What Graduation Ceremonies Can Teach You 🎓

Dear Reader,

Congrats to the graduates of 2020!

Graduation marks an important milestone in your life.

Whether it’s from high school, college or graduate education.

While education comes from your day-to-day experiences and the learning you’ve accumulated over time, graduation formally recognizes your hard work.

The graduation ceremony allows your family, friends and teachers to share this special moment with you.

My most vivid memory of my graduation from the University of Chicago wasn’t the maroon  polyester robe or the commencement speech given by a professor I didn’t know.

Rather it was my mother complaining that the skirt of her peach colored suit kept flapping around. To which  my dad responded, “Elaine, they call it the Windy City for a reason!”

Why am I discussing graduation ceremonies in a marketing newsletter? 
Because graduations make a great model for marketing events.

Beyond providing hooks for content, social media engagement and promotions: smart marketers seek reasons to celebrate their customers and make them feel special.

Like good branding, graduation ceremonies create a forum to reinforce school loyalties. 

Wearing robes and hats made of the school colors, graduates show their school loyalty like they do at school sports events.

When my nephew graduated from Princeton University, I experience school branding first hand. Family and friends proudly wore orange outfits and accessories.

Beyond endearing graduates to remain loyal to the school, the ceremony made their parents feel proud about their investment in their children’s future.

At the heart of the graduation ceremonies is the Commencement Speech. 

Done well, this speech is a great piece of content marketing. So the easy-to-remember lessons for graduates attracts earned media and winds up on YouTube.

Like good influencer marketing, having well known politicians, leaders, authors, business executives and alums talk attracts attention for your school.

Personally, I’m a fan of Stephen Colbert’s 2011 Northwestern Graduation Speech.

While it stays true to Colbert’s television persona, the speech delivers a great lesson about life: The community is more important than any single member.

“One of the things I was taught early on [in improv] is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important person in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the good news is you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most important person, and they will serve you. …

And life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.”

1. “Don’t be afraid. America’s gone through tough times before… . And each time we came out stronger, usually because a new generation, young people like you, learned from past mistakes and figured out how to make things better.”
2. “Do what you think is right. …Decide to ground yourself in values that last, like honesty, hard work, responsibility, fairness, generosity, respect for others.”
3. “Build a community. No one does big things by themselves. …Leave behind all the old ways of thinking that divide us — sexism, racial prejudice, status, greed — and set the world on a different path.”

In “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” Dr. Seuss summarized graduation well:

Celebrate Mental Health Month

May is Mental Health Month.

While many of us don’t talk about mental health, we should! 

Especially this year when many of us are home 24/7 with our families. No matter how much you love them, being together all day, everyday can be stressful.

So even if the early days of staying home may have seemed like a vacation, as time goes on, you may face challenges beyond the lack of toilet paper.

Roughly half of Americans say that the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt their mental health according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In The Atlantic, Julia Marcus writes “Quarantine Fatigue Is Real!”.  She compares COVID-19 to the early days of the HIV epidemic. She points out that: Infinite abstinence isn’t realistic and shaming bad behavior makes it go underground.

To understand the projected difference in the relative size of the Coronavirus versus HIV/AIDS and other pandemics, check this infographic (Visual Capitalist.)

Marcus proposes that we need ways to explain to the public how to engage in harm reducing behaviors without shaming people. So individuals can make informed decisions in the context of factors beyond their control.

To help me cope during this period, I adopted these 3 habits:

• Write Morning Pages every morning after I wake up. In her book, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron recommends 3 handwritten pages. Personally I write by hand for 30 minutes in a grid lined composition book.
• Walk up and down the stairs in our building. I do at least 5 trips up and down. I do it after I finish my morning “Deep Work” session to batch habits.
• Hug my husband several times a day. This makes both of us feel better.

To be clear, I’m not a doctor or other medical professional.

BUT I want you to know that you are  NOT alone. And there are resources to help you. 

Reaching out for help is NOT a sign of weakness. Here are two great US resources:

• CDC Mental Health Resources. It includes useful advice that can help you, even if you’re based outside the US.
• Mental Health America

Is COVID-19 making you distracted?

Then read what Nir Eyal recommends in his book,
Indistractible. And download Nir’s Schedule Maker 
[Free].

Want to get your marketing on track to succeed going forward?

Then REGISTER for Voice Global on June 9, 2020.
It’s a FREE 24 hour worldwide livestream conference.   

Voice Global covers voice technology from designers, developers, startup executives and investors. Learn what the who’s who of the VOICE industry have to say (including me!)

Also check out the Inside Voice Podcast. 

I hope that you and those your care about stay healthy both physically and mentally.

Shoutout to new readers: Debbie, Carlos, Charles, Alison, Rene, Allen, Abby, Hamid, Galina, Sharon, Leah, Habib, Aline, Christina, Fred, Cindy and Chris.

Welcome and thank you for joining our community.

Happy Marketing,
Heidi