Tag: Teams

  • Five Ways Higher Ed Teams Can Improve AEO This Month

    Five Ways Higher Ed Teams Can Improve AEO This Month

    There’s a growing tension I’m hearing across higher education marketing and enrollment teams right now: AI is answering students’ questions before they ever reach our websites, and we’re not sure how, or if, we’re part of those answers.

    That concern is valid, but the good news is that Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) isn’t some futuristic discipline that requires entirely new teams, tools, or timelines. 

    In most cases, it’s about getting much more disciplined with the content, structure, and facts you already publish so that AI systems can confidently use your institution as a source of truth.

    And with some dedicated time and attention, there’s meaningful progress you can make starting today.

    Here are five actions higher ed teams can realistically take right now to improve how they appear in AI-powered search and answer environments.

    1. Run a Simple “Answer Audit” to Establish Your Baseline

    Before you can improve how you show up in AI-generated answers, you need to understand where you stand today, and that starts with asking the same questions your prospective students are asking.

    Identify Real Student Questions

    Select five to ten realistic, high-intent student questions, ideally pulled directly from admissions conversations, search query data, or inquiry emails. 

    Test Visibility Across Major Answer Engines

    Run those questions through a handful of major answer engines, such as:

    • Google AI Mode or AI Overviews
    • ChatGPT
    • Gemini
    • Perplexity
    • Bing Copilot or AI Overview search mode

    This isn’t a perfect science, as your geography and past search history does affect visibility, but it will give you a quick general idea.

    Document What Appears—and What Doesn’t

    For each query, document a few critical things:

    • Does your institution appear in the answer at all?
    • If it does, what information is being shared, and is it accurate?
    • How is your institution being described? Is the tone neutral, positive, or cautious, and does it align with how you want to be perceived?
    • Which sources are cited or clearly influencing the response (your site, rankings, Wikipedia, third-party directories)?

    Log this in a simple spreadsheet. What you’ve just created is your initial visibility benchmark, and it’s far more informative than traditional rankings or traffic reports in an AI-first discovery environment.

    Where We Can Help

    In Carnegie’s AEO Audit, we expand this approach across a much broader and more structured evaluation set. Over a 30-day period, Carnegie evaluates visibility, sentiment, and competitive positioning to show how often you appear, what AI engines are saying about your brand and programs, how you compare to peers, and where focused changes will have the greatest impact on AI search presence.

    >> Learn More About Carnegie’s AEO Solution. 

    2. Fix the Facts on Your Highest-Impact Pages

    If there’s one thing AI systems punish consistently, it’s conflicting or outdated information, and those issues most often surface on pages that drive key enrollment decisions.

    Identify Your Highest-Impact Pages and Core Facts

    Start by identifying ten to twenty priority pages based on enrollment volume, traffic, revenue contribution, or strategic importance. These typically include:

    • High-demand program pages
    • Admissions and application requirement pages
    • Tuition, cost, and financial aid pages
    • Visit, events, and deadline-driven pages

    These pages frequently influence AI-generated answers and early student impressions, and where inaccuracies can have an impact on trust and decision-making, particularly as search continues to evolve toward more experience-driven models.

    For each priority page, verify that the core facts are correct, complete, and clearly stated wherever they apply.

    Program Name and Credential Type

    Ensure the official program name and credential are clearly stated upon first mention. For example, fully spell out the name—Bachelor of Arts in English—in the first paragraph of the page and abbreviate to B.A. in English, Bachelor’s in English, and/or English major in future mentions.

    Delivery Format

    Clearly indicate whether the program or experience is offered on-campus, online, hybrid, or through multiple pathways.

    Time to Completion or Timeline Expectations

    Include full-time, part-time, and accelerated timelines, or key dates where applicable.

    Concentrations or Specializations

    List available concentrations or specializations clearly and consistently.

    Tuition and Fees

    Confirm how costs are expressed and whether additional fees apply.

    Admissions Requirements and Deadlines

    List requirements and deadlines explicitly, avoiding conditional or outdated language.

    Outcomes, Licensure, and Accreditation

    Document licensure alignment, accreditation status, and any verified outcomes data.

    Align Facts Across Every Source

    Once verified, align that information everywhere it appears, including:

    • Primary program, admissions, and visit pages
    • Catalog and registrar listings
    • PDFs, viewbooks, and other downloadable assets
    • Major program directories and rankings where edits are possible

    Signal Freshness with Clear Update Dates

    For content that is time-bound or interpretive—such as admissions pages, deadlines, visit information, policies, blog posts, and thought leadership—clearly signaling recency helps reduce confusion for both students and AI systems.

    In those cases, a visible “last updated” date can help establish confidence that information reflects current realities.

    The goal isn’t to add dates everywhere. It’s to be intentional about where freshness signals meaningfully support clarity, trust, and accuracy.

    3. Restructure a Small Set of Program Pages for AI Readability

    With your facts aligned, the next step is making sure your most important program pages are structured in a way that both humans and machines can easily understand.

    Use a Predictable Page Structure AI Can Parse

    Choose five to ten priority programs and apply a clear, predictable structure that answer engines can parse with confidence, such as:

    • Program overview
    • Who this program is designed for
    • What students will learn
    • Delivery format and scheduling
    • Time to completion
    • Cost and financial support options
    • Admissions requirements
    • Career pathways and outcomes
    • Frequently asked questions

    Add Information Gain to Differentiate Your Program

    Rely on descriptive headings and bullet points, and avoid unnecessarily complex language. Most importantly, include at least one element of information gain: a specific detail that differentiates the program, such as outcomes data, employer partnerships, or experiential learning opportunities.

    Answer Student Questions Explicitly with FAQs

    And if you want to influence AI-generated answers, you need to be explicit about the questions you’re answering—FAQ sections remain one of the most effective ways to do that.

    On each optimized program page, add four to six student-centered questions that directly address decision-making concerns. 

    Answers should be brief, factual, and supported by links to official institutional data wherever possible. 

    Use FAQ Schema Where Possible

    If your CMS and development resources allow, mark these sections up with FAQ schema so answer engines can more reliably identify and reuse them.

    If you don’t clearly answer these questions, AI will still respond, but it may not use your content to do so.

    4. Build a Net-New Content Strategy for AI Visibility

    Program pages matter, but institutions won’t win in AI search results by maintaining existing content alone.

    Why AI Systems Prefer Explanatory Content

    In practice, we’re seeing AI tools cite blog posts, explainers, and articles more often than traditional program pages, especially for the broader, earlier-stage questions students ask before they’re ready to search for a specific degree.

    That means AEO success requires more than restructuring what already exists. It requires a proactive content strategy that consistently publishes new points of expertise, experience, and trust around the topics students care about.

    The Types of Student Questions AI Is Answering

    For many institutions, that’s not just about program marketing. It’s about painting a credible picture of student life, outcomes, belonging, and the real-world value of higher education. The kinds of pieces AI systems surface tend to answer questions like:

    • What should I look for in an MBA program with an accounting concentration?
    • Is community college a good first step?
    • What kinds of jobs can I get in energy?
    • What does it mean to be an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution?

    In other words: content that helps students frame decisions before they compare institutions.

    Start with a Small, Intent-Driven Content Pipeline

    Start small. Choose five to ten priority student questions tied to your recruitment goals, informed by existing keyword research tools and site data from sources like Google Search Console.

    Use those insights to build a simple content pipeline that produces a handful of focused articles:

    • 3–5 new blog or explainer topics aligned to student intent
    • Outlines built around direct answers + structured headings
    • A short list of internal contributors or Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
    • Clear calls-to-action that connect early-funnel content to next steps

    This is one of the fastest ways to expand your presence in AI-generated answers, and to build brand awareness earlier in the funnel, when students are still defining what they want.

    Where We Can Help

    Our AEO solution for higher ed turns insights from the audit into sustained visibility gains. Our experts deliver ongoing content development, asset optimization, visibility tracking and technical guidance to build your authority and improve performance across AI-driven search experiences.

    >> Learn More About Carnegie’s AEO Solution. 

    5. Establish a Lightweight Governance and Maintenance Cadence

    One of the biggest threats to long-term AEO success in higher education isn’t technology, it’s organizational drift.

    You don’t need an enterprise-wide governance overhaul to make a difference. Start with something intentionally simple:

    • A defined list of high-impact pages (programs, tuition, admissions, financial aid)
    • A basic owner matrix outlining responsibility for updates
    • A short monthly review checklist
    • A quarterly content review cadence by college or school

    Even a modest governance framework can dramatically reduce conflicting information and ensure your most important pages remain current as programs evolve.

    Good enough beats perfect every time.

    The Bigger Picture

    AEO isn’t about chasing every AI update or trying to “game” emerging platforms. It’s about being consistently clear, accurate, and helpful in the moments when students are asking their most important questions.

    If you do these five things this month, you won’t just improve your institution’s visibility in AI-driven search, you’ll build trust at the exact point where enrollment decisions are being shaped.

    Ready to go deeper?

    Download The Definitive Guide to AI Search for Higher Ed for practical frameworks, examples, and checklists that will help your team move from experimentation to strategy without the overwhelm.

    Frequently Asked Questions About AEO in Higher Education

    What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

    Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of improving how institutions appear in AI-driven search and answer environments like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Overviews, Gemini, and Perplexity. Instead of focusing only on rankings and clicks, AEO emphasizes clarity, accuracy, and structured content so AI systems can confidently cite and summarize your institution.

    How is AEO different from traditional SEO?

    SEO is designed to improve visibility in search engine results pages, while AEO focuses on how content is interpreted and reused by AI systems that generate direct answers. AEO prioritizes structured content, consistent facts, explicit question answering, and information gain over keyword density alone.

    Why does AEO matter for higher education institutions?

    Students increasingly ask AI platforms questions about programs, outcomes, cost, and fit before visiting institutional websites. AEO helps ensure your institution is accurately represented in those early discovery moments, when perceptions are formed and enrollment decisions begin taking shape.

    What types of content help improve AEO performance?

    AI systems tend to favor content that is clearly structured and informative, including program pages with consistent facts, FAQ sections, explainer articles, and blog posts that directly answer student questions. Content that demonstrates expertise, outcomes, and real-world context is more likely to be cited.

    Who can we help implement AEO for higher education?

    Institutions can begin improving AEO internally by auditing content, aligning program facts, and adding structured FAQs. For more advanced support, higher education–focused partners like Carnegie provide AEO audits, content optimization, technical guidance, and ongoing visibility tracking tailored to AI-driven search environments.

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  • 8 Types Of Management Teams (Plus Tips For Success)

    8 Types Of Management Teams (Plus Tips For Success)

    There are many types of teams you can find in a work setting depending on the type of industry you work in, the size of your business or the company’s preferences on teams in general. If you’re currently in a management position or are interested in becoming one, consider learning more about the different types of teams you can be a part of or manage. In this article, we discuss what a management team is and provide eight types of management teams you can find in the workplace.

    What is a management team?

    A management team is a group of individuals who work together in a company and collaborate to achieve a common goal. The supervisor of the team usually creates a list of tasks for each member to work on to complete the team’s objective. Although not every member of the team may have the same tasks to complete, the team’s overall goal is usually the same. Some management teams work within one department, while employers create other teams to function between departments. In addition, some have more than one supervisor and others work autonomously without one.

    8 types of management teams

    Here is a list of eight types of management teams you may see in the workplace:

    1. Functional

    A functional team, also known as an operational team, is the most common type found in an office setting. Generally, an office has multiple functional teams with a supervisor responsible for the people on their team. Accounting, marketing and human resources are all examples of functional teams you can find in an office. Members in this type of team may have different responsibilities, but all perform the same function of the department, such as finance or sales.

    2. Cross-functional

    Cross-functional teams, or inter-working teams, comprise individuals from different departments. These teams come together with the help of a supervisor to complete specific tasks that require knowledge in each of their fields of expertise. Cross-functional teams are useful when they’re completing a project that involves varying departments for it to be successful. Team members need to remember that each of them is there because of their experience and particular strengths, so it can be beneficial to collaborate and use each of their abilities to produce the best outcome for the team’s intended purpose.

    3. Virtual

    With more individuals working from home, virtual teams have become increasingly popular. They comprise individuals working from different locations who use video chats and collaborative tools to work toward a common goal. Some virtual teams include people who work from home, while other members of the group are still in the office but meet with the rest of the team virtually. Virtual teams can be functional or cross-functional depending on the purpose of the team.

    It can be helpful to meet with your virtual team weekly to ensure everyone is in agreement about what tasks they’re working on and possible upcoming deadlines. In addition, it’s helpful for teams who work from a place other than the office to be involved in the company culture when possible so they feel a sense of connection with other employees despite not being in the physical location with their coworkers.

    4. Self-managed

    A self-managed team is a group of employees that take responsibility for their work through peer collaboration without the help of a manager. They may have different daily objectives, but their individual tasks align to form a shared goal. Many small businesses or startup companies begin with this team model. People in a self-managed team benefit from being able to take full ownership of their work and are generally very self-motivated.

    5. Matrix

    A matrix team occurs when a team has more than one supervisor. This type of team is more popularly used in businesses that share employees across different functions of the organization. It can be useful when creating a new project because the project manager can choose employees who perform different functions in the organization and bring them together on their team to work toward the common goal of completing the project. The employee then has two supervisors—the direct supervisor of their department and the project manager they’re working for on the project.

    6. Contract

    Contract teams are temporary teams that employers bring in on contract for the completion of a project. Members of a contract team are usually highly skilled in their field and come in to complete one aspect of an upcoming project. Once they’ve completed their portion, their contract ends and their work is no longer required.

    7. Taskforce

    A task force team is a group of employees used for investigating or solving a specific challenge in the workplace. Supervisors usually form this team when a specific event has occurred so that they can discuss options to improve the issue. The objective of the task force is to offer solutions and to create preventative measures for potential challenges. Types of issues that a task force may handle include bullying, improving employee training or increasing customer sales. Once they’ve found a solution, the team disbands until they’re needed again.

    8. Executive management

    An executive management team is the highest level of management within an organization. It comprises executives in a company who help the president and CEO make important decisions for the company’s benefit. The individuals in this team discuss ways to improve the financial security of their company as well as work toward ways to develop it internally. They set actionable steps for achieving the company’s goals and motivate those around them, such as supervisors and other employees.

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  • How school IT teams lock down QR-based SSO without hurting usability

    How school IT teams lock down QR-based SSO without hurting usability

    Key points:

    Schools can keep QR logins safe and seamless by blending clear visual cues, ongoing user education, and risk-based checks behind the scenes

    QR-based single sign-on (SSO) is fast becoming a favorite in schools seeking frictionless access, especially for bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environments.

    The BYOD in education market hit $15.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 17.4 percent CAGR from 2025 to 2033, driven by the proliferation of digital learning and personal smart devices in schools.

    However, when attackers wrap malicious links into QR codes, school IT leaders must find guardrails that preserve usability without turning every login into a fortress.

    Phishing via QR codes, a tactic now known as “quishing,” is where attackers embed malicious QR codes in emails or posters, directing pupils, faculty, and staff to fake login pages. Over four out of five K-12 schools experienced cyber threat impacts with human-targeted threats like phishing or quishing, exceeding other techniques by 45 percent.

    Because QR codes hide or obscure the URL until after scanning, they evade many traditional email spam filters and link scanners.

    Below are three strategies to get that balance between seamless logins and safe digital environments right.

    How to look out for visual signals

    Approximately 60 percent of emails containing QR codes are classified as spam. Branded content, such as the school or district logo, consistent with the look and feel of other web portals and student apps, will help students identify a legitimate QR over a malicious one.

    Frontier research shows that bold colors and clear iconography can increase recognition speed by up to 40 percent. This is the kind of split-second reassurance a student or teacher needs before entering credentials on a QR-based login screen.

    Training your users to look for the full domain or service name, such as “sso.schooldistrict.edu” under the QR, is good practice to avoid quishing attacks, school-related or not. However, this will be trickier for younger students.

    The Frontier report demonstrates how younger children rely more heavily on color and icon cues than on text or abstract symbols. For K-12 students, visual trust cues such as school crests, mascots, or familiar color schemes offer a cognitive shortcut to legitimacy.

    Still, while logos and “Secured by…” badges are there to reassure users, attackers know this. Microsoft, Cisco Talos, and Palo Alto Unit42 have documented large-scale phishing campaigns where cybercriminals cloned Microsoft 365 and Okta login pages, complete with fake security seals, to harvest credentials.

    For schools rolling out QR-based SSO, pairing visible trust cues with dynamic watermarks unique to the institution makes it harder for attackers to replicate.

    User education on quishing risk

    Human error drives most breaches, particularly in K-12 schools. These environments handle a mix of pupils who are inexperienced with security risks and, therefore, are less likely to scrutinize QR codes, links, or credentials.

    Students and teachers must be taught the meaning of signs and the level of detail to consider in order to respond more quickly and correctly. A short digital literacy module about QR logins can dramatically cut phishing and quishing risk, reinforcing what legitimate login screens should look like. These should be repeated regularly for updates and to strengthen the retrieval and recognition of key visual cues.

    Research in cognitive psychology shows that repeated exposure can boost the strength of a memory by more than 30 percent, making cues harder to ignore and easier to recall. When teaching secure login habits, short, repeated micro-lessons–for example, 3-5 min videos with infographics–can boost test scores 10-20 percent. Researcher Piotr Wozniak suggests spacing reviews after 1 day, then 7 days, 16 days, 35 days, and later every 2-3 months.

    With proper education, students should instinctively not trust QRs received via text message or social media through unverified numbers or accounts. Encouraging the use of a Secure QR Code Scanner app, at least for staff and perhaps older students, can be helpful, because it will verify the embedded URL before a user opens it.

    When to step up authentication after a scan

    QR codes make logging in fast, but after a scan, you don’t have to give full access right away. Instead, schools can use these scans as the first factor and decide whether to require more proof before granting access, depending on risk signals.

    For example, if a student or teacher scans the QR code with a phone or tablet that’s not on the school’s “known device” list, the system should prompt for a PIN, passphrase, or MFA push before completing login. The same applies to sensitive systems that include student data or financial information.

    Microsoft’s 2024 Digital Defense Report shows that adding MFA blocks 99.2 percent of credential attacks. That means a simple SMS or push-based MFA can drastically slash phishing and quishing success rates. By adding a quick MFA prompt only when risk signals spike, school IT teams preserve the speed of QR logins without giving up security.

    Schools can also apply cloud-security platforms to strengthen QR-based SSO without sacrificing ease of use. These tools sit behind the scenes, continuously monitoring Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and other education apps for unusual logins, risky devices, or policy violations.

    By automatically logging every QR login event, including device, time, and location, and triggering alerts when something looks off, IT teams gain visibility and early warning without adding extra friction for staff or students. This approach lets schools keep QR sign-ins fast and familiar with risk-based controls and data protection running in the background.

    Schools can keep QR logins safe and seamless by blending clear visual cues, ongoing user education, and risk-based checks behind the scenes. Students and staff learn to recognize authentic screens, while IT teams add extra verification only when behavior looks risky. Simultaneously, continuous monitoring tracks every scan to catch problems early and improve education resources, all without slowing anyone down.

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  • K-12 districts are fighting ransomware, but IT teams pay the price

    K-12 districts are fighting ransomware, but IT teams pay the price

    Key points:

    The education sector is making measurable progress in defending against ransomware, with fewer ransom payments, dramatically reduced costs, and faster recovery rates, according to the fifth annual Sophos State of Ransomware in Education report from Sophos.

    Still, these gains are accompanied by mounting pressures on IT teams, who report widespread stress, burnout, and career disruptions following attacks–nearly 40 percent of the 441 IT and cybersecurity leaders surveyed reported dealing with anxiety.

    Over the past five years, ransomware has emerged as one of the most pressing threats to education–with attacks becoming a daily occurrence. Primary and secondary institutions are seen by cybercriminals as “soft targets”–often underfunded, understaffed, and holding highly sensitive data. The consequences are severe: disrupted learning, strained budgets, and growing fears over student and staff privacy. Without stronger defenses, schools risk not only losing vital resources but also the trust of the communities they serve.

    Indicators of success against ransomware

    The new study demonstrates that the education sector is getting better at reacting and responding to ransomware, forcing cybercriminals to evolve their approach. Trending data from the study reveals an increase in attacks where adversaries attempt to extort money without encrypting data. Unfortunately, paying the ransom remains part of the solution for about half of all victims. However, the payment values are dropping significantly, and for those who have experienced data encryption in ransomware attacks, 97 percent were able to recover data in some way. The study found several key indicators of success against ransomware in education:

    • Stopping more attacks: When it comes to blocking attacks before files can be encrypted, both K-12 and higher education institutions reported their highest success rate in four years (67 percent and 38 percent of attacks, respectively).
    • Following the money: In the last year, ransom demands fell 73 percent (an average drop of $2.83M), while average payments dropped from $6M to $800K in lower education and from $4M to $463K in higher education.
    • Plummeting cost of recovery: Outside of ransom payments, average recovery costs dropped 77 percent in higher education and 39 percent in K-12 education. Despite this success, K-12 education reported the highest recovery bill across all industries surveyed.

    Gaps still need to be addressed

    While the education sector has made progress in limiting the impact of ransomware, serious gaps remain. In the Sophos study, 64 percent of victims reported missing or ineffective protection solutions; 66 percent cited a lack of people (either expertise or capacity) to stop attacks; and 67 percent admitted to having security gaps. These risks highlight the critical need for schools to focus on prevention, as cybercriminals develop new techniques, including AI-powered attacks.

    Highlights from the study that shed light on the gaps that still need to be addressed include:

    • AI-powered threats: K-12 education institutions reported that 22 percent of ransomware attacks had origins in phishing. With AI enabling more convincing emails, voice scams, and even deepfakes, schools risk becoming test grounds for emerging tactics.
    • High-value data: Higher education institutions, custodians of AI research and large language model datasets, remain a prime target, with exploited vulnerabilities (35 percent) and security gaps the provider was not aware of (45 percent) as leading weaknesses that were exploited by adversaries.
    • Human toll: Every institution with encrypted data reported impacts on IT staff. Over one in four staff members took leave after an attack, nearly 40 percent reported heightened stress, and more than one-third felt guilt they could not prevent the breach.

    “Ransomware attacks in education don’t just disrupt classrooms, they disrupt communities of students, families, and educators,” said Alexandra Rose, director of CTU Threat Research at Sophos. “While it’s encouraging to see schools strengthening their ability to respond, the real priority must be preventing these attacks in the first place. That requires strong planning and close collaboration with trusted partners, especially as adversaries adopt new tactics, including AI-driven threats.”

    Holding on to the gains

    Based on its work protecting thousands of educational institutions, Sophos experts recommend several steps to maintain momentum and prepare for evolving threats:

    • Focus on prevention: The dramatic success of lower education in stopping ransomware attacks before encryption offers a blueprint for broader public sector organizations. Organizations need to couple their detection and response efforts with preventing attacks before they compromise the organization.
    • Secure funding: Explore new avenues such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate subsidies to strengthen networks and firewalls, and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre initiatives, including its free cyber defense service for schools, to boost overall protection. These resources help schools both prevent and withstand attacks.
    • Unify strategies: Educational institutions should adopt coordinated approaches across sprawling IT estates to close visibility gaps and reduce risks before adversaries can exploit them.
    • Relieve staff burden: Ransomware takes a heavy toll on IT teams. Schools can reduce pressure and extend their capabilities by partnering with trusted providers for managed detection and response (MDR) and other around-the-clock expertise.
    • Strengthen response: Even with stronger prevention, schools must be prepared to respond when incidents occur. They can recover more quickly by building robust incident response plans, running simulations to prepare for real-world scenarios, and enhancing readiness with 24/7/365 services like MDR.

    Data for the State of Ransomware in Education 2025 report comes from a vendor-agnostic survey of 441 IT and cybersecurity leaders – 243 from K-12 education and 198 from higher education institutions hit by ransomware in the past year. The organizations surveyed ranged from 100-5,000 employees and across 17 countries. The survey was conducted between January and March 2025, and respondents were asked about their experience of ransomware over the previous 12 months.

    This press release originally appeared online.

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  • The Quick Convo All Writing Teams Should Have (opinion)

    The Quick Convo All Writing Teams Should Have (opinion)

    Scenario 1: You’re part of a cross-disciplinary group of faculty members working on the new general education requirement. By the end of the semester, your group has to produce a report for your institution’s administration. As you start to generate content, one member’s primary contributions focus on editing for style and mechanics, while the other members are focused on coming to an agreement on the content and recommendations.

    Scenario 2: When you’re at the stage of drafting content for a grant, one member of a writing team uses strikethrough to delete a large chunk of text, with no annotation or explanation for the decision. The writing stops as individual participants angrily back channel.

    Scenario 3: A team of colleagues decides to draft a vision statement for their unit on campus. They come to the process assuming that everyone has a shared idea about the vision and mission of their department. But when they each contribute a section to the draft, it becomes clear that they are not, in fact, on the same page about how they imagine the future of their unit’s work.

    In the best case scenarios, we choose people to write with. People whom we trust, who we know will pull their weight and might even be fun to work with. However, many situations are thrust upon us rather than carefully selected. We have to complete a report, write an important email, articulate a new policy, compose and submit a grant proposal, author a shared memo, etc., with a bunch of folks we would likely not have chosen on our own.

    Further, teams of employees tasked with writing are rarely selected because of their ability to write well with others, and many don’t have the language to talk through their preferred composing practices. Across professional writing and within higher education, the inability to work collaboratively on a writing product is the cause of endless strife and inefficiency. How can we learn how to collaborate with people we don’t choose to write with?

    Instead of just jumping into the writing task, we argue for a quick conversation about writing before any team authorship even starts. If time is limited, this conversation doesn’t necessarily need to be more than 15 minutes (though devoting 30 minutes might be more effective) depending on the size of the writing team, but it will save you time—and, likely, frustration—in the long run.

    Drawing from knowledge in our discipline—writing studies—we offer the following strategies for a guided conversation before starting any joint writing project. The quick convo should serve to surface assumptions about each member’s beliefs about writing, articulate the project’s goal and genre, align expectations, and plan the logistics.

    Shouldn’t We Just Use AI for This Kind of Writing?

    As generative AI tools increasingly become integrated into the writing process, or even supplant parts of it, why should people write at all? Especially, why should we write together when people can be so troublesome?

    Because writing is thinking. Certainly, the final writing product matters—a lot—but the reason getting to the product can be so hard is that writing requires critical thinking around project alignment. Asking AI to do the writing skips the hard planning, thinking and drafting work that will make the action/project/product that the writing addresses more successful.

    Further, we do more than just complete a product/document when we write (either alone or together)—we surface shared assumptions, we come together through conversation and we build relationships. A final written product that has a real audience and purpose can be a powerful way to build community, and not just in the sense that it might make writers feel good. An engaged community is important, not just for faculty and staff happiness, but for productivity, for effective project completion and for long-term institutional stability.

    Set the Relational Vibe

    To get the conversation started, talk to each other: Do real introductions in which participants talk about how they write and what works for them. Talk to yourself: Do a personal gut check, acknowledging any feelings/biases about group members, and commit to being aware of how these personal relationships/feelings might influence how you perceive and accept their contributions. Ideas about authorship, ownership and credit, including emotional investments in one’s own words, are all factors in how people approach writing with others.

    Articulate the Project Purpose and Genre

    Get on the same page about what the writing should do (purpose) and what form it should take (genre). Often the initial purpose of a writing project is that you’ve been assigned to a task—students may find it funny that so much faculty and staff writing at the university is essentially homework! Just like our students, we have to go beyond the bare minimum of meeting a requirement to find out why that writing product matters, what it responds to and what we want it to accomplish. To help the group come to agreement about form and writing conventions, find some effective examples of the type of project you’re trying to write and talk through what you like about each one.

    Align Your Approach

    Work to establish a sense of shared authorship—a “we” approach to the work. This is not easy, but it’s important to the success of the product and for the sake of your sanity. Confront style differences and try to come to agreement about not making changes to each other’s writing that don’t necessarily improve the content. There’s always that one person who wants to add “nevertheless” for every transition or write “next” instead of “then”—make peace with not being too picky. Or, agree to let AI come in at the end and talk about the proofreading recommendations from the nonperson writer.

    This raises another question: With people increasingly integrating ChatGPT and its ilk into their processes (and Word/Google documents offering AI-assisted authorship tools), how comfortable is each member of the writing team with integrating AI-generated text into a final product?

    Where will collaboration occur? In person, online? Synchronously or asynchronously? In a Google doc, on Zoom, in the office, in a coffee shop? Technologies and timing both influence process, and writers might have different ideas about how and when to write (ideas that might vary based on the tools that your team is going to use).

    When will collaboration occur? Set deadlines and agree to stick with them. Be transparent about expectations from and for each member.

    How will collaboration occur? In smaller groups/pairs, all together, or completely individually? How will issues be discussed and resolved?

    Finally, Some Recommendations on What Not to Do

    Don’t:

    • Just divvy up the jobs and call it a day. This will often result in a disconnected, confusing and lower-quality final product.
    • Take on everything because you’re the only one who can do it. This is almost never true and is a missed opportunity to build capacity among colleagues. Developing new skills is an investment.
    • Overextend yourself and then resent your colleagues. This is a surefire path to burnout.
    • Sit back and let other folks take over. Don’t be that person.

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  • Cross-Functional Marcomm Teams Drive Strategic Success

    Cross-Functional Marcomm Teams Drive Strategic Success

    During my first foray into marcomm leadership, every project seemed on fire. If the project was due at 3 p.m., the first draft was ready at 2 p.m., giving little time for adjustments. I noticed this happened with almost every project. As I did some research into the production calendar, I realized there were more projects than time. That meant if one project got behind, there was a ripple effect that continued to impact more and more projects the team was working on.

    An initial strategy to address this involved offloading projects that were not the best use of marcomm’s time. The second strategy looked at increasing capacity through student workers and approved freelance partners. Despite implementing both, the team still struggled to accomplish all the tasks, finding many delays in the back-and-forth process with the campus partner. As I started exploring what would help the team, the idea of cross-functional teams emerged as a viable strategy to yield better alignment with key constituents, increase efficiency and create better products.

    Cross-functional teams are groups of people from various areas in an organization who work together to achieve a common goal. I have used these teams with key university partners including enrollment, advancement and athletics. Each cross-functional team has several members from the marcomm team (usually a representative from communications, marketing, creative and web) and two or three members from the other unit. Together, these groups meet regularly and work as strategic partners to meet institutional goals.

    Cross-functional teams are time-consuming but can have significant impact on outcomes, culture and organizational success when done well. Below are a few benefits of utilizing cross-functional teams when working with strategic campus partners.

    Moving From Service Provider to Strategic Partner

    One benefit of cross-functional teams is positioning marcomm teams as a strategic partner, not just an order taker. This shift allows marcomm to more meaningfully support institutional goals. Instead of executing someone else’s strategy, these teams can apply their individual expertise while collaborating on integrated strategies that support the partner and ultimately the organization. For example, the web team member can begin approaching the project thinking about the entire digital strategy, instead of just making a website pretty. This role’s shift helps improve relationships between the teams but ultimately drives results.

    Operational Efficiency Creates Wins Faster

    Familiar teams work faster. Less time is required to navigate procedural and relational decisions, such as who needs to review something or what the feedback process entails. In cross-functional teams, the members become comfortable with these aspects, allowing them to begin working faster. The speed comes not only from familiarity but also from intentionality. Shared institutional knowledge of the goals and the internal processes to complete tasks results in more thoughtful responses when adjustments are needed because of changes like enrollment shifts, market changes or budget adjustments.

    Consistency Builds Brand Equity

    Aligned teams also create consistent work. Regular collaboration leads to consistency in voice, tone and look on projects. For example, when cross-functional teams are collaborating on the goals for a piece, there is more likely to be synergy in the tactical execution of the piece or at a least a shared understanding of the approach. When there is no alignment, the teams may agree on the goal but are less likely to agree on the strategies and tactics, resulting in disjointed messaging and less effective outcomes.

    Cohesive messages also build trust and recognition with external audiences, which is critical to support for university objectives. Ultimately, consistency across teams strengthens the university’s voice in the market and amplifies the impact of every communication.

    Internal Alignment Supports Goals

    One of the biggest benefits of cross-functional teams is how they strengthen internal alignment within marcomm. By collaborating closely with colleagues across disciplines, the marcomm team is better equipped to align its work with the goals and priorities of campus partners. For example, telling our story takes on an enhanced meaning when it is viewed through the lens of growing enrollment or raising private institutional support. In addition, this cross-functional collaboration fosters greater accountability and trust within the marcomm unit itself. From my experience, the team often internally aligns on the approach and presents a strategic (and united) front when pitching concepts or suggesting strategy shifts.

    Empowered Teams Create Elevated Outcomes

    Cross-functional teams facilitate learning from all members. Hearing new perspectives from other divisions creates new understandings, both within marcomm and outside of it. For example, web team members learn about graphic design and enrollment best practices. This occurs because cross-functional teams are collaboration-based, so all team members are empowered to contribute ideas instead of only giving feedback on their traditional roles. More broadly, the entire marcomm team benefits from cross-functional teams if there’s a way to share these learnings with the full group instead of just those in a specific meeting.

    Working Toward Success

    When I first stepped into marcomm leadership, the team was running full speed just to keep up, racing from one fire drill to the next with little time to pause, reflect or align. What initially seemed like a time-management problem turned out to be a deeper issue of structure, communication and partnership. Through the intentional creation of cross-functional teams, we began to shift from reactive executors to proactive strategic partners.

    Cross-functional teams require time investment to create shared mission, collaboration frameworks and understanding of the work at hand. However, these teams generate shared ownership and strong trust, central to ongoing collaboration, partnerships and organizational innovation. Most importantly, the outcomes are usually a more agile, aligned and high-performing organization—better equipped to meet both immediate goals and long-term strategic priorities of the institution.

    Carrie Phillips, Ed.D., is chief communications and marketing officer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

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  • Why Online Learning Teams Should Read “Co-Intelligence”

    Why Online Learning Teams Should Read “Co-Intelligence”

    Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI by Ethan Mollick

    Published in April 2024

    How many artificial intelligence and higher education meetings have you attended where much of the time is spent discussing the basics of how generative AI works? At this point in 2025, the biggest challenge for universities to develop an AI strategy is our seeming inability to achieve universal generative AI literacy.

    Given this state of affairs, I’d like to make a modest proposal. From now on, all attendees of any AI higher education–focused conversation, meeting, conference or discussion must first have read Ethan Mollick’s (short) book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI.

    The audiobook version is only four hours and 37 minutes. Think of the productivity gains if we canceled the next five hours of planned AI meetings and booked that time for everyone to sit and listen to Mollick’s book.

    For university people, Co-Intelligence is perfect, as Mollick is both a professor and (crucially) not a computer scientist. As a management professor at Wharton, Mollick is experienced in explaining why technologies matter to people and organizations. His writing on generative AI mirrors how he teaches his students to utilize technology, emphasizing translating knowledge into action.

    In my world of online education, Co-Intelligence serves as an excellent road map to guide our integration of generative AI into daily work. In the past, I would have posted Mollick’s four generative AI principles on the physical walls of the campus offices that learning designers, media educators, marketing and admissions teams, and educational technology professionals once shared. Now that we live on Zoom and are distributed and hybrid—I guess I’ll have to put them on Slack.

    Mollick’s four principles include:

    1. Always Invite AI to the Table

    When it comes to university online learning units (and probably everywhere else), we should experiment with generative AI in everything we do. This experimentation runs from course/program development, curriculum and assessment writing to program outreach and marketing.

    1. Be the Human in the Loop

    While anything written (and very soon, visual and video) should be co-created with generative AI, that content must always be checked, edited and reworked by one of us. Generative AI can accelerate our work but not replace our expertise or contribution.

    1. Treat AI Like a Person (But Tell It What Kind of Person It Is)

    When working with large language models, the key to good prompt writing is context, specificity and revision. The predictive accuracy and effectiveness of generative AI output dramatically improve with the precision of the prompt. You need to tell the AI who it is, who the audience it is writing for is and what tone the generated content should assume.

    1. Assume This Is the Worst AI You Will Ever Use

    Today, we can easily work with AI to create lecture scripts and decks. How long will it take to feed the AI a picture of a subject matter expert and a script and tool to create plausible—and compelling—full video lectures (chunked into short segments with embedded computer-generated formative assessments)? Think of the time and money we will save when AI complements studio-created instructional videos. We are around the corner of AI’s ability to accelerate the work of learning designers and media educators dramatically. Are we preparing for that day?

    How are your online learning teams leveraging generative AI in your work?

    What other books on AI would you recommend for university readers?

    What are you reading?

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  • How Admissions and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate

    How Admissions and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate

    Fostering Interdepartmental Collaboration to Drive a More Effective and Engaging Student Journey

    Achieving success in your higher education marketing strategy requires seamless collaboration between your admissions and marketing teams to create a connected, consistent student journey experience. When these teams align, they move beyond their isolated efforts and build a unified strategy that not only captures students’ attention but also drives meaningful engagement and enrollments.

    Admissions teams gain critical, real-time insights from their conversations with prospective students, and marketing teams transform those insights into strategies and assets that resonate with the right audiences. By sharing their insights, both teams can better inform campaigns, conversations, and touchpoints, ensuring every interaction feels intentional, relevant, and student-centered.

    However, this alignment doesn’t happen by chance. It requires deliberate collaboration, thoughtful planning, and the strategic use of data at every stage. From discovery interviews and customer relationship management (CRM) data analysis to shared campaign development, each step in the process plays a vital role in delivering a cohesive, engaging experience that guides prospective students from curiosity to commitment.

    The Importance and Benefits of Collaboration Between Admissions and Marketing Teams 

    In an increasingly competitive higher ed landscape, having admissions and marketing teams that collaborate and communicate with each other regularly can make a meaningful difference in the experience that an institution delivers to prospective students, while optimizing its marketing efforts for maximum impact.  

    When admissions and marketing operate in silos, the cohesion breaks down. Collaboration prevents these gaps, ensuring every message, from the first ad to the final admissions call, feels aligned and purposeful.

    Creating a Unified Message

    Students don’t distinguish between “admissions” and “marketing” — they only see the institution. That’s why a unified message is so crucial to every higher education marketing strategy. A consistent and unified message — whether it’s delivered through ads, emails, website visits, or conversations with admissions personnel — builds trust, strengthens the brand, and guides prospective students smoothly through their decision-making journey.

    Building a Powerful Feedback Loop  

    When admissions and marketing teams stay in consistent communication, they create a powerful feedback loop that strengthens the institution’s messaging and better serves its prospective students.

    Admissions teams are on the front lines, having daily conversations with students and hearing their motivations, hesitations, and questions firsthand. These interactions provide invaluable qualitative insights that can flow back into marketing assets and strategies. 

    For example, if students frequently ask about program outcomes — such as what they can do with a certain degree — marketing can develop targeted blog content, alumni video spotlights, or landing page updates showcasing career opportunities, industry connections, and success stories related to the degree. Additionally, if there are common points of confusion that come up in students’ conversations with admissions staff, marketing materials can be created that clearly and directly address these issues. 

    By tapping into this feedback loop, both teams can make meaningful, real-time adjustments that align the institution’s messaging with students’ priorities, enhance engagement, and drive better outcomes.

    Empowering Teams With Critical Insights and Knowledge

    Both admissions and marketing teams bring something unique and valuable to the table when it comes to understanding the institution’s brand, its offerings, and its students. While there are areas of overlap, each team also has its own distinct focal points that allow it to provide useful details the other team can benefit from, creating a richer and more comprehensive appreciation of how each team can best serve the institution’s students.

    Practical Ways to Collaborate 

    Now that we’ve established the importance of collaboration, let’s take a look at some practical ways to bring this strategy to life. 

    Coordinate and Share Learnings During a Discovery Process

    The first step is discovery, the phase where both admissions and marketing teams collaborate to analyze and uncover insights that will make their work more accurate, impactful, and aligned. The discovery process includes in-depth conversations with key university stakeholders; audits of existing school resources, marketing collateral, and program materials; and market research and competitive analysis to understand the institution’s positioning and audience needs.

    Each team adds unique value to the process. Admissions teams gather information about program-specific details, students’ motivations, and nuances that resonate during enrollment conversations, while marketing teams analyze the institution’s competitive positioning, audience behaviors, and key differentiators. By sharing and coordinating these efforts upfront, teams can reduce redundancies, ensure alignment, and create a more cohesive strategy that delivers consistent, tailored messaging. 

    Here are some tactics that can help in coordinating and consolidating discovery efforts:

    • Shared discovery templates
      • Create standardized templates for interviews, audits, and insight summaries to ensure consistency in how findings are gathered and shared across teams.
    • Discovery check-ins
      • Ensure there are opportunities to check in and share progressive findings or learnings with the other team. This not only helps ensure that what is being communicated or uncovered by each team is consistent and in alignment. It also provides each team with valuable information that will help guide deeper conversations or elicit important questions that can be addressed sooner. 
    • Centralized insight repository
      • Use a shared platform (e.g., Asana, Google Docs, or Notion) to compile key findings, data points, and interview notes in one place.
    • Joint stakeholder interviews and meetings
      • Conduct some discovery interviews with stakeholders (e.g., marketing, program directors, faculty, students) jointly. This ensures both teams hear the same information and gain aligned insights.
      • For separate interviews, share questions between teams beforehand to ensure all interviews are exploring complementary areas.

    Schedule Ongoing Check-Ins With Teams

    Consistent communication is critical for collaboration. Regular monthly or quarterly meetings that include both admissions and marketing staff create space for sharing insights, identifying trends, and closing messaging gaps. 

    Admissions teams can spotlight common motivations, pain points, and areas of confusion among students, so marketing teams can update campaigns to address these themes in real time. These sessions ensure all higher education marketing strategies stay aligned and adaptive, making the student experience feel more cohesive.

    Leverage CRM Data

    Every interaction with a student leaves a breadcrumb trail of data. By tapping into call notes and CRM system data, admissions and marketing teams can track students’ questions, motivations, and hesitations. 

    Analyzing this data can reveal trends that marketing can address through website updates, FAQs, and ad campaigns. Sharing actionable summaries allows admissions teams to prepare for upcoming conversations and marketing teams to preemptively answer students’ concerns, creating a more seamless experience for prospects.

    Share and Understand Key Resources

    Developing key marketing resources, such as a Strategic Marketing Guide (SMG), and sharing them across teams can help keep admissions and marketing teams’ collaboration efforts on track. 

    An SMG isn’t just a document — it’s the framework that ensures every team is aligned in understanding the key components of the institution’s brand, story, and students. Personas, unique value propositions (UVPs), brand stories and positioning, and messaging frameworks outlined in an SMG help admissions and marketing teams speak the same language and tell a shared story.  

    Connect Your Admissions and Marketing Teams Through Collaboration With Archer

    At Archer Education, we don’t just build marketing strategies — we build lasting capabilities. Our approach goes beyond campaign launches and lead generation to focus on sustainable online infrastructure that empowers universities to thrive long after our work is done. From aligning admissions and marketing teams to developing data-driven messaging frameworks, we act as a true partner in developing custom higher education marketing strategies that work. 

    Our collaboration is designed to transfer knowledge, not just deliver results. We equip your teams with the tools, training, and insights they need to operate with confidence, ensuring your institution isn’t reliant on outside support to maintain momentum. The result is a marketing engine that runs smoothly long after Archer’s involvement has ended, empowering your teams to lead with agility in an ever-changing higher education landscape. 

    Contact us today to learn more. 

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