Kara Kane has worked in higher education communications and development since 2003. She currently manages public relations, institutional communications and social media as director of communications at Medaille College, which has three campuses in Western New York. She is a proud graduate of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. and the University at Buffalo. Find her tweeting @karakane.

What would make anyone, especially from a college, think that those hippie hooligans who are occupying cities nationwide would have anything to contribute to higher education marketing?

I think I might have the answer. As someone who earned degrees in political science and communication, I’ve been fascinated by this “leaderless revolution.” We are all lifelong learners, and it’s a short intellectual leap to realize that this “American Autumn” has something to teach us.

Bear with me. We’ll get there.
Let’s step back and define essential elements of OWS. As a movement, Occupy Wall Street covers the basics: participants and sympathizers; a cohesive set of messages; the means to distribute those messages; and, a fluid, but coherent, set of goals.

That sounds an awful lot like the basics that higher education marketers need when communicating to any audience, n’est-ce pas?

Rabble Rousers
The conversations that are taking place around OWS are highly critical, and in some cases, hypercritical, of prevailing political and economic realities. The cumulative result is like a very loud song stuck on repeat. That does wonders in making messages resonate with and engage new audiences, and in making those messages endure. OWS participants are rabble rousers in every sense of the term. And you know what? So were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Martin Luther King, Jr. Historical shifts have hinged on the actions of people who were willing to stand up and demand change.

Let’s bring that back to the college environment. On any given day, every interaction is an opportunity to be an effective brand ambassador for your college. That includes diffusing the bad and capitalizing on the good. View unfavorable comments as constructive, and use them to inform improvements and change.

You can think of them as rabble rousers, but remember they’re doing something that marketing firms charge oodles of money to cause: talking about your brand. Engage them, and you can shape their conversations in more positive ways, and shape your college’s responses to your audiences.

Your people, especially the rabble rousers, are important. And “your people” are everyone you interact with as a representative of the college.

The Medium is the Message
As movements tend to do, OWS has gained momentum, in no small part thanks to a little thing called social media. But it also owes credit to simplicity – even elegance – in its messages and delivery. Seeing “We are the 99%” written in Sharpie marker and held by someone who looks he could be your neighbor, sister, child or friend packs an emotional wallop because it pairs that digestible message with a sympathetic medium. Marshall McLuhan had it right when he said that the medium is the message, and I can only imagine what he’d be saying about media in 2011.

For a college, OWS demonstrates that simple messages can be powerful. Those people marching around lower Manhattan aren’t doing it as a hobby. They’re participating in something synergistic – they perceive it as larger than the sum of its parts. If you empower your audiences to identify with consistent, accessible messages, and make them a part of something great, you have a much better chance of keeping those people as students, engaged alumni and friends. In fact, it’s your only chance of hanging on to them.

Means and Motives
When you think of the “means” OWS has to work with, no one said, here’s $5 million, go make it happen. The movement runs with no budget, spotty resources and the generosity of relative strangers. Hardly the ideal way to run a campaign, but it’s working and it’s thriving.

Have you ever been tasked with a project that had no budget and few resources? If you haven’t, then welcome – you must be new to this field. When this happens, take a cue from OWS and work to your strengths.

OWS capitalized on symbolism. Taken collectively, the occupation of squares in over two dozen U.S. cities is akin to setting up shop on America’s front lawn. Demonstrating outside the Big Banks? Predictable, but brilliant. And memorable. These symbolic gestures have kept the movement visible.

When was the last time your college did something strategically symbolic? If not your college, then what about your admissions office? Your student activities center? Go to the sources and talk to the staff and students. Learn what’s important to them, and you’ll have leads for what themes you should zero in on.

Opportunity
Putting a new twist on an old idea isn’t rocket science, but as we’re seeing with OWS, it can be revolutionary. OWS has taken protesting to a new level, in terms of volume of participants, the scale of their cities and duration of their activity. Look back in your office archives, and mine the minds of your college’s veteran faculty and staff to find out what things were like back in the day. Something will spark your interest, and when it does, shake it off, shine it up and test it out.

Pundits and political experts can’t predict where OWS is going, and I won’t pretend to know either. It could sputter out before this article is published, or it could last well into 2012. But as these local events unfold on the international stage, look to it as inspiration for being bold, challenging conventional campus wisdom and coming up with the next great ideas for your college.