Looking for some books, research, and white papers to dive into over the holidays? Here’s a few recommendations to get you started:
Books
Straight from mStoner’s fourth annual top picks list, Michael Stoner recommends you read Audrey Watters’ eBook, The Monsters of Education Technology.
Michael says, “If you follow Audrey Watters’ blog or @hackeducation or @audreywatters, you’ll know that Watters sense of skepticism about ed tech is very well informed by her in-depth reading and research on the promises made (and largely unfilled) by starry-eyed technology boosters. Still, the ghosts of unfilled prophecies past don’t inhibit many in education from being persuaded that (this time!) technology will help to disrupt the dominant paradigm and deliver disruptive solutions for individual, blended learning. Sadly, many of the words in that sentence are among the buzzwords we’ve legitimized, as she points out.”
Kylie Stanley Larson, mStoner’s quality assurance manager, recommends The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football. She says, “This book is a must read for anyone interested in higher education. This book made me think a great deal about institutional priorities and making a statement in a competitive marketplace.”
I’m looking forward to reading Everybody Writes by Ann Handley during my holiday break. As noted on the inside flap, “Our writing can make us look smart or it can make us look stupid. It can make us seem fun, or warm, or competent, or trustworthy. But it can also make us seem humdrum or discombobulated or flat-out boring. That’s true whether you’re writing a listicle or the words on a SlideShare deck or the words you’re reading right here, right now… So you’ve got to choose words well—and write with economy and style and honest empathy for your customers. And that means you have to put a higher value on an often overlooked skill in content marketing: how to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well.”
University of Southern California’s President Steven Sample wrote, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership. Susan T. Evans, senior director for strategy, encouraged me to read this book and I’ve found it to be quite enlightening. Susan says, “Over the years, I’ve consumed many books about leadership and this is one of the best. Sample’s style is direct, approachable, and particularly useful for leaders in higher education.”
White Papers and Research
Recently we published a new white paper on defining your higher ed brand. If you ask 10 people what a brand is, you’ll get 10 different answers. At mStoner, we believe a brand is what you stand for in the minds of the people you’re trying to reach, influence, and move to action. This complimentary white paper examines what a brand is and what it is not, the elements of brand strategy, and why it is so challenging to define a brand for your college or university.
Formstack teamed up with Higher Ed Live to learn how Chief Marketing Officers are affecting change in higher ed. Is your University ready for a CMO? The research and report is available for download.