School leaders, embrace your digital media cousins – SCN Encourager 6/5/2014

They share your pain.

Craig Paris is the senior vice president at WhitePages.

His specialities are digital online marketing and the development of technology based solutions.

He wrote an article that appeared on the “Business 2 Community” website called “The Most Overlooked Strategy in Media.”

I gave it poke with my fingers crossed to see if this “strategy” was something I was already doing in my work and didn’t even know it.

Maybe I was doing something fantastic I could tactfully bring up in a casual conversation with my superintendent.

Nope!

Not that I really thought this would be the case, but crazier things have happened.

Imagine what today’s Encourager would’ve been like had I actually discovered I was carrying out a seldom used strategy.

Dang, I would’ve relished tossing this one your way… chock full of humility, of course.

In his article Paris used several phrases to describe the significant changes occurring in the advertising, publishing, and marketing industry in 2014 that we’ve seen or heard many times.

Here’s a partial list. I’ll bet there’s nothing on it that’s brand spanking new to you.

... paradigm shift,
… transformative times,
… rapid innovation,
… scarce financial resources,
… increase collaboration,
… and seek the long-term view.

So, since he used familiar language to describe an operating environment very similar to our own, what underrated strategy is Paris hawking?

Here’s a hint.

It has nothing to do with the standard organizational practices of adding new hires or acquiring the latest technology.

Paris says the “overlooked”strategy that many organizations now need to dust off and ramp up is “training.”

This only makes sense.

Invest in the assets you already have in your midst.

Look at the people all around you and do what’s necessary to build up their skills.

How simple can you get?

He even offers a “4C” approach to getting your team training in place.

Swell – this is easy for him to say.

Like so many of you, I’m a one person office.

So I never see anyone else when I “look around” to see who needs “training.”

I’m it!

Tom Page, SCN      Ready for Facebook training, though.