Can we break down the silos in Higher Ed?

I worked in various marketing communications agencies in my career as a marketer. Every single one of them had silos. In the ad agency world, they’re called departments, and they are set up just like department stores. There was a media department. A PR department. An internet (or interactive) department, a creative department. Each department concentrated on a different section of the process, but they worked together.

The Silos of Higher Education

Higher Education takes silos to a whole new level. There are academic departments, admissions departments, comms or marketing departments, and athletics departments.

These silos have different missions – educate students, enroll a class, manage the brand, win games and generate spirit. On the whole, they do their own thing and sort of embrace the mission of the school.

However, we've moved past silos. For example, do you think of Amazon.com as a department store? It isn't.

In the age of digital media, all it takes is a Google search. Google collects all the information put out by a brand in one place.

Google is the silo breaker.

When delivering the SERP, it doesn’t go and find the 15 different Facebook Pages made by each department in higher education, it shows one. It often shows two web properties, the .edu and the athletics.com sites, but most people don't click on them.

The SERP doesn’t bother with things not relevant. like the Career Services Facebook Page.

So what is the answer?

I think the answer lies in rethinking job titles and departments, and the SERP. I posted on Twitter that someone should think about hiring a Director of Digital Presence, and Patricia Maben said:

"The President is the director of digital presence."

The president is the one who can break the silos in higher education by focusing digital efforts. Higher Education will always have departments, it probably shouldn’t, but it always will have an English department. On the admin side, higher ed might not need a separate admissions and advancement department.

I know, right? Can you imagine?

It just needs people with skills. Some people might be really skilled at presenting, while another person is skilled at making video presentations. Those people don’t need to be in departments, but they do need to be connected. How enrollment talks to a prospective student will impact how that student is a student and an alum.

In this way, higher education could think about connecting people by skills and interests.

It is controversial, I know. But Google already has stripped the school of digital silos. Amazon has changed the way we think about "department stores."

So the time is coming. Might as well get ahead of the SERP.

This is the kind of conversation we'll tackle at The Institute for Higher Education . We have a President's Track , Enrollment tracks , a marketing track (I'm chairing!), and a high school administrator track . We want to talk about the Silos of Higher Education with you.

Will we see you there?

What do you think can help break down the Silos in Higher Education?