Shortcuts to Creative Design

TETN # 30932

Tools to Assist in Recruiting Visually Impaired Professionals for Students with Visual Impairments

December 2, 2008

1:30-3:30 PM

Presented by

KC Dignan, Personnel Program Coordinator

Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired Outreach

Why Spend an Afternoon on This?

Recruitment, Communication and Advocacy: Part of the same show

Understanding population, message, & timelines to meet your recruiting goals

Objectives

Practice building and delivering recruitment messages
Identify the relationship between recruitment and advocacy

HOORAY!

Three of the Elephants Are:

Population

Message

Time

Realistic expectations = Higher success rates!

The 4th Elephant: There is a skill-set and a frame-of mind associated with recruitment!

Why Do I Care About Recruitment Strategies?

Knowledge affects Expectations affects Feelings affects Motivation affects Continuity affects Knowledge, etc.

In Other Words….

Reward

Motivation = ______

Effort

What’s an “Elephant”?

Myths and Truths About Recruitment . . .

Myths

Costs lots of money
Requires professional marketing expertise
Is all about brochures, websites and job fairs.

Truths

Takes time
Takes repetition
People talk (about the profession &/or your program)

1st Elephant: A Few Basics…

Successful recruiting is ALL about the candidate.
Knowledge of the candidate is essential to delivering a compelling message.
Time and money are limited, you MUST appeal to the candidate.

What Isn’t “Recruiting”

Brochures
Letters
Ads
Posters
Website
Job Fairs

What is “Recruiting”

Effectively integrating
Reputation
Strategies
Brands
Uniqueness

Recruiting is integrated systematic and coordinated

Organization-centric Recruiting

Competitors/Competition
Supply
Leadership

Candidate-centric Recruiting

Informed knowledge

Of the pool of candidates
Discipline or field

Candidates’ needs drive recruiting activities

Knowing Candidates = Research or Data

Essential
Systematic
Formal and informal
Institutionalized

Brands

What? How? Why?

Brands don’t define a service, or product; they distinguish it!

Strong Brand Have

Real continuous quality
Sustained presence
Coordinate marketing and brand positioning
Distinctive personality

How does this apply to me?

Why Think About Brands?

Efficient communication
Increased success

Your school, campus, program and/or profession are YOUR brand! Use the power of YOUR brand!

2nd Elephant: Population

Know your candidates
Deliver what they care about
Solve their problems

What do People Want?

Community
Salary
Program

Graduating Desires

What do most people want?

A job
Personal satisfaction
An interesting community
A sense of a future Feel “special

What They Care About

Enjoy what they do
Opportunity to use skills
Opportunity for professional development
Feeling what they do matters
Benefits
Recognition for good performance F
riendly co-workers
Location
Money
Working in teams

What Other Professions Do?

Maximize face-to-face recruitment
Invest in awareness-level recruiting
Plan

activities
expenses

Use mentors
Collaborate

Like an Elephant, Never Forget that: Recruiting is about the Candidate, not about the Recruiter!

Think About VI Professionals

Who are they? What do they care about?

Data on VI Professionals

63% had previous profession

Education
Disability-related
Business

Average prior experience: 7 years

Typically have had encounters with a “VI issue”

Why VI?

Work in a non-traditional setting, &/or population
Intellectually stimulating
Work in helping profession; make a difference
Access to training program

&/or finances

Relationship with parents & administrators

Let’s think together… Who are they? What do they care about?

VI Professionals Care About…

Everyone’s Unique…

Name 6-10 features that distinguish your program, profession, organization or community

Think broadly
Perspective
Competition

My Program or Profession…

Perspective?

Whose perspective?

Now flip

Let’s practice…

Doing the Flip-flop

You wrote: Distance learning available

Flip to: Learn without leaving home and on your won schedule. You wrote: Lots of jobs

Flip to: Imagine employers actively seeking YOU!

Again, Doing the Flip-flop

You wrote: Small community

Flip to: Imagine real neighborhoods for you and your children You wrote: Small district

Flip to: Employers responsive to your needs

What’s Yours – Reprieved

Name 6-10 features that distinguish your program, profession, or organization

Think broadly
Perspective
Competition

Again…My Program or Profession….

Bringing it together: Goals, Population, Brand combine in your Message

3rd Elephant: The Message Is the Message…

Message and Audience: Once won’t turn without the other

Guess What? Recruitment = Advocacy

High Stakes Communications

Critical communication
Action oriented
Focused on listener or reader

Message Guidelines:

Stories not Statistics

Shared values

Rule of 3 (3 sentences, 3 messages, 3 times)

Stories? For adults? Reveal the past. Chart the future! Make a difference. Make it personal!

Telling Stories Also

Turns frustration into constructive energy
Influences public opinion by illustrating how policies affect families
Shares information that cannot be easily presented by charts or graphs with others who do not directly experience the problem
Raises awareness

Your Story? What’s your story? How are you going to tell it? Can you do it in 5 seconds? 30 words? Is it consistent? Does it resonate?

Organizing a Story:

Beginning

•Hook

•Sets the stage

•Identifies key characters

•Identifies location

•Gets the listener interested

Middle

Details
Adds examples and interesting information

End

Punch line
Ties things together
Often gives an idea of what can be learned from the experience
Theme or lesson
Can be stated directly, or
Let listeners draw their own conclusions

Questions to Consider

Who is your audience?

What is their purpose?

How many years of experience

What are the gender & ethnicity issues?

What is their “education” level?

How many people are in the audience?

Target Audience

Who?

Passions?

How?

Meeting Your Needs

Question: How do you meet your needs?

Answer: Solve their problem!

What to do? Spy on yourself . . . How do others see you?

Crafting a Message

Audience

Language

Match
Acronyms
Sentences

Advocacy Communication

ProblemImpact

ISSUE

Solution

SHARED VALUES

Shared Values…are common beliefs among the readers or listeners.

Shared Values may be…Global or Targeted

Sample Shared Values

Broad Shared Values / Targeted Shared Values
Personal freedom / Education
Children’s health / Equal access to information
Right to vote / Qualified teachers
Access to education / Successful learners

Exercise

Education / Special Education

Thinking Together

Reminder:

•Your message must be built on shared values; embedded in the message

•Must solve the reader’s problem

•Language must be exact and immediately understandable.

•Acronyms make people mad

•People respond to stories easier than numbers

•Recall that the issue isn’t the problem

•Describe the problem succinctly

•What is the undesirable impact of the problem

•Must have a clear course of action

Example #1

Being a VI teacher.

As a science teacher, the school curriculum directed my actions.

Now as a VI teacher, each student’s needs guide my day.

Meet the needs of your students; become a VI teacher.

Example #2
Braille textbook delivery

7% of blind children don’t get books when other kids do.

Blind children need testbooks to pass the TAKS test.

Call your legislator and urge support of the Braille Textbook Bill (HR1234)

Your Turn #1

Your Turn #2

What About Talking? “As an O&M Specialist, I get to be a life-coach for my students.” “As a VI teacher I get to teacher individual students, not classrooms.”

Thinking about the Candidate

Recall what most candidates want…

An interesting community
A job
Personal satisfaction
A sense of a future
Feel “special”

First and Foremost:

Put the candidate in the picture!

Compel them, feel the ride, hear the water, smell the elephant!

Themes and Messages

Non-traditional: I love the fact that I teach about life, not just science.

Challenge: Everyday is different. The range of my activities keeps me thinking and learning.

Makes a difference: I work with my students and their families for years. I know what I do matters to them.

Parents, Administrators: Parents and administrators appreciate that I have a special type of knowledge, one that isn’t commonly abailable.

Practice: Scenario 1

Classroom science teacher in the Houston area
5 years as a classroom teacher
Based on her classroom, and conversation she seems connected to her Asian cultural heritage
She asks questions about education for students with visual impairments and your job

What are you going to say in 30 seconds?

Practice: Scenario 2

College lecture with 35 education majors

You are part of a panel of 3 teachers from various disciplines

You are representing visual impairments

How are you going to “capture” undergrads in 30 seconds?

Practice: Scenario 3

You are from a small district in rural Texas.

Your salary is slightly less than your neighbors, but benefits are much better.

You are attending a job fair at a large university in a metroplex area. How will you entice students to come to YOR district, not the neighboring district?

Common Mistakes

Good experience
Information and candidate matching
Communicating strengths
Build relationships
Attract passive seekers
Presenting “++” to potential candidates

4th Elephant: Time

Micro-timelines

Macro-timelines

3-6 repetitions

2-5 years for career change

3-6 repetitions

Time for a change? 5 years in previous field

3-6 repetitions

Anatomy & Timeline for Recruitment and Training

Awareness: Time 2-5 years, Activities: basic informational, exposure

Consideration: Time 2-5 years, Activities: additional information sought/received. Exposure to visual impairments.

Action: Time up to 18 months, Activities actively explores options; applies to program.

Training: Time 12-24 months (possibly more for O&M internship), Activities: attends program, may work as VI professional.

Mature VI Professional: Time typically 3 years

Micro-timelines

Candidate-centric

Purpose

Intrigue
Inform
Inspire to action

How “Micro”?

3-7 second = enticement, relevance

90 second = short burst, confirmation

3-4 minutes = action, commitment

Building a Foundation

Three layers

Establish relevance
Confirmation
Commitment

Stage 1: Relevance

Time: 3 - 7 seconds

Headlines & titles
Photographs
Captions

Titles, photos & captions forge links to readers

Stage 2: Confirmation

Time: 90 seconds

Short body text
Numbers & outlines
Non-photographic art
Graphic devices

If it LOOKS less wordy, people will read it.

Step 3: Commitment

Time: 3-4 minutes

Data and detail
Proof

We have UP TO 4 minutes to change people’s lives.

For Example

From the

U. S. Association of Blind Athletes

Much Less Fancy

First…..

The reader

The message

Then… Purposeful Design

Objective?
Visualize readers?
Most important element?
First impression? Second?
Action?

Purposeful Design

Meet your needs, AND

Solve the reader’s problem

Maximize “readability”

Use “readability tool” in Word

Goal: 8th – 9th grade

Design Factors:

Objectives?

Target readers?

Competition?

Quantity, not quality?

Evaluate

Design: Layout, Balance and Weight, Visual Syntax, Proportion, Unity

Layout and Syntax

All parts not equal

Top left & lower right = strength

Lower right = action

Z pattern?

Symmetrical? Asymmetrical?

Scholar’s column?

Balance

Space values, or weights

Size

Darkness

Color

White space

Shapes

Action corner

Other Tools for Syntax

Eyes

Numeric sequence

Color

Motion

Lines or borders

Photos

Unity

Typography

Paper

Style of art

Color

Size

Graphic elements

Grid

Why is unity important?

Proportion

Skeleton

Various grid patters

1 column

2 column

3 column

Tri-folds

Easy to make

Common

Inexpensive

But…but… I’m not a designer!

Not a designer?

Tips, tricks, and techniques

Most Important Ideas

Candidate-centric thinking

Know your targets

Develop your message

Keep on message

Common Mistakes

Space is for the using

Image test

Build relationships

Attract passive seekers

Good experience

Ready? Set? Go!

Develop flyer, or poster

Work in teams

Review notes, and materials provided

Remember: This is about process, NOT product!

Advocacy:

Changing “What is” to “What should be”

Why

Gives you a voice in making decisions

Gives you the power to change relationships

Helps improve people’s lives

Top 10 Characteristics of Effective Advocates

Assertiveness
Confidence
Motivation
Hope
Energy
Persistence
Ability to work with others
Ability to find information
Ability to use information
Believe in your capabilities

Advocacy Strategy

Know…

Where you are

Where you want to go, and

How you can get there

Then

State the problem, or

State the goal

Define the challenges and barriers

Ask for what you want

Make your request specific

Define and describe your vision of success

Be Assertive, Not Aggressive

Recognize that each individual has rights

Believe in your own rights and maintain your commitment to preserving them

Clearly express your own rights or needs

Focus on solutions instead of problems

Promote communications and problem-solving

Building good relationships is an important as you advocate for your concerns. When you establish open relationships you lay a foundation for negotiating and eventually building strong working partnerships and mutual trust.

Six Principles of Self-Advocacy

You are valued

What you say is important

You can choose what you want

You can change things in your life

Know your rights and responsibilities

Being part of a supportive community

When you advocate effectively for your students needs, you may end up changing a whole system to better meet other students including those with special or unique needs.

When you advocate effectively for all children, you may end up making systems work better for your students.

To Be a Better Advocate

Gather information. Ask questions.

Know your rights.

Keep organized records.

Trust that your target person has many influences, many of which may not be obvious to you. Think about those influences.

Be open to learning new things from those to whom you are advocating.

Enlist allies

One powerful way to advocate is to seek support from other people:

Think about “people of influence” to the target person.

Leverage your power with information and data from other sources.

Nine Questions for Advocates

Use these questions to help with planning your overall strategy and guide your specific efforts.

1.What do you want?

These are your goals…desired outcomes.

What is it you want to be done once your message has been heard?

Which are long-term goals and which are short-term?

2.Who can give it to you?

Who is in the best position to hear and act effectively on your message?

Who has the authority to “deliver the goods?”

Who has the capacity to influence those with formal authority?

3. What do they need to hear?

Your message is a brief, straightforward statement based on an analysis of what will persuade a particular audience.

A good message is

Simple

To the point

Easy to remember

Repeated frequently

Avoid vague words or terms like:

Appreciate
Attitude
Familiar with
Feelings for
Capable of
Conscious of / Confidence in
Experience
Realize
Recognize
Hear
Interest in / Knowledge of
Listen to
Adjust to
Responsive to
Think
Understand

These words are open to interpretation. If you use them be sure to clarify; explain exactly what you mean.

Say what you mean, mean what you say.

4.Who do they need to hear it from?

The same message has a very different impact depending on who communicates it.

Who are the most credible messengers for different audiences?

In some cases, these messengers are “experts” whose credibility is largely technical.

In other cases, we need to engage the “authentic voices,” those who can speak from personal experience.

5.How can you get them to hear it?

There are many ways to deliver an advocacy message. These range from the genteel (e.g. lobbying) to the in-your-face (e.g. direct action).

The most effective means vary from situation to situation. The key is to evaluate the situation and apply advocacy methods appropriately, weaving them together in a winning mix.

6.What do you have?

Take stock of the resources that are already there to be built on.

You don’t start from scratch; you start by building on what you’ve got.

7.What do you need to develop?

Advocacy resources you need that aren’t there yet

Alliances that need to be built

Capacities such as outreach, media and research, which are crucial to any effort

8.How do you begin?

First steps – start at the beginning!

What are some things that can be done right away to get the effort moving forward?

What needs to be done after that?

9.How do you tell if it’s working?

Strategy needs to be evaluated by revisiting each of the previous questions

Are you aiming at the right audiences?

Are you reaching them?

Make mid-course corrections

Discard elements of a strategy that don’t work once they are actually put into practice

Good Rules of Thumb…

Listen! Ask questions.
Make it personal by telling your story when appropriate. Keep it brief.
Create a relaxed environment.
Invest in meaningful partnerships with those how have an impact on your issue.
Make sure you understand the interests and positions the people/group you are working with (parents, administrators, policy-maker, etc.)
Follow the Golden Rule: treat others the way you would like to be or expect to be treated.

Shortcuts to Creative Design

The next few pages provide some tips and tricks for making the most of your design, and TIME!