Archive for April, 2007
Sorry for posting again about Higher Ed Experts, the new social networking website targeted to higher ed professionals and executives working in admissions, web, marketing and PR, but I need to share a few important updates. If you haven't registered yet, you might want to do it ASAP at www.higheredexperts.com/register as the website already counts 189 registered members (at the time of this post) based in the US, but also in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Spain, Sweden and Egypt. Besides, the membership is open to people working in universities and colleges, free and you get to network with your...
Read MoreHere's a quick update about Higher Ed Experts, the new community-oriented website I've just launched. First, let me thank you all for your interest and support: more than 100 registered members in 24 hours... This has already expected my wildest dreams. I would also like to apologize to the dozen of vendors, consultants and other people not working in universities and colleges who registered. As I explained to all of them in an email (I've added a notice on the registration form to avoid this in the future), HEE membership is only open to higher ed professionals and executives -- for now....
Read MoreFred Stutzman, the very active social networking academic expert I recently interviewed, has found and discussed "Never Ending Friending," the report summarizing a qualitative and quantitative research study conducted for MySpace by independent market intelligence firms. The 68-page PDF file can be downloaded for free. I've just scanned it, and it provides some very interesting data about MySpace's different users. So, go get it now if your institution is thinking about using MySpace as part of its marketing strategy.
I was supposed to make this announcement last Tuesday. As you can understand, given the tragedy that struck Virginia Tech, I decided to postpone. I'm launching a new website, Higher Ed Experts, to provide professional development and social networking online opportunities to higher ed professionals working in Web, marketing, PR and admissions. Higher Ed Experts will provide registered users with news, resources and social networking components for free and webinars for a fee. I've been working on this project behind the scenes for a while and I think it can help our professional community. I might be right on this one as...
Read MoreWhile your institution might not be ready to get its profile on MySpace, the popular social networking website, you should consider trying to get your news in front of its millions of members. MySpace has just launched the beta version of its news service: MySpace News. The FAQ of the news service explains that, "MySpace News aggregates news from around the web and provides MySpace users with the ability to vote on what they think is most interesting." The current version of MySpace News categories includes "Education." What are the criteria to be included in the pool of websites used by this new service? The...
Read MoreFor "Hokie Hope," an alumni-led declaration of a national "Orange and Maroon Effect" day, I added a few touch of maroon to this blog's emblematic orange (removed after April 20). As regular readers know, I started to review higher ed YouTube videos a few months ago. Before the Virginia Tech Tragedy, the university had started a contest "Let's go Tubing" to invite its campus members to create YouTube videos to promote the Hokie Spirit. This morning, I stumbled upon 2 videos by Bryce, the VT student blogger that Joe Hice mentioned in his lessons learned in an earlier post: the first...
Read MoreJust a quick post to share this message that Michael Dame, Director of Web Communications at Virginia Tech, asked me to pass to all of you: To our higher education colleagues, Words cannot adequately express our gratitude for your response to our tragedy here at Virginia Tech. Our web team has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from colleagues, family, and friends. I think I speak for everyone here when I say the world feels much smaller to us this week. These events have demonstrated just how connected we all are as a higher education community. Just look at the growing list...
Read MoreInside Higher Ed is running this morning a must-read piece for communication professionals titled "Evaluating the Response." Written by Andy Guess, this article reviews the tragic events from a crisis communication standpoint, provides a link to the University Relations crisis communication plan (last updated in February 2002) used Monday, and offers some light on the challenges the VT Communication team faced that day: The plan’s guidelines on contacting students during a crisis don’t appear to weigh the possibility of an impending disaster, suggesting publication in the student paper, The Collegiate Times, the Internet, e-mail, radio, fliers and even “mass meetings.” It continues,...
Read MoreI just got an email from Michael Dame, Director of Web Communications at Virginia Tech [I interviewed Mike last year for my UB column about website redesign], asking if I could pass the following message to all of you: We are aware that countless IHEs have posted statements about the Virginia Tech tragedy on their websites. We’d like to build a page compiling links to as many of those statements as possible. We are so overwhelmed by the support we continue to receive, and we’d like to recognize that support on our website. How can you let Mike know? Just send...
Read MoreIn the wake of the Virginia Tech Tragedy, many questions about crisis communication have been raised in campuses across the country and the world. Today, on u-webd listserv, a few Web professionals discussed possible text-messaging solutions. One of them (I didn't get a chance to ask him if I could share his name) announced to the list that his institution was working on a Twitter clone using the campus email user credentials. Haven't heard about Twitter yet? Here's how Wikipedia defines this new application that has caught the tech blogosphere like fire for the past few months: Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging...
Read MoreMay 4, 2007 - UPDATE: Mike Dame, director of web communication at Virginia Tech will present a webinar on June 28, 2007 to share his lessons learned after the tragedy as part of a 3-webinar series called "Crisis Communication 2.0 Week" and priced at $250 ($100 of which will be donated to the Memorial Hokie Spirit Fund of Virginia Tech). For more information or to register, visit the registration page. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I co-presented a session about crisis communication in a networked world at a CASE conference last September with Joe Hice, AVP for Marketing &...
Read MoreYesterday I posted a screenshot of the homepage of the university website when I heard the news -- only early in the afternoon as I was working on deadlines far away from any news sources. This morning I was able to retrieve an early version time stamped at 9:58 AM from Google's cache. I'll try to post more screenshots in this post as they become available, thus trying to provide a record that could help study how this terrible tragedy was handled on the website. April 16 - 9:58 AM (Google cache - the announcement - on the black background...
Read MoreI've just read about the news... on a listserv. I worked on deadlines all morning and ate lunch in front of my computer far away from any news. In the listserv message, there was just a mention of a crazy event with 22 dead including students (33 according to the latest reports) at Virginia Tech, so I went straight to the website: When I saw the VT homepage, I thought I would share it with you. A few months ago, when a shooting happened at Dawson College in Montreal, I remember reading a similar announcement written (in bold red, I think) on...
Read MoreAs I explain in my April column for University Business, “Facebook, MySpace, and Co.”, a few institutions have started to market themselves on MySpace or Facebook. This can be done, but it's very important to follow what I call "the five basic rules of engagement:" Know whom you are dealing with. Read the terms of service of any external website you'd like to include in your marketing mix and make sure your institution can deal with any possible associated privacy and copyright risks. Meet the locals. Set up a profile on any social networking websites you might use as a communication channel...
Read MoreEarlier this year, I conducted several email interviews to prepare my column about social networking websites for the April 2007 issue of University Business: “Facebook, MySpace, and Co.” Sam Jackson, a high school senior who blogged his college admission process at The Sam Jackson College Experience, was admitted to Yale last December and started to use Facebook at that time to connect with the others members of the Class of 2011. 1) As an early admit of the class of 2011 at Yale, you got a chance to interact with your peers as early as December. Why is it something...
Read MoreEarlier this year, I conducted several email interviews to prepare my column about social networking websites for the April 2007 issue of University Business: “Facebook, MySpace, and Co.” Fred Stutzman, a Ph.D. student in Information Science at UNC, is a recognized expert in social networking websites who also blogs at Unit Structure. After reading Fred's post titled "How University Administrators Should Approach the Facebook: Ten Rules," I knew I had to interview him. 1) Do you think higher ed institutions could use Facebook and other social networking websites as communication channels to reach prospective and current students? Indeed. I think social networks,...
Read MoreMy second UB column for 2007 is now available in the April issue as well as online: “Facebook, MySpace, and Co.” If you are a University Business reader who has just discovered collegewebeditor.com, welcome! Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog via RSS or email. If you have any questions or feedback about the blog or the column, feel free to email me at karine@collegewebeditor.com . I'll post the interviews I did for this column in the next few days.
Executive Director of the Caltech Alumni Association at the California Institute of Technology, Andy Shaindlin started a blog, Alumni Futures, targeted to his professional peers last February. In a post titled "Should Alumni Associations Be Blogging?", Andy dares alumni associations to get in blogging mode, because blogs are great community-building tools: Here's an idea for someone daring: Continue providing the same kind of information you already offer online, but use a blogging format instead of the static informational pages you have now. [...] Give it a shot...I dare you. If your director (or board) wants a bit more before letting you start a...
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