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Great creative work doesn’t require a big team or a big budget. Jett Turner, Associate Director of Marketing and Communications for the Oklahoma State University College of Arts and Sciences, shares how a small team can choose what matters, build repeatable systems, and protect the quality of its work. Drawing on his years on the public relations team at Langston University, where he was named the 2025 Randy Talley Rising Star by the Oklahoma College Public Relations Association, Jett talks about using the university mission as a filter, setting clear timelines with campus partners, and making limited gear work. If you’re on a lean campus team, this conversation is a reminder that team size doesn’t have to determine the ambition or impact of your work.

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Creative Takeaways

➡️ Using your university’s mission as the filter for what gets your time.

➡️ Setting clear lead times and deadlines so requests don’t become emergencies.

➡️ Building trust with campus partners by underpromising and overdelivering.

➡️ Repurposing one story into social, web, and video content.

➡️ Making limited gear work, and why limitations shouldn’t become excuses.

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Key Moments

02:10 – What’s on Your Desk? Strategic planning at OSU

02:54 – Doing a little of everything on a small PR team

05:27 – Letting the university mission decide what gets attention

07:37 – Planning ahead, project request forms, and hard deadlines

10:13 – Building trust with your team and campus partners

12:06 – Underpromise, overdeliver

14:19 – Educating campus partners beyond the “service factory”

15:59 – Podcasts as content farms and telling news stories on social

18:55 – “Good and published” vs. exceptional

21:00 – Keeping limitations from defining your creative identity

21:55 – One camera, ring lights, and an orange tablecloth

23:17 – Where a two- or three-person team should focus first

23:49 – The Kit & The Keeper: connect with Jett and advice for fellow creatives

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