Acta non verba

I admit that I have some unusual reading habits. Yesterday I was reading on article on the 100 Latin phrases everyone should know. Why you might ask? The article was making the argument that many great leaders throughout history studied Latin because the language succinctly states many great truths. One especially got my attention: Acta non verba.

It translates to “actions, not words.” It’s ancient wisdom on how to judge people, especially professionals. It’s how I judge my direct reports and it’s the simple philosophy behind our culture of engagement in the college. Being smart is over-rated. It’s not about what you know or how good you are with words, so much as it is about what you do. I know lots of people who are smarter than me who don’t accomplish much.

Nowhere is this truth more evident than in student appeals. Most of the appeals I get from students who have had an unsuccessful experience in the College come down to trying to explain to me why they didn’t do something they were expected to do because they thought it was unreasonable, unnecessary, too difficult or misunderstood. They think their words will substitute for their deeds in my evaluation of their situation. These appeals usually also fail to recognize that many other students successfully got that same job done. Not a winning hand.

Circumstances can sometimes conspire to derail even the best of actions, but when such circumstances seem to follow the same person over and over again it becomes pretty obvious where the problem lies. If you want to build a great reputation (what we call a personal brand these days), succeed in the college and go on to a successful career take a tip from the ancient Romans— acta non verba.

Bursting my bubble

Since June my work bubble has consisted of going into BA-1 everyday with Dr. Robb and half-day Hand. Day after day. Week after week. It has been a three person bubble. Mostly I’m in Zoom meetings where groups of people are planning for uncertain futures on a screen that resembles the Hollywood Squares. The only good news is that parking is plentiful. Campus is cavernously empty.

Then last week, my bubble got burst. I went to Jimmy Johns, got a sandwich and sat outside. Three bites in, a young student walked up out of the blue— a business student no less who recognized me. We chatted for a few minutes about how her study abroad trip had been postponed and how she was hoping campus would return to something like normal soon. She still had big plans and wanted to get on with them even though most of her classes were going to be online this fall. It was a welcomed reminder of why I signed up for this gig.

Universities lie at the crossroads of wisdom and youthful exuberance. They are places where twenty somethings can have spontaneous conversations with people their grandparents’ age and not feel weird about it. In the process everybody learns. This is incredibly difficult to recreate on such a mass scale anywhere else and it is one of the reasons why universities are so great.

Let’s hope we can restore all those chance conversations soon. My guess is that will take a university-trained research team working in the lab rather than a group of administrators on Zoom. That’s another thing that makes University’s great….

Prepare to Conquer the Fall

I have three youngsters in college. Two are rising juniors. One is just headed to college. If you’re like my wife and I, you probably have some questions about what life is going to look like on campus this fall. So, we’ve created a new resource for you. You can access it by clicking here. We think that once you’ve reviewed this material and see our commitment to providing an engaging experience for you, your son or daughter, you’ll be eager to start your journey with us this the fall.

If you’re returning to school, registered for classes before July 1 and haven’t checked your schedule, you should. Things may have changed. To understand why, click here.

Armor Up Knights. Prepare to conquer the fall.

A Pandemic Pivot

One of the most valuable qualities you can develop is an awareness for where things are heading.  Things are always changing.  If you can learn to anticipate where things are going, you can get ahead of the curve and take advantage of emerging opportunities.  That’s a much better place to be than behind the curve, where opportunities are dwindling and irrelevance awaits.  Many a failure story has been built on not seeing something coming.

Grant Smith, rising senior, current student ambassador and a former marketing intern of ours, is rethinking his career path in light of the coronavirus pandemic.  Initially Grant was planning on going into social media/digital marketing, but now he is shifting into market research.  

His analysis goes like this: the economic slowdown has put downward pressure on marketing budgets as companies struggle to survive. Firms are deferring campaigns and cutting their ad spend.  As budgets and staff shrink, the remaining  social media managers are being asked to take on too many responsibilities all within one role, such as crisis communications, graphic design, photography, and digital analytics while at the same time getting a lot more pressure to achieve company expectations in the digital space.  But COVID has also changed the way we shop. Larger companies still want data-driven decision making based on the  new purchasing patterns of their consumers as they transition to even more online orders and remote transactions. Couple this with the higher barriers to entry that come with acquiring data analytics skills, and Grant thinks this is the place to be.  So during quarantine, he invested his time to learn some programming languages and begin to gain the analytical skills necessary to work toward a career in market research and consumer insights.

Is he right? Is this a pandemic pivot that will pay off or is what he sees just a temporary change in the relative value of skillsets brought on by a COVID-induced downturn in the business cycle? I have written several times that analytic skills are only going to get more important in business in the future. I’m less sure about the future of social media managers. I’m sure Grant has done his homework, but if he hasn’t already done so, I’m sure there are a few of our marketing professors who have something to say about this. Consulting visiting practitioners in The EXCHANGE wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Not just social media managers, but perhaps more importantly, the people who hire them. The broader Grant’s network, the more likely he will find people who can help him see the future and make the right choice for him. Which brings me to my readers: any advice for Grant?