May the Force Be With You

Pumpkin carving was fun! Check out my Vader pumpkin.

I <3 these things...

Things for which I am thankful
Not an exhaustive list by any means…

(Not in any particular order either)

• God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
• Family
• Close friends that truly know you and love you anyway
• Friends that call you out on your "baloney"—but not in front of others.
• Friends that do not assume that they know you better than you know yourself.
• Friends that actually DO know you better than you know yourself.
• People that do not act like they know everything about anything.
• People that know a whole lot more than I do.
• Cool fall weather--I'm so glad you're here!!!!
• Hoodies and sweat pants
• Kittens
• Flowers
• Sonic cranberry limeades
• Smiles
• our government (whether or not we agree with actions individuals in office may or may not take)
• our military
• friends that try to set you up on blind date
• friends that don't get ticked when you're not really comfortable with the idea of a blind date
• frogs, toads and turtles
• music
• sunrises
• sunsets
• the ocean
• friends that are in Louisiana that "knew you when…"
• friends in Ada that "remember that time…"
• new friends in Texas that always rock my socks off
• friends that have moved away but will always be in my top 10
• friends that know I love all of them equally…
• soft, cool grass (freshly mowed)
• the number pi
• asymptotes…they blow my mind!
• hugs (might be in my top 5)
• curiosity
• the word "blarg"…thanks Amanda
• post-it notes
• love
• iTissues (hehehe)
• water and air
• dr pepper...aka Nectar of Life
• the color blue (like the darkest part of an afternoon sky)
• prayer
• two words: ROAD TRIPS!!!!
• my awesome ability to do the robot. :-)
• mascot suits
• ninjas

I love this photo! What memories...

• ridiculously large pencils
• meeting famous people randomly {cough Don King cough}
• my Website Hero mug.

BLARG! yes. I say, BLARG!

If you're in no mood to read about my frustrations and negative mood, then read no further. :-)
I have actually written about some of these before, but after training faculty and staff for a few days straight, my brain is tired and I feel as though I need to vent.

And tomorrow I plan to post a list of things for which I am thankful, the OCT 2008 edition (for those of you keeping track on myspace).

I have been frustrated lately: work, school (although I did get accepted into grad school! woo-hoo!), missing my family, friends—all of these have been on my mind.

I think if I write some things down, perhaps it will allow me to release them and they won't continue to tick me off today.

1. Why has the soda pop industry created a conspiracy to get me to drink 2.5 servings of pop at one time by packaging it in a 20 oz bottle? Or is this actually a governmental conspiracy to make a serving only 8oz? Curse the Nectar of Life...yes, curse thee Dr. Pepper!

2. Why does everyone have to gripe, groan or otherwise complain when they find out that my favorite baseball team is the Yankees or that my second fave is the Cubs? Yes, I realize they haven't won the Series in 100 years. blah blah blah... I don't complain when your favorite song is "Idiot Boyfriend" by Jimmy Fallon…I like this song, too, but come on…Idiot Boyfriend? Really? That's your FAVORITE? Perhaps it's a sign. :-P

3. Why do girls find it necessary to pretend their IQ is about 20 points less than it is to attract a guy's attention?

4. Why do guys fall for this? Or do guys really prefer girls that provide little or no intellectual stimulation? Do guys really just want a girl that thinks anything they say is "awesome" and "so smart"…"oh, you're talking over my head I don't know." Argh!

5. Why don't more people appreciate the humor of a giant pencil? I think they're great!

6. Why do people find it necessary to not only interrupt but "top" your story? Thank you Saturday Night Live for making a skit out of this…I loved every second of it. Really.

7. Where's my other quarter so I can go get a Dr. Pepper?

8. Where have all of my paper clips gone? I don't use them that often. Can someone send me back some papers with a paper clip on them?

9. Email forwards that claim you'll not find your true love if you don't send it to 23 friends in 2 minutes…or claim that it is being tracked by a large company and your friend of a friend of a friend of a friend did in fact receive a check for 1, 345.88 just last week. argh. Need I say more?

10. I read a question on Yahoo! Answers this morning asking about genetic selection and "discarding" the embryos that do not meet certain qualifications. This not only made me sad but really ticked me off! Are you KIDDING me? If you really just want a blue eyed girl with dark hair, go adopt. They need loving families and you don't have to "discard" any unwanted embryos. This sounds to me like a fancy way of trying to accomplish what Hitler was doing—totally unacceptable!

11. mmmm…why is this Dr. Pepper so good?

12. What's the deal with the number 13? I know comedians have stated this before, but I'm not trying to get a laugh from you, I want to know: who do you think you're fooling, Mr. Big Building Floor-Numberer, by calling the 13th floor the 14th? Know what's sad? Many are ok with this..they don't feel so scared.

13.

14. The question formerly known as 13.

15. I love soft carpet not cold linoleum. Who's with me?!?!?!??!

16. My office is messy. I need to clean it.

17. Why do people have to assume that since I'm younger than they are that I know nothing about the job I was hired to do?

18. Why can't we wear flip flops to work? Or maybe blue fuzzy slippers. It would really make my day better.

19. I think I'm a little obsessive. Upon realizing this was number 19 I fought with the question, "should I make it an even 20? Or 21 since I skipped 13. What about 22 since 15 is the artist formerly known as 14?"

Even though my chest tightens and my palms sweat at this moment as I haven't resolved my issues referenced in 19, I thank you for reading this…not even my Dilbert, Tales from Redesignland or Orlando photo can cheer me at the moment…but…can't….look…away….CURSE YOUR HANDSOME FACE ORLANDO BLOOM!

Hey kids, rock n roll...rock on!

So, the HighEdWeb Conference was a blast. I met some folks that I've "known" on some social networking sites for a few months. Here are just a few of the pics from our opening reception.

Get a Clue...shift happens

Gordy Pace, Dir of IT communications Univ of Montana

Reading homework The Cluetrain Manifesto. the premise was that everything would change in the business world w/net. "A powerful global conversation has begun."

The people who look like they know a lot actually have gaps in their knowledge. If have a team, then others can fill in the gaps.

More homework Groundswell. Studies in how people are using technologies.

Consequences:

• balance of pwr has shifted
• control of pr/marketing has been weakened
• your brand is what your customers say it is
• your employees are connecting online, building ideas and discussing your policies, etc.

P-people. assess customers' social activities

O-objectives

S-Strategy

T-technology

Too often people jump to the T and just say "we want facebook" rather than looking at what our students are using or want us to use. what are our objectives? then come up with a strategy and then determine what technologies are available.

UPDATE 2:20 PM

more homework naked conversations about blogging

perceptions about blogging may be incorrect.

Aparently text message novels are big in Japan.

Says he started a technology think tank and included a LOT of people. I think there were over 50 depts on that slide!

He's a big proponent of creating a strategic plan.

Having the juxtaposition of a driving force and a restrictive force and understanding those helped in their portal implementation.

He likens web 1.0 to living in the suburbs and web 2.0 to living in the city. :-) but not really the best metaphor but it did open up conversation. b/c some people are scared of the city or just like living in the suburbs.

Keynote--Kyle Ford

Woo-hoo! He did the Xfiles site. I loved the Xfiles. Now he's at Ning. Yay for ning :-)

What is Social Networking?
A set of online tools that allows for content creation and community building. (his def)

tools of sn
forum, video, photos, music, etc.

Even ebay or amazon are social networks.

AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy in the 90's. Then came along Netscape.
Publishing 2.0 in the early 2000's:
Blogger, TypePad, WordPress able to self-publish

Now...2008:
Facebook, myspace, youtube, linkedin you're joining THEIR world --facebooks world.

Ning gives the people the freedom to create your own social networks for anything. Co-creator of ning was also co-creator of precursor to Netscape. Then he sold Netscape to AOL.

Ning means "peace" in chinese.

He's giving us a quick and dirty on how to create your ning network in one minute.

UPDATE 1:00 PM

Showing us examples of ning sites: NKOTB, 50cent, TI, HighEdWeb, Ask a Ninja

can use social networks for language immersion, video conferencing, social notes.

One class can't take paper notes, must use a wiki=social note taking.

Social networking is a 2 way street.

used to be i think therefore i am
now it's we participate therefore we are

likens social networks to calculators. when it comes along it levels the playing field. it would be silly to not use the tools.

Kyle says we should build better soldiers. They learn to use the tools and process the info.

Webcasting

Joel Doepker, Dir of pub relations and communications at Ozarks Tech Community College (OTC) Has won 5 Emmys in News Photography and Editing (his voice is like butter. so mezmerizing. can tell he worked in TV)

Key partnerships for success:

• college admin
• media services (former professionals)
• web services/IT
• Public Relations

Had the MO gov on campus, so wanted a video of visit in a timely manner for web site. Gov on campus Monday, had the video online by Tues. afternoon. working on processes to do that more quickly. sent the video to gov's office so they had immediate feedback from the college for coming.

College events, student profiles, dept profiles, etc. for videos

The college president does a video to keep campus informed on things.

Presenter does monthly video newsletter.

UPDATE 11:00 AM

Public relations submits story ideas, he records interviews, records the video, write and edit script, then post video to website. relies on media services.

Production time=7 hrs. Editing is the biggest chunk of time.

Benefits for college beyond the web site for video:

• recruitment
• community relations
• gov't relations
• internal communications
• media relations

Local tv stations are glad OTC is providing them video content. Sent video with the press release. Was able to provide the tv station with interviews and video footage and was on the 5:00 news b/c the station was too busy to come out.

News organizations are desperate for content for tv AND web sites.

UPDATE 11:10 AM

They make sure they use tech and & equipment for broadcast standard, not just cheap stuff.

Lessons learned:

• work closely with IT b/c video was WAY too big
• student background
• communicate your vision

We can learn from his mistakes. Had a student in video that was on academic probation so not the best representative in a video. Was most popular kid at college, not best rep for "poster child".

Just debuted a foundation video to raise $. (but he says it's 8 mins...I think that may be too long. hmmm...)

Note to self: could be a possiblity for our marketing consultant to work on these.

Wants to integrate more students b/c students want to hear from students. and not all students are 18 or 19 years old.

Q: what resolution are you using? it seems pretty crisp and high detail for online.
A: He's showing us a direct file, not the shrunked file off of their website. it's 3x4 on web, 16x9 here.

Q: do you stick with windows media?
A: yes. we'd like to do something different, but we're working on it.

Q: noticed in your workflow you had transcript. do you provide that?
A: i saw what you did yesterday, so yeah, i want to have the transcription for our videos. and flash applications for it.

Q: Can you do the voiceovers for our videos? (laughter from whole audience...see, told you those following on twitter, voice is mezmerizing)
A: talk to me after. LOL.

Hmm, discussing the video releases and public domain and "gentleman's agreement".

Analytics with Kyle James

Kyle directs us to his blog doteduguru.com says all this info is on his blog.

Says we are important. We could put a redirect to a porn site from the homepage and have more of an impact than any speech the campus pres could give. LOL

Getting students to our school is #1. Other things we have to determine what's important for our site like RSS feeds, video, etc. Must define those before look at any data/analytics.

Terms:
visits, unique visits, etc.

Misunderstood terms:
pageviews--what's good? 3 or 5? pageviews are irrelevant.
time on site--there's no way to know how long anyone was on the last page. the avg time on site doesn't acct for last page
bounce rate--bounce means they come then leave.
exit--they come to site and visit other pages then leave. leaving to subdomain would register as a bounce.
traffic types--direct (bookmarks too), search
benchmarking--Alexa, compete, quantcast are free services
edurank.nucloud.com--Kyle and friends are doing this, is in "alpha-beta" version. :-) says to check it out and let him know of any bugs you find.

UPDATE 9:56 AM

10/90 rule--10% of budget on tools and 90% on people.

Many use google analytics in this session. Can track more than one domain in google analytics.

Sitescan and WASP are recommended by Kyle.

Data overload!!
must segment and filter. Can set up to 100 profiles within google analytics by city or dept.
set up site search within GA.

set up a sandbox profile and a raw data one so can get all raw data.

standardize your data: capitalization, www --to use or not to use. make sure so set up for both.

able to filter subdomains, and exclude IP filter.

UPDATE 10:10 AM

can filter by country, region, city. says the order of filters are important, so will have to play with that to get it right.

full referral URL filter is available

destination URL tagging is important and easy to set up. Great for campaigns. can send to short URL then redirect to landing page so can track the short URL to see how campaign is faring.

Can track links to docs such as a PDF viewbook, or videos, flash. He thinks this report is still a little buggy, but worth paying attention to.

Can tag audience segments and is great for email marketing campaigns. Says he hasn't used this one, but if anyone has he'd like to hear about it.

Site Search Report can help you to see where the search was started and how many times they had to redfine that search can help you know what is difficult to find on your site. These things may need to be made more apparent.

Also helps with terminology: residence halls vs campus dorms. Can see what users are calling things. Can tell if they got frustrated and bounced after trying to search.

Can tell what search engine used outside and what keywords or pages are brining in lots of traffic.

UPDATE 10:15 PM

page titles are important for SEO. referring sites report is helpful.the 404 error page report is great. can add some code to those page.

"It's all about your user, guys."

Can track more than our site. Facebook or even offline campaigns. When send out URLs on offline ads, can track what is effective and track which URLs are being used.

Tracking blogs: Feedburner and ShareThis
Can monitor social media to see what's being used: facebook for college kids but myspace seems for those that don't go--his experience anyway.

Always test.
Don't get caught up in numbers, look at the trends.
Set up a reporting schedule and track key metrics.
Set up goals.

UPDATE 10:25 AM

Q: How to help marketing people understand the data in the reports?
A: Audience member: we provide a custom report that makes sense to them. Kyle: can have a report scheduled to send to particular people on specific dates

Q: how to get tracking code?
A: Kyle: adds it himself. Can drop the code into the template near the footer tag

Avatars...

Monica spent a year away from her husband, and was a fan of Star Wars Galaxies. Was able to have a virtual reality with each other while away at university. Had a "house" in the game.

Term avatar comes from Hindu mythology where it describes a god decending into a human being and taking it over.

Second life is one place in the "metaverse". Games such as World of Warcraft are part of the metaverse as well as social places like second life.

UPDATE 8:40 PM

Identity exploration is good for learning. When we're allowed to create our own identity, we are able to embody that identity. She says when we think about something it can be like actually doing it.

She's showing a video of roller coaster from a first person perspective. Says that if we watch it, we might have the experience of embodiment...like we were riding the roller coaster.

Research done with babies. Motor awareness of crawling vs walking and how babies learn. They had to experience falling before aware of an apparent gap (with plexiglass over it) before became wary of the gap. Had to relearn the awareness of the gap when began walking. Walking and crawling were two different embodiement experiences.

Watching a video about a science school in second life. Able to animate a cell or organ and can "travel" inside it.

UPDATE 8:47 PM

Oregon Community Colleges (17 cc) have an island in Second Life, funded in part by the state.
Says it takes a lot of coordination. "The Starfish and the Spider" is a book she recommends.

Says there is a big negative that the line between adult content is easily crossed, but you are able to filter out PG only content as well as education only content in SL.

I don't know if it's me or what, but this doesn't seem cohesive...

Says you can get an acct for free. Talking about economy in SL and buying a really nice house for cheap in SL. SL money (Linden) can be traded for US dollars.

There is a ning group RezEd for more info.

Q: Any one academic area that want to participate?
A: no, it's all over the board. many academic areas

Q: using as a community space or building models?
A: it's what they want to do/use.

Q: what's been the cost to use it?
A: to get an island and sustain it was about $7K and $3K to keep going. but also have to have personnel so asked for $50K from the state for her consulting services, etc. Cost to students is free.

Small Change in plans

Slight medical emergency. :-(

Will resume liveblogging my conference sessions Tuesday morning.

Web Managers Roundtable Discussion

I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with all Q & A during this session, but will do my best. :-)

Right now just some introductions.

UPDATE 2:12 PM

Panel still introducing selves. might be taking up too much time. :-(

UPDATE 2:18 PM

Ok. now we're getting to Qs.

Q: who manages web policies at your school?
A: Bob: meetings, arguments about policies and web links. They "slog through it". They view the web as community property so they argue about links etc.
A: Rachel: independent authors so it's hodge-podge
A: Luke: they use their mission and fact that are a christian school, they use those as guidelines. seems to be a self-policing situation...don't use "hammer" approach. don't squash all that comes along.
A: Sri: marketing team sets the style and what goes on public web site. They are having the portal vs web site debate.
A: Doug: "our policies stink" {LOL} They don't have anyone to turn to in order to write policies or anyone driving the effort on their campus.
A: moderator: policies control what people can do and what's acceptable. style guide is a little different.

Q: how are you addressing social media?
A: Doug: they built their own social network for accepted students. only for admissions and recruitment strategies. nothing for current students.
A: Luke: no written policy as to how to use for admissions, but in PR he's picked up a twitter acct and a flikr account. They're hands off...more grass-roots. He did get a uni page for them on facebook. They're holding b/c if they get all these networks, who will manage it? They're getting mixed reviews: students=stay away from facebook; alumni=yeah, this is pretty good.
A: Bob: they're looking into some open source platforms to build several social networks from student to almnus.

Q: pros and cons of adopting google apps
A: Bob:
A: rachel: using google analytics at uni of iowa. that's all for now
A: Luke: some students in pilot program using gmail.
A: Sri: no longer using lotus notes and one option was google and gmail, but they chose microsoft in the end.
A: moderator: had some switch, but having probs with gmail switch for students. they're not getting all emails.

Q: are any of the panel involved in e-communication--newsletters for example.
A: Doug: his office creates templates for e-newsletters and emails for alumni office, admissions,etc. all use template created by web services office. His office sends out a quarterly e-newsletter.
A: Luke: they run a listerv and have several newsletters on campus. they send plain text emails with link to newsletters
A: Rachel: they use constant contact for newsletters. some set newsletters and some adhoc, such as homecoming.
A: Bob: fac/staff newspaper was redesigned in WordPress.

Q: use of video? what are the demands from depts? do you have the infrastructure?
A: Bob: they had a $10 million donation from a microsoft principle that should help with quality video and pushing it out.
A: Luke: youtube, google video that school pushes out, some are produced by students, but how can it be used? lots on facebook and all that but do you want others to see it? some have great content, but poor quality b/c are put out by students or are in bad file format for web. They're working on 2 minute videos.

Now discussing iTunesU. Bob says his overall data transfer went up 4x after being on iTunesU. Doug says on ning they have a place for students to upload own video. Is very popular on campus. Was done cheaply and low quality, but those were some of the best ones. Alumni liked b/c saw what students are doing on campus.

UPDATE 2:40 PM

Q: what is your web team structure? how do you handle rogue depts?
A: Bob: need more people, but those with the money need to be on board. rogue depts? he non-chalantly says he'll have to let the higher ups know about their "rogue-ness". New Q: do you have students work on the web? Bob says they try to use students for web 2.0 things, not so much for web developement.
A: Karen: have about a dozen people that contribute. used to be 70% communication 30% IT, now it's mostly IT b/c of budgeting, but she works with communication. They've hired a student that can use Dreamweaver. "we won't use contribute anymore."
A: Luke: They report to advancement office. has a coworker with a journalism background. need more developers, hoping for new position in web services. Does have a student worker. Says that students have a lot to bring.
A: Sri: they just went under a re-org. says content collaboration has taken a hit. they're working to address it. They do have student workers, even a programmer student worker.
A: Doug: reports to the CIO. grown from 2 to 10 people in the web office. the marketing people on their campus are trying to get them in their office.
A: moderator: Doug has done a good job of getting more dollars and more positions in the office. He makes a good business case for it and then delivers when he gets more resources. Doug: you have to make the case afterward as well.
moderator: Don't think about students as programmers. Content is king. Says can find good student writers.

Keynote--Jeffrey Veen

Man, this guy's resume is impressive!

Said the #heweb08 on twitter was hottest thing going on twitter this morning. WOOT!!!

Correlating web to the intricate choreography of the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics this year.
Giving a humorous bit of history starting in 1974 with watergate, gas price spike, and now discussing musical shifts, etc. Broke up the monopoly of telecommunications. Used the word internet for the first time in 1974 in a white paper. PONG! Tells of first time he saw a "tv with a glass top that he could control". With games came the ability to participate and create. Showing nice pics of old games/computer parts. :-)

IBM released first hard drive. It's about the size of a kitchen counter and cabinets. In today's dollars it cost about $100,000 per GB. now with Google can get storage for $0.15 per GB.

Every minute of the day at YouTube 13 HOURS of video are uploaded. {gasps}

UPDATE 1:05 PM

Showing how using some design and usability guidelines, can make a table of data more useable. "Fine line between information and decoration." You can lose the meaning if over-decorate the data. Spent 15 months at Google to work on google analytics on the dashboard.

Wow...looked at stuff from 1854 for design ideas:

• Cholera outbreak. 1 of 3 people had it and died. Dr. John Snow, one of first anastheisiologists. Mapped the cholera deaths in neighborhood of SoHo. convinced city council for London that the outbreak was being spread by water, not air. He took a drawing from a sewer engineer and edited it for his use. He used visualization to help prove imperical fact.
• Charles Joseph Minard had a chart of Napoleon's march. The graph shows 6 different variables. He wanted to create a graph so people wouldn't have to think in order to understand the data and see the patterns.
• Harry Beck worked for London underground. He drew a map of it in 1930's. he was an engineer so used that knowledge to create a very useful map. Users of the underground only care about where does it stop and what side of the river am I on?
• Jeff was watching Indiana Jones and got some inspiration for a chart on GA. Had a dream that Indiana flew his plane over the data. LOL
• Thought of ways to gain perspective. ex: 2 billion pennies. how to visualize that many pennies? Using images to gain perspective can help. Megapenny.com
• Chris Jordon, artist. uses small images on a large scale to create impact. chrisjordon.com. Point here is to find the story in the numbers and portray that on the web in a visual way.

UPDATE 1:20 PM

Talking about how designers for paper had a change in perspective when had to design for web b/c had to give up control. Control of size page, typography, had to be flexible. One of these designers started csszengarden.com

Realizing we can give up control of design. We can find the story in the data and help it with visualization, but giving the control to users so they can extrapolate what they want, to find their own stories in the data is powerful.

UPDATE 1:30 PM

Wow, he's such a dynamic speaker. Very engaging, knowledgeable and very timely.

Seems like he's saying that on the web we have control in that we create ways to allow the users to control their own data and create their own story or glean what they need/want from a system.

They provided filters to enable clarity. Ex: gapminder. This seems amazing. Note to self, I need to check this out.

New York Times has a casualties of War timeline that has just continued to run.

We need to not only tell stories, but allow discovery. Provide interactivity and allow filtering, not just our providing editing. Web 2.0 is collaborative, collective knowledge.

Teens have a different idea of private vs public.

Veen's fave example of meeting users' needs: us dept of ag: need hay or have hay? LOL

key pts: know yourself and understand the user.

http://veen.com/heweb08.pdf

E-cards

Assist. Dir of Admissions and manager of Web Design & Support are the presenters.

Giving us the stats about Southeast MO State Univ.

E-cards. Really? :-) His words, not mine. haha

quality and detail can promote your brand: mediocre idea executed excellently better than great idea poorly exectuted.

Southeast offers publicly avialable designs for holidays, university occasions (move-in, commencemnt) and activities. This seems easy to make them cool with the use of their mascot. We don't have a mascot at TCC, so would take some brainstorming to get ideas to make them great.

Q from audience: Are these for marketing dept to send out or just for public use to send to each other?
A: we offer both. we'll get to the ones sent to prospective students later.


UPDATE 10:59 AM

If you offer the public versions, have to make sure people know they're available. They use their website landing pages to market the postcards.

Admissions E-cards:

• personalized greeting cardes from each of the counselors
• use cards to inform students of upcoming events: visits to high school by college counselor, freshman orientation, high school guidance counselor training
• "feel good" like h.s. graduation to those that have accepted southeast as their college of choice

UPDATE 11:06 AM

They use professional photographer for Ecards b/c want quality images. They also use their own staff in the photos so students recoginze the staff when get the Ecard as those they've seen at their h.s. or orientation or a campus tour.

The admissions counselors get feedback from the ecards via email since the ecards are sent by the counselors to each student.

Greencard Pro is what they use. Form fields then cards are automatically generated to web pages with persistent URLs. They can separate cards by categories. E-mails are plain text and contain link to image.

Will allow HTML formatting. Can imbed jpg, png, gif flash

Q from audience: isn't imbebedding flash a problem for IE?
A: again, the emails are text only with a link. The link takes them to their persistent URL for the actual card. Exception to this is one dept at their school that "steals" the artwork and sends emails with imbedded jpgs, but that is just that one dept.

UPDATE 11:17 AM

Q: Can you track click-thrus?
A: No, we do get a notice if it's been opened, but that doesn't tell us about click-thrus

Q: Students don't use email that much, so have you looked at using the cards in Facebook?
A: Ecard software not the important part, the point is the personal touch, so you can set this up in Facebook, too. He's not trying to sell Greetingcard Pro, just the idea of sending personal "cards" to your prospective students.

Q: If you don't have click-thru data, how do you justify the time resource if you don't know how many are using them?
A: It only takes an hour or two to design, so it's worth it to them if even have 5 students view it. From the admissions standpoint, they focus on personal communication. They used to send hand written cards, birthday cards, notes so this is more cost effective and they're able to continue the personal communication.

Q: Asking Qs about the actual software but he inherited it, so not sure of costs, etc.

Q: Other than for admissions, how has it been used; alumni, foundation, etc.
A: Those depts are the ones that "steal" the artwork and send them out on their own. Fac/staff use the public ones.

Q: Are the ecards sent one by one?
A: Birthday, yes. admissions counselors used to do those by hand anyway, but can include multiple email adresses if want, but then the email will be generic such as "Future Red Hawk".

UPDATE 11:25 AM

A particpants' school--Univ of New Mexico--does virtual gifts (burgers, bobble-heads, etc). Most popular item was an aggies' voodoo doll (their big rivals).

Social Networking - The Game Changer

I'm curious to see where this one is headed since the presenter is from a vendor: OmniUpdate. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though, they gave us some sweet mugs. :-) Not to mention that one of their guys said he likes my blog last night...yep, I'm famous. hahaha.

Ok, I'll start adding updates once we being, but on a side note, I hate that I'm missing LOL cats with santa, I mean Tony Dunn. ;-)

UPDATE 8:30 AM

Lance Merker of OmniUpdate tells us he's not here as a vendor. :-) He read my mind. hahaa

Social networking born around a campfire with the cavemen. Taking us thru a brief history of technology, starting with the wheel, maritime innovations, shipping, trains, planes, automobiles. and then the telegraph, phone, tv...communications innovations. broke loose with the digital age.

UPDATE 8:38 AM

Three killer apps on the net:

1. email
2. web
3. social networks

With social networks, the game has changed. Social networking to only get bigger. How did the students/prosp. students get so involved w/social networking? How'd we get here?

UPDATE 8:48 AM

Going thru a sample student: Ami. Born after net was invented, grew up with it, had a cell phone at middle school. Had own pc/laptop before high school. Best texter ever. haha. Can do under her desk. Has over 400 facebook friends. To her it's nothing new. It's just something she uses.

Giving us bits of the Pew: Teens & Social Media study.

• those that use social media, 91% to communicate w/friends
• 49% to make new friends

email is still a killer app, but how has its use changed? death reports of email are greatly exaggerated. only 14% teens use email daily IF using a social network.

• social networks are the new killer app.
• not just web-based (twitter, iphone, loopt)
• both private and public
• replace email
• replace chat
• replace blogs
• replace photo & video sharing

UPDATE 8:54 AM

Discussing public vs private social networks. Facebook: institutions have "pages" and "fans" not friends.
Can have rss feeds for your institution page on facebook.

Ning is getting huge for private social networks (highedweb2008.ning.com). Showing us some private ning sites for colleges. **note to self: free if has google ads. 20 bucks a year to take ads off.

UPDATE 8:59 AM

How can we have our students engage with our students? Old ways of advertising aren't sufficient: print, radio, tv, mailings, web...

What can we do right now?

1. assign responsibility: someone HAS to do it--marketing and managing it
2. participate.
3. connect everything. Lance says he'll show us how to do that...

UPDATE 9:03 AM

Magic of RSS feed. Use it to publish to facebook, homepage, blog, media, portals, sms text

Doing a demo, then says will have Q & A.

Using fake school Gallena University to create a facebook and ning page.

UPDATE 9:10 AM

Hmm...I have to say, no real "aha!" moments here. I think we understand everything he's told us so far. I guess I would have preferred more data, something to use as ammo when talking to admins/faculty about social networking, its importance and how we can get buy-in to have a central management for it. Don't get me wrong, he seems to be a champion for all of the above, but he's preaching to the choir. :-) We need to know how to convey this message to our admins and they respond to numbers.

He's setting up a Ning acct right now and tying all his sites together with rss.

HighEdWeb Conference Liveblogging

Gonna go ahead and do this...if anything it will serve as my notes. :-)

Blogification

Well, I haven't blogged in month. :-P Just had too many other things going on, but now's the perfect time to get back to it: HighEdWeb conference is under way!

So far, it's been a bit of an experience. My friend and coworker is here, too but has had a bit of medical difficulties. She scratched her eye {winces}. I felt so badly for her yesterday. She could barely open it...all red and watery. We ate dinner in the hotel lounge (actually pretty good chicken sandwich). She then went to bed early and I met up with my old college roomie, Ang. She's in grad school here (what luck!)

So this morning I went with Ang to church and while I was away Cacy first texted me to go find and buy an eye patch. The next text read, "I'm gone to the urgent care clinic" :-O

So after we tracked her down this morning, we found a renewed Cacy: the doc numbed her apparently scratched cornea and gave her a 'script for some eye antibiotics.

Now that Cacy is feeling better and Ang has homework to do, we're ready to conquer the conference. :-)

I'll post from the conference, but since my readership aren't "in the biz", I'll post the OTHER side of the conference. I hear that Michael Fienen is going to live blog over at SuperSatellite for anyone interested in actual conference-topic blogging.