Archive for October, 2009
This year, several institutions have chosen to produce special videos to welcome freshmen on campus. I've already written about "It's Your Turn" from Missouri S&T, but today I'd like to share the video from Imperial College London in the UK. At 3 minutes and 36 seconds, this video does a great job at presenting the institution, its history (that part actually is reminiscent of Missouri S&T video's treatment), its academic programs, facilities and even main research projects. So, just take the time to watch it, it's really worth it. This video was created and produced by Pamela Agar's team at Imperial College. Pamela and...
Read MoreSince I started this blog in February 2005 with its version 1.2, WordPress has become one of (probably the) best online publishing tool out there. Can you believe version 2.9 will be released in a couple of months? Naturally, as higher ed print magazines have started to go digital or even paperless, more and more college editors choose WordPress to power the online version of their publications. Swarthmore College Bulletin is a good example of this trend. Swarthmore College Bulletin (October 2009) That's why I asked Nathan Stazewski, Web Multimedia Specialist at Swarthmore College's Communications/News & Information Office, to answer a few...
Read MoreHave you seen NC State's Twitter page yet? Launched last month, it aggregates all the official twitter accounts on a single easy-to-use web page. NC State on Twitter - NC State University It looks sharp and really user-friendly. Wish you could have a similar page for your institution? Well, stop dreaming and send a thank-you email to the nice folks at NC State as they have decided to open-source the code powering their neat Twitter page. But, before downloading the code, take a minute to read the short interview I conducted with Jason Austin, Senior Solutions Implementation Engineer NCSU - OIT - Outreach Technology (that's...
Read MoreAfter Bates College last month, Duke University unveiled its new homepage on October 1st. The last design was done in 2006 and had definitely a Google-ish kind of look. Duke Homepage (2006) With the new design Duke's homepage look and feel is less unique, but it is definitely more user- and content-friendly. Stories - told through text, photos and videos - are a big part of this new homepage (like for Bates). Home | Duke University (2009) What is also great about this new homepage is that it is running on the open source CMS, Drupal and was mostly developed internally. Ben Riseling...
Read MoreLast week, I attended the rehearsal of Dave Olsen's webinars on how to create a mobile website for your university in 24 hours or less. And, I'm happy to report that he has really done a lot of work to make the implementation of MIT Mobile Web very easy through the integration of some Google services. In just a few edits, you can get a mobile website for your institution complete with a campus directory, news, campus map and a calendar of events. It is really amazing and definitely worth the registration fee with the time you will save -...
Read MoreA frightening and yet interesting thing happened to Rachel Reuben from SUNY New Paltz a few days ago. The Facebook page she created 2 years ago for her university disappeared. Rachel tried everything to get the page back as she explained in a post she wrote last week:Feeling Naked: A Tale of the Disappearing Facebook Fan Page. Long story short: Rachel finally got her page back but not the 5,000 fans - although Facebook has since let her know that they are investigating the issue. SUNY New Paltz | Facebook This incident and especially the lack of responsiveness from Facebook definitely put...
Read MoreMy new UB column is now available in the October issue as well as online: "Social Media Measurement 101: A seven-step plan to set up (and benefit from) a simple social measurement program " Here are the 7 steps: 1. Define measurable goals for social media activities. 2. Choose key performance indicators (KPIs) carefully. 3. Plan ahead and properly set up the right measurement tools. 4. Capture the data at preset intervals. 5. Don’t forget some benchmarking. 6. Share your measurement data. 7. Use measurement data to craft your next moves. Social Media Measurement 101 If you are a University Business reader who...
Read MorePreviously AVP of Marketing and Public Relations at his alma mater, the University of Florida, Joe Hice started to work as the chief communications officer at NC State University last week. What's really interesting here is that Joe has decided to share his first 100 days on the job through his new professional blog (he used to blog at The Gator Grotto) cleverly named HiceSchool Blog. HiceSchool Blog So, if you ever wondered how it felt to start a new job at this level, check out the blog. You might learn a thing or two along the way. You might even offer...
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