What Are Full-Valet Communications?
An academy school, like
any school, has one core function where competence cannot be compromised:
producing high-achieving young adults. While a communications strategy is an
important tool in that enterprise, it is only a support mechanism - a means
for achieving the all-important end. Academies often put a
lot of high-powered effort into converting nebulous intention into effective
communication, using management time and money as surrogates for effective
planning. It would be great if Academies could instead rely on experts in the
particular communication products and methods they need to use - but where
are those experts? Communications Managers employed by Academies do not
usually come from school backgrounds; they know the principles of communication,
but not the specifics of how a school works. Educational Managers are often
no better at understanding the specific needs of Academies: they know how to
manage the communications for a standard school, but the needs of Academies
are wider and more diverse. Full-Valet
A full-valet service
would relieve the Academy of most of the non-core tasks of producing
communication products, and it would leave them able to concentrate on the
core task of producing communication content. Who, though, is in a position
to offer such a service to Academy schools? Some of the best
producers of printed school materials (prospectuses, brochures, leaflets,
stationery, etc) have a greater knowledge of the communication needs of
Academies than the Academies themselves - they deal with a range of schools
and they have useful experience of what is needed and when it is needed. Many
already prompt their client schools about particular forthcoming
communication requirements. These support organisations would seem to be
ideally placed to provide a comprehensive communications package to Academy
schools. A full-valet service
would mean that the production of diaries, prospectuses, handbooks,
yearbooks, leaflets, banners, stationery, even newsletters, could become a
semi-automatic process for the Academy. The printer would track the
production calendar for the Academy, it would tell the Academy when it should
start working on each project, it would initiate discussions about design, it
would set schedules for the production of content, and it would ensure that
communications are timely and to specification - in short, it would become
the expert on communications production. It is very likely that, because of
economies of scale, one of the larger printers could provide this service more
cheaply than the Academies themselves can manage, creating a win-win
situation. It is therefore worth talking to your printer partners to see if they are interested in providing a full valet solution. You may find that their solution is cheaper and more effective. |
An expert is someone who has
succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to
pay attention to and what to ignore.
Edward de Bono
The supreme end of education is
expert discernment in all things--the power to tell the good from the bad,
the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to
the bad and the counterfeit.
Charles Grosvenor Osgood
An expert is someone who knows
some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid
them.
Werner Karl Heisenberg
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