Brand Bits Monday. Courageous chalk-talk for school communicators. – SCN Encourager

We all had an exhausting and emotionally charged week, right?

Well, you can always count on me to pile on and make it worse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of items directly related to you, me, and every other school communicator.

And they both are connected to school marketing and branding– the theme of the week.

The first item comes from master communicator Chris Brogan.

And I’ve written about him before – especially about his advice that we should strive to be the “dumbest person in the room” – in that, we should try to always be the one who asks the tough questions in order to promote clarity and direction.

I am particularly fond of this advice.

Doing this well doesn’t actually require a whole lot of prep on my part.

Usually just showing up does the trick!

The second item relates to the first and is a little more disconcerting.

I haven’t written about this before because I just saw this report five days ago.

The report began by echoing Brogan, that good communicators and marketers must represent the voice of every organization’s end user (parents, customers, whoever) and never hesitate to step up and ask the tough questions that’ll promote greater clarity and direction.

There’s a big problem that comes along with this, though.

And naturally, it’s negative.

Because the study points out that if you are serving as the “dumbest person in the room” – truly pushing for improved clarity and direction and all that jazz – you are very likely to tabbed as the most unpopular person in the room as well.

I’m not kidding.

In fact, this study said the marketing and communications person (on most administrative or operational leadership teams) is typically considered by all of the others to be the most unpopular person on the team 88% of the time.

Dang.
Is this a double-down bite or what?!?  

Unbelievable!

It’s not bad enough we’ve got to try and be the “dumb ones” on the team, but now we’ve also got to accept the horrible consequences that inevitably come as a result.

I’m sorry the Brand Bit today came with a sting.

I know this isn’t good news.

Unless, of course, you’re me.

At least this is another accomplishment I can nail in my sleep!

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