Awhile back I was meeting with a client to discuss some upcoming project milestones, mostly involving research and analysis. We were about to begin the process of reviewing 5-year data from Admissions and setting agendas for focus groups with current undergraduate students.
I asked: Would the marketing department's content team attend the focus group meetings? This question seemed to puzzle my client.
"We'd rather not have them there, they're busy and we figured your team would prefer to run the meetings your way." At first I was a bit puzzled since I couldn't remember saying anything about running the meetings a certain way. I probed a bit more.
"Well, honestly I don't think they can add anything to the conversation. They're pretty junior level and don't have much experience with this sort of thing."
Aha. Now we're getting somewhere. Her assumption was that her staff didn't have much to contribute, but we weren't looking for their contribution (we use a light touch in these groups anyway) . We we're thinking the experience would be good for them. And good for the university.
An opportunity almost missed
We've found that website redesigns and brand refresh initiatives are unique opportunities to empower in-house staff by collaborating with us. The reasons are many but here's a couple of them:
Never miss the opportunity to capture and develop expertise in house. Consultants are rightly proud and can be a little protective of their work - it's what they're getting paid for! But you're missing an opportunity to train your own staff to perform this work again, maybe not at the same level, but they'll at minimum be able to understand and contribute to the next project.
Staff participation increases ownership. Developers learn the code, content developers learn the CMS, and marketing coordinators learn the brand language as it's being created. Everyone is invested in the outcome and are prepared to pick up the ball and run with it when the project launches.
Here's another: Being in the room when brand keywords are workshopped and strategy is discussed gets everyone on the same page faster. We've found that projects run more smoothly when staff is more engaged and involved.
