January

2013

Managing content, systems, people and change.

Hanson Hosein, Anita Verna Crofts, Scott Macklin, and Dr. Lisa Coutu
Why we crafted a graduate program in digital media and creative engagement for professionals.

U n i v e r s i t y o f W a s h i n g t o n | S e a t t l e , W A

Executive Summary
The Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) program at the University of Washington began in 2001 as a degree for professionals to develop strategic competencies in the use of emerging digital technologies and platforms. From 2007 onwards, the MCDM grew considerably as social networks, mobile technology, and the Internet generally went mainstream. It helped that the program had adopted a unique focus in the face of these seismic trends asking, How do we influence and persuade in the digital age? What would we consider successful engagement in todays communication ecosystem? What strategic competencies must we media professionals master, to lead the way within our organizations? The MCDM answered with the following: successful communication requires the design of intelligent relationship-building strategies anchored by compelling stories and insightful analytics. This approach, our collaborative, community-facing learning environment, and our superlative faculty drove and sustained our success. In summer 2012, we were asked to design, launch, and lead a faculty-approved second professional degree program housed at our Department of Communication. The MCDM leadership team was excited by the opportunity to do so as it would allow us to extend our reach, as well as give us the ability to invest further in the MCDM's curriculum. This was not an easy task. To maintain and grow a highly successful degree program while launching a new one alongside it, requires creativity, cross-constituency input, and vision. Over a series of months, we convened conversations with a number of our constituents, conducted a comprehensive survey, convened a task force, reviewed peer graduate programs across the country, and consulted with industry advisors and experts. In this way, we were able to grasp a fresh approach to this endeavor while preserving the core attributes that made the MCDM successful. Through this, we concluded the following: - The Master of Communication in Digital Media remains a full-fledged degree emphasis. We will continue to expand its curriculum to keep it as current as possible with the demands of today's professionals who seek to lead by managing content, information and production. - We created the new Master of Communication in Communities and Networks (MCCN) for those who seek to lead by managing people, systems, and change. It is an explicit recognition that there are communications professionals who want to earn an advanced degree in a way that leverages the growing importance of communication within organizations, networks, systems, and communities -- especially during this time of exponential change. (University approval expected by 2/15/2013) - Both degree emphases will be housed under the Communication Leadership program at the University of Washington. Students have the opportunity to take 5 credits outside of their degree emphasis. They can also apply to earn dual MC degrees upon completing additional credits. All incoming students, regardless of their declared degree emphasis, will complete three common core courses as a unified cohort. In many ways, the creation of the Communication Leadership program is a culmination of the evolution the MCDM has taken over the last few years. As we expanded the degree's curriculum, we sought ways to proficiently organize the courses in a way that made sense to the individual student. With these two degree emphases, the path is clearer, students have more options, and we have the latitude to continue to invest in courses that make the most sense for our constituents' objectives. Finally, as we have moved through this process over the last six months, we have recognized that we offer particular competitive advantages that are unique to what we've collectively created: a focus on storytelling, communication strategies, and a deep connection to our innovative, entrepreneurial community in the Pacific Northwest. These elements will continue to pervade our program, irrespective of a student's chosen course of study.

The Communication Leadership Program

Framing
This is a time of exponential change. This chaos presents new challenges, but also new opportunities for professionals who can master how to lead, primarily through the discipline of communication. Success comes from collaboration, cross-cultural communication, problem-solving, community interaction, and creating/curating inspiring, persuasive content. The Communication Leadership program, with its unique degree emphases in digital media and creative engagement, guides professionals into those transformative roles through the design of networking strategies, anchored in compelling storytelling and insightful analytics. In this way, professionals build the necessary communication knowledge, strategies, and skills to manage content, information, systems, people, and change. Such a program is especially well suited to the Pacific Northwest and its reputation for innovation and entrepreneurship, enhanced by robust social and civic connectivity.

Professional Needs
Our experiential and professional focus provides students with a creative approach to the design of intelligent relationship-building strategies anchored in content creation, the management of systemic change, and research. In consultation with our advisors, we recognized that there is a particular demand within organizations for leaders with strong communication experience who can connect people, ideas, and skills to effect successful outcomes. Our advisors were less interested in a program that produced graduates with certain skills, rather seeking potential hires that could instill a particular aptitude to managing and leading the dramatic professional change that so many are presently facing. So if we declare that communication is now a fundamental field of competence for any leader, then it's important that our graduates bring a considered approach to the creation and distribution of content and knowledge within strategically convened networks.

Curriculum
The Communication Leadership program will have two primary degree emphases. One focuses on managing information, production, and content, while the other on systems, people, and change. Framing: In the Communication Leadership program, professionals build the communication knowledge, strategies, and skills to manage content, information, systems, people, and change. 15 credits for the core 1. Contours of Digital Media, Communities & Networks (5 credits) 2. Research Methods (5 credits) 3. Law & Ethics (5 credits) 30 credits for 6 elective courses in specific degree area (5 credits may be taken outside of emphasis; 5 credits may be taken outside of Communication Leadership program) Double Degree Option Students may earn dual MC degrees. In accordance with Graduate School policies, they do not have to retake course courses, but are required to take 25 additional credits focusing in their secondary area of interest. Custom Option Exceptionally, students already admitted to the Communication Leadership program and who have already completed the course sequence, may pursue a customized course of study in consultation with a faculty advisor, the graduate program advisor, and upon approval following an additional application process. This would allow three courses (outside of the core ones) to be taken entirely outside of the Communication Leadership program.

 Suggested Sample Curriculum Digital Media Managing information, production, and content: Content Strategy & Curation* Legal Implications for Content Production & Digital Media Interactivity Design (Practice) Interactivity Design (Usability) Analytics Production Studio: Storytelling Visual Narrative & Communication: The Future of Entertainment* Mobile Media Development & Integration Mobile Interactivity & Usability Transmedia Storytelling for Marketers Managing Your Web Presence: Strategic Digital Platform Fundamentals Psychology of Digital Media and Persuasion in Content Leadership in Information, Production and Content Social Gaming Business Fundamental in Digital Media Content Marketing and Branded Content International Trends in Mobile Technology & Marketing Multimedia Storytelling Advanced Multimedia Storytelling Data Visualization *Denotes a new class offering. Custom: 1. Students must apply for this emphasis after they are admitted to the program and begun the course sequence. 2. Emphasis name and courses need to be negotiated with faculty member(s). 3. Up to three courses (beyond the core) can be taken outside of the Communication Leadership program. Communities & Networks Managing people, systems, and change [University approval expected 2/15/13]

Collaborative Leadership in the Networked Age* Community Interaction & Engaging Publics* Intercultural Communication: Cross-Cultural Differences* Creative Problem Solving in the Networked Age* Mobile Phones in Development Social Impact of Mobile Communication Health of Networks Group Communication & Multi-Level Leadership* Organizational Communication* Digital Democracy Business Fundamentals in Communication Social Business Strategies Project Management We The Network: Social Leadership and Campaigns Storytelling: Leadership and Organizations Ethnographic Listening: Understanding Local for Global Leadership* Culture at Work: Internal Organizational Dynamics*

(Note: subject to approval by the University of Washington)

TIMELINE AND METHODOLOGY

Spring 2012: A new Masters
Faculty of the University of Washingtons Department of Communication voted to renew its existing Master of Communication degree, a rarely applied-for option. This was originally conceived as an opportunity to provide an additional advanced degree option to communication professionals, alongside the already successful Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM). It would leverage the substantial expertise of the Departments faculty in a more applied learning environment. Here is the core premise to this originally-proposed Master of Communication: The Masters of Communication in _____________________ provides students with a sophisticated understanding of the interactive nature of communication between organizations and their publics. It is an interdisciplinary, self-sustaining program that blends intensive instruction in five core communication-driven processes of the future with course work in one of three partner areas environmental studies, public health and political science/public policy. Undergirding the program will be a commitment not only to helping students understand effective communication but also ethical communication. Attention to ethical concerns will infuse all instruction. The program is designed around the premise that the five communication-driven processes collaboration, curation, information creation, cross-cultural understanding and problem-solving are essential for organizations to communicate effectively with their constituencies and to achieve their goals. Indeed, the program seeks to leverage the existing intellectual strengths of the Department, which has experts in human communication, mass communication, digitalcommunication technologies, rhetoric and communication and culture. We envision the program appealing primarily to individuals working in or wanting to work in communication-related positions in businesses, government agencies, not-for-profits, unions or grass-roots organizations. We would target program recruitment on individuals interested in public health, global health, journalism, social work, nutrition, family services, public policy, education, worker rights, climate change and the environment. The ideal candidate would be someone whose success in an organization depends on successfully handling communication with external groups. These might include individuals who self-identify as community organizers, labor organizers, journalists, media liaisons, public information officers, lobbyists, fund-raisers, communication strategists, public-process managers, or coordinators of health-communication campaigns. The basic appeal would be this: To be effective in your profession, you must have a sophisticated understanding of the modern media environment and of how to take advantage of the interactive digital tools available to communicate with your publics your audiences, your customers, your members, your supporters. You also need expertise in a subject area, and to that end, we would require you to take courses outside the Department to build or enhance that expertise. (Initially, these courses would be in one of these areas: public health, the environment or political science/public policy.) Over time, an idea emerged: to integrate the existing MCDM with the new program, to create either one brand-new degree or to have two inter-related yet distinct emphases under an MC umbrella. Department Chair David Domke asked (a) the MCDM leadership team of Hanson Hosein, Scott Macklin, and Anita Verna Crofts and (b) Dr. Lisa Coutu (who had been advising MCDM faculty for the prior two years) to form a new MC leadership team, and to head up this process. They saw this as an opportunity to formalize (and clarify) some of what had been already evolving within the MCDM curriculum, as it developed classes in leadership and the strategic use of networks that transcended an explicit digital application. If executed properly, an expanded degree program would facilitate an enlarged curriculum for communications professionals, while providing more room to offer more applied courses in the digital emphasis. The team moved quickly that summer to establish a premise to the new degree in a way that it made sense to communications professionals (see Appendix III for a list of some of the competencies and job titles considered relevant), but also was distinct enough from the popular MCDM. A few of the challenges they faced at the outset included whether administering two degrees required two times the effort (which could

 7 possibly task its relatively small administrative infrastructure), and how to keep the existing program running while restructuring it to accommodate the new emphasis. Additionally, the naming of any program had to be consistent with what already existed, as well as timeless (rather than attaching itself to a trend that might quickly become outdated). An initial proposal suggested a Master of Communication degree program, with a Digital Media emphasis to reflect the MCDM, and a Strategic Engagement emphasis to encompass the essence of what the Department had voted on. The team was partly driven to consider this approach because it didnt shift the existing program considerably a graduate of the MCDM actually receives a diploma that reads only Master of Communication (with no mention of Digital Media).

September 2012: Town Hall

The MC leadership team hosted a town hall meeting, which was attended by around 40 MCDM constituents. Many of the participants expressed how important it was to build upon the existing MCDM brand currency. There was also some confusion about the distinctions between the two degree emphases and some concern about the name of the new degree emphasis.. The leadership team recognized after this meeting that it needed to move with more deliberation, even if it meant postponing the launch of the new degree program until 2014. The team members realized that they had much to gain in taking the time to engage in a more transparent, collaborative process with their constituents. In this way, they would work by the values that both ground the MCDM, as well as serve as the philosophical underpinnings for the second degree emphasis in communication. Ultimately, the process would help model the very leadership skills they hoped the new program would champion, and also strengthen connections to alumni, forge new partner relationships, solicit input from current students, and clarify new courses to be developed and taught.

October 2012: Task Force

A Task Force was created and convened, comprised of MCDM student and alumni volunteers, as well as faculty and advisors. The task forces first order of business was to vet a series of questions for a survey that would be made available to all MCDM constituents. Sixty-three people responded to the survey. The results were largely positive about creating an expanded degree program, however some respondents demanded more clarity. At the first Task Force meeting, members discussed the genesis to the new program, the process so far, and the survey results. They focused their group conversation on the framing of the expanded program (especially around the value and meaning of "digital media"). Some key takeaways from this, as well as the framing discussion: * "Digital" is expected, and may not represent where the world is going (caution that the MCDM could become known as the "Facebook degree" as digital media becomes a household application). * Is there a way for us to capture what the degree does without having to go after a catchy term that may be considered out-of-date. * Key elements of an expanded program may include: engagement, networked, creativity, storytelling, big data, leadership, modern communication, strategic, executive. * The name of the degree need not have to be the same as the program (for example, you get an MBA from the Foster School Business; you get an MCDM from the MCDM).

 8 Peer Graduate Programs Meanwhile, the MCDM leadership team reviewed peer graduate programs across America to look for trends, curricular design, and illuminating points of comparison. It identified 17 programs at 13 institutions1 and with each one asked the following questions: What about the program is similar to the MCDM and proposed MC? What is different? Any aha! moments? (Something we should consider or be concerned about?) Does the program give us further inspiration for our naming and framing process? Out of the 17 programs, one resonated in particular when it came to a proposed vision of an expanded program with distinct academic tracks: the University of Southern Californias Communication Department has a Communication Management Masters program with eight areas of emphasis that can be pursued on campus (http://annenberg.usc.edu/Prospective/Masters/CMGT.aspx). The structure of an overarching Communication Management program, with unique tailored areas of emphasis, seemed to be a natural match. Our research also confirmed that the MCDM already had key competitive advantages: a focus on storytelling, communication strategies, and a deep connection to an innovative and entrepreneurial community in the Pacific Northwest.

November 2012:
Advisory Network Consultation In late November, the leadership team convened an inaugural Advisory Network comprised of regional leaders. The advisors were assigned two short readings. The first one was Fast Company magazines The Secrets of Generation Flux (http://www.fastcompany.com/3001734/secrets-generation-flux), which highlights the present chaos experienced across the professional world due to technology and global competitiveness, and how a certain psychographic can survive and thrive in such an environment through An embrace of adaptability and flexibility; an openness to learning from anywhere; decisiveness tempered by the knowledge that business life today can shift radically. The second was a two-page excerpt from Howard Rheingolds 2012 book, Net Smart: How To Thrive Online (The MIT Press, p.212-214) which makes the case for a shift towards networked individualism away from a traditional reliance on (geographic/family/work-related) bounded groups. The Web is no longer a special place but rather part of what most of us do. Rheingold makes heavy reference here to another important 2012 work, Networked: The New Social Operating System observing the kind of people who will thrive in the emerging environment in which networked individualism plays a strong role. They include: - Those who can act as autonomous agents to cultivate their personal networks and their personal brands. - Those with bigger and more diverse networks. - Those who can function effectively in different contexts and collapsed contexts. [Managing multiple groups, multiple milieus] - Those who have high levels of trust and social capital. [Both offline and online] - Those who learn how to manage their boundaries. [Public disclosures/privacy] - Those who manage their time well, especially strategic multi-taskers.
1

University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, Georgetown University, New York University, University of Denver, Northeastern University, Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins, University of Minnesota, Columbia University, University of Oregon, Seattle University, University of Maryland

The two-hour advisory conversation revolved around the following topics: (1) Is it really a "mobile first" world? - Everything is going to be mobile, focus less on the hardware and more on "connectivity." - We need to be "device agnostic." All content is now digital. (2) The importance of design and interface - Given the relatively short history of much of this stuff (and how fast it changes) "we need to hire more for APTITUDE rather than for proven skill." - "People really need to stop and think about content and how it works." UI is really a good way to do this. Listen to your user for insight. Research is in the past. Maintain a dialog with the user. We're now looking at instantaneous data and analytics, based on consumer behavior. (3) Listening is paramount; leadership - "Don't lose sight of the 'C' ['Communication'] in your program name." Everyone's enamored with the digital media piece. Active listening and learning is what matter. - Professionals need to understand the DNA of an organization and be collaborative around that. Large organizations now face huge communications challenges: the old way doesn't work anymore. "Grassroots approaches to communication are more effective." - We are in a time of "chaotic change." We have to put the engineers and the storytellers together to tell the story in a different way. - Need "leadership training." Need to be in touch with the consumer, have to be on the front lines. Agile, nimble, leadership at "every level. - "Listening is the key to leadership." Attuned to content, design. No longer "wait for permission to lead or to act." - Have a "consultative mindset." -- listening, problem-solving, understand the language of technology. (4) Key competences: entrepreneurialism - "Honestly, we don't want MBA's as much." Need to have some understanding of the economics of the whole thing. Want people who are "grounded in how the world works, and in recent history." We're placing bets on this new world, perspective and context matter. - It's not about embracing risk. Need "to embrace UNCERTAINTY." (5) What kind of student? - Not just one type of student; less academic, more able to interact with businesses.

10

December 2012: Naming the Program

After conducting program expansion information meetings with MCDM faculty and the latest cohort of students in December 2012, the MC leadership team then reconvened the Task Force after spending significant time with all of its forms of data. It proposed to the group that the best outcome would be to create two inter-related MC emphases, one in Digital Media and one to be named later. These programs would have a shared set of core courses but then distinct bodies of focal-area courses under one programmatic name roof. Department of Communication faculty Dr. Nancy Rivenburgh was asked to facilitate a discussion with the members of the task force about a proposed name that could be used as an everyday identity for the two MC emphases. This name roof would have a compelling framing that would align with but be distinct from the actual name of the degree, Master of Communication. This would give the two MCs a connected identity, yet still enable distinction within that framework. The group considered 30-plus name suggestions that had emerged and established three criteria for consideration: timelessness, aspirational, descriptive. It unanimously settled upon one name: the Communication Leadership program, within which would be the two MC emphases.

January 2013: Naming the Second Degree

Finally, the leadership team met again in mid-December and then again in early January 2013 to draw upon the entire process, its own sense of needs in professional communication, and the voted-upon foci of the new MC, and considered an appropriate name for the second degree emphasis. The words networks and communities emerged through a similar methodology that the Task Force employed to settle upon the programs name. Upon final consultation with the faculty of the Department of Communication, the group concluded that the second degree emphasis would be as Master of Communication in Communities and Networks.

Conclusion
The team still needs to develop and formalize the new programs curriculum, but the culmination of this process has led to the creation of the Communication Leadership program at the University of Washington, which houses the Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) and Master of Communication in Communities and Networks (MCCN University approval expected by 2/15/2013) At its heart, this degree program recognizes the transformational impact that communication revolutions have had on how people interact with each other (through their expanding social networks, the collaborative, creative power of the Internet, and the pervasive connectivity of mobile devices). Through its globalized perspective and experiential learning, the Communication Leadership program provides professionals with a rigorous, idea-driven platform to harness that interactivity and resolve real-world challenges. If communication is now a fundamental field of competence for any leader, then it's important that the programs graduates bring a considered approach to the creation and distribution of content and knowledge within strategically convened networks. Note: Appendices with detail in each step of the process may be requested from ashomara@uw.edu