News and Tips for Higher Ed Pros

George Cook, national (sales?) engineer, gave the conference keynote speech: The Read/Write Web.

He shared his views on web trends vs. personal outcomes - i.e. how technology brings value to the user: Live, Sharing, Interactive and Media-Rich.

In the first part of his presentation, he managed to plug screenshots or mentions of iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iTunes U, Safari (”the smart browser that works with the iPhone”) as well as Leopard (Apple next operating system).

Cook also talked a lot about Twitter, sharing screenshots on several occasions (Does this mean that Apple plan to buy Twitter? ;-).

Before making his official sales pitch about all the new cool Apple products, he discussed the challenges that come with these new technologies: privacy, security, intellectual property and integration.

For Cook, most of the challenges can be overcome via policies. Last (that is before the official product overview), he insisted on the fact that higher ed institutions shouldn’t be so worried about using copyrighted material for educational purposes, reminding everybody that the current law includes some provisions allowing educational fair use (please consult with your campus lawyer, though)

Although this blog isn’t an Apple product (or even a client - well, I do own an iPod video), Cook managed to quote the interview I did a while back with Phil de Haan: How higher ed PR and media professionals use Facebook: Phil de Haan, director of media relations at Calvin College

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