Today's blog is posted by Jerry Johnson, executive vice president at Brodeur Partners.

Late last fall, reporter Amanda Ripley wrote an article for TIME magazine with the ominous title “College is Dead. Long Live College!” It was the latest in a long litany of articles by reporters and pundits who have been doing a lot of rethinking lately about the institution long known as “the academy.”

Is the “academy” losing its relevancy? There’s evidence this may be the case with groups important to its future, notably parents, students, alumni and opinion leaders.

We’ve worked on numerous research projects with groups of people both inside and outside colleges and universities across the country. Everything suggests higher education faces significant challenges in three areas: financial, technological and institutional relevance.

Is the academy financially relevant? This question is being asked by both students and parents facing skyrocketing tuitions as well by alumni who, in light of the ever-increasing pressure for giving, are rethinking the utility of both annual giving and capital campaigns. Tuitions at many schools are out of the reach of the average family. That, in turn, has led to an unprecedented (and unsustainable) level of personal tuition loan debt. A recently released survey by The Princeton Review suggest that while in years past people’s primary worry was getting into the “right school,” today the primary worry is how to pay for whatever school you get in to.

On the other side of graduation, the academy is facing headwinds from alumni. The competition for gifts to “good causes” among affluent alumni is increasing. Moreover, the younger Gen X and Gen Y alumni show distinctly different attitudes and giving patterns to giving compared to their boomer counterparts. Add to this the declining government funding, and there are many nervous development officers wondering where the next funding dollar is going to come from.

Is the academy technologically relevant? Technology is fundamentally changing the academy the same way it changed the business of news media over a decade ago. As popular New York Times columnist wrote in a piece titled “The Campus Tsunami,” “what happened to the newspaper and magazine business is about to happen in higher education: a scrambling around the Web.”

Why go to a university when one can get a considerable amount of instruction on the Internet for free? Indeed, the global demand for access to knowledge and the emerging opportunities for innovative technology to deliver it presage dramatic changes in “the academy’s” value proposition. Innovations like Kahn University and the explosion of MOOCs are just the beginnings of what will likely be very fundamental structural changes.

Is the academy institutionally relevant? Perhaps the biggest challenge is an uptick of people questioning the very being of the academy. Rightly or wrongly, almost every important audience we talk to – particularly employers and opinion leaders – are seeing a “profound disconnect” between what young people are learning and the world they’re going into. As one public policy executive told us, “The public institutions are in a crisis of declining public support … they’ve been slow to come to the reality that this decline is permanent.”

We don’t think it has to be. Amidst all this, we do see many colleges and universities successfully navigating a critical time of change. They have at least three things in common.

First, they are taking risks and taking action. The challenges of financing and technology will not change over the short- and medium-term. Institutions are experimenting, innovating and taking needed risks to restructure funding and curriculum.

Second, many of the best institutions are focusing as much in the “how” as the “what.” With the commoditization of information, the premium for the education experience increasingly will go beyond the lecture hall and into the streets.

Finally, we see colleges and universities rethinking, restructuring and rebuilding their ties to key communities – everything from students and parents to alumni to the towns and business sectors that they serve.

Those within “the academy” that best navigate the “digital disruption” taking place in education will be those who are most likely to be relevant to the students and alumni of tomorrow.

We had a blizzard up here the other day, the second biggest in our history. Yet a few days before that, the thermometer was pushing 60 degrees. This certainly feels like global weirding.

Although I’m generally concerned about climate change, I worry more about the fate of this planet on days when the temperatures don’t match the season. When it’s balmy in February, that’s troubling.

On the other hand, when the snowbanks tower over my head, warming doesn’t seem to be an issue. Doubts chip away at my climate change convictions, notwithstanding the statements of NASA, NOAA, the United Nations, 34 science academies and countless other credible agencies.

I’m not the only one who’s fickle on climate.

A University of British Columbia study found a strong connection between weather and climate attitudes over the past two decades “with skepticism about global warming increasing during cold snaps and concern about climate change growing during hot spells.”

The University of New Hampshire came up with similar findings, especially among independent voters in the state. “Interviewed on unseasonably warm days, independents tend to agree with the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change,” said researchers Lawrence Hamilton and Mary Stampone. “On unseasonably cool days, they tend not to.”

Why do our attitudes change like this? Because despite what we know, we just can’t deny what we see and feel. Yes, sensory experiences do play a big role in what’s relevant to us, maybe more than we think. You can see it in our new Conversational Relevance study. Although hotel guests value location and recreational facilities for the kids, these highly rational concerns are only part of the mix. Guests also chatter online about water pressure in the shower and the view from the room, and about abstractions like a hotel’s culture and cachet.

The bottom line? When it comes to decision-making, whether it’s a hotel room or the destiny of the human race, logic is overrated. Think about it. Rationally, if you can.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
 
-The Dalai Lama
 
When I waited tables years ago, I learned you certainly could please a customer with a fine meal and attentive service. You could make a friend for life, however, if you righted a wrong. If the steak was overcooked and you apologized and showed the customer you really cared – expressed compassion for their plight – then returned with a fresh new meal, their experience was somehow even better.
 
When I was in the hospital following an accident a few years ago, there was some pain. But the more vivid memory is of the nurse who made sure I had everything I needed – and convinced me she really cared. There was also a doctor who jostled my jagged bones, then apologized in a way that convinced me he empathized with my searing pain. I liked that guy. I have only the vaguest, most neutral memories of the doctors who didn’t hurt me.
 
Compassion: it feels wonderful to get and wonderful to give. It’s no surprise, then, that 68 percent of Americans in our recent survey rate themselves in the 8 to 10 range on the compassion scale – the most popular of 10 labels we offered. It’s also a shining example of how logic is overrated in the formula of what makes a product, brand, candidate or cause relevant.
 
Compassion: it’s in us
 
It’s odd that the importance of compassion emerges during one of our bitterest times, as politicians spend billions to bash one another silly, a conversation so rancorous it made a little girl cry. At the same time, however, a devastating storm, Sandy, elicits the best in us as we reach out to help those who have lost their loved ones, their homes, their power and water.
 
It’s also odd that the image of the compassionate American flies in the face of our nation’s dominant mythology, individualism. Compassion generally involves comforting those who don’t have what they need – not celebrating the success of those who do.
 
The survey probably reflects our aspirations more than our true levels of compassion. Still, it’s clear: compassion is in us, and it’s a very powerful thing. The challenge for communicators is to tap into this rich vein of compassion. And that means honoring it.
 
Honoring compassion with sincerity
 
By that I mean making your compassion sincere. The only thing worse than lack of compassion is false compassion. Don’t fake it.
 
Domino’s compassion for customers sounded sincere when it confessed that its old pizza tasted like cardboard. Patagonia’s compassion for the planet sounded sincere when the company said it wants you to wear its clothes till they fall apart rather than waste resources buying new ones. BP did everything it could from a messaging perspective when it promised, in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, to “make this right.”
 
So if you are working with compassion in your communications program, be real.
 
What you should do
 
In a compassionate America, expect some consumers to choose the gadget made by the company that shows compassion for foreign laborers. Expect them to be cold toward the car that’s selling nothing but snob appeal. Expect them to like the restaurant that supports local farmers – not the one famous for its foie gras.
 
Expect business customers to lean toward the vendor that not only makes the best analytical business case but also makes their lives easier and their customers’ lives better. Of course we want our medical records systems to lower health care costs. Wouldn’t it be great if they also saved patients’ lives?
 
Expect voters to choose the candidate who… well, negative advertising isn’t going away anytime soon. Let’s hope politicians will at least see some wisdom in finessing it with compassion – “Joe Jones isn’t a bad guy; he just makes bad decisions.”
 
Expect activists to join the cause that gives them a way to directly exercise their compassion. While big checks may be the most effective means for feeding the hungry, causes will need ways to make supporters feel as good as if they were ladling out the soup themselves.
 
Ultimately, expect Americans to respond to people, ideas and things that help us prove that compassionate is more than a label we want, more than something we simply aspire to.
 
We want to be it.

Today's blog is posted by Jerry Johnson, executive vice president at Brodeur Partners.

What is compassion and why is it so popular?
 
You noticed it during crisis and most recently during the tragedy that was Hurricane Sandy. We hear stories, see pictures, watch videos of those in distress and we feel for them. In some cases, we actually do something for them!
 
Put that in the long list of recent disasters –from Haiti to Katrina to 9/11. We see, we hear, and we are drawn into action because we feel compassion for another.
 
But if you look closely you will see “compassion” playing out in almost every form of effective communication.  Sometimes, like in the case of emergencies, it is blatant. Other times the tug on the compassion thread can be ever so subtle.
 
The recent presidential campaign is but one example. Who cares more about all those “job creators”? Democrats? Republicans?
 
Do you pity the poor small business because it is burdened with regulation gone amok? Or do you have compassion on them because they are just looking for the same low interest loan to ride out the current economic downturn that the big banks get?
 
Or what about young people? Who cares for them? Are you sad for the young because they’ve been saddled with debt by profligate government waste? Or are you sad for them because instead of investing in education we’re sending all the tax breaks to wealthy businesses that would just as soon hire in Mombai, India, as they would in Mobile, Alabama?
 
In either case both campaigns are vying for the same thing: your compassion.
 
We like to dress up in compassion
 
In our new study, we asked people to review a list and assign labels to themselves. On that list were many admirable qualities some of which have defined American culture and history: idealistic, leader, ambitious, risk-taker, optimistic. There were ten in all. But from that list the label that people thought most applied to them by far was “compassionate.” Indeed, over two-thirds of Americans felt that this label not only applied to them but applied strongly applied to them.
 
Does this mean that these people are kind-hearted and caring? Not really. Rather it means that compassion is something that they like to associate themselves with. That is, compassion is something that they either think they are or would like to be.
 
Why are we so fixated with compassion and being compassionate? This question has long bedeviled the academy, from psychologists to neuroscientists. Compassion is a curious thing because it does not fit neatly into the prevailing paradigms of current evolutionary theory (survival of the fittest) or economic theory (pursuit of self-interest). A good testament to how hard compassion is to reconcile with the latter was President George Bush’s catchy notion of  “compassionate conservatism.”
 
What is compassion and why do people want to associate themselves with it? For people of faith that answer draws back to their worldview of the divine and the inherent sanctity of life. Virtually every religious faith has a version of the “golden rule”.
 
But recently there has been a flurry of efforts by secular thinkers to explain compassion in an evolutionary sense, including theories by Sam Harris (“The Moral Landscape”) and Jonathan Haidt (“The Righteous Mind”). Their explanations suggest that compassion is indeed a “survival” skill not just for individuals but more importantly for communities, societies and nations. Within a group, compassion makes that group stronger.
 
Whatever side you may come down on, what is clear is that compassion is a driving force in how with think, believe, support, and attach ourselves to individuals, ideas, and organizations.
 
Some advice to marketers
 
We typically associate communications campaigns that pull on the thread of compassion with highlighting people at risk – preferably the innocent (a.k.a. Christian Children’s Fund, St. Jude’s Hospital).
 
But if you look very closely, you’ll find product purveyors embedding the idea of compassion in all sorts of messages.

• Our products are “kinder” to the environment.
• Buy these diapers because they are gentler to your baby.
• If you care for your family’s safety, you’ll buy this car.
• If you care about your family’s education, you’ll buy this technology.

If you really love your cat, you’ll buy our cat food.
 
So our advice to marketers: follow the compassion.
 
Unless you are marketing to sociopaths, compassion has to be a critical element of any brand, marketing and sales strategy. Identify how it is that what you do helps others. And then make it simple, easy and fun to bring other people along for that ride.
 
And don’t forget that genuine external communications begins from within your organization. That is, don’t forget to practice internally the compassion that you encourage externally.
 
Because everyone wants to think they are compassionate. We just need to help them get there.