Is mobile the next trend?

Recently I have noticed an “uptick” in the chatter of the  higher ed community about mobile sites and mobile apps for institutions. One year from now I wonder if the dominant conversation in higher ed turns from “social media” to “mobile”? With the speed at which some of our institutions move maybe that will be in two years.

With the current economic climate at most institutions there will be a focus on enrollment and admissions. According to most of the research that I have seen one of the largest “drivers” for a student to apply is the visit to campus. With Apple cutting the entry point for iPhone users to $99 more and more of our visitors will be carrying these devices in the next year. Wouldn’t higher ed be well served to meet the needs of prospective families visiting with mobile sites and apps aimed at these visitors?

There are over 25,00 apps in the Apple app store but my best count only 5 are from higher ed. What will that number be one year from now? 25 …50…100?

Athletic websites how do you take advantage?

One of the trends in higher education web management is to outsource your athletic website to a Content Management System that is built to specifically to handle your athletic department. Athletic sites are very individualized and sometimes it is tough to meet the demands of your sports information office well. When you host these sites off campus you don’t have to worry about tailoring your content management system to meet your athletic department’s needs.

The positive impacts  far outweigh the negative ones on your website and broader marketing efforts. They include:

• increased efficiencies for an already overworked sports information staff
• less to maintain for the marketing/web staff
• the opportunity to use technology built specifically for athletics

There are two key negative impacts; the first being the increased cost and the second the loss of the ability to share content across the same technical platform. However there are ways to take advantage of the robust content engine that your athletic department provides with the use of RSS technology.

As a higher ed web manager if you can afford to I would outsource your athletics website. For a small cost you can take advantage of lots of tools and capabilities that these athletic specific CMS vendors have to offer

The future of alumni magazines

This week the new Newsweek has been a hot conversation on the CASE CUE (university editors listserve). A few weeks back Newsweek introduced a new look and new approach to their magazine.

In the May 16th issue editor Jon Meecham (who spoke at Gettysburg last year) described the changes:

And so the magazine you are holding now—the first issue of a reinvented and rethought NEWSWEEK—represents our best effort to bring you original reporting, provocative (but not partisan) arguments and unique voices. We know you know what the news is. We are not pretending to be your guide through the chaos of the Information Age. If you are like us, you do not need, or want, a single such Sherpa. What we can offer you is the benefit of careful work discovering new facts and prompting unexpected thought.

The chief casualty is the straightforward news piece and news written with a few (hard-won, to be sure) new details that does not move us significantly past what we already know. Will we cover breaking news? Yes, we will, but with a rigorous standard in mind: Are we truly adding to the conversation? When violence erupts in the Middle East, are we saying something original about it? Are our photographs and design values exceptional? If the answers are yes, then we are in business.

As a long time Newsweek reader I was impressed at the new approach and one particular line stuck out for me. “Are we truly adding to the conversation?” They truly get it. I don’t want the hardcore news I can get that up to the minute on the web from a weekly magazine. Can they give me value added? Can they make me think? Can they bring a different perspective that I haven’t thought about before? Can they offer me a fresh idea?

Are we seeing the future of alumni magazines? Maybe not this year or next but in 10-15-20 years when this generation is in their mid 40’s and  comfortable with technology and news on the web. Could this be the future for higher ed alumni magazines?

Portal Conference 2009

Next week over 160 web/IT professionals will attend the 4th Annual portal conference – portal2009 at Gettysburg College.

The featured keynote speaker at Portal2009 is Richard N. Katz, Vice President of EDUCAUSE, and author, co-author, or editor of dozens of books, monographs and articles on a variety of higher education, management, and technology topics. His book, Web Portals and Higher Education: Technologies to Make IT Personal, published in 2002 is still considered one of the definitive sources on portals in higher education. We expect portal 2009 to be the best conference to date, so get your presentation proposals in to share your portal stories with your colleagues from higher education institutions from around the globe.

The theme for the conference, portal2009: users uses usability, is meant to reflect the idea that portals have many definitions, and the different portals have different audiences (users), tools (uses) and interfaces (usability). The more everyone knows about the differences, the more people can continue to evolve their institution’s portal into a more useful commodity.

I will try to live blog and tweet any of the sessions I am attending. You can follow live on twitter @portal2009.

Stretching your campus by using twitter

Yesterday was our divisional retreat. At Gettysburg Web Communications reports alongside Admissions, Financial Aid, Communications and Public Relations, Athletics, and Institutional Analysis within the Enrollment and Educational Services (EES) division. We have been having lots of discussions surrounding social media and wanted to take the opportunity to have a conversation with everyone in the division.

We also tried something a little out of the box for a college retreat. Instead of brining flip charts to report out we used a twitter hashtag. Each group that was brainstorming on how to use social media in a variety of settings had a tweeter who sent the groups reports up on the screen. Todd Bennett (@jtoddb) from decimal 152 who we work with on web projects chimed in a few times as well which gave the audience a chance to see the true collaboration capability of twitter.

I think we saw it work with limited sucess. It was tough to follow the all of the tweets since they were out of order by group so if we did it again we might give each group a hashtag as well. It did give everyone in the audience a chance to see twitter work live and hopefully allow them to continue their brainstorming past the one day retreat.

I got some mixed reaction afterwards but my first rule for using social media is you are going to fail at some things you can’t be afraid.