Business Education is a mature market, and with so many programmes out there and relatively few publications writing about them, there is a constant competition between schools for worthwhile coverage. On the other side of the fence, journalists are under considerable pressure to deliver news from education institutions in a new and engaging way.
With every school looking to share information about their new programmes, their faculty research and attempting to add their voice to wider industry debates, it pays to take the time to look at how you can make sure your opinion stands out from the crowd.
At BlueSky, this is something we encourage our clients to do, and by working with those behind the ideas, we’re able to assist our clients in presenting their perspectives in an original – sometimes quirky – way to the media.
Quirky PR in action
One of our client schools, Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands was keen to contribute to the discussion of diversity in the MBA classroom. With a class that had a near 50/50 split of male and female students, they were well placed to discuss such an issue. However, Associate Dean of Degree Programmes Desiree van Gorp wanted to move the debate one step further. She felt that diversity was not just to do with students’ gender or their nationality but rather who they were, and the various expertise and ideas they possessed.
Together with Desiree we worked to create the idea of the Renaissance MBA – which stated that in order to become a truly great business leader, MBA students need to be more widely educated and come from a range of professional backgrounds. For example, a class that typically consists of financial managers and consultants could also include historians, artists and not-for-profit professionals. This mix of professional ability would enable students to see the business world in a different way.
Through this effort, Desiree has become a key spokesperson on this topic. Articles on The Renaissance MBA have appeared in publications such as BusinessWeek, and stories and profiles from Nyenrode’s own diverse student base have been included in articles for newspapers such as The Telegraph and the Independent, amongst others.