What I Worked on in 2020

Here we are in 2021. A moment most looked forward to in order to put behind them the travesty of 2020. I am not sure that the flipping of the calendar is going to instantly solve everything, but I think it is good to be hopeful. I also think it is worth reflecting on what went right in 2020. Looking back isn’t always a bad thing, especially when it involves seeing the impact of what you’ve spent your time doing.

As a solo business owner and consultant, 2020 could have been bleak. Instead, the demand for innovative and creative ideas became a commodity as many of my clients needed to communicate more and develop new ideas to help solve many of the issues created by the global pandemic. I was able to work collaboratively with my clients and partners to deliver solutions to a number of special projects.

Re-Thinking Senior Celebrations

Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools

The Situation: When a global pandemic swept the world, schools shuttered. Schools had to be innovative in educating students and engaging families, but they also had to re-think nearly every special event, especially those that impacted their seniors.

The Project: Eastland-Fairfield is a career-technical school district that serves juniors and seniors from 16 affiliated school districts. While the seniors receive their diplomas from their home high schools, they are traditionally recognized for completing their rigorous career-tech programs during the district’s Senior Recognition Ceremony. With schools closed and in-person events canceled, how could they create a memorable moment to recognize this once-in-a-lifetime achievement of their 650+ graduating seniors?

The Solution: While the school’s staff needed to focus on the logistics and the education of their students under extreme circumstances, I was charged with creating the senior class’s experiences. To pull off the project, I turned to the seniors themselves and curated content from them.

• We put out an all-call for photos from the senior class to create social media content that we could use to celebrate the students on the district’s social channels;
• We hired OnScene Productions and partnered with them to create a virtual Senior Recognition Ceremony that would debut the same day and time as the traditional ceremony. The video debuted live on both Facebook and YouTube;

• We built a unique website for the senior class and their families that featured a memory wall of photos, cap and gown photos, individual congratulation and recognition videos from each career-tech instructor, and messages from the district’s leaders;
• We created individual senior recognition graphics for more than 650 seniors, curating the content directly from the seniors themselves and featuring them on the website’s recognition videos. We also allowed the students to download their graphics to share on their social media channels.

The Results:

• More than 6,000 views of the Senior Recognition Ceremony, including more than 1,000 real-time viewers upon its live broadcast;
• Over 1,000 social media graphics created and shared on the district’s social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

See Us Rise Documentary

Columbus City Schools

The Situation: Columbus City Schools approached us about developing a solution to help bring their large constituency along for the process of creating their Portrait of a Graduate. In December 2019, Columbus City Schools partnered with Battelle for Kids to begin work on the collaborative Portrait of a Graduate process to shape the district’s “North Star” — a new educational vision to guide the district for years to come. We were hired to lead the project and produce a documentary series in collaboration with OnScene Productions to capture the process, which takes several months. The idea was that the series would provide an opportunity to engage more in the community than were part of the in-person process and help shape the messaging and spark conversations the district wished to take place.

Then, a series of events were set in motion that no one could have predicted.

The Project: In March, just as the series was getting ready to launch, COVID-19 changed everything. Production came to a halt. It wasn’t until May that we resumed filming. In July, we revamped the original plan from a documentary series about the Portrait process to a short film about a school year with Ohio’s largest school district dealing with significant issues. These included a global pandemic, school closure, social unrest, calls nationwide to deal with systemic racism, and the need to continue to stay focused on transforming the system and the future of learning for the sake of the students of Columbus. Through it all, a documentary crew was there to capture the struggle, the success, the emotion, and the ongoing brave work of teachers, students, families, and Columbus’s community.

The Solution: Being flexible and creative was key to making this project work as it took many twists and turns with the pandemic and other significant issues. However, the documentary short film “See Us Rise” will likely debut sometime in early 2021. We also created a special website for the documentary and campaign. We supported the district’s roll-out plans by developing an influencer campaign to raise awareness and spread the message about the film. We created a full public relations plan that allows the district to have many outreach avenues, including various media opportunities and community partnerships, in-person events (when able), and even nationwide exposure.

The Results: As of the date of this summary, “See Us Rise” is still in post-production and a firm date for release has yet to be determined, though January/February 2021 is most likely.

Let’s Go Virtual

OnScene Productions

The Situation: A frequent collaborator and partner, OnScene Productions, wanted to get their newly created virtual “experiences” in front of decision-makers in the career-tech space as the need to revamp career-technical school admissions processes would take center stage amid the pandemic.

The Project: We worked together to create outreach opportunities for Ohio’s 49 career centers and their marketing and recruitment representatives. The goal was to get career centers signed up for limited production spots in creating virtual tour experiences that may replace prospective students’ tours and other vital events. These outreach opportunities are pivotal moments for career centers to allow students and their families to explore career-tech programs and options to decide to apply and attend the following school year. They are also crucial to career center enrollment numbers, potentially impacting staffing, budgets, and more.

The Solution: A free webinar Zoom session was created, “Roadmap for Recruitment”. With just a couple of weeks to pull the webinar together, we created a Mailchimp email campaign to do the outreach at the end of June and had 25 career centers represented to take part in the session.

The Results: With two districts previously committed to moving forward with the virtual tours, our direct efforts resulted in a dozen leads and inquiries following the webinar. Six career centers moved forward with launching or preparing to launch virtual tour experiences to supplement their regular in-person admission events and tours.

Pivoting Admissions in Career-Tech

Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools

The Situation: Admissions in career-tech are the lifeblood of these public, specialized districts in Ohio. The process of garnering interest from students and their families in enrolling in a career-tech program, mostly during the junior and senior years, is a strategic and well-run process that can begin as early as elementary school. And an essential part of the process is getting prospects inside the buildings to see the fantastic career-tech labs and meet the instructors. So what happens when a global pandemic takes out or limits the opportunities to do just that?

The Project: Eastland-Fairfield serves 16 school districts and 18 high schools in three counties near Columbus, Ohio. Each year, their years-long admissions process culminates for a new class during their partner districts’ sophomore year. This involves outreach, presentations by admission specialists in the schools, large-scale touring events, an open house, and various smaller group tours and activities. Our mission was to re-think how to do this without knowing how much in-person access and availability there would be when recruiting students during the 2020–2021 school year.

The Solution: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we had to assume that the traditional recruitment process would not be possible, therefore:

• Virtual opportunities must be available;
• An increase in marketing efforts including more direct mail and customer relationship management practices;
• A centralized “hub” needed to be created for families to access easily;
• And, we needed to be creative and flexible at this moment and explore new opportunities.

We accomplished these assumptions by:

• Created the website EFCTSJourney.com to serve as the hub of everything involving admissions and enrollment;

• Launched a new virtual tour experience in November in collaboration with OnScene Productions. We launched the tour with an exclusive access weekend opportunity for sophomores and their families using a unique password with more than 650 people taking advantage of that early opportunity;

• Direct mail pieces, including a new viewbook and several additional direct mail postcards;

• The creation of a robust email list and the implementation of consistent email outreach;
• Utilizing virtual opportunities with Zoom to hold “office hours” with admissions representatives and creating an entirely virtual open house event.

The Results: While the process continues into the spring, so far, the results have been positive as the district deals with many pandemic-related unknowns:

• Nearly 1,000 targeted audience members went to the Virtual Tour Preview weekend, with 534 unique individuals taking the tours (54% conversion);
• Since November 12, almost 1,100 people have taken a virtual tour spending an average of nine minutes exploring;
• More than 500 people registered for the virtual open house, with 260 students applying during the two-hour event.

Powerful Visual Storytelling

Various Clients

The Situation: Many times a client has the desire to get across key messages about their organization. Instead of doing a traditional newsletter or feature story, sometimes the best solution is to meet the moment with video storytelling.

The Project: The Ohio Association of Career & Technical Superintendents (OACTS) had a strong desire to create a message shared statewide by their 49 member career-technical school districts.

Amid the challenges being faced by the pandemic, Eastland-Fairfield wanted to create a rallying cry and positive message for their students, families, staff, and communities.

The Solution: For OACTS, instead of highlighting stats and data frequently shared by these member districts, we focused on high-level, big picture messaging, creating an emotional and inspiring call to explore the possibilities presented by enrolling in a career-tech education. We posed the question “What Will I Become,” purchased that domain, created a call-to-action, and updated their website to inspire interest and then hopefully activate that interest through further exploration in Ohio’s 49 career centers. A unique marketing “kit” with pre-written social media messages and short clips was made available to the organization members to share the video on their social channels and in their school communities, thus increasing the reach of the video.

For Eastland-Fairfield, like all schools in Ohio in the spring of 2020, buildings were closed, and students and staff were distanced. They wanted to create a piece that would encourage their community to rally around the idea that even apart, the people of EFCTS would get through this historically challenging time…together. From writing the script to finding the voiceover actor, we produced a piece in collaboration with OnScene Productions that spoke to this and served an inspirational video shared across the district’s channels.

The Results: OACTS deployed its video and “What Will I Become” messaging and quickly shared across multiple platforms by multiple-member districts and other partners. The video has been viewed more than 5,000 times.

Eastland-Fairfield released their video during Ohio’s spring school shutdown and racked up 6,000-plus views across their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube channels.

Sparking Career Navigation

Non-Profit Foundation

The Situation: A large philanthropic foundation client in Michigan has relied on our counsel and advisement. They’ve worked with several local ISDs to create a unique campaign around encouraging more focus on career exploration for students and their families. The initiative ties into and continues the work of this foundation on improving regional outcomes when it comes to workforce and economic development.

The Project: The project began in April 2019. The foundation engaged their local ISDs, which oversee the career-technical education programs for the various counties in their region. We were brought on based on our expertise in career-technical education marketing and public relations campaigns. Acting in the role of consultant, we have provided a review for various campaign plans and marketing materials in collaboration with the ISDs, the foundation, and the foundation’s local PR firm.

When the pandemic disrupted and paused plans for the campaign’s launch in April 2020, the foundation engaged us again in the fall of 2020 to serve as a consultant and project lead in their plans for a revamped campaign.

The Solution: We have since helped lead efforts to plan for a new way to approach the campaign. This means a planned launch in the spring of 2021, engaging in more content marketing and influencer marketing to grow an audience and generate leads. With the hopes that schools will re-open as expected in the fall of 2021, we have developed a phased approach to the campaign that will involve these new elements before incorporating all previously planned elements, many of which involved in-person events.

The Results: To be determined in 2021.

Design & Delivery: Publications

Various Clients

The Situation: While social media and digital efforts get most of the press these days when it comes to marketing and PR, we still value a good piece of print collateral. And we do a lot of these pieces throughout a fiscal year. Print materials and direct mail are still some of the most effective ways to reach constituents. Not only print materials, email marketing publications serve as an effective means of reaching audiences.

The Projects: From planning and writing to full graphic design and coordination to assist in the fulfillment of printing and to mail (if needed), we manage more than two dozen publications each year.

• London City Schools Raiderscope is a three-time annual 12-page newsletter that we helped the district relaunch in 2017. We can plan, write, design, and fulfill this piece (with their local printing company in London) in just two weeks;

• Twinsburg City Schools has several major publications each year, including an Annual Report/Calendar, Quality Profile, and Senior Sendoff newsletter. We handle the writing and editing of each of these publications working to support their communications person;
• Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools requires many publications throughout their school year due to their need to recruit students at both the high school and adult education levels. We plan, write, design, and coordinate fulfillment with their local printer. Everything from a 50-plus page catalog and a high school admissions viewbook to various direct mail postcards, coordinating these projects requires tight deadlines and focus on project management;
• Columbus City Schools has engaged us to recreate many of their publications in the past year as a new communications team took office in 2019. One of the publications, their Guide to Student Success, won an award from the Ohio School Public Relations Association;

• Each month, we write and design the monthly e-newsletter “Connections” for the Ohio Association of Career-Technical Superintendents (OACTS) and created three to five special email blasts that are sent to their membership.

Design & Delivery: Presentations

Various Clients

The Situation: Presentation design is more than just creating a Powerpoint. It has to be a strategic story that can engage the audience. This has to be more than clip art and too many bullet points.

The Projects: Several clients have turned to us to create presentations for them to 1) save them time and 2) create a story with their presentations. In the past, we have made presentations for State of the School addresses for superintendents to simple presentations for Boards of Education. This year, our presentation work involved:

• Remo Security Doors needed a facelift for their presentations. We created an updated presentation template that can be customized each time by the client and speak to each unique audience;
• Over the years, Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools have had us create presentations for their Hall of Fame Alumni Induction ceremony, their New Student Celebration, and various Board of Education meetings. This past year, we completed presentations for their Senior Recognition Ceremony, Virtual New Student Celebration, and Back-to-School staff meeting.

Communicating a Pandemic

Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools

The Situation: On March 13, 2020, everything changed for schools in Ohio. The governor closed down schools due to the unknown threat of COVID-19. Now, schools across the state (and the globe) dealt with something unique and rapid. Communicating with families, staff, partners, and the community would be vital to maintaining order and ensuring the education process’s continuation. More importantly, it would be critical to providing stability and comfort during a challenging period for the students, families, and staff in the district.

The Project: Plain and simple, this project was straight up crisis communication. It involved the constant need for messaging about the closure about food distribution, health and safety measures, graduation and certifications, and credentials. It involved the need to communicate across multiple channels, including social media, the website, the media, via email, and through an all-call phone system. It required coordination of the sequence of communication and the ability to respond to questions and concerns.

The Solution: Like nearly every school in America, the solution was creating a library of communication messages that could be used in various scenarios. We developed communication pieces that were customized for every distribution channel. What went out on the all-call messages via phone had to be different in size and scope than what went out via email to Board members, partner districts, and staff. As the pandemic evolved and the district went from closure to re-opening plans, we created a “brand” around “Restart,” and our communication pieces reflected a positive and hopeful tone. Our communication was empathetic and understanding. We had to develop a COVID-19 data dashboard, communication pieces for positive cases and exposures, health and safety protocol marketing pieces, and much more.

Shane Haggerty is a special projects consultant based in Columbus, Ohio. He works with various organizations including school districts, educational and government agencies, philanthropic and non-profits, and more. Contact him at shane@purposeland.us.