The Is have it! The LEAN Communicator has 5 Is critical for effective communications—inform, inquire, instruct, involve, and influence. I'm inspired to know I'm in good company. Dean Ernest J. Wilson III of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California has 3 Is— internationalization, impact and innovation. He's using them to take Annenberg to the next level for communication education.

Dean Wilson shared his 3 Is and other perspectives at a special Nov. 13 event for Annenberg alumni, parents and friends. We met at the SF home of Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis and Markos Kounalakis. Markos, who holds a graduate certificate in international journalism from Annenberg, is a member of the Annenberg Board of Councilors, and is the President and Publisher of The Washington Monthly, hosted the discussion. The other featured guest was Geneva Overholser, the new director of Annenberg's School of Journalism.

Dean Wilson is not your typical communication school dean. His areas of focus include the convergence of communication and information technology, public policy and the public interest. He's well suited for Annenberg, which isn't your usual communication school.

Annenberg has wide breadth and depth. The communication school includes programs in journalism, PR and communication management. It grants bachelors, masters and PhD degrees. The school is part of an influential research university. And Annenberg is partnering in journalism education with a number of media institutions in the Middle East and Africa, as well as continuing its relationship with the London School of Economics & Political Science. (Deans Wilson and Overholser wryly noted that the international agenda is still limited to the English-speaking part of the world.)

Some of Dean Wilson's pithy observations and promising plans to have impact include:

• Starting an entrepreneurial journalism program for practicing journalists.
• Encouraging students and working professionals to create a new business model for newspapers.
• Requiring students to take at least one class in economics.
• Building stronger partnerships with other programs and schools.
• Serving the public good, including strengthening the role of citizen journalists.

(Dean Wilson is even more convinced of the importance of economics in formal education after the appalling coverage of the financial crisis. According to him, the mass media has demonstrated little leadership and expertise in explaining what has happened in the financial markets.)

While Dean Wilson is an accomplished and educated individual, he's hardly finished learning. After the event, he told a colleague and me that he needs to learn more about PR. And he spoke several times about his interest in spending more time in Northern California, the hotbed of innovation, his third I. He wants to meet with technology companies and venture capitalists to understand how Silicon Valley works. He's also curious about knowing what skill sets executives anticipate needing from new hires. He said he believes faculty need to be innovative too, not just students. In this way, he can bring sustainable innovation to Annenberg.

As an alum of Annenberg (MA, Communication Management), I found Dean Wilson's remarks energizing. He's leading the school in a visionary manner. Plus he's following some important tenants. These include including recognizing that communication professionals must be leaders as well as technical experts. For too many years, communication professionals viewed their role as staying on the sidelines, being objective and reporting on what happened. While professional journalists have an ethical responsibility to be fair, those of us who work in other settings need to be players, not bystanders. And we need to be grounded in important fundamentals, including economics.

My undergrad degree is from a journalism school too—the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University (BSJ, Newspapers). Medill continues to have a narrower focus than Annenberg (print, broadcast and digital journalism, not broader communications except for the integrated marketing communications program in partnership with the Kellogg School of Management). Yet Medill has always valued a broad liberal arts education. In fact, I was almost an economics major too. Then I became stymied by the level of math needed to excel in economics.

From a LEAN Communications perspective, Dean Wilson and the rest of Annenberg are being responsible stewards. They're adding value to their key customers—students, their parents, employers, and the public at large. Dean Wilson also is committed to the LEAN Communications principle of continual improvement.

Aye, aye to all the Is!