I går holdt jeg foredrag for 100 oplagte og glade efterskoleledere på Efterskolernes årlige lederkonference i DGI Byen. Før jeg kom på podiet var der præsentation af samtlige fremmødte og fællessang. Ikke noget med at sidde og pippe ned i sangbogen - der blev sunget igennem! Min kollega Louise og jeg diskuterede, om ikke vi skulle indføre fællessang på kontoret - der var høj energi og masser af fællesskab i det. Mit foredrag handlede om autentisk identitet og så forsøgte jeg at udfordre  efterskolelederne i forhold til efterskolernes identitet. Er hver efterskole god nok til at finde sine særlige styrker og dyrke både ledelse, aktiviteter, organisering og kommunikation ud fra netop "min" efterskoles styrker? Vi havde en rigtig god debat med gode spørgsmål, gode kommentarer og reflektioner. Heine Boe fra Efterskolen for Scenekunst (tidligere Femmøller Efterskole, som Stagis har udviklet identitet for) sagde, at det var overraskende, at "sådan en reklamemand (jeg kunne ikke dy mig for at gøre indsigelser mod dén titel) kom og skulle tale om kommunikation, men så talte om alt det, der ligger før kommunikationen - nemlig hvem man er". Rigtig god pointe, for det er afklaringen af identitet, der er grundlaget for god kommunikation.



I forbindelse med lederkonferencen har jeg skrevet en artikel, som berører nogen af de emner, jeg fortalte om, og som vi diskuterede efterfølgende. Jeg kaldte den "På udkig efter efterskolens autentiske styrker" og den kan downloades på stagis.dk. Den kan også ses i færdig form på Efterskolebladets hjemmeside.

Tilbage i 2006 - 2008 bloggede vi en del om uddannelse, efterskoler og skolevalg - indlæggene kan findes her på bloggen ved at trykke på "Categories" og vælge dette emne.

For tiden arbejder jeg med forskellige efterskoler og højskoler om udviklingen af deres identitet. I den forbindelse har jeg fundet en rapport frem som dokumenterer en kvalitativ undersøgelse Stagis har lavet i 2005 om unges tanker om valg og fravalg af efterskole. Hvis du er interesseret og vil vide mere kan den downloades her, den hedder "Hvorfor efterskole – og hvorfor ikke?". God fornøjelse! Download efterskolerapport_stagis.pdf

  This has been a week of quite amazing project experiences at STAGIS. From from flying to Jutland with Anne to do identity studies among pupils and teachers at Femmøller Efterskole, to facilitating an exiting workshop on worst/best-case scenarios and visions for leaders across a sector for public transportation in DK with my colleagues Nikolaj and Louise. This exiting Employer Branding project that I've loved helping to start off, and where the pics are from, is just getting going on the road now after many months of prep-meetings; stay posted for more on this in 2008...

Codifying communicative challenges of recruitment and Employer Branding Even though these two projects are very, very different, they somehow share a code, that is also part of the code of what we do at STAGIS: Helping organizations communicate their authentic strengths from within, and develope their culture and visual identity in a way, that will strengthen the organization, express its culture in the authentic way, hereby aiming at recruiting the right employees for the organization - or pupils for the school, that will thrive in the institution - because they get an authentic image of what the organization or institution can offer.

In this sense, 'wrong' recruitment of pupils, which may lead to broken-off studies, because the institution is communicating a cultural image, values, goals or making promises it can't deliver, or because the communication isn't clear for its target groups, can be just as problematic for both the pupil and the institution, as if workplace organizations present themselves in an unclear or inauthentic way in a recruitment process, which may lead to an unfruitful process for as well employees as employers, challenging the work-life of both and making trouble for the organization keeping their employees or recruiting at all.

Authentic organizational identity as projecting images of practice
Through projecting an authentic image of the organization, the institution or business will make promises it can deliver, and with consultation it might also be able to reflect upon its own potentials for learning, developing and improving its recruitment to grow more futile grounds for attracting people that can support the values and future of the organization. So this is a two-way, relational and co-dependent thing, that our work aims at supporting. Really important when communicating on the job market - crucial when communicating or marketing to children and youngsters.

One of the identities Anne and Nikolaj will work on now, based on the identity research Anne and I did in Jutland this week, is the new identity and institutional image of Femmøller Efterskole.

Among other things I've been working on our interview material today; and I must say it was such a great experience talking to the appr. 15-18-year old pupils at Femmøller. After having specialized in communicating and marketing to kids and young people, and having worked with consumer identities among childen and young people, it was a great pleasure for me to do this research.

I'm impressed with the mind-sets, maturity and reflexivity of the pupils we talked to. If I were the principal there, I'd be thrilled hearing how happy and exited the pupils are with their scool and the culture lived at the institution. So, I look very much forward to see how Anne and Nikolaj will work with our culture and identity studies, turning them in to the authentic organizational image and identity of the institution.

STAGIS just finished making a video for the website of Kastanievej Efterskole, with the pupils talking about their experiences with living on Kastanievej Efterskole (it works like a boardingschool, but only for a year). The being away from home, the new friendships that are made. Friends who almost become family. Like Mikkel says: "It's what you hate, being social all the time. But at the same time it's what you love, being around your friends all the time" (freely addapted from the danish interview).

Kastanievej has a lot of fine text on their website, telling about the daily life on their school, but it really kicks in actually showing the young people and the rooms they live in. With the guys and girls telling their own stories about Kastanievej, so the person watching the video feels the spirit of the school.

It's the wonders of videos on websites. Very effective. I'm all for.

Historie om Specialekontoret nu også nu DRs online nyheder

A while ago I was blogging about communicating the STAGIS way. I was working on a Direct Mail for STAGIS at the time. It's now finished and yesterday I went to the postoffice carrying 5 huge bags containing no less than 500 copies, which as I write hopefully is being distributed to 500 institutions of education (højskoler, efterskoler, lærerseminarier, pædagogseminarier, produktionsskoler etc.).

It's bright orange and very cool. On one side we describe the STAGIS way of solving challenges for our customers. Turn it around. And wupti you have a cool poster, which can decorate the walls of your office or even the refrigerator (if you have one of those big american ones with icecubemaker and everything).

You tube! My space! You name it. The use of video on websites has in general increased substantially. And with good reason - video makes the website more dynamic. Tjeck out Kastanievej Efterskoles website. STAGIS has recently produced 6 short films about some of the activities you can participate in when attending the school. Tjeck out the film about the subject music! And we are to say the least proud of the result. What do you think of them? And what is your opinion of video on websites in general?

Just a brief note on one of our clients in the educational sector: Askov Højskole. We've been blogging a bit about them before and to be quite frank it didn't look good when we started out together with principal Hans Rosenquist back in september. But things are changing. From just 20 participants, an all-time low through the schools 141-year history. This spring the school hosts 54 participants.
A new strategy focusing on the professional ability to tell stories and the development of the participants own personal stories as well as a new to-the-point identity has proved the schools revival.

Check out the story on the local TV2 Syd. Or read some of the experiences of Mette and Catrine who's been blogging for a couple of months.

In september the new headmaster at Askov Højskole had just arrived. And one of the first things he did was write us an email. It was brief. Hans needed help bringing the school back to a state that it hasn't seen for a while. With a whopping number of 300 beds the school is ready for lots of students but they're not being used. At least not a lot of them.

So we dug in trying to figure out what this school is all about. Being one of the oldest folk high schools in Denmark it has a long proud heritage of helping the young generation of Denmark becoming a bit more skilled on politics. On philosophy. On all the things that we'd want people to live their life knowing. But first of all the school has shown a unique ability of helping the next generation tell their story in professional matters as well as the story of their own life. So we wound up helping Askov Højskole formulate a focused strategy that could be summed up by this:

"Askov Højskole - hvad er din historie?"

(Askov Højskole, whats your story?)

The strategy is to focus on journalism, filmmaking and drama. We've been helping the school hire new guest-lecturers (you can meet really cool guys like actress Dina Al-Erhayem, film director Nikolaj Arcel, actor Jens Jørn Spottag, journalists Reimer Bo Christensen, Clement Kjersgaard and Mette Vibe Utzon just to name a few). So in just a few weeks the new program is running. With a new focus, new guest teachers, new ideas. But the same basic ideology and history behind it all. If you're not bussy take a few months off - go try the life at Askov!

Check out the new website www.askovhojskole.dk and meet two girls, Catrine and Mette, who are blogging about their life at Askov on www.askovblog.dk

Så har jeg haft min første blogging lektion med Catrine og Mette, der er elever på Askov Højskole - på journalistlinien. De kom og besøgte mig i København uden nogensinde at have blogget før og efter et par timer var de officielt en del af blogosfæren og havde skrevet deres første indlæg på højskolens nyoprettede blog hvor de er de første skribenter. I kraft af at de går på journalistlinien, der forbereder dem på at søge ind på fx. journalisthøjskolen eller SDU - var de jo nogle kyndige elever i forhold til at kunne skrive (meget;-) på kort tid og helt uden problemer. Alligevel stødte vi hurtigt på et klassisk problem omkring hvilken genre en blog er. Som nogle der studerer journalistik var pigerne naturligt nok måske endnu mere obs på hvilken tekst de skriver end vi andre er - men i løbet af 5 minutter fandt de alligevel et udgangspunkt for deres egen naturlige stil og de er nu klar til at udnytte mediet optimalt. Jeg glæder mig til at følge deres blog og hvis og når vi støder på opstartsproblemer i forhold til at være skribenter på en ny blog vil vi dele og diskutere dem med Jer her.