#63 - How a Project Management Tool Broke Down Silos and Transformed Content Collaboration at UMass Lowell w/ Kristin Nichols

Higher Ed Storytelling University

My guest today is Kristin Nichols, a higher education marketing consultant with over 20 years of experience at top universities in the Northeast. In this episode, Kristin discusses how implementing project management tools like Trello helped unite her marketing teams, facilitated cross-pollination between departments, and enabled an efficient "internal agency" approach.

Kristin shares how she successfully implemented Trello at UMass Lowell, creating dedicated workspaces for each college, enrollment marketing, editorial, and more. This centralized system allowed teams to see all active projects, easily identify content to repurpose across channels, and ensure brand consistency.

Key Takeaways:

• Don't get bogged down as an order-taker. Position your marketing team as strategic brand stewards using an "internal agency" model.
• Establish a streamlined project request and approval process, limiting feedback rounds to 3 max to drive efficiency.
• Create content templates and approved vendor lists to empower distributed teams while protecting brand standards.
• Surface storylines and assets from across campus to repurpose content and create consistent thematic campaigns.
• Buy-in from leadership and practitioners is crucial. Forcing new processes without buy-in leads to failure.
• Use project management tools to showcase your team's work, justify budgets, and pull insightful analytics.
• Mental health storylines resonate; look for authentic examples showcasing how your university supports students holistically.

Connect With Kristin:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholskristin/
• Nichols Higher Education: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nicholshighered/

Resources Mentioned:

• Trello - Project management tool used at UMass Lowell Basecamp.
• Loom - Another popular project management platform. A screen recording tool for documenting processes.

Connect With John:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni
• Website: https://unveild.tv
• Newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter