A Time to Shine: Recapping NCMPR’s 2017 National Conference

Posted: April 6, 2017

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Last week, the VisionPoint team traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, for the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations’ (NCMPR) annual conference. From the traditional Southern charm in the city’s worn cobblestones and moss-dripping trees to the modern flair in presentations with groundbreaking movers and shakers like Ari Shapiro and the best and brightest in community colleges from across the nation, NCMPR offered a little bit of everything – and we enjoyed every minute of it. While we could never list every amazing part of the conference, we’d like to share a few highlights from our time at #NCMPR17.

The Knowledge

What we love most about conferences is the opportunity to learn from expert higher education professionals. We always come back with tons of great ideas and plenty of new friends, and we wanted to share a few of our favorite presentations with you:

We loved nerding out with everyone during Morgan Steele’s presentation, “Good Designers Copy. Great Designers Steal.” With a look at the latest trends in design like rich and bold typography, bright colors and meaningful motion (can we get a gif in here?!), what’s not to love? But Steele, the Director of Web and Creative Strategy at Central Carolina Community College, did it one better and shared his approach to “stealing” graphic design, which embraces the idea that in today’s world you’ll never do something new, so you might as well learn how to transform old ideas to give them a new life of their own.

Patrick Stone and Jonathan Fonseca hit a home run with their presentation on “Using Videos to Turn Dull Retention Messages into Powerful Content.” While we all know video is hugely necessary, it’s common to find higher ed pros worrying about their budget, time and skill level. But Stone, Director of Marketing at the Community College of Rhode Island, and Fonseca, Videographer at Bristol Community College, urged their audience to remember that the key to success is to focus on storytelling and get over that fear of failure. Their encouragement to embrace the cheesy and have fun didn’t hurt, either!

And although we know we shouldn’t play favorites, we can’t help but brag about our amazing client, Anne Arundel Community College (AACC). We were honored to share the stage with Jill Bennett, Assistant Director of Marketing, Research and Strategy, and Amy Carr Galloway, Website Content Coordinator, as we presented “Mission Impossible: A Comprehensive Community College Website Redesign,” which shared tips for making those massive .edu redesigns as painless (and successful!) as possible.

The Sights

All these great photos from fellow NCMPR attendees are making us miss Charleston even more:

 (Hat tip to Libris for hosting an incredible spotlight tour and contest!) 

The Inspiring Ideas and People

There’s nothing like all the conversation and idea exchange at a conference to inspire and motivate you to return to your desk and do incredible work in service to your institution’s community. Here are just a few of the people and ideas that inspired us during NCMPR:

Be sure to catch up on the entire conversation. 

What’s Next for VisionPoint?

All in all, NCMPR 2017 couldn’t have been any better, and we’re looking forward to #NCMPR18 in Vegas.

In the meantime, you can find us in Salt Lake City at the 30th annual conference for NAGAP, the Association for Graduate Enrollment Management, coming up April 19-22.