HEI's now seek to create a more 'corporate' identity and are contemplating or are actually implementing content management systems to help them towards this goal. The questions here are: Will the content management system increase the number of participants in organisational communications? Will the content management system free or enslave organisational communications?
It could be either, depending on the policies enacted within the host HEI. In some cases content managment systems with rigid workflows specified and applied across the board are likely to engender results similar to corporate knowledge management systems so applied, i.e. employees (note, not participants) will do what they have to do and no more.
So possibly a far cry from the picture painted in the up-beat Guardian article. Nevertheless, let's hope that a few HEI pioneers step forward and move beyond the 'bland brochures' thinking. It would also be a tragedy if the growing uptake of content management systems simply resulted in the automation of the 'bland brochures' model.
