Archive for July, 2007
If you didn't like Doug Imbruce's first venture into student blogging, you won't probably like this second one either. What is the OTR Blog Network? It's a privately-funded venture actively recruiting bloggers and associate editors via its website currently available in Beta Written by students, for students, each O.T.R. blog covers a specific college campus. Think of us as your college paper on crack: quicker, funnier, and better-looking (even though we may be missing a few teeth). [...] With 100 student writers and counting, O.T.R. is launching this September at 50 colleges nationwide. And, as Sam Jackson put it today in his webinar...
Read MoreThe news was announced yesterday on the conference blog, HighEdWeBlog: The Higher Education Web Professionals Association is currently accepting proposals from sponsor groups/institutions who would like to host the 2008 conference. While October doesn't seem the best time to welcome 400 to 600 higher ed professionals on any campus - which is probably why it's hosted by a hotel in Rochester -, this conference is definitely a big hit in the higher ed community and could help promote the "techie" side of your institution. The call for host site, available as a PDF file, explains the decision of the association to...
Read MoreI've just realized that I haven't posted this post Melissa Cheater, one of the 6 readers who did some guest blogging this year at EduWeb, sent me Wednesday morning after getting back to the office. Ken Ronkowitz, Media & Instructional Tech manager at NJIT and an excellent higher ed blogger at Serendipity 35, presented last Tuesday in from of a room full of people his session titled "iTunesU - Managing & Marketing University Media Assets." This is what Melissa wrote about his presentation. I might as well have not spent the Thursday before EduWeb diving into iTunesU and its offerings, because Ken blew...
Read MoreThe good folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project have just made your life a bit easier by releasing today a new 28-page report about online videos. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between February 15 to March 7, 2007, among a sample of 2,200 adults, 18 and older. This report confirms that online videos have made it to mainstream. The majority of adult internet users in the U.S. (57%) report watching or downloading some type of online video content and 19% do so on a typical day. What about...
Read MoreWebmaster at Mars Hill College, Andy Mrozkowski presented a session titled "Flash video for Your Institution" yesterday in Baltimore. Andy will actually present at " Lights, Camera, Action - How to Add Online Videos to Your Marketing Mix, " a 3-webinar series in September I designed for Higher Ed Experts (For more info, go to www.higheredexperts.com/onlinevideos) Anyway, back to yesterday session. This was Jonathan Steffens' second and last scheduled post. He had to do it from his BlackBerry as his laptop died at the conference - RIP. Now, that's what I call dedication! Andy gave a refreshing presentation on how any institution...
Read MoreYesterday in Baltimore, Penny Bouman, Manager of Enrollment Publication and Communications, and Craig Westman, Interim Dean of Enrollment Services, Ferris State University, presented "Do U YouTube? Social Networking and Its Impact on Recruiting and Its Impact on Recruiting and Marketing." This is Christian Burk's third and last scheduled post. Definition of "brand" "A brand is not a name or positioning statement . . . a brand is the culmination of all the experiences people have with an organization. A brand is an experience." Bob Sevier You don't know where people are getting information when1/3 of all applicants are secret shoppers, as was the case...
Read MoreLive from EduWeb 2007: Supporting a Central Web Presence with a True Communications / IT Partnership
Earlier today Diane Kubarek, Director of the Office of Web Communications at Cornell University, and Al Gonzalez, Assistant Director of Integrated Web Services at Cornell University presented at EduWeb a sessions titled "Supporting a Central Web Presence with a True Communications / IT Partnership." This is Drew's second and last scheduled blog post. Diane and Al presented a quick history of Cornell web operations spanning over the past 3 or 4 years. Tasked with a redesign/rebranding of Cornell.edu, they faced challenges resulting from a vendor/client relationship between Communications and IT. Over the course of time, stronger bonds and ultimately a virtual...
Read MoreEarlier today, Alberto Fernandez, Director of Web Strategy at Lynn University presented a session titled "It Can be Done: How to delineate and implement a successful Web strategic plan." This is Lacey Updegraff's third and last scheduled post. Alberto began by showing a video about how we are living in exponential times. You can get more information on this at shifthappens.wikispaces.com. What is a strategic plan? - Strategic planning is the creation of an overall approach to delineate where you want to be in the future - It is the creation of a vision of what you want to achieve and what you are going...
Read MoreYesterday afternoon, Darren Wacker, consultant at James Tower, presented a session titled "It's a Blog Eat Blog World - How to Make your Student Recruitment Blogs Stand Out from the Rest." This is Jonathan Stephens' first scheduled post. A refreshing twist to the vendor-esque presenter, Darren was up front about "not" hocking any service or software and readily encouraging audience participation. Once dispensed with the pleasantries, Mr. Wacker unleashed a myriad of data and step by step efforts to get your instituion blogging. Why Blog? Informal first person perspective "The easiest way and puriest form for web 2.0 communication." Campus Life Admissions and Financial Aid...
Read MoreYesterday, Dirk Swart, a project manager at Cornell University, presented a session titled "Sociological Aspects of Web Projects." This is Christian Burk's second scheduled post. As part of his presentation, which was in the middle of the afternoon, Swart passed around what he called "clickers," which allowed people to answer in real time questions he had prepared in his presentation. In order to keep people awake, he said. Swart's presentation broke down into three parts: -a preamble -details -abstractions It was by far the most academic presentation I had seen at the conference, with footnotes and sources identified for further exploration by the audience. The...
Read MoreDori Sonntag, who just started to blog at Inspired Annual Giving, found this pearl. The video is 2 minutes and 37 seconds and was produced by Yale students (Prep-Hop Productions) to promote their senior gift giving drive earlier this year. It's actually a parody of a Saturday Night Life TV segment that got a lot of YouTube mileage a few months ago after it was posted uncensored, "A Special Christmas Box," (beware before clicking on this link -- the original title is a more explicit "D**k in a Box"). Several parodies were created by YouTubers. Not sure your president or board of...
Read MoreLorraine Spencer, IT Manager at Johns Hopkins University in the Office of Continuing Medical Education presented today a session titled “A Web Re-Design: Lessons Learned.” This is Amy Stevens' second and last scheduled post. What happens when you simultaneously launch a redesign of both your front end and back end of your institutions's website? Ms.Lorraine Spencer walked participants through planning, implementing and then Monday morning quarterbacking for the redesign of Johns Hopkins University's Office of Continuing Medical Education's redesign. Ms. Spencer outlined the standard project management steps that define any project of this scope, with the reminders to get buy-in in...
Read MoreToday, Jack J. Chielli, Executive Director at Wilkes University presented a session titled “A Majority of One” about an integrated recruiting campaign his institution launched this year. This is Lacey Lacey Updegraff's second scheduled post. Wilkes University, a small school in Pennsylvania, placed a high bet on a large marketing campaign last year. Their main advertising message is about mentoring and one-to-one relationships. Jack did mention that they did use a large marketing firm, 160/90, whose other clients include Sobe and American Eagle. They first recreated the view book by giving it the feel they wanted to have, mostly with quotations marks,...
Read MoreToday, Kathy Cain Managing Partner at Zehno Cross Media Communications presented a session titled “The New Viewbook and the Web.” Amy Stevens, Web Communications Manager at MCLA, is one of the six very nice people who agreed to share their notes with all of us who couldn't attend the EduWeb conference this year. This is Amy's first scheduled post. Speaking to a standing room only audience, Kathy Cain kicked off Monday's sessions with a traditional Powerpoint presentation on The New Viewbook and the Web. The talk, which the program noted was formerly called The Death of The Traditional Viewbook, began with...
Read MoreSharaf Atakhanov, Senior Media Developer at Temple University presented a very interesting session today in Baltimore: “Email Campaigns That Work.” He even shared the PDF file of his presentation online. Drew Stephens, web designer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, is one of the six very nice people who agreed to share their notes with all of us who couldn't attend the EduWeb conference this year. This is Drew's first scheduled post. Sharaf had many insights into the possibilities and pitfalls of university email campaigns. A good portion of his presentation documented specific examples of poorly constructed, cluttered...
Read MoreLive from EduWeb 2007 in Baltimore: Marketing and the Web – Trends and Tribulations in Communication
Yesterday, Bob Johnson gave the keynote speech at the EduWeb Conference in Baltimore: “Marketing and the Web: Trends and Tribulations in Communication.” Christian Burk, Manager of Creighton University undergraduate admissions website, is one of the six very nice people who agreed to share their notes with all of us who couldn't attend the EduWeb conference this year. This is Christian's first scheduled post. I've reorganized Bob Johnson's points into the following order. While this is not how an attendee would have experienced the presentation, this perhaps shows the general flow of the argument, however it may have been presented. The big points: There...
Read MoreThat's one of the findings of "The Game Has Changed: College Admissions Outpace Corporations in Embracing Social Media," the preliminary executive summary of a study conducted by 2 academics from the Center for Marketing Research of the University of Massachussets at Dartmouth: Nora Barnes, Ph.D. and Eric Mattson. This study is based on detailed interviews with 453 admissions departments as explained by both searchers in the introduction of their online report: The responding institutions are diverse in student size (from under 50 students to over 50,000), annual tuition (from less than $1,000 to over $40,000), funding (69% private, 31% public) and...
Read MoreLisa Cameron-Norfleet, Program Manager for the Office of Web Communications at Cornell University, presented this Sunday afternoon a session at the EduWeb Conference in Baltimore titled “Life on the Hill: The True Story of Student Blogging at Cornell.” Lacey Updegraff, online content manager for Auburn University’s Office of Communications and Marketing, is one of the six very nice people who agreed to share their notes with all of us who couldn't attend the EduWeb conference this year. This is Lacey's first scheduled post. Lisa began by doing a quick poll of how many attendees university's had student blogs and how many of...
Read MoreI've been working on these 3 new webinar series for a while now, and I hope you'll find these 3 programs (11 webinars in total) by Higher Ed Experts interesting and useful for you, your team and your institution: Lights, Camera, Action - How to Add Online Videos to Your Marketing Mix September 11, 12, & 13 2007 - 3 webinars for $150 Online Video Production 101: Tools, Tips and Tricks to Shoot and Produce Web Videos by Andy Mrozkowski, Admissions and Marketing Webmaster at Mars Hill College Cover Your Own News for YouTube (and the Web) by James Todd, Writer and...
Read MoreI'm a very lucky blogger. Last week, I asked if a few of you would blog some of the sessions they plan to attend at EduWeb in Baltimore next week (starting Sunday, actually) and I'm happy to report that 6 fine higher ed professionals have answered my call. So, let me introduce this year's EduWeb guest bloggers: Christian Burk Christian manages the Undergraduate Admissions website for Creighton University. Melissa Cheater Melissa is a Communications Assistant at Academica Group Inc, working with colleges and universities on web strategy and best practices. She is also a party of the team behind Academica’s Top 10 newsbrief which highlights...
Read MoreJust a quick post to let everybody know that I've made a $4,300 online donation to the Virginia Tech Hokie Spirit Scholarship Fund in the name of the higher ed community. The funds were raised via a $100-per-attendee donation made by people who attended Crisis Communication 2.0 Week a few weeks ago. Attendees paid $250 instead of the discounted rate of $150 (for Higher Ed Experts' members) for the 3-webinar series featuring Mike Dame, web communications director at Virginia Tech.
Are you going to the 2007 EduWeb Conference in Baltimore on July 22-24? Well, you're lucky, because you'll get a chance to listen to Mike Dame, director of web communications at Virginia Tech, presenting a shorter version of the webinar he presented for Higher Ed Experts: From the Inside Out -- Lessons Learned in Web Crisis Communications after the Virginia Tech Tragedy. Just look at what I read in the post-webinar evaluations filled out by the attendees: "The session was amazing... By the end, I had tears in my eyes because of all the gratitude and respect I felt for the...
Read MoreI've put together a short online survey to get a better idea of the state of print and electronic publications in higher education. The results of this survey will be used for my next University Business column to be published in October 2007 and for a study I’m conducting on this topic. My goal is to assess how the Web and other electronic media (email, blog, RSS, etc.) are used in universities and colleges as complements or replacements for print publications. As regular readers know, I'm a strong proponent of the Web. However, I think print has still a role to...
Read MoreI've now reviewed the presentation files of the 3 presenters (Nancy Prater from Ball State University, Ben Jones from MIT and Sam Jackson from the Sam Jackson College Experience) scheduled for Admissions Blogging 360, the next 3-webinar series I put together for Higher Ed Experts. And, let me tell you that this really looks like we're going to have another great series. If you're toying with the idea of launching a blogging program to support your admissions efforts, this series is really for you as you'll get all the information you need to plan, recruit, launch and measure your blogging initiative....
Read MoreI usually don't cover vendor-related news, but BlackBoard has really done a nice job using YouTube to promote an upcoming conference to a specific audience while surfing on a very popular phenomenon, i.e. the growing popularity of Second Life in academic technology circles. I came across this video titled "Adventures in First Life Redux" on Educate/Innovate, Blackboard blog. At 2 minutes 30, it might be a bit long. However, Adrian Alleyne, its creator did capture the gist of what can make the whole SecondLife experience a bit awkward (avatars typing in the air when they exchange instant messages, bumping in each...
Read MoreI've been playing a bit with Photoshop this morning to create a couple more "Higher Ed Experts" badges (the first one has been on the right column of this blog for a few weeks now). I thought some of you might want to show to the online world they are part of the Higher Ed Experts' community. Feel free to grab the code (including the graphic and a link back to www.higheredexperts.com) and use it on your website, blog or Facebook profile. "Higher Ed Experts Registered Member" Badge ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <a href="http://www.higheredexperts.com"> <img src="http://www.higheredexperts.com/webinar/fileadmin/img/hee_cwe_mber.gif" alt="Higher Ed Experts Registered Member" border="0" width="180" height="65"/></a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Higher Ed Experts Faculty...
Read MoreJust a quick post today for Independence Day in the US. According to a report about broadband usage released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 47% of Internet users had a high-speed connection to the Internet at home in March 2007 (vs. 42% in 2006 and 30% in 2005). The survey of 2,200 adult Americans conducted earlier this year via phone interviews also found that: 63% of respondents aged 18-29 and 59% aged 30-49 (students and their parents) have broadband at home only 2% of people who have access to a computer don't use the Internet If you're trying to push...
Read MoreA while ago, LinkedIn, the social networking website targeted to professionals, launched a feature allowing members to ask open questions to the members of their network (their direct connections as well as the connections of their connections). On several occasions, I've seen questions from reporters or freelancers looking for sources pop up in this section of my LinkedIn homepage (I do have a few connections in the media industry so that might also explain why I see them on a regular basis). However, a post written by Penelope Trunk, "10 Ways journalists can use LinkedIn,", confirms this trend by the type of...
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Lin Larson on 
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