If you enter into Google "Thomas Friedman GW January 21", the first things that pop up are a Facebook event that has a mere 40 confirmed guests, Dean of Freshman Dean Siegel's Facebook fan page status (in his defense, it is in no way his job to market this event), a tiny listing on the Student Activities Center website, and a small listing on the University Calendar.
The entire Freshman class even got his book assigned to them, as the GW Hatchet reported back in October.
The book is part of this year’s Freshman Reading Program, and Dean of Freshmen Fred Siegel challenged the class of 2013 to read the book over the summer and write a response to it as part of an essay contest.
There have been many amazing events since I arrived at GW in the Fall of 2007, from every former Secretary of State at the same time to Public Enemy, and the student body never really hears about them until 2 days before, when the tickets are sold out. Part of the reason people come to GW is to see great speakers like this, and the access that the school has being in DC is completely nullified if nobody hears about the amazing things coming here.
If you don't know anything about Friedman, here's some entertaining commentary he had on the recession back in March:
1 comment:
While there's always room for improvement with any marketing effort, in this specific case I feel that the university has done more than enough to promote this event. From targeted emails to the entire freshman class and beyond from the Office of the Dean of Freshmen, to multiple news releases that were also distributed via social media, and even to items in the Hatchet, this event has been well-promoted early and often - starting in October. Fact is, if it was not, would the event be "sold out" with a standby line this many days in advance? And it's not the run-of-the-mill "sold out," as 1500+ seats in Lisner can often be hard to fill. Looking forward to welcoming Mr. Friedman to GW on Thursday!
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