Yeah, we all rag on the catalogue and the posed shots. But on the whole this marketing tool is excellent and does not deserve as much grief as it gets. The pictures are accurate and representative, and the course descriptions, at least for the courses I have worked, played beautifully into what we had planned. But there are some ideas I've had regarding marketing and the catalogue, and I'll put them down here to stimulate discussion.

1. The tone of the catalogue sets the tone of the student's initial Expedition Behavior. Because we use the words "school" and "course," students approach the NOLS expedition with much the same energy they bring to high school or college. While this is a good, positive energy, it is not the 24-hour-a-day, psyched-to-deal-with-bad-weather energy we need for a real expedition. It permits the assumption that one merely need apply for a course and show up for it; the rest will be managed by the school.

Would it not be better to imply more emotional investment on the part of a student signing up for a course? Instead of describing ourselves as a school running courses filled with students, let us present ourselves as an organization that fields educational expeditions comprised of members. We all know that by the end of a course the better students are crucial expedition members: they are trusted in the expedition's functioning. Could we say in the catalogue, in effect, "These are the expeditions we are running this year; we invite you to join them." We are a school and should remain one; but in marketing it may be better to project the atmosphere of the Expedition and thereby evoke the commitment we need.

Imagine this piece of text up front in the catalogue:

Wyoming Wilderness Course? How about Wyoming Wilderness Expedition? 1991 Catalogue of Courses? What about 1991 Catalogue of Expeditions?

2. Inspire with the heroic. Okay, I'm not even senior staff yet; but I feel I can unambiguously say that my students' most memorable and meaningful moments on the expeditions continue to center around hardship. These hardships take the forms of bad weather, difficult people, long days, physical exhaustion and challenges that just can't be put on hold until one is ready. The highs come from dealing well with them. The criterion that continues to distinguish excellent students from the merely good is an indefatigable inner energy to deal with (even relish) these hardships.

Now, looking solely at the pictures in the catalogue (which no one should do, but a lot of people do do), I see a lot of gratification (meadows, mountaintops and marmots), but I don't see much of the elements that make what we do actually heroic: rain or snow, exhaustion, puzzling out problems, people keeping warm by dancing and singing. We are missing an opportunity to market some of the best of NOLS. The bad weather shots.

Does such a presentation scare people away? What comes to my mind is that dealing with these hardships is a wilderness travel and expeditioning skill, one we teach effectively and creatively. We should say so up front, in the catalogue. (A two-page spread on how well we deal with hardships?) Yes, we will scare away the person who looks at this picture of a entire snow-covered Outdoor Educators Course, arms linked, dancing and singing madly just to stay warm at mid-afternoon, and says, "Oh, I don't want to learn that." But we read the Orientation Checklist to students the night before the course so that they are appraised of the expedition realities. Our whole philosophy says that they should be well informed and prepared. I personally feel irresponsible letting someone know about the more difficult aspects of the course after he or she's arrived in Wyoming.

3. Stress the uniqueness of every expedition. As my associates used to say when I was in the computer business, "That's not a bug; it's a feature..." This is one of our strengths at NOLS: that we don't offer pre-planned, pre-packaged "courses" where the instructors know what's going to happen all along. The successful outcome of every expedition we mount depends on the energetic participation of the folks who sign up. They should know this - and I think it will excite them! They aren't just students; they're expedition members. Again, time after time, that indefinable, inexpressible gratification from a course stems from having really been needed - to carry someone's pack, to start the stove in a storm, to buck up the spirits of one's hiking group.

We can communicate this by including more first-hand accounts from past expeditions. The general focus and type of experience and skills offered can be depicted using quotes from members on former such expeditions. We could print the same from instructors, plus what their goals are for such an expedition. Emphasize the diversity of the instructors; that we're not a bunch of interchangeable folks acting out the same curriculum, but a bunch of individuals, and that the personal character of your instructors will radically affect the nature of the expedition. This is more exciting and realistic.

I appreciate our Marketing folks a great deal. They do an excellent job. "Marketing" what we do is a difficult task, like handling fragile flowers. Often I think though that we have misnamed their department. "Marketing" seems to come from a different universe than we do. What subtle statement do we make to ourselves by calling the department which produces our catalogues Marketing? Do we take the wilderness to market? Do we want to?

At NOLS we teach outdoor skills, leadership and expedition behavior. We do it on real expeditions into real mountains, and while we're out there we encounter some Big Things. When we come back into town, we bring some of that encounter back with us. It is not necessarily a measurable thing. Perhaps it is a faraway look in the eyes, the tendency to say less, to watch more. To say the least though, we are not engaged in a typical trade.

As a community and as individuals we are touched by that power of the wilderness and are changed by it. This is, in my mind, the most important facet of the identity of our institution. We are widely perceived throughout outdoor education as being special because of the amount of time we spend out and the places we go. We are frequent visitors to the Big Things. But we choose to reinforce or weaken this identity in ourselves as we select the titles under which we function. Is having a "Marketing" department congruent with the rest of our experiences?

Can what we do be "marketed?" A NOLS course is not a piece of software or a new type of weed trimmer. It is an entirely real and not totally pleasant experience.

My suggestion is simply to change the name of that department. I like the unassuming "Information Department." While we're at it, the "Public Relations" Department also makes me a little nervous. I always thought that Public Relations Departments were for corporate entities with guilty consciences (like Exxon), places that needed to prove they were good guys. That's not us. Let's rename that the (all-purpose and unlimited) Public Education Department.

Loren Eisley has a passage in "The Judgement of the Birds:"

[Man] finds it necessary from time to time to send emissaries into the wilderness in the hope of learning of great events, or plans in store for him, that will resuscitate his waning taste for life. His great news services, his world-wide radio network, he knows with a last remnant of healthy distrust will be of no use to him in this matter. No miracle can withstand a radio broadcast, and it is certain that it would be no miracle if it could.

Does what we deal in withstand "marketing," and if it does, is it really what we want to deal in??

- October, 1990

 © Copyright 1990, Morgan Hite

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