{"id":4803,"date":"2024-02-05T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspire\/?p=4803"},"modified":"2024-02-05T08:19:29","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T16:19:29","slug":"backwards-brand-design-how-to-sift-through-your-work-experience-and-craft-a-brand-identity-as-an-instructional-designer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspire\/2024\/02\/05\/backwards-brand-design-how-to-sift-through-your-work-experience-and-craft-a-brand-identity-as-an-instructional-designer\/","title":{"rendered":"Backwards Brand Design: How to SIFT through your work experience and craft a brand identity as an Instructional Designer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article has its roots in a discussion I had with an Ecampus intern about going on the job market. This intern is working in an academic technologies role at a higher ed institution already, but also getting the Instructional Design certificate here at OSU. It was my first time thinking about what the growth of instructional design certificate and degree credentials means for all instructional designers. Very few of the instructional designers I\u2019ve met and worked with here or at my previous institutions actually have degrees in instructional design, including myself. The field of instructional design emerged out of a specific institutional and educational need in higher education and corporate education, which makes for an ever-growing, ever-changing, but always innovative membership. How do we, as a field, continue to be inclusive of all instructional designers, regardless of their academic or educational backgrounds? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One potentially positive fact is that academia moves very slowly, so we have some time to strategize. Instructional design is still an emerging speciality within higher education, with each institution classifying that role differently, and providing that role with different levels of support. Some institutions, even today, do not have any instructional designers. Current research indicates that this must change. One of the best sources of data about the field of instructional design in higher education and instructional designers is the Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) Project<\/a>. The participants in the CHLOE survey are \u201cthe senior online officer at each participating institution.\u201d This survey pool recognizes the variance in organizational structures at different institutions by focusing on the COO\u2019s purview<\/a>. In the 2019 CHLOE 3 survey, it was reported that the median number of instructional designers employed at 2-year colleges, and public and private 4-year institutions, was four, regardless of enrollment or institution size. In CHLOE 7<\/a>, one of the conclusions was that \u201cinsufficient instructional design staffing may be one of online learning’s most serious long-term vulnerabilities,\u201d with only 10% of Chief Online Officers surveyed describing their ID capacity as sufficient for their current needs, and only 3% believing they would be able to meet anticipated need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These findings signal that universities should be moving towards a significant fiscal investment in hiring instructional designers. Joshua Kim wrote a few key takeaways from the CHLOE 7 in CHLOE 7: The Present and Future of Instructional Design Capacity<\/a>. Kim predicts that universities will need to not only hire more instructional designers, but that these roles will need to be hybrid or remote to attract the post-pandemic workforce. In addition to hybrid and remote options, Kim posits that, \u201cForward-thinking universities may find that they need to start offering star non-faculty educators the same recognition and incentives that have long been necessary to recruit and retain star tenure-line faculty.\u201d But what does this mean for instructional designers? How would an instructional designer even be able to become identified as a \u201cstar\u201d within the field or even at a specific institution? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding Branding for Faculty and Non-Faculty Educators<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Circling back to my initial inquiry about what instructional designers can do to ensure the field stays inclusive, I believe an individual enterprise will have a collective impact that will benefit the largest number of people: personal branding. In What\u2019s the Point of a Personal Brand?<\/a> Executive coach Harrison Monarth uses the story of his client, Mike, to illustrate how important it is for employees to think about how personal branding is now a strategy for gaining visibility within organizations, and that visibility is now a key component when employers are thinking about promotion. Monarth observes that \u201cIn high-performing organizations, at certain levels, everyone is exceptional. To clearly differentiate your value and what you bring to the table, you need to do more than have a good reputation. You need to have an outstanding personal brand.\u201d Having a brand isn\u2019t the same thing as being a celebrity, although I think many would agree that there are celebrities in every field, even instructional design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating a personal brand is a successful career strategy outside of the corporate world as well, and one of the fields that is encouraging faculty to think about branding is not, as one might think, business but medicine. In 2019, the Academic Medicine blog published Knowing Your Personal Brand: What Academics Can Learn From Marketing 101<\/a>, the purpose of which was to persuade medical professionals that a brand identity can be empowering. According to the article,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[K]nowing one\u2019s academic brand can (1) help faculty members approach projects and other responsibilities through the lens of building or detracting from that brand, (2) provide a framework for determining how faculty members might best work within their institutions, and (3) help faculty members better understand and advocate their own engagement and advancement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this article specifically speaks to and about academic teaching faculty, Instructional designers at institutions are often placed in the professional faculty role, along with librarians or program directors, and have many of the same professional demands on their job descriptions. As former faculty, I can attest that both of my careers have included independent  research, departmental service, and conference or publication responsibilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding Your Personal Brand<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

If a brand is defined as opinions that people have about you based on your work, it is important to be self-aware, and intentional about the work that you do. Creating your brand can be a difficult task if, like me, you have a variety of experiences and interests. It requires self-reflection about one\u2019s accomplishments and body of work as a whole, and the need to generalize what are sometimes very disparate activities. In Using Your Personal Mission Statement to INSPIRE and Achieve Success<\/a>, an article published in Academic Pediatrics, the official journal of the Academic Pediatric Association, the authors describe a framework for building a personal mission statement (INSPIRE):<\/p>\n\n\n\n