Web survey released to faculty, staff and alumni

Posted by Jill Carson

One of the components of our branding initiative is to gain feedback and insight from our faculty and staff, as well as alumni.  Last week, we released a web survey to all three groups (faculty, staff and alumni) that will allow us to learn about what they feel makes UNMC a world-class institution and what is important to its future as we continue on with this initiative. 

If you haven’t already responded to this survey, please do!  We’d love to hear from you.  If you’ve accidentally deleted the email with the link and password, a reminder email will be sent on Wednesday. 

For more information on the survey, click here to read the UNMC Today story that ran last week.

Making Progress…

Posted by Jill Carson

It’s been a while since I last blogged about our branding initiative, so thought I’d write to provide a quick update.  Though I’ve been absent from this blog, I have continued to stay very busy with the first phase of our initiative.  We’re currently underway with conducting phone interviews, and creating web surveys for our faculty, staff and alumni.  Bill and I have also continued our “education” piece of this initiative, presenting to various groups on campus about what branding is, and what this initiative entails.   The web surveys are tentatively scheduled for sometime in October.  Then, once we’ve completed the research phase, we’ll process all of the data that we collect and move forward from there!

An interesting branding article/presentation

Posted by Jill Carson

I am constantly looking for articles, books, presentations, etc. to learn more about brands, and came across a great book by Marty Neumeier of Neutron, LLC called The Brand Gap.  It was loaned to me by our graphic designer, Jessi Long, who’s always sending me interesting and useful articles.  As it turns out, Neumeier has translated his book into a shorter, visual presentation.  I think it’s got a lot of great statements about branding and examples of companies that have branded well, and those that haven’t done so well.  You can check out the presentation by clicking here. 

A Busy Two Days!

Posted by Jill Carson

Last Thursday we wrapped up Lipman Hearne’s first on-site visit to UNMC for our branding initiative.  They were here for two days, and the schedule was jam-packed!  They began the first day on Wednesday by holding one-on-one meetings with our campus leadership, while taking a break over lunch to meet with the Brand Advisory Committee.  More one-on-one visits continued in the afternoon, and the day ended with some time to meet my colleagues in Public Affairs.  The second day was just as busy, with more one-on-one leadership meetings and small group discussions. 

It’s all a part of the first phase of our initiative, or the “Brand Audit Review.”  Basically, we’re trying to intake as much information as possible on where UNMC stands with its brand now, what our goals are, what our strengths and weaknesses are, and how we move forward strategically.  My mind is a bit “over-loaded” with information right now, but at the same time, I am even more anxious and excited to continue this process.

 There is more in-take and campus visits to come.  This is only the beginning.  In fact, I’m working on the next visit as I write this entry!

Branding Initiative Begins!

Posted by Jill Carson, Public Affairs 

Welcome to the UNMC branding blog!  I’m Jill Carson, and I will be contributing to this blog on a regular basis, as well as my colleague, Bill O’Neill.  Bill and I are very excited to be leading a branding effort for UNMC, and have been working hard for the past several months to get where we are today.

The process thus far has been fun and educational.  We’ve been educating ourselves on branding by attending conferences, reading books, blogs, websites…basically whatever we can read, hear, or see about branding – we’re taking it all in!  We also know that this initiative will be complex and time consuming, and we can’t do it alone.  So, we went through a competitive RFP process to hire an agency to help us through each step.   Today and tomorrow, we will begin the first phase of the initiative with our consulting partner, Lipman Hearne.  We chose Lipman Hearne to work with us through the RFP process, and I first had heard of them after attending a branding conference that they presented at this past January.  I am extremely excited to get to work with them on this project.  You can check out their website here:  www.lipmanhearne.com or http://www.lipmanhearne.com/trueyou/. 

While Lipman Hearne is here on campus, they’ll start the first phase of research by conducting one-on-one interviews with our campus leadership, as well as some selected focus groups.  This is just one of several campus visits that I am sure they will be making.  Later on, I know they’ll be conducting further research through employee surveys and other focus groups as well.  We want to make sure that we involve the campus as much as possible during the entire process.  One thing I’ve learned is that brands shine from the inside out, and having campus participation throughout this initiative will be key to our success.

Bill and I will try to keep the UNMC community updated through each phase and step that we go through via this blog as well as our branding website.  We’re excited to share this journey with everyone here at UNMC!