Community College Marketing Master Class

COVID-19 Crisis Communications for Colleges Webinar

March 20, 2020 Principal at SAE Communications Scott Summerfield, CEO of Interact Pam Cox-Otto, and president of Interact Cheryl Broom Season 2 Episode 4
Community College Marketing Master Class
COVID-19 Crisis Communications for Colleges Webinar
Show Notes Transcript

With COVID-19 impacting community colleges, Interact Communications decided to put together a live webinar with crisis communications expert Scott Summerfield with SAE Communications, Interact CEO Dr. Pam Cox-Otto, and Interact president Cheryl Broom.

The presentation covered:

  • Higher education and local agency communications response trends
  • Crisis communications best practices that ensure the community stays informed
  • Media relations tips to communicate ongoing challenges
  • Internal communications tips to keep staff and faculty informed and supportive
  • What’s next: From commencement cancellations to declining enrollment, what you can do now to prepare

After the initial presentation, there was about an hour of Q&A. The webinar was held at 10 a.m. PDT / 12 p.m. CDT on Thursday, March 19th.

To access the presentation and watch the webinar, click here

spk_0:   0:00
marketing for community colleges is tough. But after 20 years of working solely with two year technical and community colleges, we've learned a few things. Now we want to share them with you. Welcome to the community College Marketing Masterclass Podcast. If you're looking for expert insights from industry experts, you've come to the right place, bringing more than two decades of marketing and communications experience. Please welcome your host and interact Communications President Cheryl Broom. Hi, I'm Cheryl Broom, president of Interact Communications. And on Thursday, March 19th Interact Communications in partnership with S A E Communications, which is a strategic crisis communications firm located in California, hosted a live webinar about covert 19 and its impact on community colleges during this webinar crisis, communications experts got Summerfield Ah, who has been a guest on this podcast before. Interact CEO Dr Pam Cox, Otto and myself hosted a presentation that covered higher education and local agency communications response trends, crisis communications, best practices that ensure that communities air staying and formed media relations, tips to communicate ongoing challenges and internal communication tips to keep staff and faculty informed and supportive. We also talked about what we see happening next in this crisis, from commencement cancellations to declining enrollment and what colleges conduce now to prepare. After the presentation, we hosted a question and answer session, and that lasted almost a full hour. As colleges across the nation asked all sorts of different questions. We had almost 400 individuals on the conference representing colleges from the East Coast all the way to Hawaii. So there was some really good discussion and some great expert advice that came from both Scott and Pan. We wanted to make this available is a podcast. So for those of you who like to listen on this platform, um, what follows this brief introduction is an actual recording of the WEBINAR you'll hear in the webinar reference to some documents that were gonna make available to people upon request. And we're also working right now to make those documents available on our website. So if you go to news dot interact calm dot com, you should see ah version of this presentation that you can download. And in the upcoming days, you'll also be able to see some documents that were mentioned in the podcast as well. So that's it from me. Um, take a listen. There's a lot of amazing lessons to be learned and some fantastic discussion that happened.

spk_1:   2:53
I'm Pam Cox, Otto, I'm the CEO of Interact. And at this point, I have put nearly 40 years of my life into community colleges and making sure that we're serving you in a way that I hope you want to be served today. We're doing this because we're all in this together. And honestly, it's our focus now, as we as we enter into this new new phase of our lives to give you some ideas that we hope you will find useful for us. Now the meter isn't running. It's all about us helping each other with that Scott take over

spk_2:   3:29
running on. Thank you for being here. Uh, we specialize in crisis communications. I don't think any of us could possibly have imagined the scope or scales

spk_0:   3:39
of

spk_2:   3:40
this one. We work primarily with local government agencies that quite a few colleges, universities and I just want to talk about tree does to the 340 folks there on, uh, this webinar right now for taking time out of what is likely to be very busy schedules Thio get up to speed and share your questions and experiences the world forward to sharing with you. But I

spk_0:   4:07
think

spk_2:   4:07
we can all learn from each other, so welcome.

spk_1:   4:11
So with that, let's start talking about where we are. First of all, I know you've all been watching the news as I have, but here's here's the best summary I could I could put together. We're dealing with a virus more infectious and potentially deadlier than the flu. Ah, there's a 2% death rate associated with this compared with a 20.1 with the flu. Ah, and those of us who are compromised, I'II, asthma or heart or diabetes or many other things. It's going to be rougher, and the death rate will be higher among those populations. Exponential growth means the number of cases will double every 2.4 days unless we focus on extreme hunkering down. My many of you know my husband's a physicist and he can't help himself. He started doing math looking at the outbreak rates across the country, and what he basically said was, you know, by the end of March we should be looking at about 237,000 people infected in the U. S. On and then it goes from there. So this is important stuff. Remember, the Spanish flu lasted more than a year, and you should be planning for 6 to 8 months disruption. I would like to cut

spk_0:   5:21
a mountain of disruption.

spk_1:   5:23
No. Yes, 6 to 8 months disruption if we're lucky. If we're not lucky, it could be 18 months, which is what the CDC was saying this morning. So it's Ah, this is serious stuff. Do not expect to be back to normal by summer or even fall on. I say that knowing many of you have presidents who are currently pressuring you to get right on that marketing for fall enrollment, and that will be important. What this means for us is there's a lot of states that have completely closed down. Schools of many of the federal government has not put that taken that control yet. So it's all in the hands of local schools and districts and the state. This what the CDC is saying right now is that if schools decide to close, they recommend a minimum eight week period because anything less than that will not impact the flattening of the curve, as we've all been hearing about and talking about. And they're also talking about a maximum time of 20 weeks. So that's part of the reason I'm telling you not to be expecting that this is, Ah, mere bubble and we'll get over it quickly. And if I'm wrong, great, what does that hurt? But if I'm right, then it means you need to be planning for summer and full in a completely different way. Ah, school's air. Still trying to provide service is free lunches for those in need, and I believe that's probably going to increase as we go deeper into this situation. Um, what that means. I think I skipped to slide. There we go. What that means for community colleges is large gatherings have been canceled or postponed. You know what that means? If you have not already canceled your graduation, you will. Colleges across the nation are trying to ramp up on doing remote classes and doing online um, in some classes. And as I said, some colleges have started canceling graduation. More will follow its it's ah, it's unlikely that we will be out of these woods in in eight weeks. Board meetings have moved online. Some colleges are moving to remote work for most on campus workers, except those who actually have to be on campus. Many of you are probably coming to me from your own living room and all wearing fluffy bunny slippers and see there's some good news and all of this. Um, what that means for all of you is you're on the bubble to communicate decisions in real time, Um, and it also means that it is constantly changing whatever I told you now about how long the virus lasts on the surface may change in another day or two as we learn more about these things. So the single most important thing for you to all remember is you need to be communicating continually that you're using the best information you have at this moment. But letting people know it may change. There's already enough distrust of the media, and if you start saying things with absolute finality, you're you're going to be heard in that managing crisis communications with all of your other duties. And for some of you, I know you've done this before. Not your first rodeo, but for others. That's why we're trying to put this kind of information together, and we'll be doing more of these webinars in the futures. Start thinking about your enrollment and how to market your summer and fall. And I remind you that your summer classes used to be only people who you know who could take the time off from their job. Um, could do summer. Well, I remind you that most of us are at home right now, and many people, your market for your summer classes has probably just triple. So things to think about with that. Let's talk crisis communications, Scott.

spk_2:   9:03
Great. Thank you, Pam. We thought we would start with a few trends that we're receiving in crisis communications, because those were the overlay for the the setting that you're finding yourselves in right now. Probably the biggest driver around, how we have changed. The way we communicate during crises is attention fans that have gone into the gutter with hopes multitasking. We've all gotten used to do in 34 or five things at once. We need to really simplify on messaging and recognize on. Nobody is looking at an online screen or looking at us being interviewed in traditional media with 100% attention. We're also texting. We're getting civilised all over the place, so we've got a really simplify it. What that means is greater used instead of graphics and making some really interesting things done over the last week or so and keeping your story as simple as possible. Fewer words, more pictures, more video. Could some accuse us of dumbing things down? Uh, by taking that approach, perhaps. But I think we can either fight the way people get information now or we can adapt our style and our method of communicating to it like may be most effective, Um, approach to communications right now to get people's attention is empathy, and we find that it's most often missing in local government communication. Um, all of us are hurting in different ways and acknowledging that that pain and the rather stark situation we found ourselves in can help bridge that gap between our colleges and those that we are that we are serving. Um, social media, of course, is going to drive your story. There's no question about that. We need to monitor, um, social media to the extent we can't. It won't devote a tremendous amount of time, Uh, to, uh, monitoring. You got a lot of other things to do. Uh, you're going thio beat be pulled in several different directions. We would encourage you to, uh, post consistently correct misinformation, if you can. Uh, what we find is important. Uh, in social media monitoring is not letting this information go viral, so that's very important. What moment? I'm gonna switch on audio sources here. It's better. Okay. Hopefully, that will be ah, little bit more effective for you. Um, all right. Okay. Um, mobile news consumption is also driving how we communicate. We just saw some recent Google analytics around how people are getting news during crises. And, um, that showed roughly 85 90% of, uh, uh, information gathering is done. Be a mobile devices now. So if you are not mobile optimized, if you're still relying on a desktop interface, that's not how people are getting your news. That may mean having some, uh, really challenging Ah, uh, conversations with your i t department, but, um, having a mobile website, getting information to people as quickly as possible and as simply as possible, is essential misinformation. And a social media world goes viral, um, in a nanosecond, which is why that monitoring function is so important. We suggest treating this crisis as you would any other. And that is, um, establishing either a full emergency operation center or a joint information center not necessarily connected to a new emergency operation. Center. Some of the challenges around that today, and they'll certainly play out for this crisis. Given the time frame that Pan noted, earlier lengths of operation is in depth at this point. So how do you staff? Ah, one of the things that we found in a number of information centers that we have managed recently is you're going to run out of bodies very quickly. Ah, those you borrow either through P i o mutual aid or other sources aren't gonna be available. This is not a crisis that is affecting a single organization. It's all of us. So we're somewhat on our own. Um, also, folks just aren't gonna be able to gather in a room like we traditionally would in a joint information center. So Ah, that means developing your joint information center based on remote access. Uh, Angela, If you could forward at for some reason, this is, um there we go. Thank you. Fuel over writing, guiding principles. You can almost, um, toss out the concept of over communicating right now as situations change daily. Um, I think we all have the responsibility to communicate with all of our stakeholders. Um, continually, even if you don't have a lot of new information to share. We talked about empathy, flexibility, and the resource is that we've all come to lie on day to day may not be there. And we just need to find solutions often on on the fly accessibility, Uh, both for the media. A cz well, as your stakeholders is essential. Um, but we don't want, um anyone to accuse any of us. Uh, is not being able to get our questions answered or find out what we're doing to adapt to changes in, um, in the situation which are hourly at this point. Um, go the next one. Having a cross departmental crisis communications team is one of the most effectively. You can begin to get your arms around this. The reason why I stress, um, cross departmental is you'll get viewpoint expertise from others throughout the organization. Um, that, I think is is, um, greatly benefited by perspective from those that don't sit within communications. So when we create a communications team, we look for those in your case throughout the college that get it that can provide meaningful input that composed tough or challenging questions can provide information and expertise in other areas of college operations that we may not have within our communication shot. We know that a lot of you are one in two person departments, which makes it all the more challenging. Um, yet, um, it is, Ah, a lifesaver. Having the expertise from throughout the organization when, um, when you need it boast, er we've adopted an emergency approach with the number of clients were working with around this crisis. And that means daily I am t Here is your incident management team to these terms that maybe a little bit unfamiliar to you But, um, having daily calls with, uh, the College Community Theatre as part of that incident management team and then daily calls amongst your team, um makes sure that everybody is up to speed and is working with the latest information. As we figure out who does what in the information center begins thinking about what folks core competencies are, who writes good reports? Who does, um, effective personal social media that can then be brought into the college who likes to do videos? Uh uh. Each of us has your hobbies, Areas of expertise. Um, those convey used to great advantage is part of your P i o team. Let's go there. A few things you can you can do now additionally, um, don't be hesitant to say we don't know. Ah, none of us knows. Um, likely a fraction of the implications of this crisis often is communicators I don't know is the toughest thing for us to say when we do interview training, we focus on that. But we are all learning and adapting as we go along. Acknowledge those fears, um, the fears our president not only in your professional setting at the college, but at home for those of us that have kids that have had personalized upended by this, uh, there is just this this tremendous cloud of fear. Uh, that's driving everything. So we could be a calming influence through our college communications. Want to avoid any guesses about duration again. Pam's numbers up at the front of this call are pretty ominous, so we certainly don't want to add misinformation by guessing whether it's a month, two months or 18 months. Nobody really knows. Um, one of the things that we can do during this is communicate to your broader community about how they can access your campuses, whether it's using a track, ah, running track or an athletic field or a walk through the campus. Of course, keeping within the CDC guidelines for, uh, social distancing and everything else. But this may be an opportunity for some folks to visit your campuses that have never been there before. They may not be familiar with what you have and some of the facilities that you have to offer. This is an opportunity, um, not necessarily to capitalize on misfortune, but two open a lot of folks eyes to what might be available out there. Uh, if you don't pull anything else out of this crisis communications portion Ah, we would urge you to craft four essential documents. Ah, crisis communications approach. For those of you that have done strategic communications plans, this is a mini version of that, um you're not gonna have time obviously, to craft a full, uh, crisis communications or strategic communications plan. But this is a three or four page document that lays out for your entire incident management team how you're approaching communication this for, uh, this, um the crisis. A key message platform. Get a single page. We could certainly get examples to folks. Is the foundation for every communications tool that you create? Um, it 34 Overriding message. Interesting. When we do training, we've got a message. Platforms the CDC issued back during the pandemic flu, um, prices a few years back. Very simple. No numbers, no statistics, but very simple statements and kind of backing, uh, information that allow anyone that's representing college doing media interviews or in public interaction to be consistent with your messaging. Ah, the companion document to that is we call a rude or internal Q and a document, and that's where your team anticipates the 12 15 couple of dozen. Toughest. Starkey is most challenging questions that you could be asked about your colleges role and response to this crisis. Coming up with the questions is pretty easy coming up with the answers can be challenging because you may need to get input from a number of folks throughout your campus holding statements. We've had several questions about what those are. It's very tough to even think and get our our heads around this right now. It's even tougher to spend time carving out creating documents. A holding statement allows you to have a pre written, um, statement in place so that would you get media enquiries? You can respond to them much more quickly. There will likely be a lot of blanks on there in terms of how a specific facility is impacted. Scheduling cancellation of public events. Um, that sort of thing. Um, but, um, the holding statement you may have several of them allows you to put some of your boiler plate in place and then literally fill in the blanks. We just got a comment, uh, around, Uh uh, exciting. A little bit more in detail. The route, um two and a, um, the process we go through to create that is, uh, anticipating just about every legitimate question we could be asked in a number of different subject areas around college operations. Um, we can begin to craft our answers and, um, the the challenge and that is we don't have those communicators, all the answers, So we need to do some research. The resulting document is it could be 34 pages of a number of questions and answers that provide the foundation for consistent messaging and consistent answering of questions in media. Ah, interviews, social media posts, a day to day interaction that anybody on campus has with your stakeholders. Um, there's a couple of tremendous benefits to crafting the route or internal Q and a document. Ah, the 1st 1 is you live in eight. The deer in the headlights Look when you are interviewed because if we if you've done your job creating this document effectively, you've anticipated just about any question you could be asked. So nothing will be as prize. There likely won't be on Oh, snap moment where you got a question that you haven't thought of the other benefit, which is tremendous, especially right now, as things change constantly is organizational consistency. I think a lot of us have had the experience of seeing two people from the same organization interview during a crisis, and they give conflicting information or conflicting answers, the rude or internal to day and rude. We use that word because sometimes they're questions that could be considered rude or less than ideal. That organizational consistency is very, very important. So, um, we'll go into that Maurine the Q and A if you like, or we can take that off line and provide you some examples of those. We also encourage you to monitor what is going on in other nearby districts and colleges. As you monitor media coverage. Perhaps there is messaging. Perhaps there is a story that has been pitched around how the college is adapting to this crisis. There are a couple of reasons why it's important to monitor those first. It'll allow you to anticipate questions you might get. As you know, the media is always looking for a local angle. So if something affecting a college in another area, um uh is beginning to generate news, your local is likely gonna want local reaction, and this will allow you to prepare for that. Um, it also allows you to actively pitch on stories around how the community could access your college and changes you've made in your operations distance learning that that sort of thing. So that monitoring function, which is separate from social media monitoring, is extremely important for the next one. Uh, be at the table. Um, I think all of you that sit in your weekly senior staff meetings immediately have seen the benefit of that. You're not getting information. Third hand. Um, when you drawing those meetings, bring your plan, your communications approach, go over it. So they know that, um, you've thought about this You're being strategic around. How you're using very limited resource is point out the pros and cons of suggestions and plans of action that are brought up in that meeting. Uh, probably the toughest role as a communicator that you will have in those weaknesses pushing back. We've dealt with several crises over the last couple of weeks. There was one last week that involved probably two of the toughest phone calls I've ever had. They were both with agency legal counsel because often your attorneys will come out on def you differently than we might as communicators. And I consider it one of my central roles to be, ah, pest. Good. Whatever term you want to use, but pushing back and pointing out what we could go that direction. But here is the likely outcome. This is where the media will likely go. This is where the discussion will go. These are the perils of continuing down that abs. Um, figure out who you're spokesperson's are. Um uh there should ideally be no more than one or two again. This we've all that's the crisis, plays out trainer leaders, whoever That spokesperson is your chancellor. Your superintendent President. Your ah, board president. Likely, some of them have not communicated during a crisis of this scale before. So it's important that you help them understand what the interview setting is like, what their role is and be a resource to them and helping get them comfortable doing media interviews. So the next one, Angela, I'm just gonna work really quickly through a few things to keep in mind. Families first. Of course we've touched on that. Um, as a communicator, you can help organize communications support systems. Recognizing folks are going to be, um, offsite. Perhaps some on site. Be patient with the media. Uh, we've all seen a dramatic change and how the media is covering us. We just don't have reporters with years of experience that understand education. They certainly don't have education, beat reporters in most markets anymore. They're gonna get it wrong. And it's not gonna be, um, done maliciously in my Syrians, But you may need to help bring them along and help them understand what you're doing to react to this crisis. So a little bit of patients not only will, I think, increase uh, accuracy of coverage during this crisis I think will be a benefit to you as you before word. Once we get past this critical stage mental health stress, you know, you this is gonna become, I think, the bigger story, Um, over the next couple of weeks. So to the extent that ah, you can be part of whatever mental health tactics and strategies your college you college is using to support Dr Leased out and students look at that as an opportunity to promote that in the media and to encourage people to access whatever resource is available, and that includes the eighties and other resource is uh, no, actually, um, finally, help me create a forum of some sort to share concerns. Kind of like a function that we're that we're seeing here. Um, I think is one of those core responsibilities of the communicator constantly updating your intranet so that faculty, staff and other internal audiences are kept up to speed sharing stories of how people are creatively adapting That can be done through short form videos. Um, it could be done through a number of different methods without using a lot of words. So, um, those videos should be, um ah, focus of both your policy leaders, your board members, president, that sort of thing as well Is your staff leadership. And, you know, to the extent that you have other threat your campus having folks with different responsibilities talk about how they're adapting as well. I think that shows the community that we're all being flexible here, so have a lot in a short time. Uh, I want to ah, uh, toss it back to Pam, and, uh, we can begin to wrap up this portion.

spk_1:   32:17
You know me. I'm a pragmatist. So you know I can't help myself. Hey, Jeff, I know everybody doesn't need to hear the same number of things on social distancing and hand washing. So the big issues you're gonna cover because nobody else will cover is life within the college student Information. How to help students get by, Uh, what to do when you're alone and scared those of you of international students How you keep people calm when they can't get out of the country. There's a whole range of things that are only in your in your sandbox that you're going to have to be communicating to. So what I do is I'd have a block where literally everything is up and say, You know, for details on how things were progressing in the nation, this for details on the state, this the county this and now here's about the college, and that's the stuff you're going to have to maintain and find a way to create community from me. Guys, this isn't going to go away anytime soon. And if it does, you can all laugh at me at the next MP N. C M P R. But you should be worried first and foremost about retention. You still have some students now, and many of them are not going to make the transition to online. Some will try and then fail. You need to be working on them and you need to be trying to pull them across where you are now into summer. Because remember, many of them are gonna be home and into fall. So it's all about retaining, not just within this semester, but through the longer period of time. And if that's of interest to you, let me know. And we'll do some more things about this. Um, you should be thinking about your commencement, bringing it up on looking for the options that you have. We have. We have a block post coming out shortly on some of the things to think about how to keep students close, even if they aren't enrolled. You're gonna have a lot more stop outs than you've ever had before, but they will come back, particularly if it this moment you show yourself engaging with them and creating a sense of community. And that's what you need to be teaching your faculty in your staff to be doing right now. And if you can't send them our way and we'll, we'll do our best, also create that kind of information that they need to know you can create community now, in a way, you've never done before. Ah, it's a good time to market online classes for those air you've got online. It's a perfect time to beef up. Your online resource is not just for students, but for faculty. Because you know as well as I do, you have a whole bunch of faculty out there going. I've never been online. I don't know how to use this thing s o. This is the time Have folks create self help videos about how to get online howto how to engage all of those things. Um, there we go. You know what? What you do now to recruit for summer and fall will make a world of difference in your enrollment numbers. I know you've all seen my funnel, but now the funnel between here and the end of the semester and the end of the semester and bring and spring to fall are your critical junctures. So there is an incredible need for communications to cover those periods of time. And I strongly recommend that you work on that plan right now. If you need help, let us know because well, we've got we've got samples. We'll do our best to engage and to provide any kind of assistance we can, um, couple of things to ah to remember. And I This is me being pragmatic. So it's my stuff that I think about when I worry about where colleges are right now. Retention could be key, and it can't be left to faculty alone because most of them know how to create a relationship face to face but don't know how to do it online. So you need to. Your student service is, and you need to step up on begin to kind of focus on that piece. Creating community while distanced is key, and I don't just mean for students. I mean, faculty are the major disadvantage. Consider old fashioned things like the old fashioned phone tree and not just in mass messaging department should be keeping department foot close and and and majors, and in service is there should be a kind of a checking in with each other kind of thing. That that goes beyond simply mass emails, etcetera. Create a communication plan for support, not just news. Critical whatever culture you had before. I'm many of you. I know I've been there, have wonderful cultures, many of you. I know I've been there, have awful cultures. This can change for good based on how you create this moment of connection. So I want you to be thinking about how you show that you care for all of your internal folks by how you set up the messaging. And it can't be just daily messages from your president and just the numbers. Whatever does it. Digital assets you have, you don't have enough. You need more. Consider. Everybody in the damn world has a phone where they can. They can videotape things on dhe center, digital tape things and send them out. Consider high end editing from low end phone recordings. Those are those are easy and that's that's a powerful tool. Short term classes are more likely to succeed than 14 weak ones. You know you're Hopefully, your leadership is thinking of that. Don't forget to account for your noncredit continuing ed population if you're going online for credit and you do the same for them, Um, and how you focus on those elements will be critical on and other pieces that I you know, that I'm thinking about in the bigger picture when and if the hospital's overflow part of the emergency plan will be able to reach out to your students. Italy just released 10,000 new graduates without making them take their finals. Okay, I'm a little worried, but still, so they may start doing that to your own students. What would you do? What would you say? How do you deal with that issue? Colleges are natural overflow hospitals that already have a lot of equipment. How would that work? You should be thinking about that now and not be flat footed. You should bring that up to your leadership. If they haven't thought about it. There may be hunger among working, poor and homeless and your own students. And you have cafeteria facilities. So your college may be the center of hope in your entire community. Consider a daily beat. Check both internal and external to update information because local information slows down. National data is pretty good, but local typically slows down. So that's the kind of thing that you could be doing to create that beat. Check. And if you've got journalism programs, you know, and other things, this is the time to call in your your folks who can help you with that. I am serious. This is the moment where you separate yourself from the universities, how and why. It's because you are in the community and you have solutions and are thinking about your own community. Universities. Many of them will try, but they're they're spread out. This is your home. If you show at this moment how committed your colleges to taking care of your home and the people who live within it, that will last for decades. Mishandle that. And that too, will last for decades. So I ask you to think about those things now, uh, that I'm going to. We're goto thoughts and tips and advice to share with others. And folks have been monitoring the questions all the way along. And Scott, my stand ready to help one thing. See the address in front of you discourse and interact dot com. What we've done is a creative play, questions and share ideas and work together to ah, get through this.

spk_0:   39:45
Thanks so much. Pam and Scott. So before, before we launched the Webinar today, we had asked people to send questions as part of the sign up. So we've consolidated some of those questions and I have. I'm gonna start with those. There's a few of them and then we've written down questions that have been going on through the chat function as well. So, first, could you cover or address communications for different student populations? Credit noncredit, continuing education, dual credit, high school contract grant, corporate training, any advice or tips you have on communicating with these different audiences?

spk_1:   40:26
Holy cow. There's a lot of them. The bag thing to remember is that there's a difference in in risk for each one of those populations. The risk for somebody who's a credit student who's who's taking full time, part time classes. They've paid for this, and now suddenly it's all coming crashing down. For me, that is a critical priority because they are. They're they're going to say, Where am I getting my money back? They're gonna They're going to start looking at those pieces. My own son is scheduled to graduate. It's full, and I don't think so. I don't think that's gonna happen. So answer. Dealing with them and answering their questions first, because they have most to lose right now is critical. The dual credit students were in high school Yes, they're important, but they're in high school and they still have a safety net around them. Um, and they have time. The folks who are on their own working to get through less. So Ah, the other one noncredit might once again these air populations noncredit continuing. Add those air populations that typically get overlooked. Don't overlook them because of all of the places where you can shine right now, coming up with non credit classes that you can take online to help people get through. This is critical. Um, I have a friend who started a little block where he basically shows how to make food out of whatever you have in your pantry. I know that sounds stupid, but many of us are going, you know, can I do something with the liver and the onions and the the, uh, green beans, Okay, liver and onions. You could do that. But the point is, is that that there's a lot you could be doing with non credit. And for those of you who get money and and unit and, uh, and and credit for that, that's a good place to start The one population. I don't think your mansion. But I'm gonna mention here if you have international students My God, you have an incredible burden to ah, and a responsibility to respond to them and to communicate with them and keep them safe. The Nordic countries air telling students from the U S to come home because they don't want to be in 1/3 roll country with third World health care. If you have people who are at your school and who have not already left over communicating with them and having a plan for them to feel both safe and valued and not left alone, that is gonna be a critical piece. Um, for meat you, that's those are the big picture kinds of pieces that I think about, um, the other groups, I'll tell you the other, there's going to be a 1,000,000 other groups. The one that's gonna be most difficult is is the C t. E. Because many of them have hands on components. And I'm sure you're academic folk were already thinking about it. I'll tell you what I've seen. A lot of people are continuing to get the book learning part of their education going and then to pull up assets, video, et cetera from other Resource is this is the time to do that to keep those classes going, because at the end you could always add on the hands on portion at the end. But keep them moving forward for a lot of reasons. One. You don't want to give the money back. And two, Sorry about that practical thing. But to the other real fact, here is, Ah, bottom line. You want to make sure that people feel like they're moving forward. We're kind of stuck in a place right now and being able to feel like your movement forward and getting things going, that that's a powerful tool for for everybody.

spk_0:   43:53
All right, Thank you so much, Pam. I think Scott, this this question might be one that you have some experience with, especially. I know that you can build situations like this just in the past week. This came from a college in California. We've had a couple of cases on our campuses in which students were told to self quarantine because of possible exposure. Although there doctor said they need not be tested. We sent messages to our campus community letting them know we have a statement ready in case we got a call from the media. But we did not send out a news release. My question. At what level should we send out a news release? Should it on Lee be when a student or staff member has actually tested positive? Or should we just continue to have a media statement ready in all circumstances? And, Scott, if you're speaking, we can't hear you right now, so make sure that your mic is on

spk_2:   44:55
done. You did Okay, That's better.

spk_0:   44:58
That's better. We can hear you now. Okay,

spk_2:   45:01
Um, just, uh, generally having a holding statement ready to go likely will be the best approach. Um, this is one of those areas where we're all learning as we go along. And, um, you know, it's not just our colleges that are gonna be charged with releasing that information. You have county health departments.

spk_1:   45:24
You

spk_2:   45:24
have, um, other local organizations. So this is where the benefit of having a team, uh, that can discuss what the best way forward will be is gonna be invaluable. So I think one of the the immediate takeaways is, um understand who your county health P I o is Understand who? Your local city and county p iose. Our have them all on a group text right now. So that was something like this comes up. You can all agree on who releases what? Um, that also will have the benefit of reducing the chance of misinformation or conflicting information going out. I just always find the result is going to be better if we approach it in coordination.

spk_0:   46:22
Okay, Goodbye. So, Scott Scott basically is advising that you have a team standing by ready, You know who should be releasing what type of information. And and for positive tests that might not be your college. That might be your local health department, Scott. Is that Is that a good synopsis?

spk_2:   46:42
That's a great synopsis. Well done show.

spk_0:   46:46
All right, so, for both up for both of you guys, how do you handle negative social media commentary on your campus Thus far, like from angry parents about their international students? Well, being at your campuses,

spk_1:   47:03
well, I'll take at least the first part of it, I think from angry international parents. I think this is where you you begin with making the students feel safe and valued because they're going to do more to calm their parents down than you ever will by responding. But you should respond and let them know what you're doing to keep them safe and to, ah, help them feel like they're valued. And and you're you're paying attention. Um, I seriously believe that we can do a lot of of healing by by how we respond and show that we realize we're all in this together. Um, as for their anger, you know, Really, What are you going to dio say? I'm sorry. They're here. They're here. You know that The issue is to deal with reality now, as much as possible. Um, and a show to show the empathy that Scott was talking about and and realize they have legit fears. Any of us who have high school kids. If they were in another country right now, say Italy, wouldn't you be? Wouldn't you be scared to death and wanting to know what they're doing to keep your kids safe? So I strongly recommend that your college respond the same way you would respond. You would want people to respond if they were your Children and keep the parents informed in exactly the same way.

spk_2:   48:20
I agree. You know, stuff is gonna happen, and people are gonna say what they're gonna say. Um, you want to avoid getting into a tug of war with a particular poster that's not gonna benefit anybody, But what you do I think I want to be consistent about is correcting serious misinformation. So that could be done professionally and respectfully. I think we have the responsibilities communicators to correct it, not only in the moment, but when people look at this as a sort of reference and it gets really tweeted reposted that misinformation doesn't go viral.

spk_0:   49:06
Thank you. And Scott, I wanted to go back to the seven question that we asked about when somebody has tested positive and how to respond to that. We just had somebody in the group tax Jenny had asked What what do you do about employees or student questions about who tested positive? And how do you maintain confidentiality? Yeah,

spk_2:   49:31
that, of course, has HIPPA implications. And that's why we typically recommend letting the health experts handle that, um that we were a lot of cities and counties and the first responder p iose deal with this stuff daily. So that is why having that conversation now with your local team, whether county health, city health in the larger cities to determine pool, is responsible for releasing that information, and under what circumstances will they release it? My sense is it is not gonna be a college responsibility. There's there's somebody might help to point out here. There are first responder p iose and communicators, and there are those of us that are with a lot of organizations, such as colleges that are gonna be more focused on business continuity. And I think a lot of Pam's comments have focused around. Where is this going to take us in the months ahead? How's it gonna affect our students? Are our campuses? We are not charged with that specific health related information. I think that is a lane that we want to stay out of because we don't deal with it. We're not familiar with those hip ramifications. I think we need to bring our comments back around business continuity and what we're doing to get through this. And, um, what weaken, uh, look towards in the months ahead? That's a really important distinction. We often goof it up in our quest to be helpful. Well, answer Reporter's question, because you know where the campus spokesperson and it really isn't our area of responsibility. So kind of keep that in mind in your media interactions.

spk_1:   51:27
And by the way, a 1,000,000 years ago, I was the, uh, public information person for the Girl Scouts of the USA when we had what we lovingly call the gate Great cookie crisis when the cookies were needed. And at that moment, when all of that went on, I never told anyone how many cases we had of tampered cookies. I'd say, Ah, the FBI and the FDA have asked me to not comment on any of that because it's their responsibility. So I'm I'm gonna respectfully decline and let them who were the professionals? Take it from here. So that's that's what you do. You You don't have the responsibility to do that. You put it squarely in their plate. They prefer it, Um, and you're you're actually respecting their job.

spk_0:   52:14
This also sounds like an excellent opportunity for you to cross some holding statements. You know, anticipate these type of questions and write down exactly how you should respond or are going to respond so that you're prepared if you get a phone call from the media clean on where to track them and what you're gonna say.

spk_2:   52:35
And I know I've mentioned this several times, but this is the time to make sure you know who each of those local agency partner communicators are. They are gonna be working and locked up with you in the months ahead.

spk_0:   52:51
Okay, let's move on to a question that we got, um, probably 10 times before this webinar and have gotten a number of times during the text chat. And I'm gonna kind of combine a couple of questions in tow One. Um, how do you convince your executive team members to react with more urgency and communications? But also, what do you do if your executive cabinet is not providing you the leeway to do some of the things that you need to? D'oh.

spk_2:   53:25
Let me jump in on that because that's one of the first challenges we have in just about every crisis. Being at that table is essential. At least your viewpoint can be can be heard. I think that the approach that we talked about earlier during the presentation is Ah, good way to go point out the pros and cons I learned after my dad way back when any time I had some issue, you know, he was always a sort of calming influence. Here's where the problem is here, the cons If you do this, this is what's likely to happen. Uh, that's a very different approach than kind of coming in and ramrodding a suggestion. Um, down your throats of your policy leaders in your senior leadership team. We had that happened with the media approach last week, and we sort of calmly pointed out weaken, We could be absent from the story. Weaken, Essentially, say no comment. We can, um, choose not to reply, but that doesn't mean the story goes away. And I'd much rather be part of it to make sure our messaging is included than, uh, not be part of it. So, um, if you point out the perils of, um, taking an action that you think is correct, I think that is that is your responsibility. The frustrating thing is, we're not gonna get I win every time. Uh, and that I just think, points out some of the inherent differences in how we are adapting today, today's communications environment and some of the very long standing, long held beliefs around the media and public communication that they're still too often, um, in opposition rather than, um, working in tandem. So I think you got to keep pushing

spk_1:   55:26
well and let me add to that If you're not at the big table, you need to be at the big table. And you need to point that out right now for the very simple fact that it'll shorten the time in which you could responds, which is critical. And if they're all worried about you sitting there in hearing secret secret stuff, my quest might. My issue here is this. You have to know the secret stuff for the college, and, uh, and people will be blindsided. So it's better if you're prepared so you could write these kinds of statements ahead of time, then for them to tell you at the last possible moment, when they couldn't hide it anymore. So be it the big big boy big girl table and where your big boy big girl pants because you need to. The other piece to that is quite Frankly, from my perspective, um, if they truly do not understand and are trying to hold communications at arm's length than then Justus Scott said. Here's what you say. What's the cost in danger of putting me close for that and allowing us to prepare for this if I'm right, which is that it will be dangerous and it will all explode. If the cost is that you'll lose all credibility in the community. That's a big cost. If the cost of you being there and Yoon and one more person knowing the secret stuff, what's the cost of that? You know, secret stuff, and eventually they can fire your ass. Okay, those two things are not equal. It is much less of a risk to have you there and preparing for all of this and have them preparing for all this that it is for them to put their head in the sand and hope it goes away. So a risk analysis is really a critical part of this.

spk_0:   57:02
Cheryl.

spk_2:   57:03
Let me jump in for a second with with a new issue that I think it's important for everybody listening because this is coming up increasingly often you need to have guidelines for your policy leader, your trustees, your board members. What we're seeing is increasingly both were getting elected to those positions based on a robust social media campaign. They in there, see, they now are serving on the board, and, uh, they feel a need to continue this very active social media engagement. Which day Today is great. That's steps how we communicate now during a crisis. We are finding issues with policy leaders RETWEETING re posting information that hasn't been vetted. That has not come from either senior staff leadership from the Emergency Operation Center. And it may be wrong, and in some cases it may be deadly. So

spk_1:   58:05
while we

spk_2:   58:06
cannot tell them to not

spk_1:   58:07
pose on,

spk_2:   58:08
we've got a short two page died line document that we can share with you. We can certainly advise. And this is something that ought to come from the president, Superintendent, Chancellor to the to the board advising that you're certainly protected by First Amendment rights. But there are some serious implications if you even if you're not explicitly identified as a board member, posting information that is inaccurate.

spk_1:   58:44
Two years of law school, nobody has the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. So just remember, you don't want to be adding fuel to the fire.

spk_0:   58:53
Yeah, definitely something to remind your board members that they are elected officials and that they should not be sharing information that could be turned out to be false down the line they trusted. And information should be channeled through the appropriate channels. Somebody just posted that. If you're OSI's activated, all of your communications should be coming from a single source. You're either your p I owe your destiny ated communications professional or your incident commander.

spk_2:   59:22
And that's absolutely correct on the incidents that we're finding. Where this is a problem is where a board member is just trying to be helpful, not tryingto screw up the work. But they see something, read something, and they feel they should send it out, and it just creates a world of problems.

spk_0:   59:42
I'm gonna let everybody know that we're at the end of our scheduled time for the webinar, but we are going to continue this discussion. We can continue as long as people are on the line, and for those of you that do and have to leave, we will be working the rest of the day and turning this into a format that you can get emailed to you. So please, if you if you have to leave and run to something else, feel free to do so we'll continue to record the Q and A. For those of you that can stay, we will be here to continue to answer questions. And so I want to move on now. Two questions around enrollment and registration. Marketing. I think, Pam, this is probably, you know, gonna be things that you can address, and we've gotten a lot of questions about enrollment, registration, marketing in the midst of everything that's going on. So I'm actually going to read to you three different questions that are all kind of the same. Feeling the same topic and see what your thoughts are. And anybody wants to jump in the conversation and the champ please feel free to do that. Two. Um, so how do you deal with enrollment registration messaging in the mist of and immediately following the pandemic crisis? Somebody else asked. College presidents are now stressing the importance of fall enrollment and putting pressure on marketing and enrollment service's staff Is it appropriate in these uncharted times that we find ourselves in today to actually ramp up marketing and messaging? What should the messaging sound like?

spk_1:   1:1:16
Well, let me begin with number one President's if you're listening. Step one. Before you make your marketing, people try to sell everything. Do you have quote product unquote? Do you have classes that people can take safely? Do you have offerings online? Do you have enough courses and in a faculty to teach them when people are able to take them? The first piece of this is what what kinds of of course offerings do you actually have? At this moment, nobody could predict what will be available in fall. So if you market everything as if it's going to be a normal fall, you may be putting yourself in danger. So the first question is, Do you have the absolute list of those things that will absolutely go because you've got them online or other things? What kind of reservoir of courses and classes and programs do you have? Your president? Your leadership must answer that question. Otherwise I tell everybody you know you can. You can't sell a dead horse. The answer is you can sell a dead horse once, and after that, no one will believe you. So what you don't want to do is market everything as if it will be normal and then have it not be normal and have to backpedal. So it would be better to be to make sure that they have an answer to that question Number one. Number two What the message and should be. I mean, frankly, nobody ever saw nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody saw this coming and in terms of the broader impact that this would have on the entire the entire country. So knowing that what I would say is I believe that your messaging oughta be clear, focused, Riel, Um, and a little self deprecating. You know, I I I would I If you've got the ability to be to have any kind of self deprecating humor, I would totally use that, like, you know, how many times can you play sonic hedgehog before before you know how many? How many Netflix is? Can you watch? How much time can you You you spend doing all of these things before you? You yearn for something that moves you ahead. Um, so my my piece here is to is to ah, remember that you can beget. You can offer the kind of training and classes for the future, but you need to be promoting. It is such so you know, we have, We're open, we're online, where were available, and we're helping you take your life into the future, no matter what comes next, right? That's the kind of ongoing messaging. It's positive it's forward, but it's also realistic. Andi, it's reminding folks that that, ah, that you still have things to offer. But how many things do you have to offer? Your leadership needs to get down to the ground and look at that. Personally, I think you could do an amazing job with summer registration because people will need lots of different things that you've never thought of. I would hope your academics are going hog wild thinking of what kinds of new programs and classes and courses you can offer online to people who need more information and want to learn how to thio to deal with the kind of changes that we're experiencing. Um, you know, if you've got people who teach psychology and counts like you can have online mass counseling. I mean, seriously, there's a whole range of things you could be doing. As for marketing them, only market the things that you know for sure, but leave it open that were, as we have more class available and as as it's safe for us to gather, here is the next line of things. Um, your your leadership needs to know and understand. They can't expect you to market for a time that nobody knows what's coming next. So they need to ante up first and then you market to match that. As for what kind of marketing? Like, you know, I'm the truth is, is that traditional marketing? And under this case, um, I would market on TV channels. Everybody's watching television news. At this moment, I would market online, you know, obviously, television new sources on. I'd also tell you at this point digital everything because real world marketing radio people aren't commuting. All of those rules have changed. So I wouldn't be spending a lot of time with the old fashioned, uh, kind of traditional media. I'd be looking at digital mostly. Um, no more geo fencing if you're wasting money on that. Stop it right now. Nobody's gathering in groups, so it's a waste of time. Grab that money. Um, pull it back in and look for other things you could be doing. That's kind of the big picture stuff. Um, that help, I hope.

spk_0:   1:5:56
Yeah, Pam, we had somebody ask if you think that that all marketing should be paused right now until you absolutely know what's gonna be offered this summer. What would be your advice to colleges for grappling with that decision?

spk_1:   1:6:10
Oh, hell, no. Um, I wouldn't tell you that. This is the moment where you shouldn't be doing image marketing where you're talking about the kinds of things that the college is doing within your community to make life better because they should be doing things right. Whether it's, um, providing space, food, meals, help online. You know, make a list of all of the things that that your college is doing to support the community and this time of need. And that kind of messaging should be going on online, along with the message, which is we will be offering courses in these kinds of things. Check here in the future and you know, remind people it's going to be fluid. But keep that communication marketing flowing, you will have something to market. You just don't exactly know what it is yet. Um and yeah, creative hashtags great idea that will only work with people under 40. But you know, under that it will work with them. So those are the kinds of pieces that I strongly recommend, but do not disappear. Do not drop all of your marketing if you need to cut back a little bit, particularly on the things that have to fine a point on it. Like fewer marketing for your, uh your fire department. Your fire program of your police program and those air are are on pause right now. Stop. Stop the money on those kinds of things. Hold it. Waiting for that And by the way, is another pragmatic point of view. You need to talk to your leadership right now so that they don't reclaim all of your damn money in June to July. Your you know, if you're saving the college money, you need to be able to keep that money so that you can do the kinds of things that they that you need to do in supportive of summer and fall marketing. If anything, they ought to be considering what kind of resource is they're going to give you to help with that. So those air kind of pragmatic things I would look at

spk_0:   1:8:04
and one thing that one new tactic that we've had a couple of oncologists tell us that they're considering doing is those who have had budget in their geo fence budgets. Clearly like you, said Pam, people aren't congregating or high schools are closed, You know, here in California, there's no high school's open. And as I know, that's on a lot of states. Eso There's absolutely no point to be geo fencing your high schools, but you can geo fence by home address now. So if you, you know, should be communicating to your current students or two students who have applied in the past and not enrolled and you can send them on digital messages directly encouraging them to stay enrolled, letting them know that summer classes are going to be happening so you can can be using budget to to reach people that way. I think it's something we've never done before. His community colleges, but we're gonna have to start getting a little bit creative on finding the right audience and also making sure we have the right message is going out. We had some people ask about retention as well on Dhe to see if you had any thoughts on how we should be communicating to students and keeping them retained and engaged so that they can complete this semester.

spk_1:   1:9:21
Well, couple of things, first of all, you need to be working with your faculty to be creating that kind of you can do this kind of ongoing messaging. And since most of your faculty are probably teaching from a distance, they're not good at this. So giving them samples, examples of letters and notes and messaging, and the kinds of things that they can do personally to keep their 30. You know, students in one class engaged and feeling like it's possible to finish. Faculty need to remind people that there, there and there are going to finish this program. And so, um, it's don't don't give up on this piece. The other piece that I would tell you is that the broader student service is, and you also need to take a role in this kind of ongoing communication. It doesn't all need to be serious. It doesn't all need to be. Here is the 45 things you need to do in the next two weeks to graduate, et cetera. In fact, if anything, it needs to be the most empathetic. We know where you are. Hang on. You're doing okay. Um, we are absolutely here to support you. Um, you will be. You will finish. It needs to be that kind of positive messaging along with with examples and practical ways that this can happen. Don't just say you'll finish down. Very. Um, no, you'll finish. Don't worry. We've got an online class. Here's how we'll take care of the hands on part. We have a plan for this by this state. If you stick with it, you will be done. I mean, that's the kind of messaging that people want to see at this moment. Um, so that's a piece of it. I will tell you the number one thing that I worry about for many of you. Ah, lot of places have an incredible chokehold on texting, which is still one of the most powerful ways to reach people. I'm not saying you want to. Spam people that need it does need to be controlled. But if you've got people who are controlling it so you can only text, you know, for ah, for these three things or if your bill is due or whatever. Yeah, you need to be using texting, um, To make people aware of resource is you have and help available and those kinds of things. So, you know, if you've got just emergency texting, you know what emergency exactly are you waiting for? Because if this isn't one, I don't know what is. So you need to be using that cool people close and left them, know that you are thinking of their welfare and their classes and all of those things right now.

spk_0:   1:11:52
I think another question that came in earlier that I thought was, um was a really important question and really kind of touches on what might be in everybody's minds right now. Was right around being honest around the quality of education that you're offering and how to deal with that. So I'm gonna read this to you, Pam and and Scott. You might wanna weigh in here is, well, authentic and honest. Messaging is important at a time like this. As much as we're committed to providing excellent education, the reality is that this is not exactly what will be happening during the remainder of this semester. Faculty and students are at various levels of comfort with online education. How do we handle messaging around the reality of educational quality that's taking a hit this semester?

spk_2:   1:12:41
Let me just take a broad staff. But that then, Pam, obviously you're the expert on college specifics.

spk_0:   1:12:49
The public's

spk_2:   1:12:49
B s meter is very finely tuned and that honesty is going to serve you well, you know, once we get past it, the most critical stage of this So, um, you know, re emphasizing that message or we are all finding our way. Things may not be the way that you are used to them happening. Lecture for maps, teething formats. Curriculum is going to be different. Um, we will continue to adapt. Were also, this is maybe one of your messages. We're also learning from our peers, just like you know, those communicators. We're all gathered today. I have to think that, um, other professionals on your campuses are doing the same thing with their peers, figuring out how others are dealing with this. And if we hear of a good idea or a good approach, we will put that in place here is well, so keep focusing on that flexibility message.

spk_1:   1:13:53
I agree in the piece that I would say it. Everyone is, um we are fully aware that online education is not for everyone. Um, and and for many people, it it is more difficult because of the of all of our individualistic learning styles. At the same time, we are committed to make sure that those people who wanted to continue moving forward have that opportunity. That's what we're doing. Um, and it isn't going to be exactly the same as it would have been had you been able to go to class. No. Could it be better for many of you? Yes. Um, is it going to be perfect for all of you? Not at all. So what we ask is we are going to be flexible with you. You we ask you to be flexible with us as we navigate uncharted waters together.

spk_0:   1:14:50
How do you keep up morale during this pandemic?

spk_1:   1:14:54
I personally. Like campfires, Singing market close. Okay, that's just

spk_0:   1:14:59
within within a six feet distance from other people.

spk_1:   1:15:02
Yeah, that's right. Um, well, first of all, I don't know if you saw it, but here it interact. We decided that, you know, we didn't want to do that. You know, the kind of, you know, wave. We decided to use jazz hands as the new international greeting. And there's something about having people do jazz hands. That just looks great. I'm just going to say it's an uplifting. You have the opportunity to create community among all of your faculty, staff and students, Um, in a way that you've never been able to do before because any, you know, I've had people reach out to me in the last three days that I haven't heard from in two years to say. Are you okay? I'm thinking about you. That kind off sharing and commitment is exactly the kind of thing that will keep people feeling good about you and the college mass. Bulk e mails perfectly approved by your attorney and your president will do fit seriously. I mean, I know you have to do them. Takes a shit. I'm sorry. What I'm saying is

spk_0:   1:16:06
by home and that you're so eloquent.

spk_1:   1:16:10
Probably before the shit statement. Okay. What That ability to reach out and and to deliberately build, bake into what's going on right now. The need to say fined five people stay in touch with them share. Let them know you're here. Within your student population and your college population. Those are ways that we begin to create create a sense of community. A 1,000,000 years ago, under the Girl Scout cookie crisis, I used to get up at four in the morning and record a briefing. Everybody that would just say, you know, welcome. Here's what's going on today. Here's what we're doing about it. Um, keep keep your spirits up. Um, And here's here are places to look for more information because I don't have it all right. That that kind of morning briefing done by by me by the head of some, the head of the organization Really people, not a script, just talking exhausted. Clearly, it's early in the morning that shows how deeply engaged you are in keeping people together and not panicking that will pay off if not today, in the future

spk_2:   1:17:26
one audience that we haven't spent a lot of time focusing on, um is important around engagement because there's a lot of fear are you're mature learners. A lot of your colleges have a significant number of mature students that are enrolled in your continuing education. A lot of your programs. They're also the most vulnerable to this virus and likely the ones that are filled with the most fear right now. So if you're triaging your communications efforts, that is an audience that probably ought to be near the top and recognize that many of them just aren't as comfortable accessing technology that all of us depend on. Every day we do a lot of Christ communications blend for colleges, and that comes up very, very consistently that, you know, traditional media. Traditional methods of communication are still really important for that audience.

spk_0:   1:18:27
Yeah, that's actually really great point. Scott. You know, there are some colleges where the classes for senior citizens are the way that the senior citizens stay connected to one another. Um, so, you know, encouraging faculty to phone their students to check in on them. Um, I think it is a wonderful way for people to be spending time right now and showing that your college cares on that. You know, you're you're thinking of them during this time. Also, a couple of things that that I've been talking to college is about yesterday had a conversation with an O'Brien who was who was on the call earlier. I'm not sure if she's still on, but she said that they started their staff meeting their virtual, um, emergency management staff meeting yesterday with everybody grabbing their pet and showing each other's pets and those people who didn't have pet show their kids. It's so just a little bit of humanity in it. Don't forget. When you call your colleagues your starting meeting, Thio. Ask them how how they're doing because they're human beings, you know? How are you holding up? And we should be really aware that this is so stressful for so many of us and beyond just working, working, working. We need to reach out as human beings and to connect with people and make sure they're doing okay here interact. One thing that we had a suggestion from our Vice President, Mary DeLuca this morning is we're having a staff meeting tomorrow and we're gonna start it off by asking people to share something that's been tough to deal with and something that's been a bright spot during these times. So, you know, asking questions like that and showing people that you care, I think, is a real powerful wait. If to help, keep morale up and keep your employees connected with one another, so there's nothing else to add. One other question we got this'll was from Arizona, Western College and Scott. I think you have a lot of information, a lot of experience in this arena. Could you give some input on working with a local joint information center? What that looks like and some advice on what to dio. If you're working with the Joint Information Center,

spk_2:   1:20:42
you bet. And I think it's important, Understand? The term Joint Information Center has sort of become a generic term for any type of communication center. The joint portion of that traditionally is referred to all of your partner agencies, local law enforcement, cities, counties, health all those. But it's really evolved to a joint information center serving as a a central gathering point for anyone involved in communicating on a given issue. Um, those regular daily calls are essential. So prioritizing. Um, just like you're prioritizing your incident management team call. Um, make sure everybody is, um that should be on that call. Has

spk_0:   1:21:36
it

spk_2:   1:21:36
prioritized as well? So obviously, county public health, and they're stretched really thin right now, but chances are they have a bigger communications operation than you do. So they may be able to to, um, uh, assign somebody to that call, uh, and just do a regular round robin. You know what others are doing? You know what their protocols are around announcing when somebody tests positive for somebody who's hospitalized again, they are much more familiar with those hip issues than any of us are, um, so that that that joint information center could be three people sitting around a table. It could be 20 people in their own conference room. There is no one single definition, but as a starting point for everyone on this call. Think about who you need to receive information from every day and who you need to give information to every day, and anybody that is involved in either of those two directions should be part of that information. center.

spk_0:   1:22:51
Okay, Thank you. Um, somebody just typed in the chat while you were talking. I imagine some part time workers are losing their jobs during these shutdowns. How are people messaging this reality without looking like we're cold with no hard?

spk_2:   1:23:11
That's a tough one. I got one. We're all just kind of waiting are our way through. Um, you know, that's that's gonna evolve over the next several days here in Northern California. You know, the number of restaurants that have announced they are closing permanently, They just can't continue. I think the next wave is gonna be how it's gonna affect our organization's colleges, cities, counties. Your tax base supports all of this. And if people aren't out contributing to that tax base, um, something's gonna have to give down the line. And that is gonna be a major next wave of this. I think

spk_1:   1:23:55
from my perspective, what you do is you say, um, you basically say we are None of us are making choices that we want to make. We're making choices to try to keep operations going for as many people as long as possible. So that means that that these kinds of difficult decisions are made to make sure that we can continue to serve the community and for as long as it's absolutely positive, you know, possible, Um, does that mean that that there are tough choices being made? Yes, it does. But it also means we're doing our best to mitigate those choices. And you make a list of the things that you're doing to mitigate those kinds of choices. And I'll tell you, for a lot of people, you know, you have at one point I had someone who I actually fired. Um, and I had the choice where I could say I could allow them to get unemployment right by basically not making that clear, Andi, I chose to do the kinds of things that allow people to get unemployment. Your school will soon be in that place where they can. They can recommend that the that the the rules be, you know, be lowered so that people are getting ongoing support even if they're not working for you date day to day. And that's those are the kinds of hopefully kind choices that we need to be making.

spk_2:   1:25:22
Question came up on Chatham. What should we do this every day? Absolutely, uh, have the call scheduled for a set time. If it's 10 minutes

spk_0:   1:25:31
and you

spk_2:   1:25:31
have nothing else to talk about, great. If it requires 45 minutes on the least you've got the time blocked out. You will find that is a much more efficient way to keep up feed on these rapid changes versus a number of individual conversations or texts or e mails throughout the day.

spk_1:   1:25:53
And by the way, I mean, it's gone viral. But, you know, in Italy, there, there Ah, their death toll just climbed. I think it went over 4000. Today they're taking 10,000 people out of the colleges and universities who haven't graduated in order to be to be working in the health field there in the middle of all of this, and they're still they're still singing and having having ah, short people singing from their balcony to toe lift other people's spirits. I got e mails from friends of mine in Italy telling me how to take care of myself because they're in the middle of it. There is kindness and goodness all around we need It's just a

spk_2:   1:26:37
follow up, just a follow up questions should shouldn't communicate to faculty, staff and students every day. That may be a bit much and unrealistic.

spk_0:   1:26:48
That's

spk_2:   1:26:49
another one of those use. Your best judgment kind of See how the information is coming in. I would say every few days maybe would be a good place to start. And then out there you need to

spk_0:   1:27:03
Mark just had a question. Scott. Um, there's one guy tweeting rumors that were firing all part time people. The rumors aren't accurate. Um, would you recommend engaging with him to prevent this from going viral or just monitor? That's

spk_2:   1:27:20
one of those examples of I think countering this information as quickly as possible. Um,

spk_1:   1:27:28
as one

spk_2:   1:27:28
of our poor responsibilities. Guess with attribution. Being your social media posts indicate very directly that that is inaccurate. Um, and who

spk_0:   1:27:42
could you

spk_2:   1:27:42
please refrain? You ask politely from from continuing to state that because it's not true, you don't want to get into a tug of war. Um, but I think I think we got the responsibility. Thio shut that down if we can.

spk_0:   1:27:59
So following up on Jennifer's question. And this was something, uh, that was asked earlier in the presentation Every sight is saying the same thing, and we're just adding to the noise. Nobody needs another post on hand washing or social distancing. What's your recommendation for getting our message out That doesn't sound canned or deluded?

spk_1:   1:28:25
Well, from my perspective, remember when I said earlier that, um, you know, No, you don't have to talk about those things. Those are being handled elsewhere. But how you're responding advice to your students, your your faculty, how you're trying to continue to serve the needs of the community. Those are those are important things. And I would say Use your own channels if the media picks up on it. Great. But if they don't, you still need to be distributing that information. One of the things I've been been mentioning is most of you probably have blog's or new centers where you can post your own updates. Um, I think you should. It's more important than ever to maintain. Maintain your your ah updates that way, right so that if I miss it on Monday at nine o'clock, I could go back and it's up there and I can see what it is. So maintaining that list so that people can passively catch up. I think that's a That's a very, very good thing. Um, and bottom line gang here is Ah, um, people may choose to disengage and not pay attention because there is such a thing as the boomerang effect. Where people get frightened enough, they disconnect on dhe, pull themselves out of it. We can't. We can't help that. All we can do is make clear, calm information available to those who are are are ready for it and to continue to do it so that people know that we're on top of this. Um, people will choose to listen or not.

spk_0:   1:29:59
Okay, Scott, any other advice from you on making sure that things don't get diluted or that it's not redundant?

spk_2:   1:30:05
Yeah. Uh, what she said,

spk_0:   1:30:08
uh,

spk_2:   1:30:10
maybe I would just add to that by saying, If there's if there are some specific element of, uh, you know, washing your hands or sanitizing you know, when you come back, we are We've changed our safety procedures, added sanitizing stations, that sort of thing, but something very specific regular college, rather than just repeating the same old stuff. And, you know, I I agree something. Mention earlier on the pervasiveness of the the virus graphic. I think enough of that already. So we've all got our own individual stories to tell. Um uh, absolutely agree. We don't need to be another echo.

spk_0:   1:30:55
Let's, uh, pivot for a minute. We had a common about commencement. I think at least here in California on Monday, we were started to chat like, Oh, I wonder if commencements will be canceled. And now today, Thursday, I don't know anybody who will be holding a commencement. Um, at least this semester, um, I know we interact developing, um, some guidance for rescheduling commencements. I I myself working at a college. Four years ago, our neighboring college had to reschedule commencement. Our neighboring four year university had to reschedule, and we were just one day away from it ourselves because we had a wild fire that burned thousands of homes the week before commencement and threatened the campuses. We learned a lot during that time about messaging. Um, we also learned just how deeply emotional commencement ceremonies are. Two people on what it means that they're being canceled or reschedule. So we're gonna be coming out with some communication tips. I'm talking to the p i o CZE who handled that fire and how they had to reschedule on what they learned. But in the meantime, Pam and Scott, do you have tips on how to best communicate rescheduling or having to cancel commencement. Anything that you can provide to the group.

spk_2:   1:32:22
I think the first,

spk_1:   1:32:24
um, you know the way this is. I think this is where I go back to the Scots Point about empathy. Um, I have a son who was supposed to graduate this this summer, but he was finishing his teaching, her student teaching, and he can't finish his two student teaching. And now we can't finish his classes. And now, now, graduation is all cancelled. And and you bet that's a big emotional piece, I think, recognizing that it's emotional for everyone for parents and finding some ways to build him some emotional touch points that we never thought we would have. Um, you know, I think those are critical pieces. Um, you know, where are you going? To draw the line. If they're within two weeks of graduating, you cut him loose. You know, if they you know, are you Are you going to make them come back for another semester. Are you going to refund their money? I mean, those are all really big grown up questions all leading up to the issue of commencement. So what I would do is I'd basically make sure that your record recognising for everyone how emotional this is. Um, and make sure people see that I mean, frankly, the happiest day for everybody at a college is graduation day when they see the look on people's faces and their families. So this is absolutely as as emotional for the colleges. It is for the family's recognizing that I'd pull people. What would you rather do? Virtual graduation. I mean, there's never anything wrong with asking people. How can we best make this work for everyone? Um, and can you put it off for some and let others graduate virtually? And can you can you create a care package that the college sends out with a with A with a mortar board and and you know things, you know, and the T shirts you have in the back room with the old logo? I mean, what can you do to create those kinds of emotional touchpoints moments? Those are the things that I would do right now, reminding them that you're as disappointed as they are and and looking for the path forward. A good survey, never

spk_2:   1:34:36
and providing a glimmer of hope. If there is one, you know well, your your significant achievement will be acknowledged. We don't know right now how that's gonna happen, but we know this is tremendously disappointing.

spk_1:   1:34:51
All of

spk_2:   1:34:52
us are gonna do our absolute best. And make sure you're recognized for this major accomplishment in your life,

spk_0:   1:35:00
Scott. Oh, so that's such a good point Because one of the our four year university sent out during the cocoa fire sent out an announcement that commenced was canceled. They used the word cancels and people just went like a shit. Um, and what you put Hermit Nation is Don't don't. It's not canceled. It's gonna be rescheduled. Don't tell people it's cancelled. It was so emotional. People were so disappointed you will celebrate their accomplishment in one way or another. You're not gonna be canceling that celebration. What that looks like is gonna be different. I'm is still under discussion, but I would assure people that they're a tremendous accomplishment, will be recognized

spk_2:   1:35:52
so one of the ways you can use media pitching during this is maybe ask for creative ideas or hold some sort of contest. What some kind of prize for creative ideas around, how to acknowledge commencement? Um, and it's not just limited t students, but make the community. You know, this is a significant milestone for our students. We want to honor them in the best way possible. Billy, we're looking for some really creative. Yeah, you may get some interesting

spk_0:   1:36:29
ideas. That's my daughter, By the way, that's Roxy. Uh uh. Somebody just walked by or Dawn came by and she's wants to let everybody know she's protecting me. So I have two more questions that have been asked, um, earlier, before we before we convened. So I'm gonna ask those. And then I think we'll be wrapping up here in a couple of a couple of minutes in case anybody or unless somebody has something else to ask. Um, let's see. I'm finding that internal group e mails that everyone is replying. Thio are becoming an enormous time consumer and preventing me from receiving truly important emails. Any suggestions?

spk_1:   1:37:18
Uh, for me suppress the all email thing. I mean, you could send it out to 50 people. But But, ah, if they hit, reply or apply all it should just come back to the person who created the peace. Um, you know, the last you know that you know, it's BCC. Absolutely. You want to put the list in there so that it doesn't create this because the truth is, is doing that is actually going to just jam up all your communications and ensure the critical message doesn't get through. So literally send out how to blind copy to everyone who doesn't know how to blind copy.

spk_0:   1:37:57
They are set up a place where people can go to chat. You know, whether it's a list serv, a forum, a Facebook group, and encourage them to move those discussions to that forum to keep email open to the most pressing immediate issues.

spk_1:   1:38:12
Exactly. And by the way, there's enough for most colleges you've used. You've used texting on Lee for students. It would be wise to look at for those of you haven't done it. When can you use texting for your internal groups, your faculty and staff? Because there may be a moment when you really need to get things out quickly, and it needs to be pushed, not pull. And you need to be ready for that.

spk_0:   1:38:44
Okay. What about YouTube? Messaging from college presidents? Any suggestions Should it happen? How often What should be shared? I

spk_2:   1:38:56
think that's another one of those use your best judgment. Um, make sure that communications has a piece of that so that you see and can influence what's going out. We are all getting bombarded with communiques from everyone. Every company we deal with every organization, Um, no more than a couple of paragraphs and use a laudable

spk_1:   1:39:22
well, And I would say I, uh when I was a public information officer. Part of my job is to buy time for the leadership group to make decisions and not put them on the spot where there asked a question and say, And they have to say, we're not doing that. Are, you know, literally, um, talk about things they're not ready to talk about. So I would say if they've, if they've got important critical things to talk about, then absolutely. Put your president out there. Whether it's a YouTube or you know something, you know where they're talking to folks, that's all fine. But other than that, I would also say that let it go to the spokesperson because of spokes. Person could say, I don't know. And it doesn't reflect badly on the institution if the president cause I have no idea about that. That does not look good.

spk_0:   1:40:13
Yeah, and also, I just I think everybody kind of knows this. But you know, now it's not the time to be perfect. If you have a college president who has a fantastic presence on camera who can extemporaneously speak in a way that you think we will connect to your students or to your employees, then get them on, give them on the camera and set up your phone. Record them over a zoom meeting. It doesn't have to be, you know, fancy and wallet. And the studio. Um, I think I've seen messages on Twitter from college presidents across the United States that have been full of empathy, quick recorded with the cell phone. I think it goes a long way, so something to consider, maybe, especially when things slow down and you're not moving a 1,000,000 miles a minute using the tools that you have in your back pocket to get some empathetic communications out.

spk_2:   1:41:09
Don't hesitate to do that. We've actually seen over the last few months a lot of broadcast stations using iPhone Elevens rather than regular cameras. So Theo, image quality is so good. So whatever you could do internally, um, I think would be a plus.

spk_0:   1:41:27
So I have one more question that we've reported. So unless anybody else has any other questions they want us to cover, this is the last one I have on my list. What happens when Cabinet members are giving too much too fast thoughts and opinions for each audience they deal with, and it makes it us not be able to effectively craft a consistent, simple message.

spk_1:   1:41:52
It comes from the top. You need to go to the you need to let people know that if they continue speaking out of turn to every single audience, they're gonna be held accountable For all the ways. The message, um, literally can go sideways. So the leadership, your president, whoever's whoever's your top chief and bottle washer needs to remind people that you're the spokesperson on DDE that that things need to be vetted off the top kind of we could do this or that or this, that all that does is actually somewhere. It's cranking up somebody's fears, and this is the moment where we need to calm fears, not feed them.

spk_0:   1:42:33
Excellent. All right, everyone, I want to thank you so much for joining us. A couple of quick follow up notes. We have recorded all of this, including the question and answer. Our producer Angela, who set this up, has let me know that she can download the chat, so we'll download that and make that available to everybody as well. For those of you who registered, we will be e mailing you these resources. If you did not register, we will post them up on our news site, which is news dot interact com dot com. We created this discourse message board discourse that interact com dot com. Pam Scott and I have posted all the questions that we received prior to the Webinar will also be putting our thoughts and air. We really encourage the colleges Thio communicate with one another. I hope it's a resource that you can use to share. Information will also be sending out some of the documents that Scott had mentioned earlier in the presentation. S o. Just give us a little bit of time to pull that all together, and you'll be seen some e mails for us from us in the upcoming days. So with that Scott. Pam, any closing remarks? Samir, Thank

spk_2:   1:43:47
you. To everyone that carved out the better part of two hours today, in the midst of everything else you're dealing with to share your questions and your participation. They're really proud of that.

spk_1:   1:44:01
Well, in from me, if if there are topics that we can help you with, then let us know. Send it thio to Cheryl awry. If you've got her email or to Angela and let us know we would like a topic on this, we would be more than happy to put together more, more webinars on. Particularly for those tough conversations with leadership where we need to say it because you can't Please let us know what those are. Because we will happily happily engage. Um we are all in this together.

spk_0:   1:44:35
Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Hang in there. We're here to support you. Thank you. Anything you need, just reach out thank you so much. Thank you for joining the community College Marketing Masterclass Podcast. For more great tips on how to improve marketing and communications at your two year college visit, interact com dot com and join us next time as we discuss and share actionable time tested strategies on topics directly related to community college marketing.