Engaging and enlarging a community

A NEW WAY TO COMMUNICATE: Adam Olenn, right, has brought cheek and creativity to the Moses Brown School's marketing efforts. With him are Ryan Vemmer, left, producer for digital media, and Kristen Curry, editor and publicist. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
A NEW WAY TO COMMUNICATE: Adam Olenn, right, has brought cheek and creativity to the Moses Brown School's marketing efforts. With him are Ryan Vemmer, left, producer for digital media, and Kristen Curry, editor and publicist. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

RISING STAR

Have you seen a snow-day announcement from Moses Brown School? Even though you have no ties there? You’re not alone.

The Providence Quaker school’s “School is Closed” videos – 2015’s featuring a parody of “Let it Go,” from Disney’s “Frozen,” and this year’s parodying Adele’s “Hello” – have more than 4.25 million views on YouTube. Featured on local and national media, the videos also became an unexpected recruiting tool when families from as far as China sought out Moses Brown as a result, enrolling their children.

The videos are the brainchild of Adam Olenn, Moses Brown’s director of communications & community engagement.

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As Headmaster Matt Glendinning remembers it, Olenn walked into his office and said he had a crazy idea for a snow-day announcement.

“I knew Adam well enough to know he’s extremely creative, and anything he touches, he does at a very high level,” Glendinning said, explaining he had no hesitation about the idea – or his starring role.

After all, Olenn’s job was designed to encourage creativity, Glendinning said. The school sought someone who understands how to build community and create loyalty to the school, whose students are from nursery-school age to Grade 12.

At first, Olenn, a 1991 Moses Brown graduate, wasn’t interested in leaving Boston, where he was a Web content producer at Berklee College of Music. “We had just decided that there would be no big changes for our family that year,” he said. That changed when he read the job description.

“Every line was like it was custom written for me, with my picture beside the keyboard,” Olenn said.

The fit worked. Moses Brown enrollment is up, and the school has had more media coverage in Olenn’s first 20 months than in the previous five years combined.

“He thinks outside the box of traditional communications and just seems to have an intuitive sense for using stories and experiences to build a tight-knit community,” Glendinning said.

Glendinning credits Olenn with helping bring out everybody’s creativity, even his. Last year they livened up a typical annual report by using a comic book style.

Olenn’s creativity paid off again when he and teammates at an annual school think-tank event won $10,000 in seed funding from Moses Brown, creating a 10-day summer camp for about 20 teenagers called Chez Innovation.

Chez partners with leaders in Rhode Island’s food industry to teach students the business and help prepare them for possible careers. Now gearing up for its second year, the camp stays free for those who can’t afford it, thanks largely to Olenn’s fundraising. Olenn hopes to expand Chez to more industries.

The camp project not only spreads awareness of Moses Brown, it supports its students’ aspirations and helps the school execute its mission: “To inspire the inner promise of each student and instill the utmost care for learning, people and place.”

“There is understanding that it’s not just our students” the mission refers to, Olenn said. “It’s all children.”

Olenn and his team of four always stay focused, and more projects are on deck. Next up: A pilot’s license.

Last year, Moses Brown purchased a drone for shooting marketing pictures, but the Federal Aviation Administration handed down rules that halted everything.

“I read them, and I read them again. Then I felt my stomach sinking,” Olenn said. The FAA’s rules said drones used for marketing must be manned by a licensed pilot. Since Olenn had previously taken some pilot lessons, Moses Brown decided to get him that license.

“The two primary applications for this kind of footage are admissions and fundraising and to be able to show the school at its best for prospective customers and prospective donors,” Olenn said.

For example, a benefactor of a new building can see aerial views of the construction, he said. The footage has also been worked into lessons for students.

Glendinning says drone use provides an important tool in giving Moses Brown a competitive edge, helping display the school’s 33-acre campus.

“We feel that our school is just such a great school, but not everybody knows about us. And if you look at our school from the outside, it looks a little imposing. …. When you’re in the school, it’s such a welcoming and friendly environment … but not everybody knows that. Adam’s definitely helping change the image of the school to a place that’s more fun, more creative, more emotional.” •

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