Category Archives: Professional

Open Education Week

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This post is re-published with permission (under CC-BY license)  from the BCcampus web site and was written by me in my capacity as Director of Communications.

If there’s one word we’d like used to describe BCcampus, one word that underpins everything we do, that signals our philosophy and our very reason for being, it’s this:

OPEN

Open Road

So – welcome to Open Education Week (March 5-10, 2012).

At BCcampus, we’re celebrating by highlighting, in the next few days, the myriad ways we live, work and breathe Open here at BCcampus. We’ve started by posting our Open Agenda statement front and centre on our web site, permanently, for all to see. It states:

“BCcampus is committed to being open in everything we do.

We are a publicly-funded organization serving British Columbia’s post-secondary sector. The goal of higher education is the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge, and as such we have an essential responsibility to distribute the results of our work as widely as possible.

This has implications for how we operate on a daily basis.

Connect:

Our public meetings and events are streamed live online whenever possible. We will take photos and notes of our face-to-face events, and screen shots from our online events, and post them on our web sites and through our social media accounts on Twitter and other social media sites. We encourage speakers and participants to do the same with slides, photos, videos, crowdsourced notes and discussions. We will post archival video of keynote addresses, presentations, panels and discussion sessions on our web properties for anyone to view and comment on. Speakers, facilitators and attendees of all events, online and face-to-face, will be made aware at time of registration that their image and contributions can and will be shared in these ways.

We are committed to open data and open information, which is about proactively releasing information to our stakeholders on an ongoing basis. We will distribute all BCcampus reports, web content, and other media resources using the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license (see below).

Collaborate:

We are always seeking ways to give the post-secondary system a stronger say in BCcampus strategic planning and priorities, and expanding engagement through online technologies. We will enable moderated commenting on all our web pages where appropriate, and make use of opt-in mailing lists to disseminate information and solicit feedback.

BCcampus has a solid reputation around open educational resources in the context of professional development and academic growth. Resources developed as a result of BC Online Program Development Fund are mandated to use an open license.

Our professional development activities through the Educational Technology Users Group and SCoPE have a long history of encouraging open sharing, reuse and remixing of knowledge and resources.

In the interests of remaining transparent in our business processes, BCcampus will refrain whenever feasible from signing non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with vendors and partners.

Innovate:

We are committed offering data in a more useful format to enable our stakeholders to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways. BCcampus supports freedom of choice in technology and where possible source files will also be made available in open and free file formats. Our commitment to an open agenda in developing our applications and services is mentioned in our Strategic Plan for 2012-15: “The Challenge-Driven Innovation approach requires us to be more transparent than we think we are now, making our strategies, plans and key documents network-accessible to our system partners, tagging each with an open license, providing our source code for download where appropriate, and using crowdsourcing techniques to openly solicit input from stakeholders and partners in the form of challenges to be solved. CDI is about socializing responses to innovation challenges.”

The wealth of open, shared resources and knowledge are compelling many learners, faculty and institutions. At BCcampus, we want to cast a wider net, so this week you’ll hear more about other aspects of the Open Agenda: how the economics of Open might work, about the Creative Commons Canada project, about an Open Textbook pilot we’re heading up, and about the next round of the Online Program Development Fund.

During this year’s Open Education Week, we hope to demonstrate how Open makes sense.

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Surveying would-be students

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Since I’ve been with BCcampus we haven’t focused much on post-secondary students as an audience. The primary audience for our communications efforts is made up of representatives from post-secondary institutions themselves. After all, it’s the presidents, vice-presidents academic, directors of information technology, registrars, people at centres for teaching and learning technologies who we deal with regularly. They’re the ones we have to persuade that working with BCcampus is cost-effective and provides better service to students and faculty. Students are attached to their university or college, and therefore are a secondary audience for us.

That being said, many of our services are student-facing: ApplyBC.ca, the provincial application service; CoursesBC.ca, an online course directory, MyCreditsBC.ca, a new service that provides unofficial electronic transcripts for students of eight institutions. Not only that but students also use the learning management systems, and get their learning experience from faculty who use educational technologies. It’s worth getting the student take on the landscape of online student services.

We surveyed student applicants through ApplyBC recently – it was a “toe-dip” – a foray into taking the temperature of our secondary audience. I’ve included a synopsis of the results below; you can find the full report and survey results on the BCcampus wiki.

We are also surveying post-secondary stakeholders, and that report will probably be available later in February.

Synopsis:

With this survey BCcampus sought an overview of student’s perceptions and attitudes toward existing online student services. The survey was purposefully short (in order to increase chances for completion) and was meant to complement, rather than replace, detailed user testing of existing tools. The questions were also meant to situate BCcampus services within the landscape of the broader provincial system.

The survey respondents were mostly would-be post-secondary students (not yet accepted into a higher-ed institution). Results indicate:

  • minimal awareness of post-secondary online services in the British Columbia system;
  • fairly strong approval of ApplyBC, the provincial application service;
  • lukewarm support for existing services for post-secondary students in general;
  • strong support for additional and enhanced services in the future.

Response rate:

There were 7,190 applicants using ApplyBC during the survey period. Google Analytics for ApplyBC show 12.64% of visits derived from search traffic and 15.48% derived from direct traffic for the same period.

Thus, approximately 2,013 applicants came from direct or search, and therefore would get the popup invitation to take part in the survey (7,190 * (12.64% + 15.48%) = 2,013).

Of the 2,013 potential respondents, 249 emails were sent as a result of applicants choosing to participate in the survey, approximately 12% of eligible users.

Of those 249 emails sent, 63 completed surveys were collected. However, 79 eligible respondents clicked on the link, leaving 16 incomplete responses. Those 16 were not counted in the survey results described here as there was not enough data gathered from them to make a thorough analysis.

Total participation rate in the survey is approximately 3% (63 / 2013 * 100).

Conclusions:

It is possible there is a gap between expectations and the reality of the B.C. post-secondary system that bears further research. It also may indicate the respondents have not thought through what the landscape of post-secondary services for students might look like. This could be a function of the survey design or inexperience, as the overwhelming majority of respondents are not yet post-secondary students.

The survey responses could also indicate that researching and applying to university or college online is such a basic expectation it’s not perceived as a separate “service.” In many ways online services are now perceived the same way electricity or indoor plumbing are perceived: so ubiquitous that their origins and function are unconscious until they break down or disappear.

Today’s post-secondary students expect online services to work without undue delay or complexity. For the most part they do, but the post-secondary system could be providing a better experience overall.

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Vancouver je t’aime

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I’m quite attached to Greater Victoria.

But I’m in love with Vancouver.

I have been since I moved to the west coast over five years ago.

It’s beautiful, it’s vibrant, it’s liveable, it’s diverse, it’s world-class. I count only once since I moved here that I’ve cursed Vancouver traffic. I’m sure more local people do that quite often, but that’s because they don’t have to commute in New York City, Mexico City, Los Angeles or even Seattle. We really do have a gem here.

When I got my job a year and a half ago it was with the full realization that although BCcampus’s head office is in Vancouver, I could continue to live in Victoria. We’ve made the arrangement work, but it’s about time I made the move to the mainland.

C'mon Vancouver, I'm going to give you a BIG HUG!

For one, being a strategic communications professional is ideal when you have ongoing, direct access to the management team. Skype helps, phone calls help, and I’ve been over there frequently for meetings and conferences. However, nothing can replace daily face-to-face contact with the people with whom you work most closely, and I’m missing those interactions. I am highly effective (I’m sure my colleagues would agree), but I could be even more effective based in Vancouver.

Our biggest stakeholders are based in the lower mainland too. Not only that but Greater Vancouver is a central hub for post-secondary institutions whether they’re based in the interior or in northern B.C. It’s more efficient to give service to province-wide stakeholders when you don’t have to get off an Island all the time. Example: the first time I met in real life some people with whom I’d been working for months from University of Victoria, Royal Roads and Vancouver Island University was at a meeting in Vancouver!

An important drawback to being a distributed worker: the isolation. Some people deal with it better than others, but I need people around me. I’m enough of a hermit as is (for instance I’ve spent most of this weekend reading) I don’t need to compound it by shutting myself up in my home. Some other client service managers were having similar issues, so we reconfigured the Victoria office to accommodate more work spaces several months ago. Now I have two official workspaces (in Victoria and Vancouver) rather than three (+one at home).

In reality, I can work from anywhere. I even worked four days from New Brunswick this summer. However, over the day-to-day, the long haul, nothing says “I belong” like having a base of operations with the rest of my team.

Frequent travel gets wearying after a while, and it is a time-sucker: both mine and the organization’s. (And I don’t even do it that much really; I know people who travel world-wide hundreds of days per year. Ack!) Although we keep travel down to a manageable, cost-effective level, it takes time to get over there and back. I’ve missed some valuable face-time with colleagues AND friends and family, not to mention the Wednesday night runs with the training clinic. Too much productive work time is spent making travel arrangements, filling out expense forms and waiting for ferries and flights.

But it all comes down to this: Victoria is paradise, but Vancouver is alive. Let’s face it, the final reason for relocating is: I have a better chance of improving my romantic prospects there.

I’m excited to finally be making plans to move there within the next few months. Stay tuned for details on my farewell bash.

 

Photo of me at the 28k mark of the 2011 BMO Vancouver Marathon,
by Christopher Mackay.

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Context is everything, but I’m sharing my slides anyway

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I had the pleasure last week to attend the spring ETUG workshop (http://etug.ca/) in Nelson BC. ETUG is sponsored by BCcampus, my employer, and once again reminded me why I love my job. The passion and enthusiasm of educators and technologists in the post-secondary system is inspiring and infectious.

The morning of the last day was a hands-on session, and I chose “Developing your Elevator Pecha! Are you Open4Learning?” during which Elena Underhill and Kyle Hunter from BCIT presented the “Elevator Pecha:” a mash-up of Pecha Kucha and the Elevator Pitch which consists of 10 slides, 10 seconds each.

Jo and Samantha (both from Royal Roads University) and I collaborated on an Elevator Pecha. In 25 minutes, this is what we came up with:

Elevator pecha tori jo samantha

View more presentations from ToriKlassen.

In this instance, I added in some words that I used when I gave the presentation, because I thought the photos without the narrative might be inscrutable without context.

This is the real nub: what’s the point of putting slideshows online so people can view them in isolation? Presentations are not about the slides, they are about the presenter.

Alan Levine, the keynote presenter at this ETUG conference, made this point clear by way of example. He spoke without notes, and showed his collected stories in the form of short videos. He also does his keynote justice by presenting all the videos on his blog.

I met Alan three weeks ago at the Online Community Enthusiasts day in Vancouver. There, we got into a discussion about bringing playfulness to events. As it turns out he had written a post last November arguing that people who make presentations really need to learn some improv skills rather than Powerpoint skills.

Hear hear! I had popped in on Alan’s blog before, now I am a subscriber.

I am a half decent public speaker, but my background is in radio broadcasting. I have a fear of speaking off the top of my head, and I have a terrible head for memorization. I need that piece of paper (or more recently my Evernote notes on my iPhone) as a crutch. It’s a shortcoming I’m acutely aware of in my spoken word poetry, but I’ve been lackadaisical about improving on it.

However, my Elevator Pecha went extremely well because it was so focused and concise. I sense a crack in the dam in terms of my performance skills! Elena took video of everyone delivering their Elevator Pechas that day. If she posts them online I’ll share the video, and you can judge for yourself, and see the presentation in context, the way it was meant to be delivered.

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The way we do that thing we do

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During the weekday I am the communications manager for BCcampus, a post-secondary services organization that has 26 full and part time employees distributed throughout BC. Aside from the head office in Vancouver and the Victoria office, where most of the software development team is based, we have staffers in New Westminster, Nanaimo, and the interior. Needless to say, getting us all together physically in the same room happens infrequently.

Last Wednesday December 8 we took the day to do just that: sit down and talk with one another about how we do the things we do. This was my first All Staff gathering as a BCcampus employee, and as the Communications Manager, I was the organizer. (Uh – no pressure!)

I decided to loosely model the day in an “unconference” format, but instead of having people pick topics when they arrived, in the weeks leading up to the day I used email and the corporate wiki to gather feedback, questions, ideas and tips on what we should talk about. I tried to create a loose, flexible structure to give staff the leeway to set the agenda, contribute as much as they could.

The result was success – I wrote a post about it on our corporate blog, you can read it here.

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Thoughts on David Eaves’ opening remarks

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I came into the room this morning (Open Gov 2010 at UVic) to hear David Eaves relate how he is excited about web 2.0 and social media and how it will allow public servants work better together. Through a more open government, public servants will be better able to self organize and make things happen without needing permission of someone else.

I don’t doubt this is the case in David Hume’s Citizen Engagement group and other pockets of government, however that’s a tough row to hoe for most of the public service. Ok, to tell the truth, as a former government worker (for 4 years) my first reaction to that statement was “What planet is he on? This isn’t government right now, not in BC!”

I used to give mini-media relations seminars to front line government workers where the only thing I wanted them to remember was “NO SURPRISES,” meaning, everything anyone said in a public forum had to be told to the communications people first, so the Minister could be prepared. For every public meeting there is (depending on the deputy and the Minister involved) a small forest of trees cut down preparing approved messaging, briefing notes, information binders, etc.

So while it’s true that 21st century knowledge workers are also citizens, they indeed are butting up against 19th century government, as David mentioned. How are we going to fix it?

I was pleased David offered some answers: cheaper, better, faster and more efficient ways of doing things will be found no matter what – people disobeying their bosses or in resource-constrained environments will be forced to innovate using new social technologies.

During my time in government I saw many examples of conscientious government workers keeping in close contact with their diverse stakeholder groups, mainly by phone (because the best relationships are still formed in person after all), when preparing new regulations or contemplating new initiatives. They developed relationships of trust where they could share limited amounts of sensitive information and trust each other not to use it to embarrass the other. I was so impressed and inspired when I saw that happen.

I also saw the opposite: people so afraid of approaching constituent groups in person that they dug themselves and their minister an issue-laden hole so deep it nearly paralysed the process: all because they were afraid to share with stakeholders and citizens.

Chris Rasmussen alluded to this in his keynote later in the morning: that an environment of fear (of losing one’s job because of government cuts or restructuring) makes people quite conservative and protective of their turf.

I also saw decisions come seemingly ex nihilo from on high that front line workers could not explain to their stakeholders. It made them feel helpless and frustrated to be ordered to implement decisions no one asked for or requested, seemingly at the whim of their leadership.

How do we make innovation and openness happen every single day? It has a lot to do with leadership, and it comes from the top as well as the rank and file, and it starts also with elected officials and senior (Deputy and Assistant Deputy-level) bureaucrats embracing change, being more tolerant of failure and willing to give up control of the process to a certain extent.

I know I’m sounding a little pessimistic, and I don’t mean to. Today’s conference was certainly a bright light and possibly the start of real change.

But certainly, we as citizens must keep asking more of our leadership.

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Open Gov West 2010 – Chris Rasumussen’s keynote

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Chris Rasmussen presented on the U.S. government’s Intellipedia – here are some initial rough notes to contribute to the opengovnorth.ca blog:

  • “Too many different tools & systems among gov agencies.” — (We’re facing that within an agency of only 26 people!)
  • Kinda stuck on the analytics side. Posting minutes and large docs on wikis os not what the US population asked for with legislation to allow open govt
  • We can finally create a living version – collapse arms into joint forces “purple intelligence” — that’s the vision but Chris is stuck getting there
  • The official voice matters – a convo on Twitter – how do you verify it as an official entity?
  • (We’re finding the same thing with Open Education Resources – people reluctant to use them if they’re not articulated and credentialed…)
  • Why can’t social network/wiki stuff be used as the official agency voice against the crowdsourced work flow?
  • Records retention system, etc. — Must answer the objections. “Be bold” is getting old, its not structurally redefining our business yet.
  • Unless your open gov wiki stuff changes the core way government works you’re going to hit a wall and get stuck like intellipedia did.
  • (I relate this to trying to set up a more cohesive Client Management System in my own small organization … it has to be incorporated into the work flow.)
  • How long are we going to spin the “change takes time” and “training” cliché??
  • Agencies: you’re going to have to give up the outcomes and not control the process end to end. Chris is not seeing indications that agencies want to do that – that’s where they’re stuck.
  • We’re now talking about saving money and rationalizing – people’s jobs at stake – can’t achieve enterprise 2.0 success and then get stuck on people worried about turf-saving and job-preserving.
  • Love/hate relationships – even people who make lots of changes to Intellipedia have the “Let’s not say things we can’t take back” syndrome.
  • This course trajectory might hit any internal environment.
  • (Yes Chris, it most certainly does!)
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What makes a great co-op work term experience part 2: Resumés

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Précis: This is a four-part series on successful co-op work terms. I’ve had the chance to supervise and hire co-op students in my work as a corporate communications practitioner several times over the past few years. I’m about to complete another four-month term, and once again this was a rich learning experience for both of us.

This time, the administrators of the program at the post-secondary institution asked me to give an interview. I prepared my responses and have turned them into a four-part series of blog posts directed at students. The second question they asked was:

What makes a cover letter and a resume really stand out?

———-

So, you’re a student in a communications program looking for a co-op work term placement. How can I tell from your resume you might be a good fit for my organization?

There are three things you must do:

  1. Rewrite your cover letter and resume to tailor it to the position.
  2. Re-jig your cover letter and resume to showcase your specific skills relevant to the position.
  3. Read the job posting carefully and highlight up front your skills and experience that relate directly to the position.

Get the picture? I can’t stress this enough. I posted my last work term position in four post-secondary institutions asking specifically for a writing/communications student. It was a concise posting wherin it was clear I was looking for writing ability and web-based publishing skills.

I received around 75 resumes, many of which were from students in programs other than communications (I didn’t even read those). I would venture to guess many of them didn’t even read the job posting all that carefully.

I imagine they found summer work at one of the many restaurants and tourist attractions on the Island and lower mainland …

I interviewed two (2) students whose resumes, cover letters and web site links stood out.

Two. Out of 75.

Did I say I don’t have all day? I was serious about that, and my organization isn’t nearly as busy as many larger employers. I can think of dozens more managers and directors of communications who are ten times busier than I was this past spring.

Bottom line: if you have what I’m looking for, don’t assume I’ll comb through your resumé to find it. I simply won’t. Government recruiters often must read through and score each and every applications they get – they have my sympathies – and they’ll still score yours lower if you make them work too hard.

Include a summary at the top stating your relevant skills as they related to the job posting. Re-iterate those same skills in your cover letter. Make it brief. I’m busy.

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What makes a great co-op work term experience? (Part 1 of 4)

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Precis: This is a four-part series on successful co-op work terms. I’ve had the chance to hire and/or supervise several co-op students in my work as a corporate communications practitioner over the past few years. I’m about to complete another four-month term, and once again this was a rich learning experience for both of us.

This time, the administrators of the program at the post-secondary institution asked me to give them an interview. I prepared my responses and have turned them into a four-part series of blog posts directed at students. The first question was:

“Thinking about the co-op students you have hired in the past, what skills, abilities and attitudes have they demonstrated that have encouraged them to have a successful work term?”

So, you’re a student in a communications program looking for a co-op work term placement. How can I tell you’ll be a good hire for my organization?

Skills:

Writing writing writing! Not only great stories well-told, but examples of your writing using correct spelling and grammar. I’m looking for a nascent wordsmith. You do not have to write masterpieces, but you do have to show some budding talent. Writing as a craft can be honed, but usually there is some innate material to work with.

For those of us who have always aspired to work with words and stories, who write because we simply must, our calling and our passion for the written word shows in everything we write, whether it’s a letter to the editor, a blog entry or a series of Twitter posts. I have had one or two employees who simply did not have “it,” and those are difficult conversations to have, but for the most part, we get into this profession because we simply love to write.

Abilities:

Demonstrate your experience with computer programs, both web-based and print publishing, beyond “I have a Gmail account and use it daily.” Seriously, I have read resumes that list that particular “skill” and I am surprised at the number of second and third-year students who, contrary to pop-culture stereotypes, demonstrate very little computer savvy.

How do you demonstrate your computer savvy-ness?

  • Set up a blog using WordPress or Drupal or some other content management system, and make it look nice. It doesn’t matter what the content is as long as it’s inoffensive to at least 70 per cent of the population.
  • Use it to showcase your passion, talent and skill. It will shine through that skateboarding video you did for the neighbourhood guys or that paper you aced. Did you set up a database in your last job? Great, add a post about that too.
  • Don’t have a blog yet? Start one! But in the meantime, have great examples in a portfolio, including writing samples, screen shots and links to your work.

Attitude:

Be a team player (really, it’s not just a buzz word) while at the same time demonstrating self-reliance.

My most recent hire required the student employee to work from home on a laptop we provided. I was looking for evidence of someone who is highly self-directed, yet conscientious and accountable for results.

I was not disappointed. Jenna hit all her deadlines – in fact she was much more efficient than I had anticipated, finishing well before deadline much of the time – and she made sure to ask me if there was anything else she could do when she ran low on work. She had a lot of questions about how to go about doing her work, which was fine, but she didn’t need constant supervision. She struck the perfect balance between her learning needs and my organization’s need for an extra pair of hands.

Your great attitude will show through if you are a good communicator and have a blog (that you have set up on your own time – added bonus!) or a portfolio to show a potential employer. It will also shine through during your interview, a topic to be covered in a further post.

Upcoming posts in this series:

  • What makes a cover letter and a resume really stand out?
  • What are the benefits of networking?
  • What are the key points to a successful student interview?
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What would a CommPunk look like?

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What would it mean to be a communications punk? Is that even possible? Is the entire profession too established to even consider proposing a radical re-invention?

I’ve always referred to myself as a journalist-turned-”mercenary.” Since my brief career as a journalist, what have I as a communications practitioner contributed to the world? The “eduskunk” I work with insists my work is valued and welcomed, which helps, and the only direction to move is forward.

What if someone started trying to transform Communications? Is there a “CommPunk” movement akin to the “EduPunk?” Or is citizen journalism/blogging/social media altering the landscape enough as it is – pulling the corporate communicators along?

What does open content mean for communications practitioners? What would have to change in public relations, internal communications, media relations, stakeholder and client relations – in order to bring the ideals of democratic, share-alike community-building to a profession reviled for being simply “spin?”

Something tells me I’m in the right place to find some answers to those questions. Here is the Twitter exchange between me and my boss today at the Northern Voice blogging conference:

it was a rhetorical question-mostly

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