#63 - How a Project Management Tool Broke Down Silos and Transformed Content Collaboration at UMass Lowell
w/ Kristin Nichols
Higher Ed Marketing Professional & Founder, Nichols Higher Education
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SHOW NOTES
My guest today is Kristin Nichols, a higher education marketing consultant with over 20 years of experience at top universities in the Northeast. In this episode, Kristin discusses how implementing project management tools like Trello helped unite her marketing teams, facilitated cross-pollination between departments, and enabled an efficient "internal agency" approach.
Kristin shares how she successfully implemented Trello at UMass Lowell, creating dedicated workspaces for each college, enrollment marketing, editorial, and more. This centralized system allowed teams to see all active projects, easily identify content to repurpose across channels, and ensure brand consistency.
Key Takeaways:
Don't get bogged down as an order-taker. Position your marketing team as strategic brand stewards using an "internal agency" model.
Establish a streamlined project request and approval process, limiting feedback rounds to 3 max to drive efficiency.
Create content templates and approved vendor lists to empower distributed teams while protecting brand standards.
Surface storylines and assets from across campus to repurpose content and create consistent thematic campaigns.
Buy-in from leadership and practitioners is crucial. Forcing new processes without buy-in leads to failure.
Use project management tools to showcase your team's work, justify budgets, and pull insightful analytics.
Mental health storylines resonate; look for authentic examples showcasing how your university supports students holistically.
Connect With Kristin:
Nichols Higher Education: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nicholshighered/
Resources Mentioned:
Trello - Project management tool used at UMass Lowell Basecamp.
Loom - Another popular project management platform. A screen recording tool for documenting processes.
Connect With John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni
Website: https://unveild.tv
Newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:27:02
John Azoni
My guest today is Kristen Nichols. Kristen is a higher education marketing professional with a wealth of experience spanning over 20 years. And throughout her career, she has worked at several top tier institutions in the Northeast region. Kristen Skills in marketing, research, brand development, digital strategies and enrollment marketing have made a lasting impact on the industry. So Kristen, thanks for being here.
00:00:27:15 - 00:00:29:13
Kristin Nichols
Oh, thanks, John. It's good to see you.
00:00:30:12 - 00:00:50:20
John Azoni
Yeah, so I've you know, I know about you through Chris Raposo know, I saw that you were on his podcast somewhat recently. So he speaks very, very highly of you. So tell me a little bit about, you know, for people that know you or don't you tell me something that people might be surprised to know about you?
00:00:51:10 - 00:01:17:00
Kristin Nichols
Well, I this isn't something I've shared widely, but just outside hiring. I penned a children's book, and I'm in the process of trying to get that published right now. So it's it's a long process. I had no idea how long it would take to actually birth a book, but I'm trying to do that. So that's kind of what I'm doing in my off time.
00:01:17:04 - 00:01:26:21
John Azoni
That's really cool. I love this is my favorite question to ask people because I learn so much fun stuff about about people. So tell me what the what's the children's book about?
00:01:27:11 - 00:01:50:09
Kristin Nichols
I won't share a ton proprietary, but I will I will share this that it is a book for newer readers. So it's going to be looking like it's a first chapter type of book, and it is centered around inclusion and community and from the perspective of a tree.
00:01:51:02 - 00:01:51:14
John Azoni
Okay.
00:01:52:04 - 00:01:52:19
Kristin Nichols
Awesome.
00:01:53:14 - 00:02:11:00
John Azoni
Well, that's so that's so cool. That's really special. Thanks for sharing that. All right. So you let's just kick it off broadly. Tell me a little bit about your background and like how you got to where you are today. And then we'll jump into our official questions.
00:02:11:15 - 00:02:37:11
Kristin Nichols
Yeah. So, you know, I just had a great undergraduate experience at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, which is a small public institution out in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Mass. And, you know, I was a communications major and just thought like, what do I want to do with my life? And I was a campus leader in a lot of different ways.
00:02:37:11 - 00:03:01:02
Kristin Nichols
And within a sorority, I was in student government, you know, had a radio show. So I decided that working for a college would probably be a good fit. And I've done that ever since. So really, I had one short stint at a food company when I was like 22. But aside from that, I've been working in higher education ever since, and it sincerely is.
00:03:01:02 - 00:03:29:20
Kristin Nichols
My passion is lame or dorky as that is. I don't really want a market for anything else. So or for a variety of different institutions, like in the greater Boston area, and also did a small sit down in Washington, D.C. when I was younger at the Catholic University of America and started out in traditional undergraduate admissions. But as as I kind of navigated things, I really wanted to get back to communications in my undergrad major.
00:03:29:20 - 00:03:40:13
Kristin Nichols
So I made the pivot to enrollment marketing first, then started doing some digital marketing and market research and brand initiatives in recent years. And I just love it.
00:03:41:07 - 00:04:11:17
John Azoni
Cool. Awesome. So you so we're today we're talking about this project management tool that you implemented at UMass Lowell and how it kind of united the campus, you know, it facilitated like cross pollination between other departments and things like that and really improved a lot of things about the content creation. So tell me, what was the tool? Tell me about how that and like how it differed from the setup maybe you had at a previous university?
00:04:12:06 - 00:04:40:10
Kristin Nichols
Yeah. So I've actually implemented project management systems at three different institutions. I've successfully implemented them twice. I can say that there was one time and I'll talk a little bit about that as well, where there just wasn't adoption, people just really didn't want to do it. I used different tools there. They're all very similar. Right. Basecamp, my I, I found Trello because I'm a color person.
00:04:40:10 - 00:05:07:21
Kristin Nichols
I really liked the color displays on Trello I sort of gravitate towards. But really I think it doesn't matter what the tool is as long as there is agreement and buy in from the people who are going to be using it, you can use any one of these and those are just a sample. I know there's Monday, there's a lot of different project management tools out there, but I implemented what I was using at Valley University when I left in 2014.
00:05:08:05 - 00:05:43:23
Kristin Nichols
I then went to UMass Lowell and sort of implemented something similar, but then was not using the same team tool. So Lowell chose a different tool and they were very although the basis was there, the project management setup was different because they're very different institutions. So family, for those of you who are not familiar with family university, it's a medium sized school located right outside Boston and Waltham, Massachusetts, and it focused mostly on business majors and business adjacent majors.
00:05:43:23 - 00:06:16:15
Kristin Nichols
So when I arrived at UMass Lowell, it is a large research university with several academic colleges across three physical campuses in the city. So the project management systems were different because the universities were very different and the administrative setups were just different in each place. So each marketing communication team at each institution built the tool based on the interactions they were having with the with the appropriate stakeholders.
00:06:17:09 - 00:06:41:06
Kristin Nichols
We had a great start at Lowell based upon what I used at Bentley, but the core group project managers at Lowell are what we refer to as the Internal Marketing Communications Agency at Lowell. Really sat down together when we talked about how are we going to move project forward now that we're a larger team, We have 45 people working on the marketing communications team there.
00:06:41:13 - 00:07:05:19
Kristin Nichols
So this was really identifying a need to move projects forward in an efficient manner. And we sat down and said, How can we build out this tool? So the way that Lowell built it out was that each college had a working area and then the editorial and writing staff had a working area that was really based on the content budget.
00:07:06:01 - 00:07:27:00
Kristin Nichols
So what was, what were the writers writing on? What was coming out from media relations and enrollment? Marketing also had an area as well, just because there were so many projects flying in and out. But then there were certain stakeholders like graphic designers who didn't have a working area. They were touching a variety of different working areas in the system.
00:07:27:00 - 00:07:33:00
Kristin Nichols
So each person on the team sort of had a unique way to use it based on what their jobs were each day.
00:07:34:01 - 00:07:38:08
John Azoni
That's really cool. Did you tell me, did you say what the what the software was? Or can you not say.
00:07:38:23 - 00:08:11:03
Kristin Nichols
Oh, no, I'm happy saying it. So it Lowell it was Trello and that. So I really I just, I mean I you know I'm used to Trello my company share but I but it then we we were using Basecamp so trouble was new for me at the time but it's I find it look if you can use Facebook you can use these tools so they're all super super easy to use and trouble is the one that I I've had a two institutions successful it's pretty easy to use.
00:08:11:20 - 00:08:45:05
John Azoni
Yeah I've used Basecamp a lot in my in my career. That's typically I don't know if it's a video thing or if it's just, you know, but that's just typically what the what I've used at a previous company and then what other clients, you know, I get pulled into their base camps sometimes, but I've heard of Trello too, but super, super helpful to have something like that, to really keep everybody on the same page and everybody's got a different way of kind of using it and sort of policing, you know, what goes where and stuff like that.
00:08:46:08 - 00:08:59:00
John Azoni
But tell me, tell me about like how this really helps cross-pollination and collaboration between different partner departments. Like can you explain a bit how that worked?
00:08:59:20 - 00:09:33:02
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, sure, of course, because work was divided into like groups, right? I kind of touched on that a little while ago. Approach the appropriate people could stay on track with task completion and deadlines. So it's an easy way to just visually display all that's going on across the campus as far as marketing and communications is concerned. So and it was also a phenomenal way for kind of that media and PR side of the House to work more closely with like the brand creative digital marketing team.
00:09:33:02 - 00:10:03:09
Kristin Nichols
So we weren't treated as separate working areas, you know, And then oftentimes you hear that, Oh, that's the PR group or Oh, that's the marketing group. It was a way for us to kind of see what everybody was working on. You know, we would have regular meetings, everybody quickly touched based on what they were working on. But then if somebody said something in a meeting like, Oh, I've got this story coming out, and I heard that in the meeting, I would go back with my enrollment marketing team and say, Let's find that story that Jill is working on.
00:10:03:10 - 00:10:35:01
Kristin Nichols
I think it can really be useful for enrollment marketing. Let's put it into our comp plan. So it was just a way to take one piece of content and repackage it at a variety of different time. So often times the writers would be writing something. I would say this could work for enrollment marketing. We would then cut down the content, put it into the comp plan for the appropriate students that would like to receive that message, and then we would go ahead and push it out on social a few weeks later or a few days later.
00:10:35:06 - 00:10:48:03
Kristin Nichols
So you're hitting people with the same message over and over again, and you're also hitting various audiences with the same message. So you can have that kind of buzz hopefully take shape. And that was that was the beauty of it all.
00:10:48:14 - 00:11:09:01
John Azoni
That's cool. Yeah. And that that sort of like someone seeing something in multiple different platforms is is really helpful. I noticed that about myself, about where I'm like, Oh, maybe it's an event or something where it's like the first time I see it, I'm just like, whatever. But then I'll see it like maybe on TikTok or another channel.
00:11:09:01 - 00:11:25:19
John Azoni
And it's like, okay, well, maybe it's something to consider. And then one of my friends is like, I'm going to this event and I'm like, okay, it's a it's a really now, it's now it's this is a legitimate thing. Like it takes a few different for a variety of touchpoints to kind of get someone to go, Oh, maybe I should pay attention to this.
00:11:26:03 - 00:11:46:14
Kristin Nichols
Right? Because then it's hard wired Right? Or like, for example, like if something is in the alumni magazine, I it's not going to hit an enrollment audience. But maybe what you have is a mom reading it as an alarm in the magazine and then the student being like, I got this like this story. There's something going on of like, you know, this institution.
00:11:46:14 - 00:12:23:10
Kristin Nichols
And the moms like, Oh, I had that, too. And then they have that conversation and they kind of talk about what they read and they both read something similar, but it wasn't the same because it was tailored towards the specific audience. So that's kind of the goal in mind. And another thing that's really helpful with this is, you know, you can again break down silos, like for example, if there is a print view book and you have your graphic designer and the content writer writing on that print e-book and everything is set and it goes out to press and the enrollment team is using that and it's beautiful.
00:12:23:10 - 00:12:48:16
Kristin Nichols
It's great to take all of those assets that were made on the creative side and then bring them to your digital team so that they can create a digital view book and they're not starting from scratch right there. They're starting from a place where a project has already been implemented and then they're just taking what the graphic designers did and the digital graphic designers are now trying to use the same thing so that it looks exactly the same.
00:12:48:16 - 00:13:05:09
Kristin Nichols
It's the same experience. So that whether you have the physical printed piece in your hand or you're going on a digital view book on your laptop, it feels the same and you're not you don't have to start from from scratch. And that's another thing. It saves you time, it saves your money and saves you effort.
00:13:06:04 - 00:13:30:10
John Azoni
Yeah. And yeah, not starting from scratch every time and repurposing is is huge. It saves a ton of money. And it like you said, it provides that cohesiveness that kind of across the board. This is a off off topic or sort of on topic but off of my question. Last question. So I was like to be respectful. I like send I was like, I'll send you the questions.
00:13:30:16 - 00:13:34:01
John Azoni
I know the people come prepared and then I'm like, Oh, I'm always like thinking of like.
00:13:34:14 - 00:13:38:01
Kristin Nichols
This is a conversation. Just don't you? Yeah, yeah. You know.
00:13:39:11 - 00:14:04:06
John Azoni
So, so I was sitting in a presentation at the AMA, did a virtual little conference or whatever for higher ed marketers. I was sitting in and there was like two presentations about digital asset management software and stuff like that. And when you said, you know, you're talking about like graphic design, other departments kind of using the same type of design assets.
00:14:04:14 - 00:14:18:04
John Azoni
Did did UMass Lowell have any sort of content management system or digital asset management system when it came to like photos or video flips and things like that, or did you use Trello for that?
00:14:18:10 - 00:14:47:00
Kristin Nichols
Not use Trello, that one. And so so no, there was a digital asset management system for, for media for, for, for videos And so, so what we would do is this is such an interesting conversation you and I could totally geek out over this and we would take things out of the digital asset management tool and move them to teach to kickstart a project.
00:14:47:00 - 00:15:21:22
Kristin Nichols
So for example, if like there was this is totally random because you're throwing me a curveball here, let's say that there was a accepted student event for early action students. So in New England, early action students are going to hear about whether they're admitted or not in the winter time. So we went want to we were very specific about going into the dam and getting winter shots across campus of students like with snowmen or having a snowball fight.
00:15:21:22 - 00:15:44:04
Kristin Nichols
Because if you're coming to school here in Massachusetts, yeah, better like snow. And I was like, you want to embrace that? So we would go ahead and the project manager would say, Here, here's the project, here's how we're going to kick start it. Here's the deadline, here's the print run that we need. Here's the budget we need. Here's the list of people that are going to receive it, the mail list.
00:15:44:20 - 00:16:02:16
Kristin Nichols
And then I have curated a handful of images or the graphic designer might be able to pull those in one slip. The designer on the project was identified, but they worked hand in hand was you wouldn't you can go ahead and put all those things into the A Trello, but it's going to cost you a lot of money.
00:16:02:16 - 00:16:11:21
Kristin Nichols
So you really only pull files over that you plan to use because there are these all these companies would start charging you more if you start to use them as a dam.
00:16:12:04 - 00:16:39:21
John Azoni
Right? Right. Absolutely. Well, that's interesting. So what were in terms of content creation like, how would a single story or a piece of content get repurposed and disseminated, kind of like in various formats, like, say, you had say you had a I mean, we talk a lot about video on this on this podcast was on was there any sort of use case for video where then something got repurposed because some other department saw it?
00:16:40:21 - 00:17:01:06
Kristin Nichols
Oh my gosh, constantly. You know, video is king constantly. So it was a really good way to kind of affirm for me, what I like to do is I like to take a video. I like to look at the personas, right. Show the different personas across the campus. Who are we trying to target? And take a look at the digital advertising.
00:17:01:21 - 00:17:27:13
Kristin Nichols
For me, the YouTube spot always had work or strong converters, so I would go to our internal videographer and say like, I have this B-roll, I need to cut it down to 15 seconds so that I can give it to to our digital advertising agencies so they can run it on digital AD So we would oftentimes just take a longer format and and repurpose that.
00:17:27:13 - 00:17:53:03
Kristin Nichols
And what we would also do going back to the season days, we would run those with different B-roll based on the season so that if we were trying to follow a student and get them to apply and then get them to deposit and like think about the senior year of a student, we would go ahead and start doing those digital ads with videos or with skills, but have them repurposed several different times.
00:17:53:03 - 00:17:58:04
Kristin Nichols
And they were always from longer form videos or things like that.
00:17:58:04 - 00:18:21:06
John Azoni
So interesting. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to. Just following the seasons too. Yeah. Because I think it's funny, like a lot of, you know, back in my corporate video days, a lot of a lot of clients would like you like it when, when the leaves would start coming out and you know, the sun was shining and stuff like that's when they would want to film stuff was like, yeah, when everything looked green and their best.
00:18:21:06 - 00:18:28:21
John Azoni
But sometimes it helps to be intentional about like, you know, actually let, let's, let's get some winter shots in here. Let's get some snowmen.
00:18:29:07 - 00:18:52:01
Kristin Nichols
Well, we don't want to shy away from it. You and I are both from areas of the country that have four distinct seasons. And it's one of those things where we trying to target students from California. We're not going be like, you better be pretty honest about the climate that they're coming to live in for the next four years or so of their life, because it's it's cool.
00:18:52:01 - 00:19:15:01
Kristin Nichols
Even though climate change has softened it a bit, it's cold, especially in Lowell. And the Merrimack River is is a monster of a river. And the wind is, you know, can be tough on days. And we have beautiful springs and actually amazing falls. But winter's a lot of fun, too, you know? It is a lot of fun. You know, the mountains of New Hampshire aren't far from here.
00:19:15:01 - 00:19:46:13
Kristin Nichols
And, you know, so why why stay away from it? You know, like, that's who we are as an institution and that's who we collectively are as institutions in areas where there are four distinct seasons. So, yeah, if we would always kind of look at the at the long range forecast and if look like we are going to get a real whopper of a snowstorm, we would try to line up a photographer and get our videographer on campus over the weekend to see students play, to play in the snow.
00:19:46:22 - 00:20:10:18
John Azoni
That's cool. I saw a while ago a video from I think it's Middlebury College and they had it was just like this really simple video that a videographer had filmed of like students ice skating on this. I think it's a lake or something like that with like mountains in the background. I'm like I'm like, I generally hate winter in Michigan, but like, I love about like, I want that.
00:20:11:20 - 00:20:24:22
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, I have a crush on Middlebury. I think their content is amazing. So if anyone from Middlebury is listening, I love you all. You do great stuff.
00:20:24:22 - 00:20:41:10
John Azoni
Yeah, we've had yeah, we've. We've had Andrew Castle. He's no longer at Middlebury, but he's been on the podcast a couple of times and that's kind of how I got up to speed on their on their stuff. But you've got kind of a real specific example for a single piece of content. So tell us about that. Yeah.
00:20:41:10 - 00:21:17:08
Kristin Nichols
So this is a really big point of pride for me. During a meeting with the Francis College of Engineering up at Lowell, I was meeting with the dean and the department chairs in like the spring of 22 and it was yield season and kind of just one of my roles while I was there was really to help people across campus, particularly the faculty, how they could support us with field efforts, what could they do, like talking to them about yield, talking to them about Gen Z and what Gen Z really looks for and that type of thing.
00:21:17:08 - 00:21:43:15
Kristin Nichols
So I was sitting down with them and providing them that synopsis on Gen Z and how to help us and really talking about how Gen Z craves authenticity. And professor at Hyde up just shared a story during the meeting about a student who lost his way while he was grieving the unexpected loss of a fellow classmate and his best friend.
00:21:43:15 - 00:22:13:00
Kristin Nichols
So it was the student basically decided to hike the Appalachian Trail and he'd never prep for it, just like he went out on the Appalachian Trail, which the thought of that I can't even imagine. But Ed and another professor encouraged him and then went ahead and plotted his his journey on the trail and met him a couple of times and cook dinner for him like while he was on the trail and various places.
00:22:13:06 - 00:22:45:06
Kristin Nichols
And it really helped. The student process is great. It's not it's not a happy story. Okay. But it's authentic. And it really took a look at the mental health conversation that we're having across the nation and across the world right now. And it said, here's how we're doing this at Lowell head on and here's how we are. You know, even though Lowell is a very large university, it showcased that our faculty gets to know the student and mentors them in a variety different way.
00:22:45:06 - 00:23:08:07
Kristin Nichols
So I had this meeting and I went back and I spoke to our director of editorial services, and Sarah Corbett told her about this and pitched the idea to her and she wrote The Most Beautiful story for the alumni magazine. It is. It is so good, and I'm happy to share a link with you if you'd like to share it with folks.
00:23:08:07 - 00:23:27:13
Kristin Nichols
After today. And then we went ahead and we put that into the communication plans for our undergraduate audiences and their parents to see so that they we could say, like we care about the students, we care about the mental health of your child. And we went ahead and used it in a variety of different ways to really have this beautiful ripple effect.
00:23:27:23 - 00:23:37:01
Kristin Nichols
It was authentic and solemn, but it had a really wonderful ending and we were all proud of at the institution.
00:23:37:08 - 00:23:38:21
John Azoni
Oh, I love that.
00:23:38:21 - 00:23:39:23
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, it was good.
00:23:40:10 - 00:24:06:03
John Azoni
I love the focus on mental health, but there's there's been seems to be a big uptick in that. Like I mentioned in that AMA presentation that I that I watched Josie Ahlquist did a good presentation on marketing from the Heart and things like that, and she showcased a couple of schools that were really focusing on like creating content around mental health and psych and that is so needed, like it's so, so good, it's so necessary.
00:24:06:21 - 00:24:28:12
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, it's definitely important in, in Lowell was something called the Jed a Jedi campus. So they were really focused on the well-being and the mental health of students. I remember years ago, even before the pandemic, we were talking about this, and I think the pandemic just made us take a really good look As leaders in higher education at the mental health crisis.
00:24:28:12 - 00:24:31:08
Kristin Nichols
And that's a good thing for all of us, for sure.
00:24:31:15 - 00:24:45:06
John Azoni
So let's talk about this concept of, you know, internal agency versus being a short order cook. So something that you and I talked about on our pre call, like how did you ensure project requests that came in were on brand and things like that?
00:24:46:08 - 00:25:04:21
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, I think that a lot of places marketing communications teams are still thought of as the people who make the posters that hang out, hang around campus or if you need pens, you go to the marketing team and they'll buy your pens. You know, they'll get your pens for you with the logo on them. And that's short order type of work.
00:25:05:05 - 00:25:38:00
Kristin Nichols
And today's sophisticated higher education marketers do not have time to focus on things like that. Their jobs are to be strategists and stewards of the brand and a project request form is a great way to see what people across campus need. But that doesn't necessarily mean that every single request coming in needs to be taken on templates. Fixing things is a great way to give people the support they need and you can have a quick how to guide online.
00:25:38:00 - 00:26:11:20
Kristin Nichols
So if somebody in another department needs stationery or thank you cards, there is a template, there's a, you know, a library of templates for them to select from and or if they need some sort of giveaway, you know, for imprint can make a page that's institution specific. So you can drive the person to the page and say, here are the curated items that we recommend that you purchase and then that person can empower themselves to go and use their pro card and purchase those things appropriately.
00:26:12:01 - 00:26:34:06
Kristin Nichols
And then that way, the marketing communications team can focus on really making sure our brand is is sound and they can make sure that the needle is moving in the right direction and that senior leadership and the board is pleased because the strategic vision of the institution is being upheld.
00:26:34:15 - 00:26:54:17
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a tool that I love when it comes to templates, sizing processes and things like that, and it's called loom. I don't know if you know or loom, but it's like a screen recorder and this is, you know, not an advertisement for loom, but this is generally like one of my favorite tools of all time.
00:26:54:17 - 00:26:55:16
John Azoni
And I use it.
00:26:55:22 - 00:26:56:08
Kristin Nichols
What this.
00:26:56:08 - 00:27:19:16
John Azoni
App, I use it almost every day. It's it's loom alone and it's and it records your screen and you can just and it's it's it's just basically a web based version of recording your screen and going click by click and being able to talk through what you're doing. So like I say, like, okay, go on for imprint. You're in a log in here, you're in a click here, and then you're going to here's our template, Here's the file.
00:27:19:16 - 00:27:22:20
John Azoni
You're going to get whatever you upload it like this. It's just.
00:27:23:06 - 00:27:24:05
Kristin Nichols
It's I'm writing this.
00:27:24:05 - 00:27:47:14
John Azoni
Down. It's so quick to tell to to, to in It's so quick to empower people like that. And I've onboarded a couple of virtual assistants who actually managed this podcast. And the biggest way that like got them up to speed was these little videos. I'm like, Here, watch me edit one episode of this podcast and go do that.
00:27:47:15 - 00:27:58:16
John Azoni
Do do what I did. And then like, here, watch me like create the landing page for this, for this episode. And then, okay, now you can do it on your own because you can just always just refer back to the click by click, you know?
00:27:59:00 - 00:27:59:11
Kristin Nichols
Yeah.
00:27:59:14 - 00:28:10:11
John Azoni
Of what I was doing. Anyway, I just think that, you know, for project management type thing, that's just one, that's just a tool that I that I get excited about. And there's a free version of it. There's also I think I pay like 20 bucks a month for it because I use it also.
00:28:10:11 - 00:28:11:18
Kristin Nichols
Worth the $20.
00:28:12:00 - 00:28:27:10
John Azoni
Yeah, for sure. So like when project requests that weren't a fit for the internal agency approach to handle directly, how did you still support those departments while empowering them to kind of execute those projects themselves?
00:28:27:10 - 00:28:51:21
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, I think the biggest example of that is, you know, a lot of project requests come in asking for event support in the form of a videographer, photographer, and you know, everybody wants to have a photographer videographer at their event. But from, you know, if you look back to the brand, it being stewards of the brand and being an internal agency, oftentimes those images, you know, they're not compelling.
00:28:51:21 - 00:29:13:19
Kristin Nichols
It's somebody behind the podium giving a speech or a you know, maybe it's somebody with a display board behind them, but you really can't understand what they're doing. And this flipboard's a little weird and you want to support them because it's important to have their voices be heard and not for external partners to feel like their their events aren't important because they are.
00:29:14:13 - 00:29:38:02
Kristin Nichols
So one thing that you can do is if your videographer or photographer has the time to go to the event, then great, send them. But know that you're probably not going to get a lot of use out of what the content they're curating during that event. It's just not going to transfer well to, you know, alumni magazines and yearbooks and yada, yada.
00:29:38:08 - 00:30:15:19
Kristin Nichols
So, you know, digital ads. But if they don't have the time to attend these events, then having a short list of partners in the in the region who are on a retainer and you can say to the external partner we're in and we're unable to support this event, but here are our external partners that we use and they can coordinate, You know, the marketing team can either coordinate that on behalf of the requester, or the requester can go ahead and reach out to those individuals on their own.
00:30:15:19 - 00:30:32:07
Kristin Nichols
It can happen either way. Whatever the university feels is is better for their for their institution. So and then the images should always be in the video. The raw footage should always be available to the marketing communications team just in case there is something that can be pulled.
00:30:32:23 - 00:31:01:06
John Azoni
Yeah, that's that's good. And I also think that like having some sort of, you know, back to a discussion about a template, like having some sort of like if someone, if someone can just do it on their iPhone, like what kind of shots would the marketing team actually, you know, make use of? Is it a wide shot of the crowd listening to the person that's talking from the podium, or is it people enjoying the food at the event or whatever?
00:31:02:00 - 00:31:20:17
John Azoni
I remember I, I, I did photography for the city. I live in City of Troy. I used to be the photographer for the city on a contract basis. And those were like regular conversations I had with them was like, I'm, I'm going to these events. But like, what are you actually going to put in the newspaper? Like, let me let me focus on that.
00:31:21:01 - 00:31:34:22
Kristin Nichols
You know? And that's like literally the same conversation happening everywhere, right? Like, what are you what do you I was like, So we're taking these pictures, but what's the end goal? Right? So, yeah, it's important to have those those conversations.
00:31:34:22 - 00:31:50:20
John Azoni
Yeah. Cool. Let's see within then there's we had talked about the role of project managers kind of collaborating with different offices to understand their goals upfront and find existing assets that can meet their needs. Yeah. Did you have any thoughts about that?
00:31:51:08 - 00:32:18:14
Kristin Nichols
Oh yeah, big time. So, you know, without a kickoff meeting and the external constituents need, they need a you know, they need to be heard, the project manager needs to ask questions and understand what the goals are. Without that kind of kickoff, the project can't be properly addressed and needs most likely won't be met. So I know that's a bold statement, but I've just lived it and I feel it's true.
00:32:18:17 - 00:32:36:22
Kristin Nichols
So I'm standing behind that statement and it doesn't necessarily have to be along meaning, you know, if it's something you've done before, pick up the phone, team somebody and be like, Hey, it's similar to what we did last year, but you just want me to refresh maybe some images and stuff. Great. But make sure you get that affirmative to move forward.
00:32:37:03 - 00:32:59:20
Kristin Nichols
If it's a larger project, then yeah, have them have a quick kickoff meeting and flip out some ideas with with the people at the table. And that's just how that that's how to do things effectively. It also showcases that marketing communications are good campus partners and it also brings it back to where the internal agency and we are the experts.
00:32:59:20 - 00:33:28:14
Kristin Nichols
So it is important to be on the project. It's really important to demonstrate to the campus community who you are as marketing, communication individuals and as a team. So it's also good to really establish the actual due date. You know, if somebody wants a huge piece in two weeks, well, that's not realistic. You know, here's what you can get in two weeks or if you want the original request, here's how long it's realistically going to take.
00:33:28:14 - 00:33:40:08
Kristin Nichols
So just getting all of that upfront is vital and getting the budget and, you know, that type of thing. It's it's really important for everyone involved.
00:33:40:21 - 00:34:01:04
John Azoni
Yeah, there's there's in project management, there's so many like random tasks I feel like that fly around that don't have heart, like the project might have a due date, but this sort of like, Oh, by the way, can you get back to this person or can you do this? Like, like usually it's just sort of like it'll get done if the person remembers to get it done or something like that.
00:34:01:04 - 00:34:20:17
John Azoni
I have an old boss that was really hard on us about that. And he would say, When I ask you to do something, I want you to ask me when I would like that done by. I make him sound really. He's a super, super fun, nice guy. I make him tell like a like a like a militant dictator.
00:34:20:17 - 00:34:44:05
John Azoni
But but it really did bring order to to, to stuff because there is always stuff like client would email him about something and he'd forward it and then we'd be busy like doing, you know, making videos and like doing all this other stuff that no one would like pick it up like no one would, you know, he would kind of forward it to like three people and be like, someone handle this and no one would like everyone thought the other person was going to handle it.
00:34:44:05 - 00:35:04:19
John Azoni
No one really knew what, how priority it was. So he was like, he was like almost like just like for, like speaking from his like for, for his own, like, development. And he's like, remind me to tell you when I need this to be done by, you know, because, because, you know, he's on. And the next thing real quick, too.
00:35:04:19 - 00:35:21:07
John Azoni
So now it's funny. So for for marketing leaders looking for looking to kind of move away from this being order takers and strengthen their brands, what mindset shifts or what kind of key steps would you would you recommend for them?
00:35:22:00 - 00:35:41:07
Kristin Nichols
I mean, acting like an agency. And what I mean by that is showcasing that the team actually the experts in the field and that's going to be good for cross campus buy in. But also something that's just so smart and works is I'm a firm believer that the approval of Project debt should be kept to three rounds or less.
00:35:42:00 - 00:36:10:16
Kristin Nichols
And we actually had a sign up see at both Bentley and Lowell that if you had round one, you have round two and you have round three. And if round three, if things weren't finalized and ready to go either to press or out, how in the in the wild it's the duty of the project manager to sit down with the project requester from the external office and say like, feels like there could be a breakdown here.
00:36:11:02 - 00:36:33:23
Kristin Nichols
And that kick off. Meaning what did we miss? Do we need to go back and then have that conversation, identify a new timeline because your timeline is now blown, okay? And that should happen to you. And far between that three, round that three rounds, if you have a kickoff meeting, that's correct. The three rounds should be fine. And oftentimes you don't even need all three rounds.
00:36:33:23 - 00:36:48:20
Kristin Nichols
But that's how you keep that how you close projects out in the pmta. That's how you keep things on task. So your completion rate and your time to completion is sound. So, you know, yeah, I'm a big fan that.
00:36:49:04 - 00:36:54:21
John Azoni
Yeah, that's great. That's in the video making process that's what takes the longest is the revisions.
00:36:55:07 - 00:36:56:05
Kristin Nichols
People would be like right.
00:36:56:11 - 00:37:15:06
John Azoni
Yeah. People would be like, you know you know in court, my corporate video day as a client, it seemed like they always needed something yesterday and it would be like, Can we get this done in two weeks? We're like, Well, yeah, we can film it and probably edit it, but how long is it going to take to get through all your people's approval process?
00:37:15:06 - 00:37:16:23
John Azoni
That's the big question, right?
00:37:17:11 - 00:37:43:23
Kristin Nichols
Well, and see, John, another thing too, we have one person. Okay, so it wasn't it So I'm just going to like if it was one college, let's say it was a college of arts and sciences that needed something. The person putting the project request in was the person doing the final approval, and it was their job to go to all the stakeholders within their school to showcase the piece and to gather feedback.
00:37:44:04 - 00:38:12:09
Kristin Nichols
Because the worst thing is when you have like five people editing a PDF that is, yeah, know, don't do it. Like do not do that. You have one person gathering the information, your external partner, they're marking up the PDF, they're sending it back to you, the project manager, and then you're working it through to make sure it's good so that before your graphic designers dive in and start editing things, they can freaking understand what they're supposed to be editing, right?
00:38:12:09 - 00:38:17:07
Kristin Nichols
You know, I mean, that's that's where the breakdown happens. If you don't have that buttoned up. Yeah.
00:38:17:23 - 00:38:42:12
John Azoni
I'm laughing because all of this applies so much to my, you know, my my career as a videographer because guys like the worse thing, not the worse thing, but like really annoying thing for videographers is when a client will comment on something with a question that the videographer has not does not have the power to answer. Like it's like this is you're tell me what to do.
00:38:42:13 - 00:38:49:20
John Azoni
Like, yeah, like I can't I'm not going to be the one to go talk to your president and ask him if this should be blue or red like.
00:38:50:14 - 00:39:22:13
Kristin Nichols
You know, if the worst thing for creatives is when you work on something and work on it and work on it, because the communication has just spiral, right? And all these people are getting involved and you finally get it over the finish line and you're like, Oh great, I think five people are going to watch that. Or Oh, that adds to the outline, you know, like, I'm so glad I spent the last six weeks of my professional life on that one print tab that's going to go in the Sunday paper one time like nobody wants that.
00:39:22:13 - 00:39:26:00
Kristin Nichols
That's not a win. That is not a win for anyone involved.
00:39:26:08 - 00:39:46:12
John Azoni
MM In Detroit, the big topic of conversation right now is we got like our version of a Hollywood sign, like it says Detroit on like one of these freeways and everyone had these big idea like all the general public have these big ideas of what this would look like and oh like we're going to be this is going to look like this Hollywood sign me the cool design.
00:39:46:12 - 00:39:56:07
John Azoni
It's going to be like it's going to light up whatever. Like everyone kind of had their vision and what it turned out to be was just like, so boring and small and.
00:39:56:07 - 00:39:57:22
Kristin Nichols
Like, everybody watered it down.
00:39:57:22 - 00:40:03:02
John Azoni
Yeah. And then I see posts coming out about like, this is what design by committee looks like.
00:40:03:07 - 00:40:03:22
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, you.
00:40:03:22 - 00:40:04:11
John Azoni
Know, it's.
00:40:04:11 - 00:40:05:03
Kristin Nichols
Complete.
00:40:05:08 - 00:40:17:06
John Azoni
This is the safest, least offensive thing that we could do. Nobody loves it, but nobody, none of the leadership hates it. So it's like, it's like, oh.
00:40:17:18 - 00:40:35:12
Kristin Nichols
Some sense on their Yeah, we've all been there and it's like, oh, it's fine. Yeah. We get the project done and everybody's happy. Everybody get their say. But that's not those aren't the ones that are winning awards, right. Those, those are the projects that are just done in. You're glad to be done with that.
00:40:35:18 - 00:40:56:03
John Azoni
Yeah, absolutely. So when whenever we're implementing a new tool, I mean buy in is, is huge. I mean like people don't like change and and so so tell me, what are some of your thoughts around, you know, getting leadership to buy into this this tool?
00:40:56:18 - 00:41:22:15
Kristin Nichols
It's not even just leadership. It's also the people using the tool buy in is critical. And if you don't have it and there's drastic resistance to evolving or improving the project management within the office, it will fail. And I've seen this firsthand because I have successfully implemented this type of system at two universities, but I was not successful at third.
00:41:23:09 - 00:41:42:09
Kristin Nichols
And it's one of those things where you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force them to drink. So project management tools are extremely easy to use and people should not have difficulty learning them. So anyone who claims that they will, it's just not true. But they're built with a wide variety of audiences in mind and the ease is apparent.
00:41:42:18 - 00:42:15:16
Kristin Nichols
But it's there are some people who simply do not want to change how they do their job, and if they resist enough, this will become a huge headache for everyone. And, you know, I tried to implement Tool before and it was unsuccessful and if somebody says we can do that, alternatively, if we you know, and we don't need the out of the box PM tool, but if the alternative is a bear to implement and and it's a bear to outfit, the No one will use it and it will just make everyone frustrated.
00:42:15:23 - 00:42:29:11
Kristin Nichols
So going back to the same, same old that folks are familiar with is not ideal, but it's better than forcing something down someone's throat when they don't want it. And experienced that, unfortunately.
00:42:30:03 - 00:42:51:18
John Azoni
Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a executive leader at University of Michigan. I listened to a talk of his once and he was she was like the biggest barrier to organizational change is you talking to a group of h.r. Professionals. The biggest barrier to organizational changes. Cultural resistance is like he's.
00:42:51:18 - 00:42:53:04
Kristin Nichols
Like, i need to listen to that.
00:42:53:11 - 00:43:04:02
John Azoni
He's like, it's just this idea that this is not how we do things around here, and, like, that is the number one barrier that prevents anything good from happening in an organization.
00:43:04:15 - 00:43:23:16
Kristin Nichols
Well, it's tough because, you know, in this one instance, the whole, you know, I was brought on to do new things and it was, you know, it's tough if you don't have the buy in and the culture resistance is there, you're not going to do anything. So, you know, I that was a learning experience for me.
00:43:23:16 - 00:43:49:18
John Azoni
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And it's like it's like, what's the cost of this getting done? Like, like, let's not think about let's not think about how annoying or not annoying it is to implement. Like, what's the likelihood that we if we don't do this, that the outcome will actually still be achieved, you know, with your alternative way of doing things because oftentimes people don't embrace a new way of doing things and they're like, was cobble something together kind of like that over here.
00:43:49:18 - 00:43:54:02
John Azoni
And then, you know, you check in with them later and it's not done. It's like.
00:43:54:02 - 00:44:13:20
Kristin Nichols
Course it is. And when you call anything, it's not going to get done. And I think that, you know, yeah, you can't code like, oh, we don't need that. We'll just cobble together. No, it's like just, just stop, just go back to how you were doing it and these goals that you set forth. Well, you know, let's see if they get accomplished, you know.
00:44:14:04 - 00:44:15:11
Kristin Nichols
Yeah. College, the worst.
00:44:17:19 - 00:44:42:19
John Azoni
Reject the Kabul. Okay. Well, this has been great. Kristen, thanks so much for sharing your organizational wisdom with us. As I mentioned, you know, I think we geek out on this stuff more than, you know, more than we get credit for, especially as as creatives. I'm like, I'm like, somebody please put some structure in place here. Where's the my worst nightmare is like a really unorganized Google drive.
00:44:43:03 - 00:44:45:03
John Azoni
Like it says like.
00:44:45:03 - 00:44:46:02
Kristin Nichols
Haystack, right?
00:44:46:02 - 00:45:10:10
John Azoni
It's just like an explosion of because like every time you create a document, it throws it into Google, into like the random bucket of Google Drive. So like, oh, it's organization is like a whole other is a whole other topic. I'm constantly fighting with my own Google Drive because I'm like, I'm like, I just organized this yesterday. Now it's just like a landmine went off in here again.
00:45:10:10 - 00:45:11:18
Kristin Nichols
But so money.
00:45:12:12 - 00:45:15:22
John Azoni
But yeah, where can people, where can people connect with.
00:45:15:22 - 00:45:33:05
Kristin Nichols
Yep I'm I'm I'm active on LinkedIn so just Kristin Nichols or Nichols higher education anyone who wants to connect with me or send me a message it just you know, get to know me or throw a question my way. I'm happy to connect.
00:45:33:17 - 00:45:37:17
John Azoni
And tell us a little bit about your consulting work, too, while we're at it. What kind of.
00:45:38:00 - 00:46:16:23
Kristin Nichols
So I've been doing consulting for several years now, but it's my primary focus right now and has been for about the last six months or so, and it's been exciting. So working in a variety of different fashions based on what the institutional needs are. So doing a lot of brand strategy, market research, content development and also available for fractional CMO roles for smaller institutions, and also working as a project manager between external partners hired and internal stakeholders.
00:46:16:23 - 00:46:20:23
Kristin Nichols
So a variety, different things depending on what the institution needs.
00:46:21:16 - 00:46:32:14
John Azoni
Awesome. Yes. To our listeners, if you're looking for any of that, go, go talk to Kristen. I would I would hire you if I owned a college.
00:46:32:14 - 00:46:33:14
Kristin Nichols
You know, Likewise.
00:46:34:00 - 00:46:39:01
John Azoni
So, yeah, it's been great getting to know you over the past couple of months. So thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:46:39:09 - 00:46:40:13
Kristin Nichols
Yeah, thanks, John.
