Archive for the ‘Virginia Tech Tragedy’ Category

Remembering the Virginia Tech Tragedy with Mike Dame’s account of how web communications were handled

April 16th, 2009 Karine Joly 4 Comments

It’s been 2 years. I remember very clearly that day. I only learned about the tragedy around 11AM that morning. I was unplugged to work on a project, and it’s just when I checked my email and the email listservs that I saw a message referring to something terrible going on at Virginia Tech. I […]

The University of Maryland is working on a social networking application to be used in case of emergencies

August 25th, 2008 Karine Joly No Comments

That’s what I’ve learned this morning by reading “Emergency Alerts via Facebook and MySpace Are New Ways to Reach Students,” an article written by Jeffrey Young from the Chronicle of Higher Education. A group of researchers at the [University of Maryland at College Park] is also working to build a prototype of a homemade social […]

Higher Ed Experts Update: The registration deadline for the “911 Website” webinar has been postponed to Friday May 2, 2008 at 9PM ET.

April 29th, 2008 Karine Joly No Comments

This morning, I received two emails asking if it was still possible to register for the May 7 webinar about crisis/emergency websites presented by Mike Dame from Virginia Tech (the initial registration deadline was yesterday). As a result, I decided to postpone the registration deadline until this Friday (May 2) at 9PM ET. If you […]

Today Virginia Tech remembers – so does its website

April 16th, 2008 Karine Joly 2 Comments

At Virginia Tech, Mike Dame and his team have been working on this day of remembrance on the Web for a while and the result is another beautiful piece of Web design on the homepage: A dedicated website has also been created for the event at www.remembrance.vt.edu: . This is how Virginia Tech remembers, how […]

It’s 2008 – almost a year after the Virginia Tech Tragedy: Is Your 911 Website Ready?

April 4th, 2008 Karine Joly No Comments

My second UB column for 2008 is now available in the April issue as well as online: “It’s 2008: Is Your 911 Website Ready?” When I wrote this article, my goal was to give you a good piece of third-party validation (hey, you can even print the article so it looks like it was xeroxed […]

Let’s Build an Online Gallery of Crisis/Emergency “Lite” Web Page Templates for Higher Ed

November 7th, 2007 Karine Joly 4 Comments

Would you share your crisis ‘lite’ website homepage with your colleagues in higher education? Since the Virginia Tech Tragedy, we all have been building/updating the web template to be used in case of a crisis or an emergency. By nature, these web templates can’t be easily shared among different institutions. You don’t want the general […]

5 tips to be better prepared for a campus emergency or crisis

September 28th, 2007 Karine Joly No Comments

Even if you don’t take the time to read my last article about crisis communication (although you should), don’t ignore these 5 basic tips and share them with folks in charge of crisis communication at your institution: Make sure the chief communication officer of your institution is part of your emergency team. Include in your […]

A good primer about crisis communications 2.0 you can print

September 27th, 2007 Karine Joly 1 Comment

September isn’t over yet, but the month has already seen 2 shooting-related crises: Yesterday at St. John’s University in Queens, NY (the campus was locked down after a masked gunman was found on campus) Last Friday, 2 students were shot at Delaware State University. The good news is that lessons learned after the tragedy at […]

How to put SecondLife to good use: plan and run emergency drills on your virtual campus

August 28th, 2007 Karine Joly No Comments

Lately, I’ve read more and more negative comments about SecondLife. Many inside and outside of higher education have questioned the return on investment of SL campuses for universities and colleges as Jeff Young from the Chronicle of Higher Ed wrote a few days ago in the Campus Wired Blog: More than 100 colleges have set […]

Higher Ed Experts donates $4,300 to the Virginia Tech Hokie Spirit Scholarship Fund in the name of the higher ed community

July 16th, 2007 Karine Joly 2 Comments

Just a quick post to let everybody know that I’ve made a $4,300 online donation to the Virginia Tech Hokie Spirit Scholarship Fund in the name of the higher ed community. The funds were raised via a $100-per-attendee donation made by people who attended Crisis Communication 2.0 Week a few weeks ago. Attendees paid $250 […]

Calling all good souls going to EduWeb on July22-24: Guest blog the conference for collegewebeditor.com!

July 11th, 2007 Karine Joly 1 Comment

Are you going to the 2007 EduWeb Conference in Baltimore on July 22-24? Well, you’re lucky, because you’ll get a chance to listen to Mike Dame, director of web communications at Virginia Tech, presenting a shorter version of the webinar he presented for Higher Ed Experts: From the Inside Out — Lessons Learned in Web […]

Higher Ed Experts Update: Crisis Communication 2.0 Week Webinar Series is On

June 26th, 2007 Karine Joly No Comments

Just a quick post to let everybody know that Joe Hice, Associate VP for Marketing and Public Relations at The University of Florida gave a great presentation today to kick off “Crisis Communication 2.0 Week,” the first webinar series offered by Higher Ed Experts. Close to a hundred people were in attendance as several participants […]

Register now for “Crisis Communication 2.0 Week,” a 3-webinar series on June 26, 27 & 28 featuring Michael Dame (Virginia Tech), Joe Hice (UF) and Andrew Careaga(UMR)

May 2nd, 2007 Karine Joly No Comments

Some of you might remember the words of Michael Dame, Director of Web Communications at Virginia Tech, in his letter to his higher ed colleagues (that would be you) he asked me to publish a couple of weeks ago: I hope that in the near future, we’ll have the opportunity to discuss our experiences to […]

Higher Ed TV: “We are Virginia Tech” and “What does it mean to be a Hokie” from Bryce Carter, VT student and blogger

April 20th, 2007 Karine Joly No Comments

For “Hokie Hope,” an alumni-led declaration of a national “Orange and Maroon Effect” day, I added a few touch of maroon to this blog’s emblematic orange (removed after April 20). As regular readers know, I started to review higher ed YouTube videos a few months ago. Before the Virginia Tech Tragedy, the university had started […]

Virginia Tech Web Team wants to thank you all

April 19th, 2007 Karine Joly 3 Comments

Just a quick post to share this message that Michael Dame, Director of Web Communications at Virginia Tech, asked me to pass to all of you: To our higher education colleagues, Words cannot adequately express our gratitude for your response to our tragedy here at Virginia Tech. Our web team has been overwhelmed by the […]

Virginia Tech Tragedy: Evaluating VT Web crisis communication plan

April 18th, 2007 Karine Joly 9 Comments

Inside Higher Ed is running this morning a must-read piece for communication professionals titled “Evaluating the Response.” Written by Andy Guess, this article reviews the tragic events from a crisis communication standpoint, provides a link to the University Relations crisis communication plan (last updated in February 2002) used Monday, and offers some light on the […]