Posts filed under 'Web 2.0'
The author revolution is amongst us. Content management systems, blogs, and social sites make it almost impossible for anybody not to tell their story. The problem is not necessarily selecting the right authors across campus to tell the institution’s stories. The problem is lessening the restrictions that may be imposed.
I have mentioned that your .edu is slowly becoming only part of how your key audiences gather information on you. Social network participation and blog feeds now complete the story…and you may not have any control over the message being put out. Instead of fighting these forums, let’s roll up our sleeves.
First, how easy can authoring be. All blogging systems, CMSs, and page development tools like Dreamweaver/Contribute and FrontPage have push-button HTML. If not, a service like Texty provides it for you. Content contributors can now add content to the site without many hurdles. If there still are hurdles, eliminate them.
Next, if everyone can tell a story, why not encourage faculty, staff, and students to tell the amazing sides of your institution through social sites. Although the percentage differs for every institution, it is safe to say that your College’s Facebook network may get more time online and visitors than your .edu. Many institutions have created Facebook and MySpace Groups by department to make friends, host events, and post messages. YouTube and Flickr have become media repositories for photos and videos online, categorized and feed-ready.
Use these…encourage your authors to use these. In fact, publicize these across campus, at alumni functions, and in high schools so your site visitors can see the full story without an author ever having to hear, “Our system doesn’t allow you to do that.”
Before you say it, I understand brand consistency, data ownership, and central control. For the .edu, you are right on the money. I also know you have somebody that you don’t want representing your institution online. The truth is that if they want to create a story on the Web, they are merely clicks away. And if what they create is inappropriate, that sounds like a direct conversation with that individual, as the Web is mostly a reflection of personality.
Let authors author. The content that can come from freedom will amaze. Train them, put your faith in them, and build a community of authors that want to move the institution forward.
September 10th, 2007
I know all of you are doing a great job at testing your site visitors on a regular basis through one-on-one usability tests, focus groups, and open feedback. But it is always nice to compare your site visitors with the general population. Pew has been providing great statistics for the past five years, but there are two higher education studies that have come out that need a quick peek.
- E-expectations. This ongoing study, by Noel-Levitz, James Tower, and NRCCUA, touches on the effectiveness of social networking, text and IM use, and online activities. A couple statistics of note: only 33% of prospects have used Facebook or MySpace to connect with current students; 27% have read a current student blog; and 44-49% would accept a text message from a college. This study focuses on how your prospective students want to be communicated with. It is important to remember that their entire online experience with you is not at your .edu.
- The Game Has Changed. This study, by UMass-Dartmouth and Eric Mattson, centers around the comfort level of online communication in admissions offices across the country. Their theory is that colleges and universities are adapting to social networks and online communication more quickly than corporations. I think this has to do with audience focus (of course), but let’s pat ourselves on the back for a second. Some interesting notes: 51% of admissions offices see online tools (blogs, message boards, social networking, online video, podcasting, and wikis) as “very important”; and individual student research is starting to sprinkle into admissions (26% use search engines and 21% use social networks to review a student…scary).
The rule, as always, is to take this research and compare it to your own information, but these two studies give a glimpse into both sides of the table: prospective students’ communication preferences and admission departments’ ability to adapt.
Happy reading.
Eric Hodgson
Content Management Consultant
hodgson.eric@gmail.com
September 3rd, 2007
This is a problem that I am sure plagues many a university or most any large organization in general. Universities are very decentralized in nature. There are Departments, Colleges, Centers and Programs. Each of these has their own assets, and for this I will focus on images but it can apply to video, documents, etc.
How has this problem been handled in the past?
Each department has an internal server where files are stored all over. Many times there is very little logic as to how they will categorize information to find it later. You will have folder after folder of images all over the place with a simple descriptor of the event like “blankaward07″. After time you will build up a lot of assets and this scheme does very little to help you recover this.
Then someday a person from another department will call and say “Matt do you have images from blank and blank event two years ago?” My response is “Oh yeah I took pics at that”. Then I have to say “Where did I save those” many times it can be next to impossible to find them. When I am gone my replacement is left to his or her wits to find the file. BAD METHOD!!
How can you fix it?
How nice would it be to let the person that calls simply look for the asset on their own? What kind of a system would do this? Some sort of an asset management system. I think the ideal implementation of an asset management system is flickr: build a university wide flickr. I would love it if they would ever rolls their system out into some kind of a hosted, active directory authentication based system. But in the mean time you can learn a lot from simply looking at flickr. What is the main thing that makes flickr so great? TAGGING!!
Tagging is a great way of categorizing assets. Why? It is both personal and global. Just look at an image like the one below
Let’s say the Yankees pitcher “beaned” this Red Sox player in the pic.
So I want to tag it.
As a Red Sox fan I would tag it “jerk, poor sports, red sox, yankees”
As a Yankees fan I would tag it “crybaby, great play, red sox, yankees”
So “jerk, poor sports, crybaby, great play” are personal to the person tagging them. But “red sox, yankees” are agreed on and globally helpful tags. This is the power of tags. You can identify an object with lots of tags rather than the old way which is to simply store it in a certain folder.
The idea I am trying to get at here is that as the saying goes “An image is worth a thousand words”. Not a single folder name.
I don’t want to go into to much detail because I want tagging to be the thing that resonates from this post, but there is even more to be learned from flickr. I think many of the social aspects of the site would be useful. I think ratings would be useful so that you get the most useful pic of “graduation”. The idea of groups and pools would be useful so that you can have discussions and image pools based on certain areas of campus or parts of student life for example. Geotagging would be very nice so you know where exactly on campus a pic was taken. Just a few ideas to mull over. . .
At a university there are certain things like the football stadium, basketball arena, academic building, and the student union. The list goes on and on, but these places are of interest to all students. These pictures would be useful to communications / marketing people in all departments and a tool like this would be a great way to manage your universities abundant resources.
- Matt Herzberger -July Blogger
Previous Posts
July 17th, 2007
So going with the assumption you have caught the fever and you use social media. One thing to think about is how much to invest in a certain platform.
What do I mean by this?
Simple. There is always going to be a new Facebook. Everyday a new social network is born that may or may not be worth your time. You need to try to keep on top of things. If you were a very early adopter of social media you may have had an account on Friendster. That ship has sailed, ” It’s so five minutes ago”. You need to think ahead and say hey where are the people going. There is a bit of a herd mentality with web users in the sense they tend to all congregate in the same place. Which is actually a good thing because that is where you can focus your efforts. But to say that YouTube is the best ever video website would probably be false. There are hundreds of other websites that do exactly what they do, some possibly even better. Their success can be summed up with the saying “The right place at the right time.” They currently have the critical mass and that helps sustain them. However such as Friendster they may someday be dethroned.
All I’m suggesting here is that you have to keep up with things on the web. As we all know interests on the web change like the wind. And just to say that you are on Facebook today doesn’t mean that you are covered tomorrow.
*Note* I love Facebook (my profile, add me) and hope it never leaves.
So the question I ask is; Do you use social media? Where do you see it in your marketing mix? What do you think will be the next big thing?
- Matt Herzberger -July Blogger
Previous Posts
July 16th, 2007
Let me be the first to admit that new technologies are at many times daunting for me. I don’t consider myself a programmer. I tend to hack at existing code and somehow string it together with duct tape. I thought microformats would be the same kind of undertaking. But it’s not. To begin, what are microformats? Well you can find a few definitions here . On the microformats.org homepage it says
Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.
Even that is too complicated of a definition, for those of you who do standards based code (as we all should be) are more or less already doing it. You wrap ’s and ’s around data.
It took me awhile to wrap my head around how easy it was. I marked up my college’s directory in microformats in an hour one afternoon. After I was done I was sitting there asking, “Is that really it?”So onto the sell, how does this relate to higher ed? Many of the microformats standards relate to things we do daily.
- hCard
Do you have a directory listings on your site? Oh you do, me too.
- hCalendar
Do you have events / cal on your site? I thought so.
- rel-license
Are there people who need to license their works?
- hResume
Are there resumes on your site?
- course-catalog (still in development)
Do you list courses?
Others include citation, collections, directions, grouping, job listing, measurements, and meeting minutes.
I’m sure everyone would be hard pressed not to find a few of these on his or her site.
At microformats.org there is a site / wiki where you can find detailed info on all the specs. There are also creators to help you in the process. The creators are also open to new microformats and provide info on how to contribute on something that may not have been thought of yet. Still don’t get it? Here is a presentation called “What are microformats?” by Tantek Çelik one of the people behind Microformats.
Next question, how do you work with microformats? There is a plugin for Firefox (please tell me you use Firefox) called Operator . Operator leverages microformats that are already available on many web pages to provide new ways to interact with web services. You can export contact info, add google calendar events, find locations on google maps all just because things are marked up in microfomats. If you download and install the plugin and then go to my site there are microformats embedded and you can export my contact info. to your addressbook. So I leave you with:
The microformats principles
- solve a specific problem
- start as simple as possible
- design for human’s first, machines second
- reuse building blocks from widely adopted standards
- modularity / embeddability
- enable and encourage decentralized development, content, services
P.S. my first post “Mobile Web for Higher Ed ” was the 3rd of July so I thought I would mention it in case it got lost in the shuffle.
- Matt Herzberger -July Blogger
July 9th, 2007
There are lots of areas to talk about in mobile development but my reason for this post was the recent release of the iPhone. Not so much that the phone is cool(which it is) but what it could mean for the mobile industry and changes to come. I will not only hit on ways that mobile can relate to higher ed but mobile in general as well. I never thought much about mobile until an inspiring panel at SXSW this year.
First of all, a definition
mobile web - websites designed for viewing on mobile devices
Being that we are in higher ed it’s a pretty exciting market, most students have and are the most active users of mobile devices. Youths are always on the cutting edge. All throughout college I would buy the newest coolest phones, I’m trying to scrounge up money for an iPhone right now 
There are lots of cool things that most universities and colleges have that we can leverage online like:
- Directories
- Maps
- News and Events
- Calendars
- Communications
- Office hours, library hours, etc.
- Email
- Etc.
How great would it be as a student to be at one end of campus and know if your computer lab was open, or be in the lounge and check to see what time that game was at tonight?
Another very cool idea which is starting to show up but will only develop more in the future are location based services. This could be amazing in a community such as a campus! For example you could be walking by the chemistry building and be alerted that your TA is there for office hours. If your study partner for accounting happened to be around the dorms when you were you can meet to ask a few questions. These can also be used for location based marketing opportunities.
Crisis communications: In the aftermath of Virginia Tech it seems unanimous that mobile will be the best form of communications, while still coupled with other forms. SMS (text messages) can be used to send a message to every student in a very short time circumventing the many times slow and lagging university email servers that will only reach you if you are at a computer and checking your email at the time. You could also get updates throughout if you were stuck in a class.
Also not to forget, third party mobile sites. Many social networks such as facebook, twitter, etc now have mobile sites that you can figure into your marketing.
I will only touch shortly on the development of mobile sites since this isn’t higher ed specific. Mobile site development is essentially the same as development for regular sites as far as rules and standards go, BUT there are subtle differences. A few things to remember are the 3C’s of Mobile Web (Source : Blue Flavor)
- Cost
- If you don’t develop your mobile website responsibly, the user could get stuck with a big bill in order to view your content.
- Content
- Issues like navigation, image sizes, page weight and scripts all need to be considered when thinking about your website on mobile devices.
- Context
- What does your website add to the users mobility? How do you add value to their physical context? What is the context in which they will use your site? On a bus or train?
Here is an example of a university using mobile very well UT Mobile Services you can access their mobile site by going to http://mobile.utexas.edu/. For more technical information you can see my inspiration for the post the Blue Flavor presentation at SXSW and the dotMobi Mobile Web Guide
In the long run I think there will be a lot of development in this market. Right now there are constraints in the U.S. market from mobile providers and politicians which leave the U.S. mobile market years behind where it is in Europe and Japan. Mobile will change the way we gather and interact with information in the near future leaving us no longer chained to our computers.
- Matt Herzberger - July Blogger
July 2nd, 2007
I always heard writers say, “write what you know!” That’s why I love “Paper Cuts” the University of the Arts (UArts) student produced “soap opera.” Found on both the Philadelphia school’s website and YouTube it’s about as real as it gets, even though its fiction.
From their site:
Sex. Drugs. Watercolor. It’s a new semester for the students on the 11th floor of Furness Hall, and Ryan Jefferies is especially excited because after years of applying, he’s finally secured a position as RA. Now he’ll be able to live for free and blackmail freshmen into doing anything he wants. When he meets the bubbly Amanda, he decides his semester is set - she’ll become his girlfriend. But then Jack arrives. He’s a slightly older student who has returned to art school to pursue painting. Ryan and Jack have an immediate antipathy. Soon Amanda falls hard for Jack but Jack only has eyes for Susan. Throw into the mix the sex-crazed Vanessa and Jack’s stoner roommate and and in short order sparks fly.
This past fall I did a campus visit consult with UArts and fell in love with the place. It’s a unique, bold place. I’m not all surprised to see the school support this creative endeavor.
Take a moment to watch the first season of “Paper Cuts” and then share your review by “clicking comments”
Jeff Kallay
June Guest Blogger
Experience Evangelist
TargetX
kallay@targetx.com
June 29th, 2007
Other guest bloggers here have posted about social networking, so I won’t duplicate content. But, I’m sure it’s going to be the “buzz” of the conference.
Businessweek just published a Special Tech Report: The Future of Social Networking.
In my eduWEB closing keynote speech about how we have to stage engaging and compelling online and in-person experiences, you’ll hear me reference JDV Hotels - California’s Largest Boutique Hotel firm. (Hotels and colleges are intimate product choices.)
I’m a big fan of JDV and it’s visionary Founder/CEO Chip Conley. If the experience is the marketing, JDV leads the way. They spend no money on advertising - it’s word of mouth, Joy of Life loyalty club, and an engaging website. I encourage you to spend some time at www.jdvhotels.com:
Test the powers of Yvette the online hotel matchmaker. There’s a fascinating psychographic process JDV uses to theme hotels and match for the best fit. Print, bookmark or click comments to post your top five hotels matches. Bring them with you to the conference, find me and I explain and reveal the behind the scenes process.
Check out the very robust Web 2.0 social networking site they’ve built called “Your California.” This takes the whole social networking site a bit deeper. They just didn’t build a site, to become an active member, you have to somewhat “apply” then be matched with like minded lovers of California. (Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers said, “The Sun May Rise on The East at Least it Settles in it’s Final Location, Californication.”)
Jeff Kallay
June Guest Blogger
Experience Evangelist
TargetX
kallay@targetx.com
June 23rd, 2007
…to sign up for this year’s eduWeb Conference … honest! And I want to thank our June Guest Blog Author — Jeff Kallay, the Experience Evangelist at TargetX — for some great posts so far this June! So keep reading them at this blog, eduWeb BUZZ.
There is a great schedule of presentations, including some recent newsmakers, such as:
… we have two presentations and 1 workshop, of which the presenters have been recently featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN for their success in their undergraduate admissions campaign, admissions blogs and a community-noticed website.
Daniel Creasy, Senior Asst. Dir. of Admissions, of Johns Hopkins University, was featured in The Washington Post in March 2007. He will speak on “The Blog Revolution: Admissions Office Blogs” on Monday, July 23rd from 9:45 - 10:45 am.
Jack Chielli, Exec. Dir. of Marketing Communications, at Wilkes University, whose institution was featured in The New York Times about their successful undergraduate advertising campaign. Jack’s presentation is titled A Majority of One and scheduled for Monday, July 23rd, from 4 - 5 pm.
For the workshop on Tuesday afternoon, from 2- 5 pm, there is Jeff Keeton and Deborah Lucas, from The University of Alabama Birmingham, whose site on the biennial journey to Antartica was featured on CNN. The workshop is titled “Architecting a Hit: How UAB Built a Site the Community Noticed.”
Besides Daniel, Jack, Jeff & Deborah, we have plenty of great presenters speaking on wide range of topics … Second Life, RSS, Web Re-designs, Recruitment, Viewbooks, Microformats and Semantic HTML, Crisis Communications and lots MORE! Check out our program schedule
Come and join us soon for a great learning experience … not only from the presenters but from your peers as well. Look who’s coming!
Sign up NOW!
Shelley Wetzel
Dir. of Marketing Communications &
Conference Director
eduWeb Conference
June 15th, 2007
JUNE 29 - THE RESULTS ARE IN: Millennials top the poll
To see results: click here to go the post or click link to download them Millennials_vs_GenY_SurveySummary.pdf
When I got back into higher education marketing six years ago, Millennials Rising by Howe and Straus was required reading. Then I began to see “Millennials” pop up in conference session titles and more books by Howe and Straus (Millennials Go To College and Millennials in Pop Culture). It seemed like the name was solidly ingrained in secondary and higher education, easily flowing from our lips into conversation along with the companion term “Helicopter Parents.”
Now that Millennials are entering the workforce, mainstream media is reporting about them. But, they refer to them as Gen-Y.
Yesterday I was getting caught up on some reading and came across a recent Fortune Magazine cover story entitled “Manage Us? Puh-leeze!.” It pretty much repeats what we in higher education have experienced for the past seven years, but now this generation is now invading the workplace - helicopter parents and all!
Anyhow - what’s up with the name Gen-Y? Why hasn’t the term Millennials been adopted by the mainstream media?
If I learned anything from Howe and Straus it’s:
- That each generation rebels against the generation before it, and that they don’t want associations that connect them to the previous generation. That’s why Generation-X didn’t like being called “Boomer Busters” and why we took to the name Generation-X after Douglas Coupland’s 1991 book by the same title (with homage to Billy Idol). Doesn’t the moniker Gen-Y associate and connect them to a generation of which they are polar opposites?
- That Millennials are special, unique, and one-of-kind (just ask them or their parents) and deserve a stellar name like “Millennials.”
So is it going to be Millennials or Gen-Y? I’ve created a short, four question survey for you to weigh in on the outcome.
Click Here to take survey (sorry the survey is now closed)
Take just a few seconds to share your preferences and thoughts with me. I’ll post the results at the end of the month.
Jeff Kallay
June Guest Blogger
Experience Evangelist
TargetX
kallay@targetx.com
PS
I do love Millennials, but it’s just as a proud member of Gen-X I don’t want them associated with my very cool generation!
PSS - June 21
Check out the comment by Millennial Ryan Paugh and his website Employee Evolution.com - The Voice of Millennials at Work
June 14th, 2007
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