My second column for University Business is now available in the April issue as well as online: “The Brand (Brave?) New World Of Online Public Relations.â€
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In the next few days, I’ll be posting the full versions of the interviews I made to prepare this column. So, if you’ve liked the column, you’ll probably find these interesting and useful.
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Hi there,
I think the article is a timely call to action. In some respects I wonder whether many institutions outside of the US have really got to grips with these technologies outside of an eLearning context.
When you consider the intellectual real estate that most universities have, the idea that you should NOT be using this stuff to develop your communications and reputational activity is crazy.
I’d certainly encourage Universities to think outside of the eLearning box on this. Here at Warwick we have had some great plusses from making academic opinion available through podcasts, for example.
Thanks for your comment, Tom! I’ll make sure to check out your podcasts. Can you tell me a bit more about the benefits you experienced?
Well, I think benefits fall into a few areas.
Firstly, podcasts have given us greater flexibility in communications activity. A Press Release can only tell so much of the story when you deal with academic subjects – it has to tell the story to a journalist :-). Podcasts have given us a great accessible medium that lets our academics explore their work in a public way that goes into more depth and detail than could otherwise be done through more traditional mechanisms. Think about it this way – podcasts let our academics explore their work in a way that would never be possible in a 1 minute spot on a radio programme.
Secondly, podcasts have let us respond more effectively to the news agenda – we have had experts in the studio within hours of a story breaking, got the podcast edited and released by the end of the day. We can use the medium to really demonstrate the expertise of our faculty and the relevance of universities to the issues that concern people day-to-day.
Thirdly – we have not promoted this service beyond a few directories and the University website – but we have found traffic has increased well over the 6 months we have been doing these and that the number of downloads has exceeded all expectation. It’s been a really simple and effective way of getting content to interested people.
Currently I am looking at ways to make these more interactive and provide greater opportunities for feedback and engagement with academics.
What I am keen not to do is simply capture lectures and seminars and pump the web full of esoteric stuff that doesn’t grip the imagination. This has to be driven by exciting, relevant content that connects universities to wider concerns and issues and demonstrates that Universities can make a difference, that they have an impact. The podcasts programme is an important part of this.