I couldn’t agree more, Rick! Nicely said. And thanks for stopping by. : )

I like the title of your post. Humor helps us survive life. It should also help us survive this life of higher education. There’s something to be said about taking our institutions seriously, but not ourselves. I think that philosophy should be a part of a communications strategy for a college or university, but it does depend on the brand (as evidenced by the Yale comments). Our communications are more effective when they make an emotional connection. A little humor mixed in with all the facts, figures and human interest stories is a good thing, IMO.

I do think professional schools probably have it a little harder than others here. I was at UT’s Liberal Arts college before the b-school, and I definitely felt more comfortable with easing up a bit there. But it’s a work in progress for surse!

Thanks for the fun topic–I look forward to reading more of your posts!

And don’t get me wrong – I think there is a time and place for more serious content, and we don’t want people to confuse us with Chuck E Cheese. But I think we miss a lot of opportunity to make people smile or laugh or remember the good ol’ days of campus life. (I’m speaking mainly from my role as an alumni magazine editor here.) And, as Elayne said, often humor is the best way to connect with someone or have them remember something.

2 things that have helped me lighten up:

-Social media – for some reason it seems easier to have more fun on Twitter and Facebook. Working on social media for McCombs has definitely helped me tap into this area.

-Starting small – Doing things like using a Dilbert cartoon in an article or creating a fun video as a story sidebar let me dip my toe into this mindset and get comfortable with it.

I actually really liked the Yale video (and watched the whole thing through, smiling). But I didn’t go there, so that’s easy to say. It was cute and it fit into my vision of what Yale is (whether or not it’s true). If my undergrad school (which I have a deep devotion to) had done something similar, I might have been actually deeply offended because it would be harder for me to not take it seriously. It’d be PERSONAL then. I would certainly be more likely to “care,” one way or another.