An initiative to streamline communications at Cornell is enhancing the depth and breadth of university communications and is on track to meet its 2015 savings goal of $500,000 nearly three years early, according to the project manager.

Kyle Kubick, director of finance and administration for University Communications, hosted an informal discussion Oct. 26 in Anabel Taylor Hall on communications streamlining projects, strategies to save money and tools in place to support communications across campus. "The purpose of all of this is to change behaviors and strengthen partnerships across campus that generate $500,000 in savings. We are on target to meet our goal," Kubick said.

The discussion was the fifth of seven brown-bag lunches organized by the Administrative Streamlining Program to update the Cornell community on its key cost-cutting initiatives.

University Communications is taking a four-pronged approach to revamping communications at Cornell, said Kubick. The first is the adoption of a "hub and spokes" model that relies on the division, the "hub," to focus on leveraging scale to produce and disseminate communications about the university while relying on the expertise of the academic units, the "spokes," to produce the content about their faculty, students and programs that is used to meet their own respective marketing needs.

Upcoming sessions this semester

The Administrative Streamlining Program is hosting the following brown-bag lunch sessions this semester, with updates on its initiatives. More information: http://asp.dpb.cornell.edu/.

• Finance: Nov. 4, noon-1 p.m., 226 Weill Hall.

• Student and Academic Services: Nov. 16, noon-1 p.m., Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room.

At the same time, the division is working to streamline administration communications by integrating the delivery of communications activities for the Divisions of Alumni Affairs and Development and of Human Resources and Safety Services. It is developing similar arrangements with the Divisions of Student and Academic Services, Facilities Services, and Cornell Information Technologies. It has strengthened its partnerships with the academic units by establishing a dotted line reporting relationship between college communications directors and Vice President for University Communications Tommy Bruce. The communications directors now meet regularly with Bruce as an Executive Communications Group to discuss workloads, collaborations and strategies being pursued by the university and the colleges, together and on their own.

The successes of recent ambitious cross-campus communications efforts, such as the Trustee-Council Annual Meeting and Cornell's proposal to build a technology campus in New York City, show the benefits of both projects, Bruce said in a separate interview. "Every time we collaborate, we avoid costly redundancy," he said.

A second effort that aggregates and tracks University Communications spending is almost complete, with methodology finished and data collected. Plans are in the works to switch photography, design and editorial services from a cost recovery system to a cost allocation system, Kubick said.

A third project has studied the communications job family, the first such review in more than 20 years. A review team has created standards for professional skill sets, Kubick said, so that compensation and titles give staff the recognition they deserve. Managers were given access to the new job descriptions Nov. 1. "We're really excited to give our communications professionals across campus job descriptions and titles that match responsibilities," Kubick said.

The fourth focus has been on communications spending. This includes a "paperless" initiative, which was initiated prior to the 2008 financial crisis and encourages communications staff to question whether a product must be printed and to seek out alternative electronic distribution methods. During fiscal years 2009-11, the strategy reduced universitywide print spending nearly $4.2 million, directly benefiting the areas affected.

Other strategies include the consolidation of advertising purchases to leverage the university's buying power; a plan to standardize contracts with freelance writers, photographers and videographers to ensure the university owns the rights to those materials; and increased use of the Image Portal, a tool that stores photos for units and provides them to other units. "Collectively, these four strategies will allow us to reach our goal of $500,000 in savings," said Kubick.

"So much of the success of communications depends on the quality of partnership and collaboration," Bruce later said. "I'm very lucky to be experiencing both in ways that confirm Cornell is a special place."