Archive for December, 2007

So, I’ve decided to drink the video Kool Aid to wish you happy holidays and the best for 2008 as suggested by a couple of readers in the survey (if you haven’t taken the survey yet, please do and you’ll get a chance to win a US $30 gift certificate from Amazon)

If you feel “jolly” today, tell us about your biggest hopes for 2008 and post your video to YouTube as a reply to this video (or email me the link to your YouTube video). I’ll aggregate all the replies in a video playlist and will post it to the blog in January (hey, no reason for me to be the only one in front of the web cam ;-).

Let’s try to put some faces on the most active readers of this blog, ok?

While UMR will officially become MST on January 1st, the new website has just been launched and is now live at www.mst.edu (read my previous post about the topic).

BEFORE

AFTER

This morning, I asked Andrew Careaga, director of communications at Missouri S&T, why they decided to do the switch today, just before the holiday break and how they planned to promote the redesigned website to target audiences:

We wanted to take advantage of the break between semesters to give us the chance to test the redesign before we officially become Missouri S&T on Jan. 1. We have been promoting the new design internally as part of the name change process, via email notices to students, faculty and staff; references on the Name Change Conversations blog and our IT staff’s IT Press blog, where they’re liveblogging the switchover today; and a few presentations on campus to different groups. We also will issue and post a news release about the new design and post more on Name Change Conversations.

Last year, Eckerd College did a great and funny holiday video card targeted to prospective students and featuring its College President, Admissions and Financial Aid Dean and the Web Team, aka “The Web Dudes:”

As Colin Fast from Red River College explained in an interview published in a previous post, Eckerd College’s card was the inspiration for his institution’s own online video card.

This year, Eckerd College did it again with another video card designed as a sequel:

In this “episode,” President Eastman ends up in a very special holiday outfit

I wonder who said College presidents were not the funny type?

As announced a couple of weeks ago on this blog, the new web design (and the logo) of the HighEdWeb Conference to be held in Springfield, MO in October will be created by the winner of a design competition open to higher ed web designers.

The details of the competition have just been posted on the conference website:

Submissions

Include an HTML template file with all images, CSS, etc. in your zipped file. If you would like to include example content within the template, please use the 2007 conference web site as a resource.

Your original conference logo needs to be submitted in vector format for conference publications. Text included with your logo design needs be converted to outlines prior to submitting. (Do not embed fonts within your logo.) When designing the conference logo, the HighEdWeb Association logo (jpg format / tif format) needs to be incorporated within your design; however, the lower line and the word assocation may be removed from the logo.

Colors can be chosen at the contestant’s discretion. This year’s conference theme is Infinite Solutions.

Prizes

Winner(s) of the HighEdWeb Design competition will be recognized in the conference program and on the 2008 conference web site. The individual winner or the winning team will receive $200, which will be awarded on the first day of the conference. The winner, or at least one member of the team, must be present to accept the award.

Timeline

All entries must be submitted using the online contest form by 12:00PM on January 21, 2008. Entries will be judged by the 2008 HighEdWeb Conference committee. The winning design will be announced February 19, 2008, on the 2008 HighEdWeb Conference website.

Let me know if you plan to submit an entry or if you’d like some feedback on your submission.

It’s that time of year again.

With December come the snow (unless you read this post from California or even better Australia or New Zealand), the greeting cards and this blog’s readers survey.

Started in December 2005, this short survey has become a holiday tradition at collegewebeditor.com. Moreover, it’s a way for you to provide feedback, suggestions, comments and… get a chance to win a US $30 gift certificate from Amazon.

So, here’s the deal: if you answer 10 very simple questions related to the way you use this blog, you’ll get a chance to win the US $30 gift certificate, a small token of my appreciation (if vendors or agencies lurking in the dark want to offer other prizes to the winner(s), that might be their chance to get a link on this blog – email me an honorable offer at karine@collegewebeditor.com and I’ll let you know if you get a deal)

The winner(s) will be drawn among all survey participants on January 11, 2008 (. S/he will get a $30 gift certificate from Amazon paid by yours truly, but all the participants will help make collegewebeditor.com a better blog in 2008.

Anybody who took the survey the past 2 years is welcome (and invited to) take it again this year, so I can get an idea of how things have evolved.

So, please take 3 minutes – promise, it won’t take more – and answer my 10 simple questions (actually 9, #10 just asks for your email address for the drawing)

Since my post about the holiday card of the University of Maryland got picked up by the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Campus Wired blog last week, I’ve received a few interesting pitches and links from universities and colleges (please, keep the good stuff coming) related to their web videos.

This morning, Colin Fast, Communications Coordinator at Red River College of Applied Arts, Science & Technology as well as a regular reader of this blog emailed me a great pitch about his institution holiday video card:

I know Maryland beat us to the punch this year, but I thought I’d pass along the link to Red River College’s holiday video card as well: www.rrc.ca/holidaycard

It starts out on our executive floor as a parody of “The Office”, then segues into a zany montage of clips of our President pulling an all-nighter to get all the College holiday cards out on time.

We’re quite proud of the finished video, and had a lot of fun with the production. I thought your readers might enjoy it as well.

Actually, I had already watched the 4-minute video (via FG Gaylor’s blog) and really liked it. It’s a tiny bit too long, but this college president, Jeff Zabudsky, is really amazing (he can even do push-ups while eating donuts).

Anyway, since I liked the video so much, I asked Colin a few questions about the kind of work behind it.

How long did it take you to produce the video?

Actually the part that took the longest was coming up with a concept in the first place. We must have tossed out a dozen different ideas before landing on this one. The final video took about a week to produce in total. All the shooting was done in a little over a day, and the editing process, creation of the mini-site and final approval was about four days.

How do you plan to promote it besides YouTube? Via email? With a link from your homepage?

Yes, we’re using a promo banner on our homepage, we’ve added the video to YouTube and it’s going up on our Facebook page. As the e-card is actually a replacement for our traditional paper card (more green, cost-efficient), we’ve also built an HTML email template for all our departments to use in sending out a link to their contacts. We’re also going to try and get some local press coverage, as this approach is a bit unique for our market. Finally, I’ll be sharing with the higher ed community through Twitter and blogs such as yours.

How did you convince your president to do it?

Our president, Jeff Zabudsky, was great to work with on this. He had a blast and didn’t hesitate to do anything we asked. He was really keen on developing a fun card concept and realized he might have to ham it up a bit for that to happen. Our other executives were very cooperative as well.

I actually have to give credit to the “web dudes” over at Eckerd College for giving us the inspiration for the holiday video in the first place. Their fantastic e-card from last year made the rounds of our executives and helped open them up to trying something new.

With the increasing popularity of this niche blog (and it’s not just my ego speaking, the web stats and Feedburner tell me that its readership has been increasing steadily) as well as my regular gig at University Business, I’ve started to receive more and more press releases and pitches from PR professionals.

While a few are really good – more about a couple of these later this week, most of them end up in my deleted email folder. Fast. Very Fast.

That’s one of the reasons I accepted the invitation to have a look at
Perfecting the Pitch: Creating Publicity Through Media Rapport, a book written by PR veteran Benjamin Lewis. Besides the fact that its cover features my favorite color, I wanted to find out if it was worth your time (and could save some of mine by improving the quality of the pitches I get).

Now that I read this 200-page book, I can tell you it is.

While I’m not a fan of the book review genre, I understand you probably need more than my word to see if there is something for you in this book. That’s why I’ve decided to introduce and inaugurate the “1-1-1 Express Book Review” with “Perfecting the Pitch.”

What on earth is this “1-1-1 Express Book Review?”

Well, it’s a simple concept I’d like to apply to any future book related to your professional interests coming my way (authors out there, hint, hint):

• 1 thing I liked or found really interesting
• 1 thing I didn’t like that much or found really long, dumb, boring, etc.
• 1 big take-away from the book

So, let’s apply this brand new “book review concept” to “Perfecting the Pitch:”

1 thing I liked: Chapters 4, 5 & 6 provide all you really need to know to make most reporters, editors and actually bloggers totally fall in love with you as a PR professional. By clearly defining what is pitching, its rules and what role it plays in the lives of journalists (and more and more bloggers), Lewis does us all a big favor. Moreover, some of the book recommendations are based on the results of a recent survey Lewis’ agency, Perception Inc., did with more than a hundred reporters/editors.

1 thing I didn’t like that much: In this book, Lewis spends some time (and pages) on “The Foundation of the Media Rapport,” for which he apparently registered a trademark. While I agree with what he writes — i.e. message, respect, skills and pitching are the four pillars of the media rapport, I don’t get the need for the trademark thingy.

1 big take-away from the book: So, I’ll break my own rules for this first review and will give you 2 interesting take-away:

4 questions to ask yourself to test the newsworthiness of your story idea (don’t need all of them, but the more, the better):
Is it timely?
Is it unusual?
Is it controversial?
Is it relevant to the majority of the audience of the (old or new) media you’re targeting?

A piece of really good advice:
Don’t send the same pitch to zillions of journalists or bloggers, but find out as much as possible about the journalist (or the blogger) you’re trying to pitch and customize your idea to its professional interest. Remember it’s all about long-term relationships, so make them (us) feel special.

Interested in the book?
Well, since I liked it, I asked if I could get an extra copy for the winner of a drawing among interested readers of this blog. And, I got it.
To get a chance to win this copy, just post a comment below. Why not share a story about your experience with pitching (you don’t have to if you haven’t any)? I’ll announce the winner this Friday and will get the book mailed to him or her.

It’s your lucky day…

Andrew Careaga at UMR (well, actually, Missouri S&T – starting January 1st, 2008) is looking for his right (actually, left) arm:

I’m currently searching for an assistant director of communications to help us move forward as we make the transition from the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) to Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). The communications department coordinates all PR, marketing and branding for the campus, in consultation with several other internal groups.

From my perspective, the ideal candidate will be someone who can manage the processes, work flow and staffing allocation for projects that involve small teams of staff across disciplines (i.e., graphic designers, writers and editors, and web designers/coders together). We need someone who can invigorate and inspire as well as “manage” people and processes. Although we’re a small enough team, with enough collaboration, that we don’t require a lot of managing.

Looking at the job description, full-time telecommuting doesn’t appear to be an option. And, since the university name change won’t be followed by a location change closer to my home, I can’t apply (make me wonder if I would have had a shot at the position).

But, this is definitely a great opportunity to work with one of the few higher ed directors of communications that get Web 2.0 and the paradigm shift in communication it entails.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about the position on the university HR website (search for communication – the unfriendly web application won’t let me use a direct link) or by contacting Andrew directly.

‘Tis the season to be jolly and… to send/email Holidays cards.

This year, the University of Maryland has put a refreshing spin on the tradition with a 2-minute video featuring many students, staff and faculty members – and even Alum Connie Chung – gathering for a group holiday photo.

Available on YouTube, the video can also be watched from a dedicated website: www.holidaygreeting.umd.edu with some bonus features including the resulting holiday group photo, a photo gallery and a time lapse video of the photo shoot.

The video card can be emailed from YouTube (using their new Holiday Card feature) or from the dedicated website.

And, since we’re talking about holiday cards, why don’t you share a link to yours by posting a comment?

It’s always the season for website redesigns…

Rice University (Houston, TX) launched its redesigned homepage last Saturday:

The redesigned home page includes a calendar area to better promote university events, banner space for promoting top Rice stories and a cleaner design for easier navigation. Gateway pages for undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff deliver audience-targeted news and information at a glance.

The new design provides a printer-friendly layout, a streamlined back-end process to allow for more timely posting of content and a separate design for a growing list of mobile devices, PDAs and smart phones.

The pages meet compliance standards established by the World Wide Web Consortium and are supported by most modern browsers. In addition, the pages are Section 508 compliant to facilitate disabled users.

What do you think?