BarCampBirmingham Announced
BarCampBirmingham has been announced for August 25-26.
Many thanks to Dimitri Glazkov for letting me know about it. Dimitri participated in the recent HigherEdBlogCon conference. Thanks, Dimitri. Looking forward to meeting you there.
Dates: August 25-26, 2006 (coincides with BarCampEarth)
Locations and times: Friday night party / dinner / drinks mixer, August 25th, 8 to 11 PM - Jim ‘N Nick’s Barbecue, 1908 11th Ave S, Birmingham, AL
According to the event’s wiki, here are some ideas about how you can get involved:
…BarCamp offers people the chance to get together and learn and share ideas…
- Join the BarCampBirmingham Google Group
- Participate in BarCampBirminghamPlanning
- Blog about BarCampBirmingham
- Join the BarCampBirmingham Flickr Group
- Tell your friends
- Propose sessions
Looking forward to this. I’d like to meet and chat with some folks from Alabama about all that we’re doing and - most importantly - learn from them. Wish I could take my two classes to this one.
University President Podcasts :: Hollins University
June 3, 2006 by Robert · 4 Comments
Interesting development. I haven’t seen this before. A university president taking to iTunes for message delivery.
Hollins University, a small private liberal arts university in Virginia, offers “women’s undergraduate and coed graduate programs with a liberal arts focus.” Hollins has “819 undergraduate women and 238 coed graduate students. From 46 states and 9 countries.”
In their first program, President Nancy Gray chats about the school.
Hollins University president Nancy Gray talks about happenings at Hollins and answers listeners’ questions. This bimonthly podcast is hosted by public relations director Jeff Hodges.
…focusing on exceptional alumni, new campus facilities and programs, and faculty activities, this podcast serves a useful purpose…
It is billed as a bimonthly podcast. I think once every two months is too little for them to build an audience, but we’ll see. Since I don ‘t know about their staff and resources, it may not be possible for them to do more. Now, a school like Auburn could easily fill one each week (if not each day) with interviews from administrators, faculty and students. A lot has been written lately about professors using podcasts for their lectures. I hope university PR offices start to join in, as well.
I like this idea. Just imagine how many news organizations would love to have this to check out each week, or so. A 9:52 production, the program is short enough to get listeners and long enough to have some purpose.
They are calling it the “Ask the President Podcast.” Many universities have had radio actualities online, in the past. The practice seems to have diminished as they go after more and more television and print placecments. Just my anecdotal observation, really. This is an interesting way to get audio online and easily available to media and stakeholders.
Now, a bold step would be to have some unscripted conversations between the president, students and faculty. Wonder if they’ll go out on the limb with their’s?
This podcast is clearly scripted. If it isn’t, then I’d be amazed. Listen and I think you’ll understand. But, the process will - I hope - develop a more conversational tone along the way. Hey, it is new. Let’s cut them some slack.
Still, this is a good example of how podcasting’s growth has begun to catch on in education. Check it out. It was a good podcast. The podcast is listed in iTunes under public relations. They also have a Web page devoted to the podcast’s feed and it features another podcast on creative writing, too. No blog, yet. But, perhaps that’s coming in the future. I’d love to see university presedents blogging … with comments on. Don’t know if any of them will ever take that chance, though. We’ll see.
Facebook :: Ten Rules For School Administrators To Live By
April 30, 2006 by Robert · 5 Comments
I wish I had known of Fred Stutzman prior to HigherEd BlogCon and invited him to present his thoughts on Facebook. Fred “share(s) some suggestions regarding how administrators should approach and understand the Facebook.” It is well worth the read. Visit How University Administrators Should Approach the Facebook: Ten Rules.
Facebook is a bane of my, and other educators, existence. For anyone that deals with computer labs, the site has an addictive quality for students that surpasses crack and heroin. OK, a bit over-stated, but not far from the truth. 
Still, all that I can deal with if I have to on a day-to-day basis. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to make a student close the site. My real concern? The potential for harm that may come to one of my students is what really bothers me. Students are too willing to share any and all information about themselves. They do not take the precautions they should by making their portion of the site only available to friends - people they actually know and want to interact with online. They do not always leave off personal information. They too often post photos that may attract undesirable attention.
We have our own little goofy stories of students posting too much personal info and then having it come back to bite them. The one we most often refer to is the student that posted her life’s activity schedule from class to tennis playing online. She also had her phone number, home address and class schedule on her Facebook site. Then, one day she was stunned to be out playing tennis and receive an unwanted visitor. She reported to her friends that this “creepy” guy showed up at the tennis court and said he found her through Facebook.
My point? We have no idea if any assaults may have already occured via this kind of online stalking. I don’t want any to take place and therefore try to educate my students about the potential dangers. Facebook should be doing it, too. Collleges, high schools and parents - all of us - should be doing this, as well. The danger is too real.
I wonder if any actuarial tables already exist in C-suites and venture capital offices when the purchase or support of a social media site is being considered. The risk is high, I’d bet. It is untested in court, I imagine. Can Facebook and MySpace, etc. show that they have (a) provided enough cautionary advice to users and (b) made them go through enough hoops to assure the users have read all that cautionary evidence? I doubt it. Is it encumbent upon them to do so? I think it is. But, they likely won’t do it until forced to by a court case or overwhelming bad publicity. So, until then, the duty must lie with us to help protect the students.
Read Fred’s article and take it to heart.
Technorati Tags: Facebook, Education, Risk
posted using performancing firefox
HigherEd BlogCon :: New Media in Communications; Resources for Further Learning
April 19, 2006 by Robert · Comments Off
HEBCWednesday, April 19, 2006: New Media in Communications; Resources for Further Learning
Blair Fannin
Texas A&M University System
AgNews - Texas A&M
Brendon Connelly
George Fox University
Brendon’s Blog - SlackermanagerSean McKay
George Fox University
Sean’s Website
How Can I Learn More About New Media?
Dan Karleen
Thomson Peterson’s
HigherEd BlogCon :: Day Two is New Media in Alumni Relations
April 18, 2006 by Robert · Comments Off
HEBC More interesting presentations today from student affairs professionals. Yesterday’s posts spurred some comments showing the excitement about social media in higher education. See Joseph Diorio’s comment to the right.
So, what will today bring? Check out these posts and please post about HigherEd BlogCon to help us share these ideas with communicators everywhere. The ideas, I believe, may transcend their usage in higher education and be applicable in many business practices, too.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006: New Media in Alumni Relations
SPECIAL EVENT: Chat with the presenters, live at 4:30 EDT.
Alumni E-Networks: Using Technology to Engage Alumni and Constituents
Tristan Roberts
World Learning, including The Experiment in International Living and The School for International Training
Podcast with Holly and TristanOnline Networks: A New Tool for Alumni Relations - How Third-Party Social and Business Networking Sites Can Benefit Alumni Communities
Andrew Shaindlin
Elizabeth Allen
California Institute of Technology
Social Networking: What Is It and Where Does It Fit in the Alumni World?
Abe Geiger
Affinity EnginesKatie Seay
University of Florida Alumni Association
HigherEd BlogCon :: Admissions, Alumni Relations, and Communications & Marketing
April 17, 2006 by Robert · Comments Off
HEBCSay hello to the Admissions, Alumni Relations, and Communications & Marketing week of HigherEd BlogCon 2006.
Thank you to all those who are presenting today and throughout the week. Please visit and comment on our participant’s offerings.
Many more thanks to Dan Karleen, Dan Forbush, and Richard Salatiello for their efforts in getting this inaugural event off the ground.
Please visit the Admissions, Alumni Relations, and Communications & Marketing week’s online events.
Today’s Posts:
The Teeming Web from Bob Robertson Boyd of Capital University and Dimitri Glazkov of Estrada.
Case Study: Blogging and Podcasting for Student Recruitment from Nancy Prater, Heather Shupp and John Dailey of Ball State University.
Freshmen Reveal Their Secrets: The Mansfield University Podcast from Dennis Miller of Mansfield University.
Student Voices Online: Podcasts as a Department Marketing Tool from Kim Gregson of Ithaca College.
Ike Pigott Draws RSS Blood and News
Ike Pigott, of Accentuate the Positive, 2.0, shared news of an interesting project at the Birmingham Red Cross.
The campaign includes two blogs and a customized/branded RSS reader that you can download.
The blogs are Red Cross Media Alerts and Jefferson County EMA Media Alerts. Also, check out Ike’s version of a branded RSS reader. That is just one of many ways you could accomplish this neat little freebie. During an emergency situation, I can imagine some news people launching this to keep track of new posts.
I like this for several reasons. First, news outlets always want these Red Cross and EMA alerts. Many news outlets have not engaged in RSS and this is a way to turn them on to it easily.
Second, using Blogger (as Ike has) the sites are free. Any free hosted service will do. Perhaps this will spur other nonprofits into the blogosphere. Later on, they may start a blog from within their ranks - beyond news releases and alerts, after seeing how easy it can be to publish. Blogs are an easy way to tell your organization’s story.
Third - and Ike, this is where my students will love you - the branded RSS reader is so cool I’m going to require they make one as part of their final project.
Yes, I know some will say that RSS readers are everywhere and why would someone want your branded version. Well, if they have not adopted RSS and you are the one that gets them started, they may well keep your branded version for awhile. That means each time they start the reader (which you can add other feeds to, as well) they will see your logo and info. Now what is wrong with that? The effort to make one is so minimal that the real question might be “Why not make one?”
Finally, Ike is helping nonprofits get into new media and that is laudable. His efforts are also in line with the ideals behind Operation Link Love where we are trying to find examples of nonprofit blogging. Ike takes the next step of “paying it forward” and “giving back” by getting the nonprofits involved. Now that is admirable and I appreciate his efforts. Good job, Ike.
Operation Link Love - PR Bloggers “Pay It Forward” and Give Back
March 4, 2006 by Robert · 7 Comments
Operation Link Love
Giving back. The ultimate in simple and selfless gifts by PR bloggers, it is easy to do and will definately help non-profits gain visibility and (if you offer it to them) advice on how to improve their social media implementations.
What initiated this idea?
I read Tom Murphy’s Charitable Blogging… post. Earlier, I commented on his post Call: Charities using blogs.
In his most recent post, Murphy asked this question, which I took as a call to action:
So the question for charities out there is how can we help? I’m in the planning stages of a small project here in Ireland where I’ll be working with Enable Ireland to possibly put together a free blogging workshop for charitable organisations. But I’m sure there’s stuff we can do online, and I’m sure the ever growing PR blog community won’t be found wanting…
That sounded like a call to action to me, so …
Then, I wrote to Constantin Basturea and asked if I could create a page in The NewPR/Wiki dedicated to non-profit blogs and social media. Constantin agreed and coined the phrase “Operation Link Love” regarding my idea to answer Tom Murphy’s call to action. Many thanks to Constantin for his suggestions and support.
So, that’s where we stand today.
What is it?
A list in the NewPR/Wiki. Operation Link Love
Visit the wiki and you may:
- add links to non-profit blogging and social media examples you know of online
- use these links to visit the sites
- comment on their sites with either support or constructive criticism/advice on how to improve their practices
- write a post about their efforts in your own blogs, or include them in a podcast, and discuss the value of social media for non-profits
- add the links to your blogroll in a special non-profit/charitable social media, or blogging, category to provide support and heighten awareness of these sites
- bookmark these sites in the popular social media sites with “OperationLinkLove” and/or “nonprofitblogs” to help further spread the meme of non-profit social media efforts. Examples of those sites are: bloglines, technorati, del.icio.us, furl, digg, spurl, wists, simpy, newsvine, blinklist, reddit, fark, blogmarks and yahoo’s myweb2 search
Visit The NewPR/Wiki’s Non-Profit Blogging, Podcasting and Social Media list and participate.
The List
(as of March 4, 2006)
- Omidyar’s list of non-profit blogs
- Getting Attention Blog (resources for non-profits)
- Re-focus - Fundraising Technology
- Dr. Len’s Cancer Blog - American Cancer Society
- Blog for Hope [Archive only] Yahoo! & American Cancer Society
- Alabama Special Camp for Children and Adults - Easter Seals Camp ASCCA
- Greenpeace
- Oceana
- American Lung Association of Minnesota
- The Diva Marketing Blog Profile on the American Cancer Society
- Jamie’s Big Voice - Big Issue charity and the Hansard Society’s e-democracy programme.
- betachurch.org (resources for churches using social media)
Also, thanks to Constantin’s suggestion, we have this ‘button’ you may use to link to the wiki page and encourage participation in “Operation Link Love” in other blogs. Want to make a better button? Won’t hurt my feelings. Send it in and we’ll load it up there.
Cut-n-paste this code into your blog’s sidebar or a post:
Come on and join in. This kind of giving is easy and painless. Surely there is one non-profit cause you can support.
Finally, yes - I am involved in the Camp ASCCA, Alabama’s Special Camp for Children and Adults blogging effort. So, if my initiative seems too self-serving on my part, no problem for you. Choose another from the list or find one on your own and add it to the list. Then link to them. Honestly? I want you to link to all of them. Hey, a guy can dream.
The goals here are simple. Encourage non-profits to explore blogging. Share a little link love with those blogs to help them out. We all know what links can do for these sites with regard to search. Please take the few minutes of time it will cost you and help them.
Thank you.
GlaxoSmithKline - del.icio.us links for 2006-02-25
February 25, 2006 by Robert · Comments Off
Links to sites / blogs that have written about the GlaxoSmithKline program to unleash 8,000 sales people as goodwill ambassadors for the pharma-giant
This relates to my previous post about Technorati search while trying to find said articles.
Thanks to all who commented and emailed with links to articles of interest. Many thanks!
My post on Glaxo’s effort will follow.
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“I take exception to Ad Age’s verbiage that calls the move “unprecedented” since its a strategy Anita Roddock used decades ago with the Body Shop.” And others did it long before that, too.
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Colin should be ranked #1 in authority on this one. He provides great background information on Glaxo’s grassroots “salesforce as PR” campaign.
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A search of the Blogdigger “Headlines from PR Weblogs” group for the term “glaxo” .. a helpful tool, but did not provide an exhaustive search result
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This is an issue on which credibility is key, and sending out employee ambassadors is likely to be much more effective on that front than an advertising campaign.
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a related article by Paul Holmes on the pharma industry
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Easily one of the best sources for posts on the Glaxo 8,000 Evangelists.
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Yahoo! often provides good search results, but they put news and blogs in the same result, so … harder to filter.
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Not as good ad Google Blog Search, but some good results.
