Bravery in higher education

When I talk to people around Austin I inevitably end up telling them about Bravery’s work in higher education. And it’s pretty common to get strange looks. Austin is a startup hub; one of the fastest growing tech cities in the country, in fact. That startup mindset isn’t always the most sympathetic toward higher education. There are more than a few companies working to “disrupt” the education sector, and so I often end up fielding questions about why we work primarily with colleges and universities.

The main problem I see with an attempt by these startups to shake stuff up, is that many of them have no idea how successful education works. They haven’t made a study of pedagogy the way traditional faculty and administrators have and so while they may be working on interesting ideas, they lack a core appreciation for educational method.

And that’s where we differ. Everyone in the Bravery network has a college degree, some have master’s degrees, and most of us have worked in higher education, on the inside. We all value the time we have spent at school on both sides of the fence.

Why higher education #

That time in higher ed is what inspired Bravery’s creation. When I managed web marketing, design, development, and strategy (way too many things, I know) for a university in the Chicago area, I found the rough edges in our processes and worked to make them smoother. Being a part of the fantastic higher education web professionals community since my first college web job reassured me that I wasn’t alone facing the challenges I found each day. In fact, every other institution faced similar challenges.

The people at Bravery have gone through the processes of hiring consultants, of selecting a new CMS, of migrating thousands of pages of content, of fighting for a new hire, of working long hours and over weekends to launch that last-minute microsite the president asked for.

We’ve been there, and we want to help.
:::

When people ask me what I do and I tell them about Bravery, I often hear myself telling them that I started this group to be able to use my skills and experience to help lots of colleges and universities instead of just one. We all need help and I remember that feeling after we hired an agency with folks that wanted to back up my ideas and help sell my bosses on them. And that’s what I want Bravery to do.

We are here to help, and our method is designed to help in the best, most effective ways for your workplace. That’s why our approach is to partner with colleges and universities on their projects. We know real people have to manage this stuff when our work is finished.

Giving back #

The other way we try to help is by supporting professional conferences. We’ve been fortunate to be able to sponsor the HighEdWeb Annual Conference since 2015. Bravery helped out the amazing Content Ed conference in the UK by being one of its inaugural sponsors. We also speak at events all the time on topics we care about.

We have been inspired and supported by this community so well as individuals over the past decade+ and we are grateful. So we are compelled to reinvest in you however we can.

Meet us #

We hit most of the major higher education web conferences including  HighEdWeb, Content Ed, and AMA. We’d love to buy you coffee, a drink, or a meal and talk about what cool things you’re working on at your institution. Just get in touch!