There is no bleeding edge.
Posted by Brad J. Ward | Posted in Thoughts | Posted on 03-14-2008
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I just read a great quote:
Today I am four years into a profession as a web marketer and designer [...] I have since realized that being “on-topic” was little better than succumbing to the internet echo-chamber called “higher ed marketing blogs.” There were some good times, certainly. Some good people and some insightful exchanges. Mostly, though, exploring my profession by looking at others in the industry meant receiving someone else’s cold innovation leftovers or, worse, being spoon-fed fads by vendors—these were often sugary and filling but provided little lasting nutrition. [...]There is no “on the bleeding edge.” Electronic marketing bliss will not come from a $19.99, syndicated, podcasted, webinar. Either you work hard and, for a meteoric moment, become the bleeding edge, or you’ve been left behind.
Morgan at erelevant.net
I’ve been chewing on some of this myself for the past few weeks. How much is too much to share? At what point do ideas become saturation in the profession? If you are trying something ‘bleeding edge’ at a school, hasn’t the moment already passed? Sure, it is better to keep up than fall totally behind, but this quote is really making me look at my work flow/ideas/blog posts and decide what the end goal is here.
Where will I be at for my fourth year of this profession? Eating up cold leftovers from hip millennials that have graduated (the ones that I RECRUITED?!) and are now ‘the new face of recruiting’? Cooking up my own meatball sundaes? Being spoon-fed the latest from vendors who are telling me that they have the newest and latest sure-fire techniques to fill my class? I hope not.
Consider this my internet signature on the declaration of ‘Don’t take mediocrity for an answer’. It’s never been my goal, and I hope it never is. I want to innovate and try new things. I want to make our visitors say ‘wow’. I want to make my University stand out miles above the rest. Is it a lofty goal? I don’t think so. It’ll take a little more work, more research, and a lot of red-tape cutting. It might mean less blogging or less sharing of info/projects. I’m already 1/2 way to the ’4 year mark’, and when I look back at that point I want to say that I am further in my career, I am more knowledgeable about my target market and efforts, and that I was innovative through all of it. Today I am going to kick it up a notch.
Where do you want to be in 2 years? 5? 10?
Great post!!
’nuff said
Nice insights and good goals. The red-tape cutting is the biggest challenge (think Sisyphus) but worth the efforts.
Great! Morgan is back!
Hum… Brad I guess there are a few different things I feel. First it seems like Higher Education Web Development isn’t the bloody cutting edge in web development or marketing (if anyone disagrees I’d love to hear why). What I try to do with my links of the week for example is share stories that I find that are cutting edge web with the Higher Education community. Maybe most everyone already knows, maybe not.
Could I not share it and stay a step ahead? Absolutely, but I’m just not one of those people. I work in Higher Education and feel that part of my calling is as an educator. Am I college professor, no, but that doesn’t mean I can’t share knowledge and what I’ve learned. I’ve been sharing our exact web analytics and other data. Why? Because I can and I feel that the more awareness about these sorts of thing the more brainstorming and sharing that is done by the collective. I’ll admit I don’t share absolutely everything that I report. Is it bragging, by all means no, more humbling than anything because Wofford is a very small liberal arts school and I’m sure Butler, for example, have more visits to their admission site than the entire Wofford collection of sites in a day. Rob Schiferl made a comment on my Monthly web analytic report post that will help me change what I’m doing now to better do it in the future. If i would have never shared then the suggestion would have never been made. Are we competitors, absolutely although our territories probably don’t overlap very much, but in academia I like to think it’s a much friendlier arena.
As for when is the point to share and something not be stale. Well I’m not comfortable sharing something unless I’ve tested it and really like it. By this time it’s off the bleeding cutting edge anyway and being first to the plate is a large chunk of the battle as any marketing person knows.
You still have to ultimately draw the line about how much is too much to share and you definitely don’t want to share every little secret. Also beyond the institutional competition is the personal respect which to me is very important. Hopefully people see my blog and the information that I discuss as valuable and credible. I don’t have any scheme to get rich of sharing, but the reputation I’m hopefully building will be much more valuable in the long run.
You are well ahead of me and already have a great reputation as a leader and innovator in Higher Education Web Marketing. That’s something to be proud of in itself. Continue to share as you desire and I’m sure we will continue to respect your opinion as you have already built credibility in it.
Those are all great thoughts, Kyle! I definitely agree with the education aspect, and I definitely look forward to sharing that type of information with others, such as How-To Tuesday. I probably should have been more specific in my post; my job first and foremost is to make my University the most attractive to a high school student. I see value in sharing industry/non-industry news/events/ideas, but I am more hesitant to blog about the daily aspect of my work. Perhaps as an afterthought/reflection, but not much of a ‘here’s what i’m going to do’.
I also agree about ‘the long run’, and how most of us are at the early stages of our career and have a long ways to go. I think anyone who stumbles across any blog of the 4 of you who have commented would say “WOW”, and get a great deal of information out of it. However, every single blog would give them something different, or show it a different way. Maybe I’m still just trying to find my niche/place in the blogworld.
Keep the Friday Links coming and thanks for all of your thoughts! I appreciate the feedback.
Brad,
This has been something that I’ve wrestled with for months.
I was doing admission websites over 10 years ago and recruitment technologies are very circular (I sometimes feel like I may be stuck in Groundhog Day). There was the viewbook, VHS videos, websites, DVDs, online apps, the common app, QTVR virtual tours, webcams, Flash, XML, IM, MySpace now we’re working with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc….
Today, I wrote on my dry erase board, “What is the message that we want to send?” and I think the technologies are just a way to do it. I agree that I’ll never be bleeding edge (at least not at my school), my role is to try and leverage what I can do and look for ways to stand out from the pack.
One of the weaknesses of admissions is we eat our young, we bring ‘em in and burn ‘em out and they move ‘em on. One of the pluses is they never seem to notice all the other cracks in the brick wall as the go steaming towards it. And, sometimes they break through.
I know I’ve been inspired by things in your blog that I had previously been tired of fighting for (we still don’t have blogs). I’m sure that there are other schools reading this right now looking for a tip, but I feel like it’s why I go to work. To take my game to the next level. So, if you are kicking butt with Zinch well I’m going to take a look at it. But, if it doesn’t work for me then I’ll move on. If I do something and you think it’s cool. Then, I’ll see your spin on it.
In the end, I decided that I want to use my voice more. To share my experiences. To see if what I had to offer was useful to anyone else. The technology doesn’t make me, it just allows me to express my creativy in recruitment better. But, you are never getting the recipe to the “Secret Sauce”
A very insightful post.
Well think about this Brad… I wouldn’t have known to come back and read your reply without the tip a few weeks back about co.mments.com.
Hahah, golden!
That’s awesome.
And that’s another thing I love about all of you — you’re reading ‘work blogs’ at 9am on a Saturday. It gives me a compelling case for my wife… “but honey, everyone else is doing it”
Brad, they’re not really WORK blogs… I’m sure you’ve read this snippet from SG, about workaholics : Workaholics Vs. Passion
sorry about the link not working
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/workaholics.html
Haha,that’s why I put it in ‘ ‘ . If you ask my wife, that’s all they are. Now that she’s blogging (http://www.seemeafterschool.com) I hope she find some other blogs to be passionate about.
I enjoyed this post, and the comments. There definitely is an “echo chamber” of higher ed blogs, and I find it very easy to get overloaded and tune out for days at a time. It’s like getting sick from eating too much candy corn at the movies.
Our situation is comparable to craftsman in other occupations who read trade journals. Sooner or later you’ve got to put the magazine down and go do your job. …But I find it valuable having a community of people at my fingertips (and in my feedreader) who are working on similar problems in similar environments.