Info Programme Strategy in 4 Pieces
The world is full of great examples of how to create a strategy for a business, product, service, campaign, or a brand. Not so many when it comes to creating a strategy for a university study programme.
That was my thinking early this Fall, and so I had to sit down for few minutes and clarify to myself what does a study program consist of. Also, I can’t do the strategy alone in my office, so I had to communicate to others what do I mean by strategy work when it comes to the Information Networks programme.
Here’s my meta-level framework to start the strategy work together with all the stakeholders and other people in the ecosystem that constitutes Information Networks. It chops the whole thing into four separate areas that I think are different enough to be treated as separate.
I have now presented this and iterated it based on the feedback I have gotten from students, professors, professionals, and other smart people. By no means it is perfect, but rather a working “boundary object” to keep the conversation alive :)
I have added under each area a call-to-action for students to take part and get involved. Needless to say, this strategy framework can’t be filled out without strong student/Athene support.
First of all, it is a tunnel
Let’s keep it simple. A study program is a tunnel where talented young adults enter and eventually come out as talented young adults with new knowledge, experiences, connections, and thinking.
The tunnel begins, of course, with the bachelor level studies, which convert gradually to master level studies (in which we have four separate tracks). Milestones in this bird-eye view are the bachelor’s thesis and then the master’s thesis.
Hopefully, throughout the tunnel there are clear and understandable “red threads” for the student to follow. I don’t think there is a single path to follow for everyone but we should have clear examples and well-grounded arguments so that each student can find her/his own red thread through the tunnel.
This tunnel metaphor anchors our four pieces of strategy. So here they are:
1. Identity and mission
Any organisation should be existentially comfortable. In other words, our programme should have a shared understanding of why we exist, what is the purpose of our existence. Out of all the possible study programmes what is the reason Aalto has this particular program?
Answering this question helps many fundamental pieces of the puzzle fall into place: What does “being an info student” actually mean? What kind of work do they end up doing? How do we differentiate from other programs? Why would a high school student or a student from another program want to join us?
In strategy jargon it is a question of identity and mission. And whether it is jargon or not, it is a fundamental question, and once most of us agree on the answers, we have a good foundation to start looking at the other pieces of strategy.
How to get involved?
a) We are creating a brand story this November with the ABI team of Athene, so being part of that team automatically gets you involved.
b) The forthcoming Growth Hacking course will work on the outside brand and upcoming event communications. To get involved apply for the open course assistant positions and you’ll be in the front seat of identity work.
2. ABI (high school students)
In all simplicity, the more talented people apply to the programme, the more talented people we get.
We want every Finnish high school student who finds our programme interesting to apply. In other words, we need to reach every student who is interested in our mission and who wants to build her/his professional identity as an Information Networks professional.
To reach this goal, we need to understand the decision making journey of a teenager planning her life and studies after high school. The journey probably starts at different points, depending on the individual.
However, few key questions we need to answer: What is the thinking, the feelings, and critical touchpoints in this journey? Who are the people who influence this decision, and what are the channels that the teenager follows so that we can reach them at the right moment and state-of-mind?
This all boils down to a typical customer journey design work: from awareness, to engagement, to “purchase decision”, and eventually to advocacy of the choices made.
Critical also in this journey is how our programme is communicated. What is our value proposition to the teenager in high school (and her parents, and her teachers)? How is our value proposition unique from alternatives?
Our ABI strategy, therefore, becomes one concrete manifestation of our identity and mission. And the good thing about this part of the strategy is that attracting high school students is a relatively focused activity with a very specific target group, which makes it tangible and concrete.
How to get involved?
a) Obviously, being in the Athene ABI team gets you into this activity.
Alumni et al.
At the other end of the tunnel are the graduates, i.e., the alumni. Information Networks is soon twenty years old, so there is a substantial legion of alumni out there. And I believe, that many of them would like to “give back” to the programme and guild. Or at least, come back and visit once in a while.
In addition to the alumni, there are other groups and networks that have either a utilitarian or emotional interests in the programme. For example, there are plenty of companies that would like to hire Information Networks students (or people with similar strategic skillsets). Many of these companies already have Info alumni working in them.
Also, we have groups such as Athene Angels (parents of Information Networks students), who simply want to help out the students, Athene guild, and the programme reach its goals and mission.
All these groups and organisations are an enormous resource that requires some coordination for everyone to participate and benefit. Which boils down, again, to having a strategy, mission and identity for these networks to find their own role and means of contributing.
How to get involved?
a) Athene already has lots of activities and actions around the networks and partners, so any involvement in them automatically makes you part of this activity.
b) One of the major events next year is the InfoXX (working title) seminar, i.e., a seminar primarily for Info Alumni and students on March 22nd. Talk to Meri Terho or me about getting involved in its organisation.
Education
I initially wrote ‘teaching’ as the heading, but then I thought ‘education’ is a better word because it implies that there is more to learning that the explicit teaching the university offers. Nevertheless, this is perhaps the heaviest part of the strategy, and probably will be chopped further down into sub-categories.
The education in the programme is simply the knowledge, skills etc. the students are bombarded with during their years inside the tunnel. The bombardment is mostly courses, but also mentoring, advising, instructing, networking, and communications. Internships and summer jobs have a critical role here as well, and so does the guild and other student organisations.
In the core of the Information Networks programme is educating the students about technology, business, human behaviour, and design. In addition to these broad topics, there has been discussion about more education on social sciences and society. And especially this Fall, the importance of self-leadership and mental wellbeing skills has been brought to the fore.
This broad strategy piece will eventually manifest itself in the concrete courses and curricula, but also in other activities that support and clarify the “red thread” mentioned above.
How to get involved?
a) If you are a student member of “koulutusneuvosto” (programme committee of Information Networks) you are automatically involved in this.
b) In January — March, together with AaltoEE, I will be running three workshops titled “Society’s Change Agents”. As a roundtable of experts and visionaries from businesses, public sector, and academia the workshops will generate a report on “what (higher education) knowledge is required in the Finnish information society?”. Soon I’ll be recruiting 3–4 students to plan and run the workshops together with me (in exchange for study credits). Ask me more, if you want to take part.
c) Ilona Rahnasto is one of the Athene well-being people putting together a well-being course for Information Networks students. Ask her how to get involved in that specific strategic activity.
d) Me and others will be running plenty of workshops and informal events to probe into this issue during the year. Watch Athene channels and ask me for more details.
Next steps
First of all, the programme is in the positive situation that all these elements are working fine. There is almost two decades of excellent work done to stand on top of. The programme is successful, unique, and seen as highly relevant inside and outside Aalto University.
Therefore, the next steps are mainly to bring all that exists together into one framework, and a clear enough mission and identity. The way I see it, the strategy work in Winter/Spring 2019 is to clarify the status quo for all stakeholders, and to form the basis on which to plan the next years ahead.
Clear “major releases” for the strategy are the annual ABI recruitment work and the bi-annual curriculum updates (next one goes into production in 2020). In addition, once we have the basis well communicated, we can start organising similar cycles and routines into our activities with the alumni et al.
Like mentioned in the “how to get involved” above, during the year we have small and big activities and actions that help us try out things and experiment with solutions, e.g., answers and interpretations of our mission, identity and education activities. If you want to get involved, there should be plenty of opportunities, and you are always welcome to suggest any activities that are missing.
