Let's Forget About Publications
(Following is a guest posting from Educommunicators Board Member Paul Baker.)
I’m assuming that publications plays a part in all of our job responsibilities, whether we work in a department of public relations, marketing, alumni relations, or development.
The more I participate in, and read about, social media, I feel uncomfortable with the word, ‘publications.’ I almost daily remind myself that the term is dangerous. It carries too much baggage. We as communicators might do well to stop using the term altogether. Why? Two things.
The term ‘publications’ has such a long history and refers to traditional printed media (brochures, newsletters, reports, viewbooks). We will, and probably must, keep using “dead tree” media well into the future, because many of our audiences (especially alums) expect and like printed products. Some published material is being made available only in electronic form (PDF, FlashPaper), but this practice is still in relative infancy. But because the term ‘publications’ usually does not connote electronic media, I fear that the term locks us communicators into an 18th-century mindset.
Second, the term ‘publications’ connotes one-way communication. I produce a printed piece, and you read it. Period. You don’t write your reactions on my newsletter and mail it back to me.
I’m not suggesting that we end all printing immediately. I would however like to see one-way communication become an ever-smaller slice of our communications mix. We old-timers see the rise of young generations who live in a world of electronic information products. They expect to cut-and-paste their media, create mashups, chat back and forth, and toggle among several electronic media in quick succession. They do that at home and they expect to be able to do that in school. When they graduate they will take those communication habits into the world as educommunicators and as recipients of educommunications.
So I’d like to forget about ‘publications.’ Instead, let’s do communications.
I’m assuming that publications plays a part in all of our job responsibilities, whether we work in a department of public relations, marketing, alumni relations, or development.
The more I participate in, and read about, social media, I feel uncomfortable with the word, ‘publications.’ I almost daily remind myself that the term is dangerous. It carries too much baggage. We as communicators might do well to stop using the term altogether. Why? Two things.
The term ‘publications’ has such a long history and refers to traditional printed media (brochures, newsletters, reports, viewbooks). We will, and probably must, keep using “dead tree” media well into the future, because many of our audiences (especially alums) expect and like printed products. Some published material is being made available only in electronic form (PDF, FlashPaper), but this practice is still in relative infancy. But because the term ‘publications’ usually does not connote electronic media, I fear that the term locks us communicators into an 18th-century mindset.
Second, the term ‘publications’ connotes one-way communication. I produce a printed piece, and you read it. Period. You don’t write your reactions on my newsletter and mail it back to me.
I’m not suggesting that we end all printing immediately. I would however like to see one-way communication become an ever-smaller slice of our communications mix. We old-timers see the rise of young generations who live in a world of electronic information products. They expect to cut-and-paste their media, create mashups, chat back and forth, and toggle among several electronic media in quick succession. They do that at home and they expect to be able to do that in school. When they graduate they will take those communication habits into the world as educommunicators and as recipients of educommunications.
So I’d like to forget about ‘publications.’ Instead, let’s do communications.
Paul Baker is Senior Communicator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education's Wisconsin Center for Education Research. He is also the author of the EducationPR blog (www.educationpr.org).
Interesting notion, the idea of cutting back on "publications" and enhancing the use of "communication" between source and recipient. I'm not so sure I like it. The two universities that granted me degrees have gone to this "communication" model. I no longer receive an alumni magazine. I now receive an electronic newsletter that requires me to "interact" to get information. It strongly encourages my involvement. What I have found, though, is any involvement on my part just generates a lot of fund-raising solicitation on the part of the university. I long for the day when I could just read about the ol' school without having to interact with it.
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