September 2010
0 posts
5 tags
BYU goes independent
One of the first football games I went to at the University of Wyoming was against Brigham Young University. The taunts hurled in their direction from the student section are not quite fit for a family publication.
In any case, the Cougars of BYU are leaving the friendly confines of the Mountain West Conference after this season, choosing instead to strike it on their own as an independent,...
August 2010
3 posts
4 tags
What higher ed can learn from summer camps
Despite the obvious comparisons between the age groups, this summer has been transcendent because it’s the first summer I’ve been in a management position at camp rather than just in a leadership role managing an activity and kids in a cabin.
Camp has been a big deal for me; I’ve done it for every free summer I’ve had as an adult doing it. I also have a very difficult...
3 tags
Zilch
Currently reading.
July 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Rework for Higher Ed
I read this book in a few hours because I really appreciated the way it was arranged and view it more as a reference book. The lessons it contains were instructive and while they’re applicable to a variety of settings, industries and institutions; the lessons contained for higher ed were plentiful.
Among them were:
Build an audience. So much of what we write is boilerplate. Rather than...
Knowing where you're going
I think I knew this summer would be mentally exhausting. But I underestimated to the extent this would happen. I expected to write more and read more, but those things take a lot of discipline from me…more the writing than the reading. I’ve blazed through books, but I’ve found it almost impossible to focus on writing anything substantive.
I have no idea what any of this means,...
1 tag
Amongst the crowd
Over the past year, I’ve learned a lot more teaching social web strategy and discussing web tools with people whose lives aren’t consumed with it than I ever did working in the field directly. Sometimes, you have to engage with your consumers and your audience and I’ve found this extremely helpful.
One of the things I remember talking about a lot last year from teaching my class...
May 2010
4 posts
3 tags
The Degree in Three →
A New York Times Op-Ed arguing that the four-year degree is a wasteful relic that ought to be condensed to three years. Ezra Klein’s Washington Post blog talked about it, too.
edustir being cutting-edge had this discussion back in September.
I still think this is a good idea on balance, but doing it citing the rising costs of higher education are a bad catalyst for this type of change....
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Broadcast rights, social media and the soul of...
As recent as last fall, the Southeastern Conference announced it would ban social media from it’s stadiums. The conference reversed course after a backlash, but the thought process remains aimed at viewing social media as an adversary rather than a benefit to their bottom line.
The reason is simple. College sports leagues are making massive amounts of money selling broadcasting rights....
4 tags
Twitter, What Is It Good For?
I ran across a Twitter policy page today that made me begin to think about my own use of the site and precisely what I use it for.
If you’ve been reading for a while (thanks!) you know that I have a complicated history with Twitter. I went from a Twitter skeptic to a person who recognized it’s value, though the latter post was mostly tongue-in-cheek because of the older one.
...
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How to spin integrity in a social media world
We often think of intercollegiate athletics as a domain of wins and losses, as a locale of choices that relate only to the actions within the lines. But every once in a while, the humanity of these activities rears its head.
Grant Whybark, a golfer at St. Francis University in Illinois recently ignited a national conversation about a sporting event that few will ever care about again after it...
April 2010
8 posts
5 tags
The human factor
What’s the one unifying theme behind why we do most of what we do? Other people. The past year has been an interesting one, because I’ve spent a lot more time dealing with ordinary people who don’t deal with marketing as a regular part of their lives, rather than the previous five or so that I spent dealing with matters of marketing, web strategy and so forth to the schools,...
2 tags
Seth Godin to Higher Ed: Adapt or Die →
Why do colleges send millions (!) of undifferentiated pieces of junk mail to high school students now? We will waive the admission fee! We have a one page application! Apply! This is some of the most amateur and bland direct mail I’ve ever seen. Why do it?
Because everyone else does it? Because innovation and doing things differently is scary? If we don’t make our own solutions,...
6 tags
Some things worth reading
Here are some blog posts or articles your might find interesting from other people:
User Experience Engagement Metrics (52 Weeks of UX)
When (and Where) Winning Is Every Really Everything (Eric Fletcher)
Northern Arizona University wants to be when students are in class. (Arizona Republic via @andrewcaraega)
Debt, Time and the Job Market for Humanities PhDs (Sociological Images)
My...
4 tags
The composition of a match point
Yesterday marked the last match of the JV tennis season here.
The match was comprised of two diametrically opposed lessons within the span of an hour. First, the match was rough because it was the first time we’d suffered a match loss in well over a month. The other team was very talented from top to bottom.
One of my doubles teams faced off against a foe that had them down early 5-2....
4 tags
Unveiling a brand new camel
My favorite brand identity blog Brand New tipped me off to the unveiling of Connecticut College’s upgrade of their athletic brand.
Out goes the camel of old
and in comes a new, fiercer angrier camel.
You should read Brand New’s critique of this new mark, because it’s not often enough that small college athletic marks get the sort of critique (or frankly, design attention)...
3 tags
Social web forces BCS to change
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the cartel that controls college football’s national championship (in lieu of the NCAA like other sports) has gradually worked to reach skeptical audiences who believe it’s methods are less than fair to all of the teams in college football’s highest division.
One of the ways the BCS tried to stem the tide was to create a Twitter account last...
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Impossible, yes, so let’s get to work.
I watched the documentary Man On Wire, the 2009 Oscar winner about Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the World Trade Center buildings in 1974.
I took a lot away from the film, but the most notable thing to me was how much preparation went into planning it. It took six years from the time Petit got the original idea in his head to the time he actually attempted it. Included in that...
4 tags
Taking your own shots
Lately, I’ve had this recurring image from middle school playing out. It goes something like this: My intramural team makes the championship game. Since it’s gym class, there are no subs, teams are broken down into five players each or and so, I have to actually start and couldn’t be relegated to the bench. Our entire gym period is watching the game, save for the ten of us on...
March 2010
10 posts
3 tags
Resources v. Results
The reason many people cheer for Cinderella during March Madness is understanding what they’re up against. The rules don’t provide these financially overmatched teams with help to defeat the leading teams and their limitless resources. So they have to get creative and work at their craft. It’s often the scrappy underdogs that pioneer systems that keep them competitive. Those...
4 tags
What winning is about
The reason I think we find sports in society so compelling is because it looks nothing like real life. The rules are defined, there are boundaries and if you don’t outperform the people you’re competing against, you will lose.
When you’re competing on an even playing field under the same rules; it doesn’t always mean that people around you won’t cut corners. But you...
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“Calipari has 1,113,647 followers on Twitter, 138,325 fans on Facebook, and his...”
– Facebook and Twitter Keep Calipari Ahead of the Game (via NYTimes)
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Creating a personal narrative
It’s not unusual for Gen Y types to come to the job market with a dizzying array of jobs, interests and things they’re trying to do. It’s not only a stigma of the millennials, though. Due to the shifts in the job market and how differently hiring is than it was decade ago, many people are entering the marketplace with a wide range of skills. If they’ve had one career...
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A March Madness story of a different sort →
With all of the chatter about March Madness, here’s a story I ran across about Montana’s Anthony Johnson and his wife. Yes, they lost tonight. But this story proves the young man is a winner anyway.
Here’s a video profiling them from last year, too.
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The fallacy of the worthless degree
The New York Times has a story on students who attend trade schools to give themselves a boost on a possible career, only to find themselves in a worst spot than they started due to lack of opportunities and now saddled with debt from their practical education.
None of this is really new, nor is it a surprise and it’s not likely to change anytime in the near future. One of the readers...
2 tags
Social media & The independent school
Independent schools have a bit of a different thing to consider when deciding on ways to leverage social media. While they’re not colleges, many of them are very different than traditional parochial or private schools in local communities due to their recruiting and alumni considerations.
It’s for all of these reasons that social media is just one more tool in a wide arsenal of...
4 tags
On freebies and "work" on the web
So how would I get a web site for a non-profit that has no budget?
We’ve surely heard this question before, no? I’ve spent nearly an entire term in the classroom talking about the value of work and how, if people don’t understand what goes into something it’s hard for them to value it.
For too many people, work on the computer is still voodoo magic that gets done by...
Friday Links
Here are some random links that I felt like sharing:
Nomenclature: Product Hierarchies (brandsinger) First Twitter sample clearance? (Mashable) Twitter as a teaching tool (Tim Nekritz) 1920s proposal to ban women drivers (Sociological Images)
The album of the week is Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More
3 tags
Interview with Joe Favorito
I’ve been reading Joe Favorito’s blog for a while now and I especially enjoy when he dovetails into talking about college athletic branding and marketing.
Joe has been in the business for over decades and he’s worked for two NBA teams, the US Tennis Association, the WTA Tour and other sports organizations during his time in the business.
He was gracious enough to agree to...
February 2010
7 posts
3 tags
On social networking in schools
Schools banning social networking sites is counterproductive. The reason you still hear so many stories about people getting in trouble about something they’ve done online, is no one has been educated. The teachers don’t often know how to use social web tools, many parents are afraid of the technology and the students therefore just do what kids often do — learn from friends or...
3 tags
Seeing Red: Eastern Washington to install red turf...
When you’re a non-major college team playing at the second highest level of college football in the country, any sort of positive national attention is a good thing. The decision to install the nation’s first red turf field at Eastern Washington University has given the FCS-level team more mileage than anyone probably could’ve imagined.
It began with a $500,000 donation from...
4 tags
Who's your....mascot?
The University of Mississippi has been without an official mascot to complement their Rebels nickname, since Colonel Reb was retired in 2003. A campuswide referendum held Tuesday indicated that students want a new mascot. One of the possibilities?
Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars. They created a site aimed at getting students to vote yes on the new mascot referendum.
Apparently, a student...
4 tags
Stirring things in a different direction
I’ve been kicking around ideas for a while to keep this blog alive. I started it two years ago this week. Given my goals when I began it were extremely modest, I’ve far surpassed my expectations. But I enjoy the dialogue and interaction with my peers in higher ed immensely, so while I considered ending it a few times, I thought better of it.
Instead, I moved the blog to a new platform...
3 tags
“Today’s challenged economy has given schools a much wider swath of...”
– Joe Favorito makes the case for college ADs as CEOs in the wake of Michigan’s hiring of Domino’s CEO David Brandon as their new athletic director.
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Should we say goodbye to the 12th grade?
Image via Wikipedia According to a Utah lawmaker, the state’s budget woes indicate to him a need to end high school with the 11th grade.
Contending 12th grade is a wasted year for most high school students, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, suggested Monday that the state could save $102 million by compressing high school into three years…Buttars outlined his proposal for members of...
June 2009
1 post
2 tags
Social media, participation and the free-rider...
Image via Wikipedia Story Article in the Times about blogging and how you can go from being very interested in writing, to not very active at all. It probably spends too much time talking about people who blog because they wanted to get rich and famous, but it’s a pretty good article anyway. The quote I liked most was from Nancy Sun of Saladdays.org
“The Internet is different now,” she said...
March 2009
3 posts
Don't be Foolish, use Twitter
As promised in my post about why Twitter isn’t any better than high school, here’s a gushing post about the sheer brilliance of Twitter.
To the person on the outside looking in, Twitter is akin to passing notes to your friends about the most inane matters possible. To the more cynical among us, it’s a reflection of the general “me first, me second” tendencies of...
3 tags
Debunking "You have to go where the students...
“If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump too?” - Someone’s mom.
Following students to social networking sites like Facebook and alumni to LinkedIn are a pretty popular trend right now. The common refrain is, “You have to go where the students are to reach them.” But this pervasive refrain ignores a very powerful message embedded within that...
We need more social media experts
There are all sorts of anti-expert memes on the web right now, decrying the so-called crop of social media “experts” who want to pontificate onto the world about the wonders and joys of the social web.
Social media is about as opaque a term as you can get and yet, there are still gobs of people on the outside looking in. Clearly we have a lot of work to do.
We need more experts.
We...
February 2009
2 posts
Social media isn't medicine
It’s not going to make you better. I’m not the first person the bring this up, but it’s frustrating when you hear people talk about “getting on Facebook” as if it’s the end all, be all solution to all of their web marketing problems. Web strategy, especially in higher education isn’t going to work when you have thousands of people using the web site as a...
Twitter is just like high school
You’ve got your bullies. Divas. A whole “in” crowd of people who talk to each other, but don’t actually listen to what’s going on around them. Sorry folks, but once around the high school block is enough for me.
I think that’s my biggest criticism of the Twitter phenomenon. It’s like this elaborate Ponzi scheme built around the fraudulent notion that if...
July 2008
1 post
The web & the offices behind it
More and more, I can see a definite need for institutions to position the web as an institution resource poised for success. No different than say, public relations and its place serving the entire message control for the college or university, is the web and experts devoted to it within an institution’s organization.
Every school is different. Organizational charts are something that each...
May 2008
1 post
Content cowboys & the need for wranglers
It’s a really strange thing when you start to deal with CMS vendors and understand the way that they do the things they do.
What do I mean?
I mean that it’s really interesting how they spend all of this time building products that are sold as newer/faster/better than what’s already out there in the status quo, but in reality, it’s just another layer of closed-source...