What to expect for the 2007 EduWeb Conference in Baltimore, MD

The 2007 EduWeb Conference will take place July 22-24 in Baltimore, MD. Today Friday is the last day to register and save a $100 on the conference fee. A few weeks ago, Shelley Wetzel, the EduWeb conference founder and director, accepted to answer a few questions about this year’s conference (as she did in 2006 and 2005 – it’s kind of a tradition ;-). Speaking of traditions, I’ve already been contacted by a conference participant who offered to blog some of the sessions she’ll be attending. If you want to get some guest blogging under your belt, feel free to send me a note at karine@collegewebeditor.com. Last year, 7 readers of this blog did a fantastic job blogging the EduWeb conference for the people who had to stay home.

1) Last year was the first edition of EduWeb, so how did it go?
It went very well! From 2005, we increased our attendance by 75%… a great first year! We had 233 attendees from four countries, including Saudi Arabia, and having it at the Sheraton Inner Harbor in Baltimore, with the Inner Harbor literally 1 block away, it made for an exciting event in 2006 and a bigger and better one for 2007.

2) What would you tell people who haven’t registered yet to convince them to come?
If you haven’t been to the eduWeb Conference yet and are curious about it, then what will convince you to come is that if you make a decision regarding strategy, content, design and/or development and/or are responsible for production of your institution’s website, this is the conference for you. The conference does have two tracks focusing on marketing and development, but our attendees have expanded to include not just the “techies” in development, but Admissions, Advancement, Development, Alumni, Student Housing, Publications and of course, Marketing. Our technical track is not “too technical” and thus Admissions, Alumni, etc. can come and learn about what RSS, CMS, etc. are without having it fly over their heads but instead LEARN what IT and others are talking about and be fluent in web-related conversations.

3) This year’s program is packed with lots of presentations. If somebody can only attend 3 of these events, what should they be and why? In other words, what are your favorites?
Besides the keynote and the wonderful Bob Johnson presenting this year, I would recommend ANYTHING on blogs, since that is a hot topic this year. Cornell is presenting “Life on the Hill” about student blogs and Daniel Creasy of Johns Hopkins Admissions Office is presenting “The Blog Revolution.” Second, well, it’s Second Life of course! Something so new that people need to learn more about it and how it can be utilized within their institution for various causes; “An Avatar, a Contest and the Web: is there a cooler way to build awareness?” is being presented by Abu Noaman, CEO of Elliance. Third, and another big topic this year, especially with the recent tradgedy at Virginia Tech and how students the world over were able to share their grief, come see “Do U YouTube?
The Challenge of Understanding Social Media, User-generated Content and the Gamer Generation”, presented by Penny Bouman Mgr., Enrollment Publications and Communications, Ferris State University.